to be both in a passion at once yea when either be you are not fit especially to pray or to do any thing else if a Parent correct a Child in his anger t is ten to one but he will do it foolishly or sinfully half an hour after is best and then with good words and good counsell in a friendly way but if any of you Gallants though never so vain and prophane will yet serve God he will save you and yours too that so do with an eternal Salvation but for any mortals to think it is a little below themselves to walk humbly with God stooping down to the lowest things and Ordinances of Christ yea to kisse the feet of Christ is an honour too great for the greatest Potentate in the World Mary washed them with her teares and wiped them with her hair but what was Maries love to Christ who loved her first and washed her soul in his blood Some say washing in a Hart or Dears blood will make the white hands whiter I am sure washing in the dearest blood of all bloods will make the fowlest soul of any sinner in the World whiter than the driven snow yea there is none of you fair Ladies that have commonly the worst souls but it will do so About a fortnight since I was going into the fields to meditate about seven or eight of the clock and that is the best hour and the best time in the day is the dusk of the even but as I was going by yonder great house I was thinking much upon the Lord that lives in it and whether he or no must answer for all the sins in the Family and though there be not half so many sinners there as there us'd to be in the late Kings daies yet I did conclude there were too many of one poor creature to answer for who hath too many of his own when as his whole estate will not make an amends for one Lord thought I then it is better a thousand times to be a poor Nit Gnat Worm Nothing than a great ungodly man or woman but as I was thinking so I heard the passing Bell cry tong tong three times yet some do not mind it once in twenty times when they hear it if you hear a man swear if you hear a man lye if you hear a man rant too much or a Lady complement crying Sir your humble servant and your very humble servant sweet Madam fetching curches upon curches down to the ground t is no great hurt but when they cry faith and troth and as they live and as they hope to live as they are vertuous and as they are vicious Lord Christ God take me and as I hope to be saved nay God damne me as I heard once a Lady should say who was a great Lords Daughter which was a word from the Devil and the Devils tale was in her mough when she said so but the curse of God hangs over swearers heads and families read this text Zak. 5. 3. In the mean time some pay to the poor two or three pounds at a clap upon this account yea I know a she Rant that lately paid more but t is well for some body and the Devils Kingdome that such Sparks be for one of these do him more grace than a thousand poor sneaks t is the Lords and Ladies and the brave Sparks that brings up all the fashions and the new oaths but new Devils new Lusts new oaths and new fashions come all almost from one and the same place and the Devils Children are as much in fashion almost as ever I saw I heard three men swear and I saw three men sit in Covent Garden Church more like Puppits than Saints or civil men I wonder how they dare come so near White-hall or that any should venture to read there or elsewhere a whole Sermon at a clap as they do near St Giles and Covent Garden I would go a hundred mile barefoot that the Lord Protector would make one strict Act against this lazy kind of pocket preaching there is no business in the World troubles me like this that some should so much set by these Doctors Parsons Deanes Tryers and others and so little by gifted Saints and Christians when I think in my conscience some of them do more hurt than good in the Church of Christ they are such bitter enemies to the spiritual appearances of Christ especially the spirit of Prophesie in the poor servants of Christ I know a rich man in the new Exchange that might do more good than twenty of your Parsons that have nothing in them but civility morallity and a few legall moral exhortations but the man wants an heart though his gifts and parts be great and a clear intellect withall but t is a poor business to be a poor Preacher until the thing be more set by and yet 't was once more set by among the Souldiers than now it is by farre it may be they cannot so well tend it some think there is too much light and yet there is too little and too little practice but more light more love and more living up to what we know would do well together If a man should be a professor or Saint as you call him ten or twenty years together and make it all his business to get money money money the curse of money light upon him I cry and all such professors that never have enough I knew a Welch woman that was a very good and godly woman worth a thousand pounds at least and never a Child in all the World and she cryed what should she do with a thousand pound if she were a Widdow truly a thousand pound will go a great way well husbanded and a thousand Saints may do more than they do a thousand times for Christ and the World than they do they that do nothing are but Ciphers at the best they that do little are but Droans they that do much are most their own friends he that sins least wrongs his owâ— soul but they that sin much are the Devils slaves if a man drudge in the durt for a little Cheese or if a man plead much for a little Gold or sin much for a little while what will it avayle if he must lye in Hell an hundred thousand years if a man go fine all the day long and want a bed at night or if a man go poor and have a bed at night which is best if a man play at Cards all Christmas and loose all by Candlemas he may chance to go beg all the year after if a man play with a strange Ladies bosome or a Lords locks it is a ready way to go down to Hell saith Solomon Prov. 2. 16. and 6. 26. And the onely way to want in the Winter is to play in the Summer but if a man play away sleep away or sin away one sermon one Sabbath and one season after another as a man may do until it be
too late to get grace Matt. 23. 38. Luke 13. 26. he may go like a wretch to Hell and in Hell say would to God I were out I see the Embleme of a surety a fool leaping with his head into the great end of an Horn but being got to the little end he could not get it back how many such foolish ones are there now at Hide Park that leap into the Devils lap of sinful pleasure then into the pan of sufferings sometimes in their bodies and sometimes in their consciences and lastly into the fire of Hell I saw a brave Coach go up Ludgate-hill with a golden Arse and I saw them stand still at Saint Peters Pauls Wharfe but Saint Peter and Saint Paul were never troubled with such kind of hearers as go thereabouts Three things spoyle young Ladies marrying too soon ill edication and such kind of Parsons that preach little or nothing to any purpose let a heart be broken betimes for sin and it will be saved in time from sin death hell and eternal burnings yea Christ will love that Lady with an everlasting love that will love him when she is young and he poor and poor Christ is as poor now as ever and it is as poor a business to be a servant unto Christ as ever I knew it if a man should pluck a Bible from his pocket among some they would be ready to laugh but if a man should look into a Bible and seriously consider what will become of them it would make one weep why weeps my Lord cryed Hazael to Elisha 2 Kings 8 12. to think what evill thou shalt do And to think what some shall suffer for an hundred thousand millions of years for a moments pleasure and all your lives are no more yea the longest life of you all is but a moments time in comparison of eternity O Eternity Eternity when I think on thee how is time ages worlds swallowed up like tittle fishes by the Whales here one Generation comes whilst another goes but all moulters into Eternity like flesh to dust I truly saies my Lady but all this we never think on why then you think your selves to Hell or you go for want of thinking unto Hell but can you think your selves back a man or woman never act so beneath themselves as when they cry they did not think of it or consider of it non-consideration is the cause of most mens damnation what should the Devil mind you of Hell as he does you of your lusts sins and pleasures it were the way to loose you and spoyl his own Kinkdome I am sure God minds you Christ loves you and hath washed or would have washed you in his own blood Revel. 1. 6. and yet you mind not the faithful Ministers tell you this and every line in the Scripture tells you that unless you do beleeve unless you do repent unless you be regenerate and become new creatures in some measure you shall be damned with all the Devils in Hell as sure as God lives in Heaven Iohn 3. 3. 36. and before next May day some of you may yea it may be before next Christmas and when men are serious be not you light and vain I am upon damnation and preaching damnation to the Gallants yea and to all you careless Gallants in general that are now in Hide-Park in the midst of all your Gold and Glory bravery and brave delights of the day that ye remember the night wherein no manocan work as Christ speaks Iohn 9. 3. And therefore for all this great boasting and vyeing for the honour and glory of the day I say for all this you must come to die and to Iudgement and upon pain of damnation I tell you this yea the Lord tells you that if you still goe on to neglect so great Salvation as is freely tendered to you despising his Grace his Love and his Son and the delight of his soul our onely most and ever glorious dear and blessed Redeemer God blessed for evermore Rom. 9. 5. who hath a thousand Crowns to give unto you and a thousand pardons more than you need or ten thousand sinners greater than you were they in the world yet I say Christ stands with these Crowns and Pardons for you if a man should stand with a Rainbow round about you yea if a God should stand with a Rainbow round about you yea if a thousand Gods although there be but one should stand with a thousand Rainbows round about you all it were not half so much as a God and Christ and a God with Christ in his arms a bleeding dying living longing loving Christ for some of your Souls and although Christ would as fain have you as any in the world and as much embrace you and reward you as any in the world yet I say that notwithstanding all this if you shall despise him and think to do below as Angels once did above namely to be above God he will fling you down to Hell and the darksome holes and dens in Hell do not deceive your selves you may seek pleasures here and find ease in Hell but never find sinners may find sinners and old companions may find each other yea some of you may do so but the Devils will find you all torments while God finds wrath and you guilt yea the Devil will find power though you cannot death yea an exquisite torture to torment sinners for evermore if an ugly Collier should but breath upon you it would make you sick but if the Devil come to sit and blow upon you this will make great change for some of you young Gentlewomen that the Sun must now scarce shine on and what a Hell will this be to go from golden Coaches and beds of Downe to fiery Litters and beds in Hell to fry and roare with ugly Devils in burning flames for evermore O for Gods sake consider this all ye that neglect God or despise God and Heaven for a moments lust And if there be not a Heaven and an Hell a reall place where Angels sing and Saints rejoyce Devils roare and sinners fly yea something that is equivolent unto this in the other world burn your Bibles for a cheating Book for they have deceived me and many thousand more but if the Scriptures be a Truth and the very words of God as certainly they be they are so searching into the consciences of every man that seriously looks into them that he must needs confess this truth Heb. 4. 12. then I say I know nothing of the Scriptures if you are not much more likely to be with them that fry and cry and houle at the grates of Hell than any sinners in the world yea you and all you that do nothing but court sin and complement your time and daies away For of all sinners in the world English sinners are the worst and the least to be excused because they enjoy the most mercies means and light of any under Heaven and of all sinners
wills that he would never come but poor men look hard and poor Saints pray hard Come Lord Iesus Revel. 22. 21. Make hast O my beloved saith the Spouse Canticles 8. 14. And saith David If I had the wings of a Dove I would fly away and meet thee O thou whom my soul loveth Psalms 55. 6. But yet I am constrained to dwell in mesheck among wicked men and devils that flutter up and down in Coaches some and in poore attire others but these golden Sparks whose eyes start out with lust and fatness in their slippery parts from whence they go down to Hell in a moment Psal. 9. 19. These are they that fill the World and defile the World by their examples they rule the Rost while the Saints turn the Spit and Christ will turn them and the tide too And then sneak Mr. Roundhead and poor Mr. Goodman with Conscience and Honest the true Man with thousands of Beleevers more will have a brave day in the after part of the Worlds day after some is good manners and after your Crispin pins Hoods Scarfes Vales fine Linnen Jewels Chains and Bracelets are all pull'd off as Isaiah speaketh Chap. 3. 17. O Ladies read this Prophesie and see if it may not reach some of you ye point at that very condition which ye shall then be in when God shall come to undress you by death and sickness which certainly he will erre long do yea he will strip you to your skins and leave noâ—hing but sin guilt shame misery and baldness on you whilest he cloaths his servants as it were with Suns and Starres this will be a brave change and saith Iohn this change we all look for 1 Iohn 3. 2. and it is good to look forwards and backwards too sometimes Do not tell me what I was but what I am saies some but it is good to consider what we were what we are and what we shall be I was conceived in sin saith David Psal. 51. And I a little spawn or lust in the loynes of Mr. Such an one saith another still I am a shaddow and an empty one and so are most of you Gallants at the Park you know not what you would have or should have you know not what to do yea you know not how to spend one day as you should but are troubled and fain to send one to another what shall we do where shall we go pray present my service to Mrs. such an one and Mrs. such an one and tell her that I am even sick untill I go abroad but my Lady takes Physick and the Devils go a Cat baiting when they get one of them if a poor man be damned the Devil is very glad but if a Dives be the Devils they cry one to another make hast make hast great Orlando is coming great Orlando is coming and truly when your great ungodly Lords and Ladies come near to their confines the Devils run and tumble yea they scramble for a wanton young and silken bit But I remember about twenty years agoe I saw a Puppit play called the Chaios or Creation of the world but the ugly Devils made such hayling and hissing about the Lord Dives with their stub feet and their short tales that I was affrighted at the heart however there was two or three peales and the ringers they were very merry and if a man were to be hanged some would be so but to see them that are likely to be damned go singing up and down the stairs with their silk and silver Clappers pit pat yea in the streets and Coaches sometimes and never think nothing is a very sad thing but few of these can play at have at all and yet teey'le leap from all in a moment can you sing leap soul farewell world have at all O Christ I come I come I come to thee for I know that my Redeemer lives and I shall see him with these eyes Iob 19. 25. But this posting for the Doctors argues fear and this continual heighting up and down guilt yea fear guilt sin and you alwaies lye together and whil'st the Lord lies in the Ladies bed the Devil lies in both their souls many times but t is a thousand pitties any sweet young and lovely good conditioned Lady should be ever bedded with the Devill yet many times some sell as sweet conditioned Children to him for a little Money and Honour as any are in the World I know the Lord Such an one hath a Daughter that he will give ten twenty thirty forty thousand pounds with truly one is to much with such a man though he be of great blood good blood is better than great and a good man is better than a heathen that knowes not God nor the Devil a good man with a bad woman is in a bad case but a good woman with a bad man is in the Devils Pound but how came you there my Father cries the poor Lady and my old Aunt would have it so yea and it may be you your self were too forward some mad Scabbs run away with a mad Rogue and that is like to like somesing and see never a merry day others cry and know not what to say when they are to be married but they that are put into such a Pound or into the Devils Pallace are very miserable slaves to other mens lusts though they have much money at command yet some have scarce enough to pay a poor debt when once married and others spends so much that the poor husband fells all while she playes all and scarce payes in six moneths or seven years sometimes when poor honest men pay according to their words and Tradesmen in three six or nine moneths time But Unbeleevers pay for all when they come to dye and that is soon enough to pay for the sweetest pleasures in the World if our lives be but a vapour as they are Iam. 1. 11. But their misery is they are ever paying and yet can never pay all though they lye in fiery burning flames for millions millions and millions of years as that young man an Apothecary once said O consider this all yee that forget God and what if some of you should come to pay so dear for your Maying and your gaying up and down would it not be very sad a man may better pay some debts in a week than he can for some sins in an hundred thousand years but of all sins of a kind great mens sins are the greatest a great Tree gives a great swap when he falls and a great man makes a great spudder at his Funeral but Lord whither doth that man fall that falls from room to room from the Coach to the Chamber from the Chamber to the Bed from the Bed to the Floore from the Foore to the Coffin from the Coffin to Worms and from the Wormes to the Devils at the last day in the mean time the soul is there while the body is lugging down the staires when a
General leaves a field there is so many at his heeles and something left behind the slain or the dead the trampling of the grasse and the carcasse of the beasts but when the Lord leaves his house there is triming up again for the new commer the old mourning and the old master being laid a side nothing remains but the name the lusts and the sins of the family yea they run from Father to Son and Son to Son and the curse of God after them all some men leave great possessions for all their Children and great houses in good order but if they go to the Devill and leave a thousand houses to every Child and a name to that which may last to Dooms day yet for all this I would be loath to go along with them some men take Gold in their boots when they go to France and others money in their pockets when they go along journey but I had rather take Christ with me for eternity than all the Lords and Ladies in the world to my grave If you stir an old Horse head sometimes you shall see many flyes and if you stir an old Swearer in his sick bed you shall hear many oaths An old gouty and ungodly sinner makes a great noyse when he is punished for his sins and a pocky Surgeon tells a great lye when he sayes he will cure that in a fortnights time with his cursed Pills but some would do well to hang them that put forth such Bills they encourage many men to sin where the grace of God is wanting if a man want a member it is a sad thing but if a man be noysome or unwholesome it is worse but Lord bring me to any shame or misery rather than to perpetual condemnation When Ladies dye of the Cancer or Ulcer in the belly the best side is put outwards but when Lords dye of the Pox it is an ugly business the consumption of the Purse is the want of take heed and the consumption of the Lungs is the want of good dyet but the consumption of the blood and bones is brutish and immoderate love too and foolish fondness of the wife many times bnt if a man kill himself this way or his wife with too many Children he is near kin to a murderer blood will be required if a man shed blood but if the soul be lost this way who shall make amends t is not impossible that he may repent when he is old and they that kill themselves this way when they are young shorten the dayes of grace and of nature when as he that never truly repents nor beleeves shall be eternally damned as sure as the Lord lives When Mr. Kill-devil was called to his Tryal he was taxed for Swearing Lying and Whoring some men are guilty of these sins and almost three thousand more and yet all may be pardoned but Lord have mercy upon me if a man shall answer for every idle word as Christ speaks in the day of Judgement Mat. 12. 26. yea and what shall then become of most of our Mayers and others too whose words and conversations are altogether so But most men are wise when t is too late O that God were mine O that Christ were mine O that Heaven were mine O that I might live a little longer I would never do as I have done yea I would give for Heaven so much when they are going to be damned but if the Sun be going down or setting it is in vain to cry hold Sun hold good Sun hold yet mercy mercy may be found at the last minute but to cry then Lord Jesus Lord Jesus and not to think of God before is a very sad thing what a Gentleman and never think on God and yet a Christian for shame consider what you do and say sometimes in the open Sun t is good to display your bounty but to display your lusts and sins night and day as Sodom crying come come come Sir let us go again again and again to the Maske to the Ball to the Tavern to the Park to the Fields and delights of the World never minding going out of the World or how vain these bewitching things of the World are untill it be too late is to imitate a fool all men know they must dye and most men say they must be called to an account but pray Mr. Graceless what can you say for your self to begin with one O Sir you were at Church once and it may be but once in a month and yet scarce in many months did you mind what was said unto you but to hear once of a Christ and of Gods love giving Christ for the worst of sinners is enough to stop thy mouth for an hundred thousand millions of years take him Devill cries St. Paul if you receive the Grace of God in vain Hard-heart cried he could not repent but Peter asked him why so because he sought it when it was too late but whose fault was that when God gives repentance never to be repented of and mercies that should never be fotgotten do not you remember Sir when you were sick do not you remember when you were like to dye and what you promised then when the Doctors gave you off and the Lord took you up from the grave again when the next newes was O Sir it was in my sickness that I said so and so but if sinners Lords or Ladies will promise unto God when they are sick and forget him when they are well they may be damned when they die and that is time enough If a man hath been twice or thrice at the Barre and is once burnt in the hand t is ten to one but he hangs when he comes there again yet a man may go many times to the throne of Grace for one and the same corruption some go to Cheapside to fetch Flowers and others hard by to get stuff but few go to God when they are young for grace to serve him in their generation yea I think in my conscience some fine fools even think God is beholding to them if they should say their prayers go to Church as other ordinary people do And because we cry to some you are too fine forsooth to do this or that they even think so too in relation unto God when as I tell you God and Christ is more worthy of your service an hundred thousand times than the best of you all or the best of all the Princes of the world are worthy of this honour namely to be an unworthy servant of God what do you condescend to serve a God a God that can damne you and yet a God that will not damne you if you serve him in sincerity Amongst many things there are three great cares that lies on every wise married man first to serve God in his generation secondly to provide for his family thirdly to get his wife well down without sinning when she is on the top of the house t is not good
is speckled with the blood of Christ is yet at some of your windowes hearts and souls with an Olive brance an Embleme of peace from the God of peace and our Lord Jesus Christ to some of your souls O tast and see that the Lord is gracious blessed is the man that puts his trust in him and if you will trust in him now and at all times yea trust you in the Lord Jehovah for ever for in his arms there is everlasting strength to save you and your souls for evermore Isa. 26. 4. but if you make as the manner of you Gallants is a push of God he will make a mock and a laugh at you when you come to die and be damned so saith this Scripture Prov. 1 26. Most men say O that God were mine O that Christ were mine when they are dying and O that I might live a little longer I would never do as I have done truly some of you have lived too long already and it were to be considered whether it had not been better for some of you to have been damned ten or twenty years-ago then to be heighting up and down in Coaches still for if you will to Hell the sooner the better the greatest surfet begets the greatest feaver and the longest sinner the greatest Hell for I am of this opinion that God is to most men as they apprehend him to be and a mans Hell shall lie most in his bowels and come most from his own sins so that the more light the more sin and the more sins against light the more Hell still sayes Christ if I had not come unto them my self they had not known sin that is they had not known or committed so much sin or been guilty so farre as now they are Iohn 8. 19. Some ranting sinners will swear so lustily when they are well and speak so whiningly when they are sick spent and even dead in a Consumption and likely to go to the Devil and some Saints look so chearfully through the sense of Gods love when they are even loaded with afflictions that it would do a man good to see them I saw an old beggar with a dish on his back and a Lord with a bunch on his and two great Saints with the world in their mouths one was talking of this estate and the other of that mans estate and both of them had too much and care enough with what they had there is none so merry as fools nor any so foolish as wise men that can never tell when they have enough nor how to do good with what they have my Lord Needy and my Lord Greedy will never be good nor satisfied though they have the Devil and all and it is a strange thing that a poor man and a Saint can hardly satisfie himself in the love of God so as to look a little chearful and walk very thankful in all changes let a man sneak through the world with a patcht arse or flutter thorough with a golden traine it is much a like provided they be both damn'd for to be hang'd in halters or to be hang'd in golden chains is much alike if he must be hang'd and if you will be damn'd and go to the Devil go how you will it is all one and to one purpose but I know how poor Saints should go to Heaven and that is by singing and dancing and ever having the high praises of God in their mouths and a two edged sword of zeal in their hands to cut down all ungodly lusts and Kings in their souls Psal. 149. 8. yea to hew them in pieces for the spirit of God and the word will spare none as Samuel said to Agag 1 Sam. 15. 33. nor be at peace with the least traytor when Iesabell look'd out of the window she cryed what peace 2 Kings 9. 30. and when you look out of your Coaches with your ugly faces I cannot tell what to make of you you are so patch'd and peec'd with old taffaty and taffaty patches yet some of you young Ladies would look like little Angels almost if it were not for these sins and some ugly things that you are guilty of But to be guilty of nothing is a gallant thing and if any of you will be guilty of no sin when you come to die look to Christ while you live and live to God till you die and you shall have a better husband than any Lord of them all Strange Lords and strange lusts have ruled you hitherto Isa. 26. 13. but Christ is alwaies young and lovely yea to look to to lean on to hope in and to follow after he is altogether so and he dyed for you when he was thirty three years of age and yet lives and ever lives to make intercession for you for God sake court or think on him a little here is old courting ill condition Mrs. such an one and Mrs. such an one and she hath so many servants and so many servants and all it may be for the money and nothing but the money but Christ hath few enough and yet he is as rich as ever and will give more than ever any of you yet enjoyed for a dram of his grace is more worth than thousands of your estates who have nothing but a little dirt and a little Gold with a little lace and a little thing called Honour but Christ hath the dew of his youth and the youth of his age Psal. 110. 3. yea eternities is in his hands as well as the keyes of death and Hell or the power over Hell sin death men and Devils Revel. 1. 18. and in his hand he holds a ring a golden ring or a reconciled God yea and God holds him to the worst of you all but you have no mind to marry and be the sons of God but to be the Children of the Devil still and his you are sure enough Iohn 8. 44. When God was on the earth Moses had a great mind to see his face Exod. 33. 18. would you had so to see his Son when the Lord General came from Worcester there went many thousands to see him and when Christ shall come to England I hope to see him and more done for him than yet there is but will you love him or will you not he is altogether lovely in his names in his natures in his person in his promises yea and in his Kingdom which I hope is nearer then some men imagine Mr. Tillinghurst told us strange things in his Book called the Key to misticall Numbers the man may be right in some things and I beleeve he is twenty Shops in London have these Books of his would as many of you had Christ in your hearts and in your lives but will you marry or will you not will you marry or will you burn will you burn in Hell an hundred thousand years or will you take Christ for better or worse nay t is worse to refuse Christ than to take all
the shame in the world with Christ and what a shame is this that you should be too fine for poor Christ when poor Christ makes you rich and gives the best of riches to you yea durable riches See page 11. of the yellow Book or the last May dayes Letter But take my word if you do not take Christ the Devil will take you and tear you worse than poor Cocks are torn or Bears bated yea you shall tear your selves in a thousand pieces if it were possible and yet not destroy your selves great Malefactors are hang'd alive in Hell and their misery is they cannot die nor get the fire out Mat. 25. 41. This shall be done to the man whom God will honour he shall live with God and reigne as it were with Christ in the eternity of God but all you that hate the Lord shall be consumed as the fat of Lambs Psal. 37. 20. yea let them all be consumed and confounded together that will not marry Christ or ever hear of being the servants of Christ there is such a deal of service among you but pray what have you done for Christ any of you genteel heathenish sinners yea or any of you professing Saints truly you that have done most have done nothing to any purpose and you that have done nothing have done enough to have damn'd you in your best action that ever you did if you were to be tryed by the Law or the purity of Gods Justice out of Christ but the business is who almost doth any thing or doth not at all mind every thing and no man minds the things of Christ Phil. 2. 21. Truly Christ hath a great many enemies and a great many friends and a great many lookers on some men look which way the tide runs and some which way the gain comes but godliness with content is great gain 1 Tim. 6. 6. and still I say the great stain of godliness is they are so greedy after it but greedy lovers of profits and greedy lovers of pleasures are little better than greedy doggs both and will be shut out of the new Jerusalem that cometh down from God or is above with God Revel. 21. 2. And now if some of you Ladies after all this brave dressing of your selves should be shut out of Hide-Park and made to stand in the ditch whil'st all the Nobles and rest of the Gallants were admitted in to take their fill of pleasures and the pleasures of the day it would be a great vexation but if thousands of you should be shut out of Heaven and the Kingdome of Heaven as Christ speaks Luke 13. 27. for minding nothing but pleasure the pleasures of the day and the pastimes of the night how will you then weep when you your selves shall see Abraham Isaack and Iacob with thousands more sitting down there but you your selves shut out ver. 28. Christ wept bitterly for Jerusalem Luke 13. 34. and if he were on earth I think he would weep for you for you are the most to be pittied for all your laughing and your singing one unto another of any people yea of any creatures in the world yea I in my conscience do verily think so for a man to sing to a bird and catch him in a net or hearken to a Syrryan as they say and be catched by a song is a misery and a cheaty misery none gets so much by gaming as the Devill does by playing his cards in some of your laps and truly you frequently commit adultery when you look so lustfully as you do Mat. 5. 25. on one anothers faces yea you make your selves Whores and Harlots by your talk many times Christian talk and Christian name with Christian life and conversation would do well together and if Christ be your Master let him be your Copy for I will not give a farthing for that Christian that is little better than an old common Protestant an old Protestant and an old Papish will agree better than either can with an honest Roundhead and yet the old Religion is the true ask for the good old way and follow that saies the Prophet Ier. 6. 16. and not these new lights and fangles and now I am resolved to be half a Quaker to a hair but not a whole one for a thousand worlds I resolve to be less complementall less a flatterer more an inward and an outward Christian yea a circumspect Christian in all things but to deny Jerusalems Christ Gods exalted dear and onely Son who is God over all blessed for evermore Rom. 9. 5. that hath washed me in his own blood Revel. 1. 5. saved my soul from Hell and reconciled me unto God for a whimsey I never will nor shall they ever pick my comforts by a many new words forced humility or reformation that ariseth out of self and leads man to rest on self a broken Reed a muddy Cestern and all that do so will lie down in sorrow yea this is all you shall have at my hands saith the Lord yea all you that compass your selves about by your own sparks Isa. 50. 11. for other foundations can no man lay than what is laid Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 3. 11. O foundation foundation time and age outlasting foundation Heaven Earth Saint and Angell burying foundation how art thou neglected by Generations of self righteous men on the one side doggs careless sinners loose Christians and despisers on the other and yet thou art all in all in life death and eternity Col. 3. 11. yea thou art Gods all in all and our all in all who have all our hopes helps and mercies in and from thee yea in thee and in thee alone is all our justification sanctification and hopes of glorification and yet how little do we live unto thee do or speak for thee our dearest dear before the Sons of men but O Christs time will come and certainly come that we shall wish a thousand times that the best of us all had said more and done more a thousand times for thee than the best of us all have done And therefore to you the powers of this Nation I humbly give this advice knowing good men in prosperity may easily forget the vowes in adversity that you remember as long as you live the cause for which so many tuns of blood were spilt and millions of souls sent to Hell sooner than ordinary yea the cause of our ever blessed dear and glorious Redeemer and what ever men say he certainly once had and still has a cause and controversie to plead with the Natitions however he will erre long certainly come and call all men to account and then you the dry skuls heads and bones of the Caviliers shall rise together yea with their dead bodies shall you arise or they with yours as the Prophet speaks in another case Isa. 26. 19. In the mean time know the night is at hand wherein no man can work Iohn 9. 3. And as Owner said of Ireton so I say to all
you go your way and take your lot and at the end of your dayes you shall stand up again Dan. 12. last And to all under you I give this advice study to be quiet and at peace in your own spirits Gods waies are in the deep and his designes take place in all ages yea they never slack nor stay Children obey your Parents Servants your Masters not with eye service but in singleness of heart as serving the Lord To all good married men I give this first to love your wives as Christ loved his Church if it were possible and in loving love their souls as much above their bodies as you do their bodies above their cloathes it will do the wife the husband good to think the soul is in Heaven smiling when absent here on earth or present in a coffin t is the condition of friends that is more than any thing the true cause of joy or grief if a friend be in prosperity you onely mourn for his absence but if in adversity you mourn double and truly there is a vast difference between a wife gone to Hell and a husband gone to Heaven or a wife gone to Heaven and an husband gone to Hell and so for any other friends now when we do what we can to go our selves and draw others we have done our duty but for you great ungodly Gentry you draw all almost to Hell that come near you and yet I think it is a greater comfort to bury two good wives than one bad who would have a side of his house or body burnt yea his bed-fellow go to Hell and yet most of you and your Children will go thither by reason of your examples Whither do you think the Lord such an one is gone that dyed lately nay in your conscience speak as judging by the rule of Gods Word and Mr. such an one that kept his brave Coach and six Horses and never went without but to your Children I give this advice first to read over the families they came of what sins they have been guilty and what judgements have fallen upon Father Grandfather and great Grandfather one broke his neck another his heart a third lost his head a fourth made a miserable end in his bed yea dyed suddenly and never said Lord have mercy on me it is good to observe these things and it is easier to love repent or begin to live to God before twelve or twenty years of age be past than after and so again before thirty than forty but if a man mis forty years before he begins to look to Christ it is an hundred to one but he goes to the Devill yet hundreds turn civill and morally honest and so go civilly to the pit there is four or five turnings before a man turns into the right way for Heaven and yet some hit on it at the first and that is by throwing themselves upon Gods love in Christ in a way of reall beleeving and that barely upon the account of the promise which is yea and amen without any qualification Rom. 4. 13. but some turn from wildness to sobriety and so from bravery to plainness from Papistry to Protestantism and yet are little the better and so back again without being much the worse and some turn from the ordinary protestants to be Professors and yet are ten fold more the child of the Devil than before Every turn is a turn from God if the heart be unturn'd to God and the white Devil is the worst and will carry a man to Hell when he thinks he is going to Heaven persecute another only for a Gospel spirit and a Gospel light without a Gospel life will certainly rise in judgement against any man in the world and so will all your Ladyships sins if you do not take heed in time Mouls see and Swans sing a little before they dye and it may be then most of you will be wise and till then few are so do you think Christ made you so fine and so handsome so rich and so noble for nothing yea do you think he made you Christians as you say and brought you forth in England the Garden of the world and in some sense you the Flowers of this Garden for nothing but to sing and dance make a French Courchy complement for a husband and height about with a Servant truly Christ will have little reason to damn heathens and save you t is true you are called by his name but that should teach you good manners and good lives I beleeve some would be ashamed if we should tell of a Cromwell that would not fight or a Fayrfax whose name I hope will never be forgotten and truly Christ will be ashamed of you that will not live to him as well as be baptized and if you were not baptized there is no man living but would take some of you to be the Devils children you are so wicked But the end of all things is at hand and that is your funeral text with which I shall conclude 2 Pet. 4. 7. But you will ask me what end not the end of Gods Mercy for there is no end thereof that is from everlasting to everlasting to them that fear him Psal. 103. 17. Nor is there any end of his love or the promises of his love for they are numbeâ—less from one end of the Bible to the other and so is his providence to his Children even from the womb to the grave yea that never leaves them till they come to Abrahams bosome and then God is all in all to them 1 Cor. 15. 19. But there is an end of your sinning and Saints sorrowing of your living and the Kingdomes of the world raigning yea there is an end of this suns shining the rains fulling the winds blowing and the spirits breathing yea that breaths where when and as long as it listeth take heed of grieving and resisting that for if ever that finally leave you and come no more to your consciences beds and elbowes saying go to Pelham go to Pelham go to God go to Christ look to God look to Heaven Hell mind both for all these bewitching things and fooling up and down or else thon art undone for ever Soul hast thou ever another if thou loosest this have a care of loosing all for a moments lust but there is an end of all this kind of breathings and your singing yea there will be no more May dayes after a few dayes more I think you had best take your solemne leave and weep over one anothers backs necks shoulders and say farewell Ladies farewel Lords farewel Coaches farewel bravery and brave delights birds fields hedges bed Sun Moon Saints and sinners farewel all for ever and farewel all for evermore for I must now be damn'd for ever or I go I know not whither as that great man said to his soul when he cryed soul soul whither art thou now going and then the fine fare and the good chear