blame men for so doing seeing blood defileth a land Acts. 28.3 and bringeth a curse upon the earth The poor barbarous Islanders of Melita who had nothing to guid them but the light of nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were perswaded that vengeance pursued Murderers both by sea and land And now lest any should think God favours those Murderers who by flight escape the hand of the Magistrate and keep from the axe and the halter let them but seriously reflect upon Cain's case and then they will be brought to understand that the Lord can sufficiently punish a murderer though he suffers him long to live upon earth and exempts him form a bloody death That God who afterward so solemenly said Gen. 9.6 Who so sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed and commanded that no satisfaction should be taken by the Magistrate Num. 35.31 for the life of a Murderer That God I say did let Cain live after his murther for the which may be given these two reasons First For the paucity of Mankind Had Cain died for his fact by the hand of men Adam must have been his Executioner But though the Devill sets one brother to kill another yet God doth not set the father to kill the sonne much less the sonne to kill the father the servant to kill the Master or the subject to kil the King Though it pleased the Devill that wicked Cain should kill righteous Abell yet it pleased not God that father Adam should kill wicked Cain secondly Therefore is Cain delivered from exemplary death because he is marked out and designed for eternall vengeance So farre is his security from safety and his reprieve from mercy that it is a dreadfull judgment and a sore severity And it had been well for some murderers that they had not escaped so well in this world as they have done It had doubtless been much better for their famillies and posterity in this world and it might have been better with themselves in the next Deliver us from blood-guiltyness O God and let the blood of thy Sonne Jesus Christ appear for us in thy sight And hear thou that speaking better things than that of Abell Tumultuous Resolutions tend not to Edification Gen. 11. WItness the story of the Bable-Builders who pretending to be wiser than their forefathers devised a way how to be above all mischances By building a City and a Tower whose top should reach to Heaven This was a conceit above the Moon though the work came farre short of it Oh how people please themselves with a strong conceit of going to Heaven a new way which none ever went before them A fool's paradise is his own invention But the multitude go the wrong way It must be a prodigious unlucky Building where every one is a master-workman and the defign to top God in his throne He that sits in Heaven laughs such projectors to scorn and hath such politicians in derision Go to said they let us found and build up Go to said God let us go down and confound The people were all then of one mind and God scatter'd them by making them of many Languages God then made the people of many Languages to hinder the building of Babel But now the Devil hath made the people of as many or more opinions to help Babel forward And as they of old misunderstanding one another brought brick for mortar a hammer in stead of a trowell and fire in stead of water so men now mistake rudeness for Religion Religion for superstition madness for Christian zeal prophaneness for wit and ruine for reformation Pretending to sink Babylon to the pit of hell they have cryed up Babel to the Heavens by setting their mouths wide open against the Church of God saying Down with it down with it even to the groud Church-Men Church-habits THe words of the Lord to Moses for this putpose are these Exod. 28.2 And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for Beauty Moses as Prince by God's appointment was to put Aaron and his sons and the Levites into their distinct Canonicall habits according to the respective dignity of their Persons and places Which ornaments and Vestments they were enjoyned upon pain of Death to have upon them when they came in unto the Tabernacle of the Congregation or ministred in the holy place As appear's in the last verse of that Chapter I know not how it came to pass but so it was that a Priestly Habit in Divine Worship and Sacred Administrations hath been had in as much Disgrace amongst Christians as ever it was had in Reverence amongst the Jews God made it as much as their lives were worth for the Priests in the Law to minister without their peculiar Habit And Men made it as much as their lives were worth for the Priests to minister in their Ecclesiasticall Habits in the time of the Gospell Yea there have been some who pretended that the Clericall Vestments debilitated the Pastours parts srustrated the graces of the Spirit and hazarded the soules of the flock And whereas God enjoyned his Priests of old to have robes for Glory and for Beauty they would not allow his houshold-servants the use of those garments which God's vicegerents had enjoyned them for uniformity and for deceney They put scorn contempt and opprobious terms both upon the things and Persons according to the foolish invention of their giddy brains An Episcocall Habit was they said the Livery of Antichrist and the Surplice the Smock of of the whore of Babylon Surely these people had forgotten that God was the instituter of the first Mitre and the Linnen Ephod They considered not how in respect of their use though not for their first Principles whereof they are made even garments appropriate unto Persons in Holy Orders are called Holy and that by God's example It is too gross too carnall and too rude for men and women who pretend to more than an ordinary illumination to pick a hole in the Priest's Coat about the externall form and figure to think that a Hood makes a Monk or a Mitre an Antichrist or that the Mysticall Whore of Babylon is circumscribed within a materiall small Linnen Ephod I would not have the female Sex such as are called Holy Sisters of all things quarrell with clean Linnen lest they bring themselves whthin the compass of the Cotholick Inquisition for sluttery Let them hate the garments spotted with the flesh As for Surplices howsoever they have been contrived and used by them since their dear sacreligious brethren stole them from the Church and brought them to their hands they were never formerly the Smock of a Whore It is possible since they converted them to their own use they may properly so be called For Thieves and Harlots go hand in hand together in the World as Publcans and Sinners go in the Gospell It is a pitifull thing I mean quarrell when people fall out with their Ministers
continue it with his grace bread and royall dainties Napthali as wild as a Buck a Hinde let loose Joseph a fruitfull bough and Benjamin like a younger brother is design'd to ravine as a Wolf Plâ—to though deserving better for his learned pains for his supercilious deportment and lofty carriage Brus was by Antisthenes dub'd a Horse And Diogenes for his snarling humour not canonized but canonized and made a Dog by Patent The Prophet amazed at the cruelty and violence of the world compared men to the fishes in the sea where the great make a pastime of devouring the small Yea he likens the poor and helpless to silly fishes and the Mighty and rapacious partly to Anglers Hab. 1.14 and partly to men fishing with a drag-net thereby shewing that there is a Generation which will still be catching either by hook or crook by fraud or force and that all is fish that cometh into their net Such men as these the Psalmist frequently termeth Lyons and the Lamb of God who saith false prophets are wolves in sheeps clothing Mal. 7.15 Luk. 13.32 called Herod the tyrant a fox Thus Man who sometimes was in honour forfeiting his primitive innocent understanding is by serpentine craft become like unto the beasts that perish And now may we say with David Psal 8. Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him Lord what is man Lord what is he not He is any thing but what thou once madest him and what he should be He is the mirrour of frailty times pride and spoil fortunes laughing-stock the picture of inconstancy and the tennis-ball of envy and calamity A worme he is and no man Corruption is our father and the worm our mother Man is like a thing of nought his time passeth away like a shadow So Homer's heroick Iliads are brought within the compass of a nutshell the great world into the little world and the little world into nothing O then love not the world nor the things of the world The world is a riddle which destroyeth them who bend their minds to unfold it or their hearts to infold it It is too great and yet too small for a man's affections too great for his head and his hands too little for his heart more than enough to trouble a quiet soul but nothing sufficient to quiet a troubled spirit That man alone reapeth content within it who is content without it 1 Joh. 2.17 The world passeth away and the lusts thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Mores sequuntur humores Manners follow the Humours Phlegme I Have no quarrell with the work of God God forbid nor nor am I out of homour with the humours though alternis vicibus they often put me out of humour I look upon phlegme as an allay to choler and know that fire and water as well in the body naturall as in the body politick are very good servants though bad masters And as 〈◊〉 it is on all hands confessed that the blood is the chariot of life so it must be granted that a modicum of phlegme is instead of oyl to make the wheels run merrily But omne nimium vertitur in vitium too much is alwayes bad and the old world perished by a deluge Where phlegme prevaileth above all the rest there is good ground made fenn and bogs each thought is like a Pout or muddy Eel the recovery beyond the reach of Dutch devices and the improvement of such bottomless parts enough to break mean undertakers It is true Art will do much but the water will have the course And it is not worth the pains and cost to make sluces to the sea or to bray a fool in a mortar Prov. 27.22 This soft effeminate lazy humour is apt to invade men's spirits with insensible approaches and like the tide to environ them before they be aware And then over shooes over boots This humour may well take the gout and the dropsy for companions and it often doth so And though it deserveth not their patronage it hath need of great persons to uphold it otherwise it maketh them beggers Yet a little sleep Prov. 6.10 a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep So shall thy poverty come as one that that travelleth and thy want as an armed man Whoso is overcome with this disease is buried alive unprofitable to others uncomfortable to himself He is intomb'd in his house as the dead in their graves so that a man may epitaph over his door as the Philosopher did upon Vacia's Lazines Hic situs est c. Here lieth the body of such a person or he may write as in pestilentiall places Lord have mercy upon us Lord let not this waterflood of Sloth overwhelm us neither let the deep of negligence swallow us up Choler NEver was there so great a superfluity of water but there hath been or may be as great a drought As the world once for sin was drenched so once for all it shall be scorched In the mean time the little world of Man is frequently impaired by this domestick fire of choler which when it is too little doth not warme the house when too great it consumeth both the Inhabitant and hazard's the neighbours Igne quid utilius Ovid. Tris si quis tamèn urere tecta Caeperit audaces instruit igne manus What more usefull and yet what more dangerous than fire A drop of water cannot possibly do any considerable harm to any But one spark of fire neglected may do very much to many Choler and fire are like a false rumour and an evil report getting strength by every wind and laying hold upon all that is near it A cholerick breast is a tynderbox apt to catch any fire having a happy use when it stands right under the sparks of grace and is subservient to a holy indignation But is then unfortunate when it is inflamed with balls of wild fire cast in by the grand Spirit of discord or by the busy hands of Malecontented spirits He had need be vigilant against his undermining Enemy and against all adventitious Incendiaries who hath such a Magazin of Gunpowder within his own bosome Eph. 4.26 Be angry but sin not is a most divine lesson but a nice distinction for a man's practise to hit on And therefore the Authour having sometimes been a persecuter of the Church gave this rule that men should be zealously affected alwayes in a good thing Gal. 4.18 He is no good disputant who transferreth his quarrell from things to persons and leave 's the question to revile the opponent And choler will quickly do this and more That child deserveth to smart and bleed who spits in his fathers or mothers face because some of his brethren did him wrong And yet God help us nothing is at this day more common amongst us Witness those frequent petulant and pestilent oppositions against all Laws and injunctions of the King
and Ambition to superiority and contempt of their Betters especially when he hath once informed them that all this is for a new and better light and that it tends to illumination and perfection Solomon gives good counsell had the world wit to sollow it who as he bids them not be over much wicked nor foolish so he saith Be not over much righteous neither make thy self over wise Eccles 7.16 why shouldest thou destroy thy self This same overmuch righteousness and overmuch wisdome which men of late have pretended to have filled the world with wickedness and foolishness Our epidemicall illuminations are meer satanical illusions being all fomented by discontent and pride carried on by rebellion and disobedience against God and his vicegerents and supported by violence and wrong against all good Laws and persons Aesop tells us of a Quack salver that exercised his gifts upon a dim-sighted woman that sex is prone to deal with Mountebanks naturally and spiritually pretending to open her eyes and better her sight This cunning Artist every time he came to illuminate his Patient did steal something out of the house and carry away with him so that in a short time she saw cleâ—rthat the thievish villain had rob'd her of all the beft things she had in the house and had scarce left her any thing to subsist with And if I be not mistaken the people of this Nation wherein we live by their feminine credulity to serpentine perswasions what with our dear Brethren of Scotland northward and their Confederates southward have had their eys pretty well open'd And whereas at first they thought they should all have been made as Gods at the last by wofull experience they were brought to know good and evill They saw what good they had parted with and what evill they had purchased And surely they were as much beholding to those who seduced them as Aesop's Woman was to her Oculist or as Adam and Eve were to the Devill For what have all their New Lights and prodigious Illuminations brought them to see but themselves horribly abused ashamed and confounded And I pray God they may all be brought to see their errours and that hereafter they may beware of the old Deceiver For as the Hermite told his Brother the Devill is not yet dead The Apostle feared lest Satan should act against the Corinthians such a part as he played in Paradise And writing to Timothy he give 's charge to Women 2 Cor. 11.3 1 Tim. 2.12 that they should not presume to teach or usurp Authority over their men but to learn in silence with all subjection remembring that Adam was formed before Eve and that Eve was first and deepest in transgression And surely both man and woman have now more cause to fear the Serpent's machinations who in these last dayes and perillous times hath sent forth his brood creeping into houses And it is no marvell that he leads captive silly women 2 Tim. 3.5 which are laden with sins nad led away with divers lusts seeing he captivated the first of women and by her all the world when he undertook her in her integrity No Murtherer goes unpunished Gen. 4. THough Hell makes no conscience of tormenting sinners yet the tormenting conscience of sinners makes a hell of it slef An evident argument that there is a judgment to come and that greater plagues remain for the ungodly than any this world affords them Because they fear so Hence often ariseth desperation upon the horrible magnitude of mens sins and the praeconceit of their future punishments Praesumption and desperation as opposite as they are reconcile themselves unto man's perdition It is a just judgment from God that they who feared and trembled at nothing should do nothing but fear and tremble that they who sinned without fear or wit should have no wit in their fear and that they who thought no sin too great to commit should afterward think their sin too great to be for given O the terrours of a bloody Conscience Such sinners every day they rise may say to the Devill as the Daemoniack said to our Saviour Mat. 8.29 Art thou come hither to torment us before the time Witness Cain the Ringleader of all bloody wretches and a finall Castaway 1 Jo. 3.12 So St John saith of him Not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother And the Lord tells us that inquisition shall be made for blood Ps 9.12 Mat. 23.35 And that that Commission shall bear date even from the blood of Righttous Abel And now hear the first in humane mortall Murderer speak in his own Case Though at first he thought to evade bylying saying he neither knew nor cared what was become of his brother yet when God had detected and laid open his crime and given sentence upon him then the wretch cry's out that his case was intollerable My punishment said he is greater than I can bear And what was his punishment To be cursed from the earth cursed in all his labours a fugitive and a vagabond And this is the fiarest that a murtherer can expect But there is another thing in his doom which Cain apprehends and mentions and that is worse than all the rest namely that he was cast out from the presence of God from thy face shall I be hid And surely did such desperate wretches forethink on this it would restrain their hands from shedding blood It is more grievous than we can imagin to be cast out from the presence of God and to have his face hid from us Another thing Cain feared was that every man who found him should kill him And why so what made him imagin thus An evill conscience He had furies raging in his soul and nothing but blood and murther in his thoughts He fancies the world peopled before it was so that every man at first sight should know him for a parricide and that no man could spare his life because he spared not his onely brother His conscience told him that he deserved death Against the violence of others God secures Cain by setting a mark upon him which was say the Rabbins by branding him with a squalid dejected countenance and a perpetuall trembling Whether so or no such a mark it was as was significant to every beholder for this purpose Thus still though Cain was free from violent death yet he is not free from violent fear but hath the terrours of death and hell in his Conscience His doom seem's like that of Arachne when Pallas turn'd her into an ugly Spider for her impudence Vive quidem pende tamen said she Live thou shalt Oved met but yet thou shalt hang. So Cain lived but ignominiously and uncomfortably And indeed commonly God sets such a mark upon Murderers as makes them abhorred both in their own eyes and in the eyes of others They are usually so lothsome that men shun their company as they would do a pest-house And who can