incorruptible What is Musick but an harmony or consonancy of various discordant sounds What 's health but a temper or accord of the elements and parts of the body Some write that the stone Tuces if broken though then lesse weighty sinketh but so long as it is one whole and intire then and so long it swimmeth and keeps from sinking under water and the like power hath love and unity in all other bodies Consider and know that if the Almighty Architect of the world had not breathed or infused a spirit of unity into the upper and celestiall parts with the inferiour elementary that these had soon been scorched and indeed consumed by those Again the inferiour parts ever stand in need and crave the help benefit or influence of those above them as the earth of the water the water of the aire the aire of the fire and the fiery element of the Heavens in which if one Sphere should thwart and not gently yeeld to the others influence or motion they as the inferiour world would suddenly perish and be consumed The great Creator of these and all things in and under them Genesis 1.31 gave not the high praise and title of very good unto them untill himself by his most admirable power and goodnesse Gen. 1.31 had united them by love and so made them all one I cannot but acknowledge the saying of that Philosopher to be good and wise who called this kinde of love the Soul of the world For as the soule gives life and motion unto the body so doth love unto all other things and as the soule cherisheth and enlightens the bodie so doth love beautifie and inrich the world In a word there is no creature nor part of the world either great or small but hath if not all yet the greatest part of its perfection subsistence or continuance from this love But besides this kinde of love hitherto spoken of which in unreasonable creatures may more strictly be called inclination there is a love properly so termed which hath its working in the will both of God Angels and men Parmenides though an Heathen could say That love in God preceded the Chaos or the creation of the world as causing and making both Take this love as in man and then hear another Philosopher call it the Pilot a second the Sun a third the guide and director of the will of man and of all his choice actions CHAP. II. What love is and how it is the cause of all passions THings high and immense having some resemblance to infinity hardly come under the limits of a strict definition which hath caused the ancients to set forth love by Emblemes and Hieroglyphicks Yet so that some have in generall described it by negatives as that it is a thing which is I know not what affecteth and worketh I know not in what manner and which hurteth I know not how S. Gregorie calls it the fire in mans heart which according to the working thereof either cherisheth or destroyeth the Tabernacle of its residence and it may well be conceived that when the holy Ghost descended in the figure or shew of fire Act. 2.3 that that fire signified the love and accord to be amongst the holy Apostles being assembled together in one place which is the complement and blessing of all good Assemblies when they are all of one minde and one heart in a godly innocent love The fire which came from Heaven to consume the Sacrifice God commanded ever to be continued Levit. â— 13 that so it might never be extinguished or put out Isaiah saith Isa 31.9 That God hath his fire in Sion and his furnace in Jerusalem each Symbols of Gods love burning in the temple of our souls Now Philosophy teacheth that love is a passion both of complacency and such as fasteneth the thing or person beloved in the heart of the lover and it addeth That this love is the originall cause of all other passions in man according as they please or displease suit with or are contrary to our love and desire For the soule of man hath two great powerfull faculties called by Philosophers the concupiscible and the irascible In that are love hate desire fear joy and sorrow arising from the presence or absence of something or other which is either truly or apparently good And according as the concupiscible part is affected with grief want or losse of that which is desired so more or lesse the irascible part is inflamed or incensed to the prosecution or revenge of the affronts or bereavings of the souls desire S. Basil compared this passion unto the Shepherds dog more valued by him then many of his sheep not for that the dog hath any wooll or gives any milk but because by his watchfulnesse and barking he defendeth the flock from the wolf and so the concupiscible faculty or part of the soule proposeth to it self matter of delight and content and the irascible removeth or converteth the inconveniences and difficulties which crosse or oppugne this desire And these are the two wings wherewith mans soule flyeth in the pursuit of great Acts and without which she appears as a Galley unoared and a bird unwinged each unable to move or help it self A certain Philosopher hath compared the body of a man to a Coach drawn with two horses Conceive them to be love of good and hatred of evill But considering that they are disorderly and oft-times unruly God hath assigned them a discreet guide that is reason to rule and govern them Seneca the Philosopher calleth this the Guardian and S. Augustine termeth it the Author and Mover of all our actions be they good or evill as having tied at its girdle the keyes of all our wills and affections Betwixt love and concupiscence some put this difference 1. That concupiscense aimeth at a supposed good that is absent but love both at the absent and present 2. Concupiscence after the having and enjoying the thing desired as being satisfied groweth cold or ceaseth for the present to desire whereas love by possessing and injoying increaseth and is more ardent towards the thing beloved For the possession or enjoyment of the thing beloved serveth as fuell to continue and increase the flame or fire whereas things desired by a concupiscence being injoyed die and are often resolved into the smoak of disgrace or the ashes of hate CHAP. III. The power and force of Love SOlomon saith Love is strong as death But if we examine the strength of each we shall finde love to be the stronger â—antic â— 6 T is true that all earthly things submit to the power of death the young as the old the King as the Peasant the rich as the poor the wise as the fool Scepters and spades are both alike to death All know this truth would we did but half so well consider and prepare for it And as the jurisdiction of death so is that of love universall None ever escaped the
flames of this fire not the Supremacy of the King not the holinesse of the Prophet both proved in David not the gravity of the high Priest verified in Eli to his sons not the wisdom of Solomon nor the strength of Samson all owe homage and pay their tribute to Love as unto Death When Solomon compared Loves force to the power of death he so compared it because he could finde no one thing so strong to which he might have likened it And if with the Hebrews there had been in their expressions any comparative degrees I conceive Solomon would as well he might have said That Love is stronger then Death which will easily appear if we compare the powerfull acts of Love with those of Death For the power of Death is seen in that as is before said Kings wise rich strong young all stoop and submit to the stroak of Death Nay it you say further That Death adventured upon yea and prevailed over the Son of God the Saviour and life of the world yet know that all this was done neither could it have been done but onely by the Love of Him who submitted himself to this Death For love it was and onely love that wrestled with God and overcame him in this that he should leave the Heavens and lay down his life submitting himself to that death which had no power over him but through his own unspeakable love So that I may truly say That all Deaths atchievements are but weakeness in comparison of this Love Might I not adde to this that it was love and love alone that brought down God himself from Heaven to be incarnate in the wombe of a woman to suffer all the miseries and hardnesse to which humane nature not sinfull is subject to endure weather travail hunger thirst fear yea the sadnesse of soule even unto death and to a kinde of expostulation with his Father My God why hast thou forsaken me and in conclusion of all to suffer his glorious body to be nailed to the Crosse and there by direfull long tormentings to linger out his life and what were all these sufferings but so many triumphs of his love and may I not cry out O the power of Love triumphing with reverence and in a right sense be it spoken over God himself You have in a glaunce or shadow as it were seen some glimpse of Loves power in God will you now see how it hath wrought on men where to rehearse the many great affronts disgraces persections suffered by S. Peter S. Paul and by other the glorious company of the Apostles and the noble Army of Martyrs were to write Volumes greater then have been seen yet In close of all we must conclude that all those glorious Martyrdoms were performed by the power of Faith through Love It were easie to inlarge the history of Loves power should I tell you that Love oft-times rejecteth the greatest Commands wisest Edicts and best Laws despiseth honour neglects fame wealth health life soul and all yea and perverteth the very course of nature such is the unruly and untamed disposition and power of Love It makes the weak dare and to encounter the strong and the coward the most valiant In a word it turns the hen having chickens to become an Eaglet and a timerous Doe as a couragious Lion Love by many is rightly compared to fire the most active and strongest worker of all the Elements which destroyeth houses Castles Towns Cities which melteth and consumeth the hardest Metals and such is and so oft-times works Love Which as it most takes and works by idlenesse and converse so is it best resisted by the contraries good imployment and the shunning wanton company We reade that one of Darius his servants held 1 Esdâ—aâ— 3. that the King a second that Wine and a third that a Woman is of the greatest power to perswade or overcome man But neither wine nor woman hath or can have this power over man unlesse it first prevaile and get the love of man So that it is not the beauty or inticements of woman but mans love that overcomes inthralls and destroyes man CHAP. IV. Love is silent yet active SCripture and experience teach us that they who love most make the least shew of their love and in this they resemble the most righteous the wisest the noblest and most valiant who rather let others see and judge of their goodnesse and vertue then themselves to become their own trumpets True love hath hands and no mouth whereas the false hath only a tongue to prate but no hands to act Some Ancients therefore portrayed Love with the finger on the mouth as sparing of words but naked as having distributed and given all away unto his very skin And our most blessed Saviour after his resurrection shewed unto his Disciples his side and his hands pierced that by that fountain and these chanels his love might appear to them and to all the world S. John therefore his beloved Disciple 1 Joh. 3.18 and true follower admonisheth his scholars not to love by tongue and in words but in truth and works S. Peter having made large promises though all forsake thee yet I will not and again I will lay down my life for thee Christ upon this puts Peter to it three times questioning him Lovest thou me and as often bidding him to make proof of his love by feeding his sheep Joh. 21.17 the elder and his lambs the younger sort Action and performance is the touchstone and surest triall of true love for which and the cause thereof shewed in anointing Christs head washing his feet and wiping them with her hair one M. Magdalene hath no lesse reward then the forgivenesse of all her sins and all this saith Christ because she loved much Moses the Angel and servant of the Lord had prodigious or wonder-working hands and such as with his rod could draw fountains of water out of the hard and drie rock such as could bring flies frogs and destroying armies of small beasts upon Pharaoh and all the land of Aegypt yet he was a man as it were without a tongue tongue-tied or no man of fluent speech and therefore his brother Aaron Exod. 4.10 was in his stead the mouth Exod. 4.30 and Oratour to deliver the Almighties message unto King Pharaoh Ezâ—kiels living creatures Ezâ—k 1. the representations of Gods Embassadors had wings to flie and soare aloft by contemplation and spreading glad tydings to the world but under these wings they had hands herein expressing the nature and work of true love Love wee see is best seen by works not words and the work of love is such that oft-times it disroabs or takes away that stupidity or incivility which naturally is inbred and by a gentle influence and cultivation infuseth or begets fantasie and manly deportments Plato a great Philosopher was of opinion that the strength of fantafie which was shewed in many high straines of Poësie was kindled and
ΘΕΙΟÎΕÎΩΤΙΚΟΠA DISCOURSE OF HOLY LOVE By which the SOUL is united unto GOD. Containing the various Acts of Love the proper Motives and the Exercise of it in order to Duty and Perfection WRITTEN IN SPANISH By the learned CHRISTOPHER de FONSECA Done into English with some Variation and much Addition By Sr GEORGE STRODE KNIGHT LONDON Printed by J. Flesher for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivy-lane 1652. Charitie The Epistle Dedicatory Dear Children THE good old Patriarch Jacob constrained in his later days to live in a strange Country considered the manner how to make himself happy and to bless his Children before his death Such were the thoughts of my heart in these sad distracted times when in the declination of my age I was inforced to eat my bread in forein parts where having abandoned the thorny cares and troubled cogitations of worldly imployments some way to alienate the weight of my pressing afflictions I resolved by studious endevours to find the right and true way to my eternal habitation and heavenly Country as it is manifested in the book of God which although alsufficient every way for mans salvation yet I omitted not to cast mine eyes on such objects as might prove helps to discover the clearest and easiest paths for my better conduct thereunto to which end amongst other books I translated this treatise intituled the Love of God Compiled in Spanish by the learned Christopher De Fonseca This when I had finished and considered that the generall subject of the whole work was love and the severall parts thereof might tend to the better ordering of a Godly Moral and Civil life I knew not unto whom more fitly to recommend it as the Legacy of a dying man then to you my dear children the living Cions of my Corporall stock and the comfortable cares of my drooping age and this I do the rather bequeath unto you as confident that you like Noahs good children will not onely turn your own eyes from your fathers nakedness in this his undertaking but as much as in you is labour to cover the same from others But that which especially invites me to address this tract unto you is that you may not only be put in minde so far as God shall inable you to imitate your father in Holy Love whereby I may seem to revive and live again in you but that making your selves first Scholars and followers and then having your hearts replenished with the Spirit of Love and your feet conducted in the right paths of Charity you may become guides of others unto the heavenly Canaan After which as my soul ever longed move then after all earthly goods worldly contents or fleshly delights so that herein you may imitate and exceed me your father is the earnest desire hearty counsel and most fervent prayer of Your most tender affectionate father GEORGE STRODE The Contents Chapter 1. OF the division of Love into its kindes Fol. 1 Chapter 2. What love is and how it is the cause of all our passions Fol. 3 Chapter 3. Of the power and force of love Fol. 6 Chapter 4. That love is silent yet active Fol. 9 Chapter 5. How love lesseneth or facilitateth things most difficult Fol. 11 Chapter 6. Love extracteth delights and glory out of sufferings and torments Fol. 13 Chapter 7. Love transformeth the lover into the thing beloved Fol. 15 Chapter 8. Vehement love causeth extasies Fol. 19 Chapter 9. Love exchangeth and counterchangeth all with its beloved Fol. 21 Chapter 10. The motives and causes of love Fol. 25 Chapter 11. Love is only conquered and remunerated with love Thus far of love in generall Fol. 29 Chapter 12. The love of God is not to be parrallelled Fol. 33 Chapter 13. By the same means that mans love decreaseth Gods love increaseth Fol. 36 Chapter 14. Gods jealousie Fol. 39 Chapter 15. Gods revealing his secrets unto man is a great demonstration of his love Fol. 40 Chapter 16. God seemeth to be solitary without man Fol. 42 Chapter 17. Charity is the most eminent amongst all the virtues Fol. 44 Chapter 18. Our love to God is to precede all other loves Fol. 47 Chapter 19. God must be loved with the whole heart Fol. 52 Chapter 20. The love of the heavenly Angels unto man Fol. 58 Chapter 21. Of the love which man oweth to his neighbour Fol. 61 Chapter 22. The manner how we are to love our neighbour Fol. 72 Chapter 23. That we ought to love our enemies Fol. 77 Chapter 24. Motives and reasons inducing love to our enemies Fol. 86 Chapter 25. To pardon is a sign of honour and of pusillanimity to revenge Fol. 93 Chapter 26. Of friendship Fol. 102 Chapter 27. Of the comfort and benefit of friendship Fol. 111 Chapter 28. Of self-love Fol. 115 Chapter 29. Temporall goods connot give content Fol. 121 Chapter 30. Temporall goods deserve not mans love Fol. 123 Chapter 31. The brevity frailty mutability uncertainty and misery of mans life abateth the love thereof Fol. 140 Chapter 32. The honour of this world deserveth not mans love Fol. 157 Chapter 33. Pleasures and delights are not worthy of mans love Fol. 168 Chapter 34. Of the love of women Fol. 175 Chapter 35. Of the inordinate love of eating and drinking Fol. 185 Chapter 36. Of the immoderate love of apparel Fol. 195 Chapter 37. Of favorites to Princes and Conquerours in war Fol. 202 Chapter 38. Of the mutuall love of the maried couple Fol. 208 Chapter 39. Of the love of Parents and Children Fol. 247 Chapter 40. Of the love of our native Country Fol. 262 Holy Love CHAP. I. The division of Love into its kinds THat which is most pleasing and delightfull to the Soule and Nature of man next unto God is Love Of which I intending to speak by way of Preface I must tell you that there are two kinds of Love the one metaphorically so termed which is that naturall inclination in things insensate and irrationall whereby they are moved according to that which may most work to their rest or better being By the power and strength of this Love the fire ascends the earth descends the aire and water ever strive to attaine and reach their own Region or place wherein and where never till then they are at rest And I may not altogether improperly call that quality strength or vertue Love which doth so unite and knit all the parts of this great world the Vniverse together that without it both it and all the parts thereof would soon be dissolved and come to nothing of what they are An ancient Philosopher called this kinde of love unity and to this loving unity other Philosophers attributed so much that they conceived the whole world and all in it to be nothing else but that or but one entire thing which though consisting of many various and different natures are yet by Love collected drawn together and knit into one which so long as it holds to be one becomes
inflamed by the heat of love And this love though it oft-times want a tongue for outward expression yet this defect it makes good by the eye for as loves palace is the heart so this palace is full of lights through which love makes it self visible and known And as a Chamaeleon or an Actor on the stage is now fearfull then confident sorrowfull and anon joyfull jealous yet secure weak but made strong so love makes one man twenty severall men it makes him all and again a nothing but all working love CHAP. V. Love lesseneth or facilitateth things most difficult LOve hath a participation of the Almighties power able to make the bitter sweet heavy light and the almost impossible things feasible A tast of the Colloquintida in Elisha's pot of portage 2 King 4.41 causeth his guests the Prophets to cry out Death is in the pot to remedy the which Elisha casts meal and then saith the text there was no harm or evil thing in the pot what that meal did Love can doe and more Our most blessed Saviour saith My yoke is easie Mat. 11â— 30 and my burden light now his yoke and burden are the renouncing all that a man hath wealth liberty and life and are these so easie and light yes Truth it self hath spoken it and most true it is that Love makes these both light and easie The traditionall Jewes had branched and summed up the precepts of the Mosaicall law into 793 whereof they made 428 affirmatives 365 negatives but all these and if there were a thousand times more Joh. 15â— 12 Christ hath reduced them all into this one Love and according to this truth S. Paul averreth that the fulfilling of that law which to flesh and blood was impossible is now done and performed by love Love saith he is the fulfilling of the law Rom. 13.10 As love fulfills all and makes all things easie and light so where love is wanting nothing is light easie well done or indeed is done at all or not as it ought to be done for where love is wanting all is too much that is done and where love is all that is done is too little love maketh a beam a straw and contrariwise it can change a straw into a beam He saith Christ that loveth me keepeth my law for where love is the least word is a law and that law is fulfilled by this word Love Some spectacles there are that represent things greater and others lesser then indeed they are and both these spectacles are made of love which makes the virtues of the beloved greater but his vices lesse Jacob loves Rachel and that he may injoy this beloved piece he serves twice seven yeares bearing the heat of the day and cold by night and yet all this seemed to him but as a pleasant act of a few daies Gen. 29.20 for the love saith the text he had to her The truth of this Axiome is made manifest by the mirrour of love Love it self Christ our Saviour who being very God and so impassible yet assumes our nature and then suffers himself to be reviled scornfully used scourged and put to a shamefull and most ignominious death and all for us his open deadly enemies Look upon me O Lord saith David and be mercifull unto me â—s 119.132 as thou usest to doe unto those that love thy name that is as to thy friends and servants whom thou lovest for as Love by the Heathens and Poets is feigned and portrayed blind so indeed where love is it doth not or will not see or censure the infirmities and blemishes of its beloved but takes them to be as Love-spots rather then deformities When Adam laid the blame of his transgression on his Wife S. Bernard seems to blame Adam that he had not taken it upon himself which saith he he would have done had he loved her CHAP. VI. Love extracteth delight and glory out of torments and sufferings I Speak not this of carnall or politick love which is usually changeable and inconstant and accompanied with falsity tending to self-ends but of Divine love and of this I may truly say the greater or lesser the affection is such more or lesse is the perfection acquired The blessed Apostles and holy Martyrs in the primitive times give us ample testimony and proof to this assertion whose revilings and most exquisite tortures begot in them not patience only but delight and pleasure the stones thrown at the Proto-martyr Stephens head he esteemed as so many jewels The fire under Laurence was to him as some pretious balme or soveraigne confection Ignatius who so much longed to be torn in pieces by wild beasts said If they be tame I will provoke them for I am as wheat to be bruised broken and to be served up to my Lords table And S. Paul said that his afflictions 2 Cor. 11.30 temptations and tribulations were his joy and glory so that though pain oft-times might have drawn teares from their eyes or blood from their veines yet the love they bore to their Lord Christ raised content in their hearts and such smiles in their faces as if they had been already with him in heavenly joy And in all this they did but as scholars imitate their Master who as he often delighted to treat of his passion so he profest to his disciples that Luk. 22.15 with desire he desired that is he greatly and earnestly desired to eat the Passover not as delighted to feast with them but to suffer for them and when S. Peter would have disswaded his Lord from his last great sufferings his Lord reproved him more for this then for his deniall of him in the high Priests hall for on this deniall Christ did but cast his eye toward Peter minding him thereby of his high promise made never to deny him but for that he not only bids him avaunt Mat. 16.23 which we only say to Dogs but he calls him Satan as being an adversary or hinderer of his much desired and longed-for Death We read in the New Testament of two Mountains whereon Christ more eminently appeared the one was Tabor where the shine of his glory seemed greater then that of the sun the other was Calvarie where he was beheld as a man despised more then the worst of men Barabbas the thief murderer prefer'd before him and when the sun hid his face ashamed of the horrid fact of putting the God of Heaven to death yet this exaltation on the Crosse in Mount Calvarie took more with Christ then that other of his transfiguration on Mount Tabor insomuch as here he finished the great work of his love for which he came into the world for the redemption of mankind and that all might be saved a pledge of which the thief dying besides him found who upon the word of Christ spoken unto him presently entred Paradise and this suffering on the Crosse in Calvarie substantially proved what the other appearing on
rather a moving trunk of flesh then a living soule and this in part excuseth the words and acts of Lovers as proceeding from men distracted rather then from men in their wits and hereupon the Romans had a law exempting such Lovers from the penalty of death holding them to be no better then mad men This holy phrensie of love hath not escaped the Saints of God on earth S. Paul was neer this when in his extreme love to his Country-men as Moses Exod. 32.32 Rom. 9.3 that wished himself blotted out of the Booke of God so he wished himself accursed from Christ unlesse the Jews his brethren might be pardoned and saved with him so that which is said of Peter ravisht with the glorious apparition on Mount Tabor the like might be spoken of S. Paul in his excessive love to the Jews he knew not what he said or as Felix said unto him Paul thou art surely besides thy self love in stead of learning hath made thee mad And if ever any exceeded in love Joh. 10.20 above all the love that ever was in the world it was Christ who so exceeded herein that the Jews once thought him mad And might not others as well as they have imagined the like of him when in the excesse of his love to his very enemies he would suffer himself to be taken delivered up and shamefully put to death for them Thus far did the love in Christ work him to go or seem to be besides himself and all that he might work us to return to and to look into our selves and up to heaven that as ravisht with the love hereof we might live here in the world as though we were out of the world and that we might so look on these delights below as men blinde and hear of them as deaf and discourse of them as not concerned but as men in part translated to heaven and here become earthly Angels S. Paul made his daily prayers unto the Father of our Lord Christ That he would grant unto the Ephesians the riches of his holy Spirit to be rooted and grounded in love Ephes 3.17 and that they might know the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge where he prayeth for the mutuall love between the head and the members their love to him but his love to them first For without this love of Christ to them they cannot love him He loved his first saith S. John and then without their love to him 1 John 4 1â— they cannot understand the power that love hath ere it is rooted in them For it is able to make things in themselves base and contemptible to be of great price and esteem Might it not seem in our blessed Saviour a blemish and dishonour to his person to be reviled scorned whipt and crucified yet the love of Christ took and accounted all as acts of glory and all that he might prove himself thereby the Saviour of the world It is registred of the wife to the Emperour Theodosius That she as a Nurse-keeper rather than an Empresse attended the sick and weak and made playsters and drest the sores of the poor Hospitallers who when she was by some nice Courtiers gently reproved her answer was That although those offices were below the person of an Empresse yet were they not able to reach and expresse the love which she bore to the poorest members of her Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus who in his unspeakable love did more saith she for me then ever I can in the least deserve or in any measure requite CHAP. IX Love exchangeth and counterchangeth all with its beloved FOr proof of this I could instance in many Lovers Registred in profane Authors as in Pylades and Orestes each of them though but one was guilty took the fact upon himself that he might thereby redeem the life of the other King David when the plague seized on and destroyed the people cries out to the Lord 2 Kings 24.17 It is I Lord that have sinned let me suffer but spare these innocent sheep for what have they done And when the Souldiers came to apprehend Jesus whom they yet knew not and some of his Disciples being present with him he asks Whom seek ye they answered We seek Jesus he roundly and readily answereth I am he And this he did Joh. 18. to the end that he might save his disciples from their arrest and therefore he addeth Ye have me whom you seek therefore let these go their way Reade and consider that of S. Paul Who is weake 1 Cor. 21.29 and I am not weake who is offended and I burn not the troubles infirmities and sufferings of the Corinthians through the Apostles love to them are all become and made his Yea but see a greater power of love manifested in the same Apostle toward the Philippians whom he tells that his death will be gain to him v. 21. Phil. 1. for thereby he shall injoy Christ whereas life to him will prove but labour and pain v. 22. and yet saith he though the difference be so great as is betwixt everlasting joy and glory being with Christ and pain and labour living with you yet my love is such to you more then to my self that I am in a strait not knowing which to choose but concludes Though it be far better for me to die and to be with Christ v. 23. neverthelesse saith he v. 24. to abide in the flesh is more profitable for you and therefore he concludes v. 25. Having this confidence I shall abide and continue with you for your furtherance and joy of faith But S. Paul writing to the Romans seems to go beyond all the bounds of love I and of common reason Rom. 9.8 when he saith I could wish that my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen the Jews Expositors antient and modern generally conclude that this wish or desire of S. Paul was an expression of the most transcendent power of love which might possesse any mortall man but what the full extent and force of the words may be is not so clearly agreed on for some expound the words accursed from Christ wherein all the difficulty lies to intend a temporall affliction or corporall punishment 2. others a spirituall separation or excommumcation from the Church of Christ 3. a third sort will have an eternall separation rejection or casting away from the joyes of heaven to be here understood They who imbrace the first exposition conceive this desire of the Apostle to be like that of Moses saying Lord Exod. 32.32 if thou wilt not forgive the sins of the Israelites in making the golden calf then blot me out of thy book and this blotting out of the book they expound of deposing or casting Moses from his government of that people which was as they would have this in S. Paul to be but a temporall punishment and this they would deduce and inferre from the word accursed which in the
Greek they say may here as elswhere among sacred and profane Writers signifie a separation or setting apart the person of man and beast to suffer death or the like as a sacrifice thereby to expiate the offence of others and if this sense may be admitted then much more cannot be inferred then that S. Paul preferred his Countrey-mens spirituall and eternall estates before his own temporall or before his life which shewes that which we allege for to prove the transcendency of his love Others conceive the words anathema or accursed from Christ to mean Excommunication and this to be like that casting out of Cain Gen. 4.14 where it is said and from thy face shall I be hid Gods face noting typically the Church or visible congregation of Gods servants and this wish or desire in the Apostle though it goe farre yet because it includes not an everlasting separation but such as by Gods mercy and the Apostles repentance may be relaxed it is not so scrupulous and dangerous as The third sense of the words viz that S. Paul hereby should wish his eternall disherisance from heaven for his brethren and Countrey-men which curse separation or disherisance if it be the sense of the words then some answer that the word is I could have wished it So that S. Paul doth not expresly and plainly say I do wish this but I could or my love is such that rather then my Countreymen to whom the Promise and the Covenant is made should perish and they lose the benefit thereof I could finde in my heart to wish that I might be separated But say they he doth not explicitely and in the indicative mood say I do wish But if this answer be not admitted as satisfactory but that S. Paul seems to wish as a dear friend and tender father to be kept from eternall joyes rather then want the company of his children and Countrymen whom he calls by a neer relation brethren the question then will be as it is generally made how far forth this desire may be held justifiable or be accounted sinfull as to himself to wish the privation of his own eternall blisse Which question or difficulty some thus assoile 1. That for the greater promotion and exaltation of Gods glory this may be desired being that this is the first main principall end of mans being made or redeemed to advance the glory of God and that Gods glory should the more appeare by the restoring and saving of the Jews cannot be denied or doubted by any 2. Or as before the Text speaks not that I do wish but that I could so wish and that I could wish may imply that this wish in the Apostle is not so absolute as simply to desire his own damnation for his Countrymens salvation but that it may well comprehend under it at least a tacite condition as Lord I wish it if so it agree with thy will decree and good pleasure for whatever is agreeable to this must be and is justifiable and no waies sinfull 3. S. Paul may be construed thus to meane if for any cause under Gods glory I may desire mine own exclusion from Heaven then I could wish it for my Countrymens benefit and salvation such was the heighth and depth of the love of this blessed Apostle which desires at least to translate all its own good to his beloved CHAP. X. The Causes and Motives of Love I Shall not yet here touch upon the prime and principall cause of Love which is God but of that which is neerest unto God goodnesse which is the true proportionate object of the will and so of our love Insomuch that if the will at any time makes choice of the contrary which is evill this comes to passe by the wills being deceived by a false object and counterfeit colour in appearance of some seeming good For the will in its pure constitution doth not cannot affect or desire that which in it self simply is and so appears to be evill A man blinded in his reason and deceived by the pleasancy of wine or the beauty of women may will the unlawfull company of the one and the inordinate use of the other yet in neither doth he will or desire fornication or drunkennesse as they are evils but as he is ashamed to be termed a fornicator or a drunkard so though he become or be both yet he desires not drunkennesse or fornication but onely the base delight and pleasure in them which hath deceived and cousened his desire under a shew of that which seemed then unto him good For God which made all by weight and measure hath given to our understanding and will certain naturall inclinations which as laws cause them to affect their proper objects which are truth to the understanding and goodnesse to the will So that who is perverted or willingly perverteth the truth this is done by the false colour and shadow of truth and so it comes to passe in the matter of our will which ever desires that which is good and if deceived it is by that which appears at that time so to be Aristotle hath ranged Love into three kinds according to the three severall objects alluring the will and desire The one is love of pleasure and delight which too commonly follows and is entertained by youth Another is the love of wealth and is the servant mostly of old age A third is the love of that which is comely and honest which I fear hath the least part or predominancy in mans will where private interest bears the sway We have read that in ages before us vertue honour and beauty had the mastery in the will but those objects are laid aside and are past away with those times Some ancient Fathers give a reason why our Saviour openly proclaimed his gift of paradise to the Thiefe on the Crosse rather than to the Patriarchs and Prophets and it was say they because he at that time when Christ was publickly disesteemed and contemptuously used by all that he then proclaimed him to be the Messias and the Saviour of the world This singular bounty therefore of our Saviour accompanied that rare piece of faith and love in the Thief to whom at that time when the Thief profest him Christ had shewed no miracle nor done him savour Whereas now adaies few serve or worship Christ unless he honour or serve their turns so that were it not for the benefits he daily bestows on us he might for us live as retired in the contemplation of his own infinite goodnesse with little or no love of the world Next to goodnesse not onely Philosophers but the holy Scriptures have assigned knowledge to be an especiall worker of love Our Saviour saith This is life eternall Joh. 17. â— to know the Father and the Son for from this knowledge ariseth our love and by them both we attain to life everlasting Unbelief ignorance or the forgetfulnesse of this principle as to say with the foole there is
being beloved directs the soul without any force to a return of a love reciprocall And as love mollifies the heart of the beloved drawing from it a return of love so this return of love gives ample satisfaction and reward as it were for that love that was bestowed And so the Spouse in the Canticles Can. 1.2 for her love to her beloved desires some kisses as testimonies for the assurance of his love to her again And neither the first nor the second neither an inviting nor the return'd love are purchased wonne or procured by gifts greatnesse or power These have no force on a generous heart to cause love which is onely begotten by it self through love and this may be well called the mysterie of love that the same thing and nothing else should beget it self And this love being of so rare an extraction so amiable and so much to be desired we shall finde God of all things desiring it and in comparison of it nothing else but our love and therefore useth it as a conjuration to the effecting his will and commands as when he saith John 21.16 If ye love me keep my commandments to Peter thee times as it were in a breath lovest thou lovest thou lovest thou me Peter and then follows three times Peter feed feed feed For this thou canst not chuse but do and keep my 〈…〉 Love as we say breaks through stone walls intimating that nothing is hard to a loving heart but that this tender love as is said of the milke of the Goat is able to mollifie and soften the hardest Adamant God willing to draw man to himself first used his power shewed in the great deluge of the world after that he used his goodnesse bringing his people out of Egypt into a goodly and plentifull Land but when neither power nor goodnesse prevailed he takes the ready course if any could prevail to shew his love unto them in sending his onely Son into the world there to suffer so ignominious a death for them And if this did not he never meant to use other means to draw them to him For if love such love could not then nothing in heaven earth or hell can work or move their conversion Charit as Christi urget nos saith S. Paul 2 Cor. 3 14. the love of Christ this this or nothing doth or can with a sweet delightfull force as it were constrain us Christ sheweth this in the parable of the Creditor and Debtor concluding that to whom most was forgiven that he should and must love most For love freely shewed to the well beloved may be resembled to the depositing or trusting a great Treasure in a friends chest or Cabinet which friend if he return it not when desired deserves the note and estimation not of ungratefull alone but of a false and most wicked man and no friend CHAP. XII The Love of God is not to be parallel'd THe essence or being of God is pure and simple and the infinity of his attributes and perfections are single so that his omnipotency is his mercy his mercy is his justice his justice his goodnesse his goodnesse his love neither is there in these any distinction reall or formall onely mans apprehension conceiteth a variety in this simple unity Now the love of God differeth from the love of man as in many other things so in this that mans love oft times wants power to effect what it loves and desires whereas Gods love is both operative and effective it both works and accomplisheth whatever it will so that to love with God is the same thing as to do us good And this is so large as to do that beyond which nothing more can be done Isaiah expresseth this in Gods person saying Isa â— 4 What could have been done more that I have not done so that if we would enter into and consider all the works of Gods love in creating redeeming sanctifying and glorifying man how can they be fathomed mans soule cannot apprehend it in the least degree To help mans weakensse in this and by shadows as it were to make some appearance of this love Isa 49.15 the Prophet Isaiah tells us of the love of a mother to her childe when he asks the question Can a mother forget her sucking childe that she should not have compassion on the sonne of her wombe Which can she is as much as she cannot but saith God If she could yet such is my love to man that I will not I cannot my love is my self and therefore I may be said as well to forget my self as to forget or deny my love to mine own Image man The Prophet Isaiah seems to go a little farther by a similitude to set forth Gods love when he compares it to the love of a Bridegroome 〈◊〉 62.5 married to a Virgin in whom he is delighted and rejoyceth saith the text where it addeth and so shall thy God rejoyce over thee Nay the Prophet Jeremiah goes farther yet saying If a man put away his wife for her lewdnesse and adultery shall he return unto her again â—eâ— 3.1 But thou Judah lift up thine eyes unto the high places and see where thou hast not been lien with in the waies thou hast sate for them and thou hast polluted the Land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickednesse and yet heare the husband of this wife which is God notwithstanding all this crying out and proclaiming thou hast played the harlot with many lovers yet returne againe to me saith the Lord. Tell me now whether a greater love can be exprest than this in God As the love of God is infinite so might I be in the prosecution of this argument but I contract my self and wish you to remember that as God in holy Writ is parabolically called King Father Husband Physician Shepherd Head of his Church so under all these and many other names and notions his love is manifest unto us for as the head he governs as the Shepherd he leads us to good pastures and defends us from destroying beasts as the Physician he cures and heals our infirmities and soares as an husband he imbraceth and delighteth in and rejoyceth over us as a Father he nourisheth and provideth for us and as a King he not onely protects us from oppression and danger but gives us honours yea makes us heires with his onely begotten Son Christ Jesus to reigne with him in his heavenly Kingdom for ever And is there any love that can be compared to this All that I will adde for close is this love requires love And O my soule though thou wilt not love this thy Father this thy King first yet when he hath so super abounded in his love to thee too flinty hearted I must needs say thou art if thou shalt refuse to return all the love thy heart can affoord or conceive to him again for that infinite and endlesse love which he hath bestowed on thee Chap. XIII By the
my soul tread down my life and lay mine honour in the dust And to that of Solomon because God commended and blessed him for not desiring the blood of his enemies from hence to conclude that he might have hated or revenged himself upon his enemies is all one as to say God loves and blesseth the humble the chaste and the sober therefore a man may be proud lascivious a glutton or a drunkard But passing by what is or may be argued in desence of hate or revenge to our enemies it is easie to shew and prove that it is unnatural and against the law of God so to do and that the contrary to love them is not onely commanded and praised as natural but easie to be performed even by the Heathen The royal Prophet David saith Thy law is sweeter and more pleasant to me then honey Psa 19.10 or the honey-comb and our Saviour Christ speaking of his Law which is this to love and not hate our enemies Matth. 11.30 he calls it though a yoke and a burthen yet such as he professeth to be easie and light But we must consider to whom it is such not to the carnal worldling and meer natural man but to his disciple whom he understands to be a new creature born and begotten by the Spirit of grace and then to such a nature it is as natural to love his enemy as it is natural to the other to hate him The reason is for that as the Elements of Earth and Water though of themselves ponderous and heavy yet while they are in their own place they press not nor are burthensom So is the love of an enemy in an heart spiritual And as the armour of Saul before David was exercised in bearing arms was cumbersom unto him but after much use and practise in the war he could wield the great Sword of the Giant Goliah and say as he did to Abimelech There is none like unto that 1 Sam. 21.9 even so fareth it with him who hath practised and exercised himself in this holy duty of loving an enemy which an humble spiritual use and exercise will make not onely tolerable but joyous and delight-full May not this and much more be confirmed by the examples of Joseph who being sold treacherously by his brethren Gen. 45. wept over them feasted them and plentifully provided for them of Moses who being murmured against by his Subjects and grosly slandered by Corah Numb 16. Dathan and Abiram who endevoured to disgrace and dethrone him yet then even then he ceased not to labour with God to preserve them whom otherwise the Lord in his just anger would have consumed of David who not onely would not suffer his Soldiers to knock down that railing Shimei but forgave him and when his unnatural rebellious Son Absolom conspired not only the deposing but the killing him yet he then cryes Spare the life of the yong-man who being slain against his will he with floods of tears bewails his death and as desirous to have saved his life by the loss of his own cryes out Absolom my son my son Absolom 2 Sam. 18. would God I had dyed for thee O Absolom my son my son Now can we conceive that more love then this in Joseph Moses and David to their greatest enemies could have been shewed by any other to their dearest friends So true is this that love of an enemy in a soul purified and exercised with patience proves not onely connatural to it but most easie and delightful Nay further if any shall say these indeed were rare examples of men extraordinarily endowed with heavenly gifts of faith love and patience and to these and such as these it was no hard matter thus to love their enemies To this let me reply and tell you that Heathens who as S. Paul speaks of them know not God yet by the light of reason and by the help of humane patience alone have come near to these most illightned and sanctified men and therefore the art of loving your enemies is not so hard a thing to the naturall man if he would give his minde to it Augustus Caesar that great Conqueror and Commander of the World being in the open streets called Tyrant by an unworthy fellow returned no more then this If I were as thou callest me thon couldst not live to call me so a second time Zino a Conspirator against Julius Caesar was pardoned by him and his estate restored and when he had fallen into the like again yet Caesar again pardoned him saying I will see which of us two shall be soonest weary thou in procuring thy own death or I in pardoning thy life I confess there are ingraffed by God in mans sensitive Soul the concupiscible and irascible faculties the one whereof is soon provoked and the other as soon desires and delights in revenge but on the other side you must know That God hath placed in the reasonable Soul the Understanding and Will so that be thy Passions as wilde horses or curst and cruel as mastiff Dogs yet these two the reasonable Spiritual Soul like the skilful Rider or the Master of the dogs can with the whistle or bridle retrain and keep them in if they will use their own power and authority over them If any ask me May I not sue my neighbour or mine enemy who hath taken or kept away my goods or may I not implead him who hath robbed me of my good name I briefly answer Yes so it be for restitution of the one or reparation of the other and without hate or revenge to his person Nay this thou art bound to do in a triple obligation the one to God for the honour of his Power and Justice in punishing violence and iniquity the second to thy self who art bound to love thy self before thy neighbour the third to thy neighbour be he in this case as in place of an enemy yet thou are bound to sue and implead him that by a moderate and lawful chastisement he may see his faults repent and do no more so and hereby thou shalt in part and as much as in thee is save his soul which is no piece of hate but a great part of love that thou shouldest bear to thy neighbour If it be yet urged that the voyce of the blood of Abel cryeth to God for vengeance Gen. 4.10 and that the Souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held cry with a loud voyce saying How long O Lord holy and true Rev. 6.9 10. dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth The general answer to the cryes of Gods Saints or holy ones living or dead to God for vengeance is That these as holy ones and Saints desire nothing against but according to his will 2. Not so much or not directly to the torture of their persons as to the destruction of their violence rapine and
in ordinary is the utmost and if saith he by reason of strength they live eighty years yet is their strength labour and sorrow and although King David a man of an excellent constitution lived to seventy years as it is computed by the best yet this saith he is but an hand-breadth or indeed as nothing before thee ô Lord Ps 39.5 for would the God think of the everlasting joyes in heaven of the wicked of their never dying torments in hell they both might say that this hand-breadth of time was as nothing We read of a beast called from the continuance of its life the Ephemeris which though it live according to his appellative name but one day yet it falls presently to provide for sustenance as though it might live years Mans life be it at the largest as in ordinary the term of seventy years yet in respect of eternity or indeed of the frailty and uncertainty of the continuance thereof it is in 〈…〉 often called a day and yet man much like that beast labours builds purchaseth as though he were to live for ever and although he be here but a pilgrim a stranger and travailer to another place yet like an unwise factor he stores up all his goods here whence he is as to morrow to depart and never transports them whither he is to go there to give an account of his employment and to enjoy his well spent travailes for ever and such is the folly and most deplorable vanity of man Which error will appear the greater to him that considers the frailty of mans life in respect of the materials whereof mans body consists 2 Of the artifice and curious workmanship whereby it is wrought 3 How it is subject to the power almost of every thing to be broken and dissolved Now the best and strongest materiall of mans body is earth and as Adam was made out of it so he and mankind is called from the earth Adam and homo man so that man much resembles a swallows nest made of straw and dirt such mans bones and clay such his flesh and how frail and easily broken this or that is may appear when we see a little boy with a slick to pull that down in pieces and less then that every nothing of violence to do as much to the body of man for what of earthly vessells account we more britle then a Venice glass yet this kept up and secured from violence or outward force shall outlast two lives of any man a China dish so preserved shall indure twenty mens lives Whereas such is the materials of mans body that let him diet and behave himself according to Galens best rules let him lye warm and enjoy himself a bed without spending his spirits yet even in this diet and enjoyment without any hurt or violence done unto him he shall consume and molder away unto that whence be was taken Now to the weak brittleness of mans materials if you add the curious nice composition and joyning of his parts you may rather wonder how he should live a moneth then to mervaile that he should die so young the Psalmist to the honour of Gods great power and wisdome acknowledged that man is wonderfully made Ps 139.14 and that so much beyond the art and skill of any the best workman in the world that when any piece pin or wheel in the most exquisite work of man may be renewed if broken repaired if worne and put again in its place if out of frame yet to do the like in mans body exceeds the skill of all the best Physitians that ever were for be the heart be the liver be the brain wounded yea be they but pricked with a needle be they putrefied or be they displaced all the work is spoiled and comes to nothing and mans life is lost But if you consider how the least and weakest externall things have power to destroy this body of man can you say less then that he is a frail and brittle piece I will not complain as some have done yet I may tell you that God by his journyman Nature hath sent all other creatures some way or other armed or strengthened into the world against outward force or hurt and man only is put forth naked weak unfenced so that take him at his best growth strength there is no element nor any little part of any element fire aire water or earth though man be made of these but is able to undo him and take away his life Yea a flie a kernell a haire hath done as much to many and not only the living in a corrupt aire may do the like but the sent of a little subtile infection conveyed by a glove a piece of linnen or the like may do the same thing But if to these we add that which both history and philosophy confirme that a man may de dissolved by extreme joy caused by that which is good and harmeless how then may any man deny this certain and known truth that mans life is a frail thing or rather nothing but frailty And not only thus frail but a thing unstable and mutable daily and hourly running on and making way to its corruption and dissolution Therefore when you see and observe the motion and going down of a watch the running of the water in a stream which returnes not the burning of a candle which wasts in giving light of flowers grasse leaves which in the morning are green and flourishing and ere night are cut down and withered or will you think on and consider what is a vapor a shadow a dream or the dream of a shadow Thus know in seeing thinking and considering these all or any of these that you see think and consider the continuall mutability and change of mans life running and flying to its last end Neither may we wisely wonder or justly complain when we consider this that Abel the youngest of all the world dies first or that in the bils of mortality we finde more children die then old men for God in his wonderfull wisdome and goodnesse hath thus provided and ordered it for man that he may hence learn two lessons that it is no argument of Gods disfavour but an evidence of his love to take us early from the worlds miseries and betimes to estate us in eternall felicity and secondly that man considering what a changâ—â—ble thing his life is he may provide against it all he can or may and the best that he may and can is to thinke on and labour for an exchange of this mutable life for an unchangeable to come And to this end God hath so fixed his greater and lesser lights in heaven that looking on them we may daily and hourly consider that although to us they seem not to move yet they are in continuall motion and tending to their journies end and that it is alike in man And further to these heavenly visible lessons he hath joyned his legible instructions in his holy
an house to keep it from shaking and falling and this is required in the love as in the name and title of husband And yet S. Paul inlargeth this love of the husband to his wife Ephes 5.29 when he tells the husband that he must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he must nourish and cherish her not feed her only for so he must do his servant but the word minds somewhat more to feed her with the best and so to nourish her and not only thâ—â— to nourish but to cherish which may be 〈◊〉 â—etaphoricall word taken from hens hovering over and covering the young ones defending them from the sharpnesse of the weather and warming them by her feathers and the heate of her body The plain and full sense of the word you may finde in the 1 King 1.2 where the Shunamitsh damsell is said to cherish old David lying in his bosome and giving him heat 1 K. 1.2 and thus the husband by the precept and rule of S. Paul is to love his wife when he saith he must nourish and cherish her And to this end that the wife be not driven on all occasions to run to the husband for her nourishment our holy and wife Leiturgie hath taught that at the mariage the man is to endow his wife with all his worldly goods and as a token and earnest hereof he usually gave her both silver and gold which is near to the Jewish ceremony though far enough from any superstition or Judaisme for the Romans used this ceremony in their mariages that the Bride being brought home to her husbands house she openly proclamed ubi tu Caius ego Caia which Erasmus translates thus Where thou art Lord or Master I am Lady or Mistresse whereby she hath an estate for maintenance so far as the husbands ability can extend both in his life and after his death The Apostle S. Peter hath added another duty of the husband as a fruit or effect of his love to his wife when he saith 1 Pet. 3.7 Give honour to your wives Whereby it appears that although the woman be in her self or otherwise honourable yet by mariage the husband adds to her giving her the honour of a wife according to that mariage is honourable in all even in the lowest Heb. 13. because God hath sanctified and honoured it by his institution and blessing he being as at first to Adam and Eve the Contractor the Priest and the Father to give the woman to the man for so it is said Gen. 2.22 the Lord brought her to Adam Again when the Apostle saith the man must give her honour as to the weaker may it not be fitly understood that if she hath any defect weaknesse or infirmity comâ—on to all or some more then usuall yet the husband â—s to honour the wife by concealing and covering them from others and to cure and to comfort her in and against these infirmities as he would do his own body Which agrees with that of S. Paul Ephes 5. and with that other Eph. 5.29 1 Cor. 12 23. 1 Cor. 12. our more uncomely parts we adorne most Another sense there may be of this which agrees with the words and forme in mariage prescribed by our Leiturgie where the man saith with my body I thee worship whereby he doeth as it were appropriate his body to his wife in respect of all other women and this agrees with that of S. Paul that men must so far as may stand with chastity modesty and his ability give her due benevolence for he is not sole Lord or Master of his body but his wife herein is copartner or cape-master and this S. Paul speaks fully 1 Cor. 7.4 and plainly Other appendant or subordinate duties are required from the husband under or flowing from this great master duty love 1 Cor. 7 3. Col. 3.19 as that the husband must yeeld his wife due benevolence 2. That he must not be bitter or sharp but gentle and apt to passe by infirmities and offences of his wife as of the weaker vessell A 3. requisite duty of the husband is that the husband live with his wife according to knowledge 1 Pet. 3.9 so that as he is the head of his wife so like an head he may be able to guide and to direct according to knowledge in Gods and mans laws And this may be one reason why S. Paul suffâ—rs not a woman to speak in the Church but to learn of her husband at home 4. When the Apostle tells the husband that he must love his wife as Christ doeth his Church Eph. 5.25 it is hereby implyed that as there can be no greater love then this nor any greater spur to this love then what the Apostle gives that the wife is the husbands flesh and body that he is her head and that God hath commanded this love so that love to his wife being such as Christs was to his Church therefore it must be a chast not a wanton and carnall love an holy not a worldly or profane love a sincere hearty not a faigned hypocriticall love and lastly not a temporary and fading but a perpetuall love to hold as the bands in wedlock till death depart the one from the other or both together And be thy love such it will so help at least to temper and qualifie all stragling wild passions towards thy wife that seldome if ever thou shalt be angry with her but sure never to be jealous of her fidelity to thee Which jealousie as it is like the Hemlock in the Prophets pottage destructive to all matrimoniall peace and blisse so is it often conceived without a father brought forth without a midwife and cherished without a nurse or at least without any that thou canst prove to be such for if the woman be so wicked as to play false the Serpent is not more wily then she to conceal it I observe that when Christ told the woman that she had submitted her self to six men Joh. â— she concluded that sure he was a Prophet and so when Christs feet were washed and wiped by Mary Lu. 7.3 Magdalen the Pharisees argued were he a Prophet he could have known that Mary Magdalen was a loose woman So from both passages it may appear that it was hard for any unlesse a Prophet who had revelations supernaturall to discover and find out a false incontinent wife and better I hold it if the thing prove too apparent to dissemble it as Jacob did his daughter Dinahs wickednesse then to blow his horn at the door or to proclaim it in the Market place I end all this in one word of exhortation Pe not to thy wife as a Lion in the house Ecclus. 4.30 but as a Lamb or be in this as a Dog that is curst to strangers or strange women yet to be kind and affable at home for this will beget preserve and increase the reciprocall love of thy wife to thee which
speak yet now distracted with fear and grief arising from the love to his father he cryed out O kill not my father Croesus And it is fabled that Gerion had three faces the morall whereof was that he had three sons who lived so lovingly and defended their fathers name and possessions so unanimously as though they had had but one soul animating and actuating in three bodies Neither can I forget here that passage of Scylurus because it comes so neer to that quiver of arrowes which I mentioned from King David in his Psalmes who calling his sons unto him compared them to a bundle of arrows which saith he if ye sever you may easily break them singly but so long as they are thus bound and fastned together they will hold and be a defence both to your selves and your father and thus happy is that father which hath his quiver full of such arrows Chap. XL. The love of our Native country NExt to the love of our Parents our Country challengeth an interest in our love as being our common parent and although one Philosopher would derive the word from the mothers side and call our country Matria yet generally it is called Patria as from the father because though our country as the mother bears us yet as the father it nourisheth provides for and defends us which most properly are the acts of the father And hereupon both with Greeks and Latines these speeches became as proverbs The salt of our own country is more pleasant then all the dainties of strange places and of all sweets our country is the sweetest And this holding true and working by a kind of naturall instinct it comes to pass that what ever our country is though barren or unhealthy yet we love and prefer it before a richer and more healthy place were there not such a working naturall instinct in man inclining his love and desire to his own native soil many a country would hardly be inhabited but be left desolate Ithaca the place of birth to Vlysses esteemed the wisest man then living among the Greeks though it were a poor rocky land and the meanest of Islands thereabout yet it were worth your reading how that wise man bewailed his absence thence but ten years though imployed abroad in his countries service and with what joy he welcomed himself home at his return And from the fervent love and zeal that some men above others have born to the honour and welfare of their country they have deserved the highly priced and honourable title to be called Patriots which signifies lovers and defenders of their country And although all countries more or less have abounded with such yet Rome which by this means became the Mistress of the world hath exceeded all with whom it was common and ordinary to prefer the good and glory of their country before parents wife or children or what ever was most dear unto them even before their own lives holding that true which the Roman Orator said It is said a sweet thing to dye for the good of our country Histories that confirme this among the Romans are obvious and innumerable I mall therefore without troubling you give but one of those Lacedemonians who being sent to pacifie the enraged Persian and finding that nothing but their lives could abate that fury against their country readily yeelded themselves to death which gallant resolution and zealous love when the Persian considered he gave them their lives and spared their country And so much were the holy Patriarchs affected wich this love to their native soile that when they were either sent or constrained through want or otherwise to dye in other lands yet as Jacob and Joseph they made it one of their last and greatest râ—quests among earthly things to be brought back and to be buried in their own Countries I could adde hereunto that among all punishments inflicted upon capitall offenders that next to death was generally accounted banishment by which I mean not an amandation sending away or sequestring a man from his own house within his own countrey which was not much feared or declined but an exile casting out or driving away from his native soile Neither held this so among men alone but it was denounced by God himself as a most severe punishment and sign of his heavy wrath against the King Jehoiakim Jer. 22. that he should not return home from captivity to bis own countrey Nay I could instance in divers both wise and noble Spirits who have desired rather presently to dye and so to be buried in their own then to prolong their lives and after it to be interred in a strange countrey esteeming themselves better laid in a grave in their own countrey and returned to their own house Dan. 6.10 I cannot deny but when Daniel being in Babylon usually prayed three times a day with his window open and looking to Jerusalem that he much longed after the Temple which once stood there but I think no man can deny that his love and desire was not the less to bis country and the rather for that God himself commands Jacob to return to his own countrey though it were from a richer to the poorer place Gen. 32.9 A Philosopher being asked what a man ought to doe to a wicked rebellious country answered you must deal with it as with your mother whom you must never despise but honour and make her better if you can but never forsake her and accordingly we have read of divers who have rejected parents wives children when grown to excess of impiety or iniquity yet so it comes to pass that even for the most crying sinnes few or none cast off their country Think on Lot who rather then forsake his countrey he must be forced out of it by an Angel of heaven as rather hazarding to burn in his own country then to live in a better I could adde to all this that Christ himself so farre testified the love he bore to Bethlehem the village and Nazareth the region of his birth and education that he resorted often to them labouring their conversion and bewailed himself as it were for this that through their unbeleef he did no miracles among them But briefly to close all I shall desire you to read two Psalmes in the one whereof you may plainly see how the people of Israel though they enjoyed Gods gracious presence and comfortable assistance in Babylon Ps 137. yet how they mourned for the absence from their own country and in the other you shall as apparently discover the wonderfull extreme joy they took in being restored home again Ps 126. For being out of their country saith the text They sate down and wept when they remembred Zion yea they hanged up their harpes the instrumens of joy and musick to the Lord professing they could not sing the Lords song in a strange land and yet though this they could not do for grief yet for loves sake they
Tabor did but typically prefigure the glory of his passion so that here not there the standers by and since that the Christian world proclaimed him Mat. 27.54 what before was believed but by few that he was truly the Son of God Men on earth study to blazon their coats with Dogs Hogs Cats and the like and by these means think to traduce their names as famous to posterity though themselves never in their lives did an act worthy of a Dogs-taile whereas our most blessed Lord Christ who acted all things worthy the Son of the most high God and all for the good of mankind had no other coat-armour but the Crosse which his love procured and wrought and hath thereby made him justly to be adored and worshipped as the God of the whole world CHAP. VII Love transformeth the Lover into the thing beloved NOT onely some choice Philosophers but learned Fathers of our Church have deemed and called a friend a second self the half of the soule or the same And among them one saith he that loveth intirely is dead as to his own body and liveth in that body which he loveth for that love carrieth with it if not the whole substance yet the principall vigorous acting faculties of the soule This position in some sense is made good in the divine Lover by that of S. Paul when he saith Your life is hid Col. 3 3â— with Christ in God where love to God hath mortified the Lover as to the body and to the world and makes him live by and in Christ for truly the soule cannot be thought or said to live but where it appears to move or work Hereupon some wittily have pronounced that the beloved is become an homicide and guilty of murder if he return not love for love but robs the Lover of his soul not returning his again to the Lover And some Philosophers have conceived that the soul of a dead friend by a strange transmigration hath been secretly conveighed into the body of a friend living and there kept alive and operating and all this to be effected and brought to passe by the spirituall power of love S. Augustine comes somewhat neer to these conceits when he saith My love is as the weight in a clock or the magnetick virtue in the load-stone for whithersoever I am moved or caried that it is which carieth or moveth me and my soule Every one therefore it strongly behoveth seriously to consider before he setleth upon what he intends to set his love for if on earth he becomes earthly if flesh fleshly if heaven heavenly which agreeth well with those terms given in holy Scriptures to severall kinds of affectionate lovers Our most blessed Saviour prayeth for us that we may be in him and be one with him Joh. 17.21 as Christ is in and with his Father which holy residence and blessed union must be next to Gods goodnesse the work of love S. Paul saith of himself that he is crucified with Christ Gal. 2.20 neverthelesse saith he I live and yet he adds it is not I that live but Christ liveth in me if you ask him how this can be he tells you in the words following the life which I now live I live by faith this is the instrumentall mean if you enquire into the cause of this life it is there mentioned when he saith by the son of God who loved me and gave himself and all his merits and benefits to work for and in me Our carnall and prophane loose lovers usually court their mistresses with these and the like unhallowed speeches You are my life my heart my soul which oft-times is more true then godly Divinely spoke King David O that we would imitate him God is my light and salvation Plato said that a friend is like a good looking-glasse in and by which the other friend may see himself and be seen by others for so it was in Jonathan and David that who saw the one discerned the other Or you shall find two friends united by true love to be like the mother and the child where if the child smile or weep the mother doeth the like and as the Chamelcon appeareth to be of that colour with the thing to which it is joyned so is it with good and true lovers who like Hippocrates twins looked laughed cried each as the other and were of like colour condition and passion each as other so that the union of friends made by sincere love is well compared and presented by inoculating a bud into another stock whereby it is made one with it Now in man there be three unions and each of them caused or bottomed on love the first is that of the soule and body matched together by a naturall love The second is the union of soules whether as among ordinary friends or as among Christs disciples Act. 2.1 who were of one heart and mind endevouring to keep the unity of the spirit as S. Paul speaks in the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 the former of these is wrought by a naturall the other by a spirituall love The third union is that which is betwixt God and mans soule when as S. John saith God is in the righteous 1 Joh. 4.16 and they in him and the efficient cause of this union is Divine love Which union as of all other and above all things in this world it is to be most desired estemed and preserved so is the separation or divorce the most to be feared grieved for and most carefully to be prevented for as by that blessed union we are made partakers of all the best things that earth or heaven can afford so by that separation we not only lose all the blessings by that union acquired but we purchase to our selves all the miscries vexations and torments that hell the Devils and our owne conscience can afflict us with the cutting off a finger from the hand is painfull of the hand from the arm painfull and damagefull and of the head from the body painfull grievous and deadly but the dividing or divorcing the soule of man from God the life of the soule is a pain grief and losse not to be expressed no nor to be imagined fully no not by them that suffer and feel it Of all separations and divorces O my soule be fearfull and carefull to avoid this and O thou the God of my soule be gracious and mercifull unto me that through blindnesse of understanding or hardnesse of heart I never incurre the dreadfull sentence of such a divorce or separation CHAP. VIII Vehement love causeth extasies making the Lover besides or to rob himself of himself LOve saith the Wise man is strong as death and in this comes neer to death Cant. 5.6 in that it makes the Lover oft-times not to see what he fixeth his eye on not to answer what he hears or what he is demanded and indeed oft-times to put him into such trances as that he seems
no God or with the Epicure he regardeth not our works below but that we may for all him eat and drink and die These and such like are the great causes of all our sinnes S. Paul professedly hath exprest so much when he saith The Gentiles have given themselves over unto all lasciviousnesse Ephes 4.19 to worke all uncleannesse with greedinesse Whereof the cause is exprest in the verse before when he saith this they did having their understandings darkened through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindnesse of their hearts And the Prophet Hosea saith there is no knowledge of God in the land Hos 4. â— and what then follows but ver 2. swearing lying killing stealing adultery so that blood toucheth blood I may adde another cause or the ingenderer of love which is likeness Like will to like is seen among the beasts among whom sheep flock not with woolves nor will Harts heard with Lions And the like to this in man some Philosophers have attributed it to the complexion in men among whom we finde the company gesture voice and looks of some to be displeasing and distastfull to others for which the person disaffecting at first happily can give no sufficient reason Others and more neerly to reason and truth have given the cause of this love betwixt men to be the likenesse of their qualities and dispositions as the sinner hateth the righteous whatever the alliance is as it was seen in Cain to Abel Ismael to Isaac Esau to Jacob so on the other side the good just and wise love each other S. Paul hath determined this piece when he saith Be ye not unequally yoaked for what fellowship hath righteousnesse with unrighteousnesse 2 Cor. 6.14 and what communion hath light with darknesse and what concord hath Christ with Belial The Pythagorean and Platonique Philosophers were of opinion that the soules of men had a kinde of harmonious concent each to other so that as in musick one string being struck another will quaver and offer to give the like sound though not touched so say they and not improbably fareth it with the souls of many men S. Ambrose giveth another cause or parent of love which is conversation when as he tells us that to this end God walked with man in Paradise and that it is said of Enoch that he walked with God and though God had given Adam all the goods of the aire earth and water yet with none of these or any or all of the Beasts took he any delight but onely in that consort which God gave him as a companion to his body and solace to his soule and to her he cleaves and so of two they are made but one by a loving converse and agreement If any aske how this comes to passe that likenesse and conversation should thus beget continue and increase love the reason is easie and plain for seeing every man naturally loves himself and the rather because he is ever conversant with himself therefore it must needs follow that whatever is neerest to or most like him that he most neerly loveth and most desireth Can any give any other reason why man or woman delights to see their face in a glasse but because it represents them and makes them as it were to see and know themselves by this representative whereby the imagination apprehends it self CHAP. XI Love is onely conquered and repayed with Love LOve that is the inward affection of the heart is the soul as it were of the soul of man yea of the whole world for by it the world continueth and without it it could not stand as was shewed before We thank not the water nor the aire nor any inanimate or animate thing for doing us good it this good proceed from a naturall disposition in themselves without an affection of doing good to us For this latter is it which truly is called love and he that thinks ro requite this with gold or other gifts of price returns scarce drosse for gold Our Saviour and his Apostles have summed up all the Law in this kinde of Love and after all their precepts and counsels call for this love as the fulfilling of all For he that hath this cannot but believe and endeavour to work according to what is required or desired by Christ and his Apostles Our blessed Saviour promiseth heaven to him that gives but a cup of cold water in his Name Mat. 10 4â— and for his sake and can any imagine that heaven is of so mean a value or water so much worth as that heaven should be given for a cup of water no not the cup of water nor all the waters under heaven can be valued with heaven but the cordiall love and affection of the heart this is that God esteems and therefore calls to every one for it when he saith My Son take all earth heaven and all as my gift and for all onely give me but thy heart Prov. 23. â— It was not Abels sacrifice nor the widows mite cast into the Treasury that God so highly prized and commended but the love of the sacrificer and giver which he esteemed more than all the worlds good For all these are his The earth is the Lords Ps â—4 1 and the fulnesse thereof And when we have these or any part thereof we receive and hold them as his gift and for all he onely requires our love which onely is ours to give If you tell me Prov. 21. â— the heart of Kings and so of all men is in the hand of the Lord he turneth it whither soever he will And that without God 2 Cor. 3.5 we cannot so much as think a good thought and therefore not love I answer that though all things in man are of him through him Rom. 11.36 and to him as the Apostle speaks yet of all things in man mans will is most his own and this so lest by God to man that for it when it freely loves God it may return him in recompence as it were his love again The free present of a paire of pigeons with man is more esteemed than the return of 100 l. which was lent and the borrower bound to repay God often expresseth his regard to the love of his servants when he asks them Am I delighted with the sacrifices of goats and bullocks Ps 50.9 and who requires these things at your hands Isa 1.12 and by his Prophet Jeremiah I spake not to your fathers Jer. 7.22 nor commanded them when I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning sacrifices to be satisfied or served therewith Save onely by these as outward testimonies of your inward affections which indeed as to me are the onely sacrifice and service And from hence iris that God and man repay love with love For love hath an Adamantine power that is able to draw the hardest heart of iron unto it self by a mutuall love For the very apprehension of
same causes and meanes that mans love decreaseth the love of God increaseth SOme Divines have propounded the question why Christ the second Person in the holy Trinity rather than either of the other persons was made man and among other reasons this they give in answer That our first parents sin 1 Cor. 1.24 in desiring to be as God knowing good and evill directly opposeth the wisdome of God which is Christ And to shew the infinite love of God to man that Person who most directly was offended came down from Heaven tooke mans nature and suffered more than man could do and all to redeem man So that he alone God that can draw good out of evill and light out of darknesse used mans sin as an occasion through his love to save mankinde The Prophet Zacbary describes the state of the world Zach. 6. and in especially of the Israelites by foure Chariots the first whereof had red horses which typified the bloody Babylonians the second had black horses which noted the Persians under whom the Jews were neer their utter extirpation the third had white horses by which may be meant the Macedonians who as Alexander and others were gracious and favourable to the Jews the fourth had grizled or horses of divers colours which figured the changeable various and mixed government of the Romans which first or last is destructive to a State And now under this power and rule which contained all the misrule and barbarous usage of the three other Governments came the Messias into the world and this by the Apostle is called the fulnesse of time Gal. 4.4 because when the sin of the world was at the full now was the time of our blessed Saviour to come into the world and by his unspeakable love to redeem it The Prophet Isaiah sets forth Jerusalem thus Their hands are defiled with blood and their fingers with iniquity Isa 59.3 their lips have spoken lies and their tongues perversenesse none calleth for justice nor any pleadeth for truth the act of violence is in their hands their feet run to evill and they make baste to shed innocent blood their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity wasting and destruction are in their paths The way of peace they know not yea judgement is turned backward and justice standeth afar off for truth is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter and he that departeth from evill maketh himself a prey And the Lord saw and wondered that there was no Intercessor therefore his arm brought salvation For he put on righteousnesse as a breast-plate and vengeance for a clothing and according to their deeds he will repay fury to his adversaries but to Zion shall the Redeemer come And is there any thing in all this that savours but of the love of God to truth and justice to his people though laden with their sins and for this punished and oppressed by their enemies The love of Christ in this kinde is not to be uttered or any way expressed I will summe it up therefore in that one passage of S. Paul the same night that our Lord Jesus was betrayed he instituted the Sacrament of his body broken 1 Cor. 11.23 and of his bloud shed as a sacrifice fully and solely expiatory for the sin of the whole world And while the Jews cried to the Romans Crucifie crucifie him he for them more incessantly praies to his Father Father forgive them and though they said Let his blood be upon us and our children yet he tells them My blood is shed for you and for all that will take and apply it to the forgivenesse of their sins The Psalmist in a wonder and amazement of this excessive love Psal â— 4 exclaims Lord what is man that thou art so mindfull of him or the son of man that thou visitest him for what is there in himself as man but that is to be abhorred his body being at the best but a bag of bones a sinke of foule water and stinking dirt and his soule like a cage of uncleane birds or a forge of wicked imaginations and a storehouse of sinne To the Psalmists question Why Lord hast thou so visited man no other answer or reason can be given then this of the Apostle Job 3.16 So God loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son to be made saith the Prophet Isay Isa 9.6 as a childe as the Apostle Saint Paul saith as a Servant who emptied himself as it were Phil. 2.7 to a nothing and all this as the effect onely of his infinite incomprehensible Love CHAP. XIV Gods jealousie JEalousie in man is an excesse of love and for the most part is the attendant of some ill condition in him whereas in God it is the quintessence as it were of his love And this riseth in God and moves him to anger and punishment when he finds himself dishonoured or neglected by those he loves Moses not onely tells us Exo. 20.5 that he is a jealous God but adds Exod. 34.14 that his Name is jealous And such is his jealousie that although he suffered the rebellious murmurings of his Israel Exo. 34.14 yet when they committed spirituall whoredome in making and worshipping the golden calf he destroyed 33000. of them and had not his deare servant Moses interceded he had in his jealousie utterly destroyed them all Covetousnesse by S. Paul is called Idolatry Col. 3.5 and when God finds his people worshipping or setting their hearts on these it moves him to jealousie Yea God is jealous of the inordinate or overmuch love of the husband to the wife or of the wife to the husband For these may love each other so much that some part of the love and worship due to God is bestowed on the Creature And for this God oft times turns jealous and in his anger takes the one from the other or bereaves them of their delight which is children And it being so that God hath commanded us to love him with all our heart and with all the strength and powers of the soule the least alienation of our love from God and bestowed on vain delights moves God to jealousie and provokes his anger And as the least withdrawing of our love from God works jealousie in him so when he finds us persist in a daily revolt from him he ceaseth any longer to be jealous See this proved in Israels case where God for Israels multiplied departings from him threatens My jealousie shall depart from them Ezek. 16.42 and I will be quiet and will be no more angry And this is the saddest condition that a soule can fall into for then it is apparent that God hath sent a bill of divorce to that soul and hath removed his love utterly from it for where God loves he cannot but be jealous Chap. XV. Gods revealing his secrets is a great demonstration of his love to man DElilab useth this as an argument Judg. 16.15 that Samson
forces yet no lesse doth she abhor and resist all other sins of the lower rank S. Paul when he saith Charity suffereth long 1 Cor. 13.4 what saith he lesse than that as the impatient man acts against the long suffering Charity so Charity works against all impatience and as Charity that envieth not is assaulted by the envious so Charity fighteth against envy and as Charity that vaunteth not nor is puffed up is opposed by pride so Charity labours to beat down pride And what from S. Paul I have said of those sins mentioned is alike true of those other sins instanced by S. Paul and of all other sins committed in the world And therefore not onely the Apostles but their and our Lord and Master Christ hath taught us this lesson that Charity is the fulfilling of the Law Insomuch as Rom. 13.10 so far as Charity can prevail to the killing of sin Mat. 22.40 which is the transgression of the Law she may well be called the fulfilling of the Law And so high an esteem had our Lord Christ of the great virtue and power which Charity hath in the work of our salvation that when he had largely preached of the whole duty of man and given him many precepts and expositions of the Decalogue necessary to be understood and followed by old and young learned and illiterate for the relief of mans memory and the greater incouragement to his proceeding he summes up all and tells us all the Law and all that God requires of man is nothing else but Charity that is love to God and for his sake love to thy neighbour S. Augustine addeth that as God calls himself Love who is all in all 1 John 4.8 for all things are from him by him and for him so the like in a quailfied and reverend sense we may speak of Love or Charity we say he that hath not houses nor Vineyards nor Lands yet if he hath Money he hath potentially all so may we say of Charity in respect of other graces and endowments of the soul In the place before cited S. Paul speaks that of himself 1 Cor. 13.1 which the best of men may say of themselves with the like truth that could I preach as though I spoke with the tongue of Angels yet this without Charity will make me but like an empty sound of brasse or like the bell in the sleeple that calls others to the Church and so to Heaven while it self hangs without doors Nay do I give all my goods to the poore and my body to martyrdome for the truth and have no charity these will profit me nothing Yea if I understand all the mysteries of God and have all faith saith he and have not Charity observe this he saith not of this last as of the former gifts of preaching martyrdome or goods that these without Charity profit nothing but he saith that although he hath all understanding all knowledge and all saith yet these without Charity make him not onely as a sound or which profiteth nothing but he saith that having these and not having Charity he is plainly nothing nothing as in Gods acceptance and nothing as appertaining to the Kingdome of Heaven The Prophet Isaiah tells the people that God regards not Isa 1. but abhors the sacrifices which he requires of them and that when they lift up their hands to Heaven he will hide his eyes and not see them and when they make many long and loud prayers unto him yet he will not hear them And how or why is God become so averse to his own commands and ordinances the Prophet tells us the cause is want of Charity when he saith Your hands are full of blood your works are full of evill injustice and oppression In a word I see not I hear not saith God but I abhor you and your works because both want Charity Much like this hath the same Prophet Isa 58. taxing the falshood of the Israelites who hypocritically cried out saying Have we not held our Fasts and have we not afflicted our souls yet thou O Lord seest not neither takest thou knowledge of our holy acts To whom the Lord in truth makes answer T is true I neither see nor take knowledge nor pleasure in your sounds and shews of holinesse For in or by these saith God ye exact your labours or things wherewith ye grieve others And ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickednesse and call ye this your fasting saith God no saith he the fast that I have chosen is to loose the bands of wickednesse to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoak of Taxes Excize and the like these these and not praying preaching fasting with murder robbery and oppression are the works of Charity well pleasing to and required of God Without which no man by his crying Lord Lord Mat. 7.23 shall enter into the Kingdome of Heaven CHAP. XVIII Our love to God is to precede all other loves SUch was the exceeding goodnesse of God to his people that he knowing the many delights and enticements of the world the flesh and the Devill to withdraw mans love from his God that he not onely wrote in the heart of man that he was to love his Creator but that he might never forget it he gives him this as a spirituall Law written in the Tables of stone Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart Deut. 6. with all thy soul and with all thy might In which words not onely the precept is exprest to love him but the reason is annexed because he is the Lord of all and thy God in speciall And that thou mayest keep this commandment it shall be in thy heart And because from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh therefore thou shalt talk of it sitting walking lying rising that thy children thereby may learne the same and thou shalt binde it on thine hand and between thine eyes and shalt write it upon the posts of thine house and on thy gates I do not remember that any law or precept was so largely and strongly injoyned as this binding heart tongue eyes and all the faculties of the soul to love God Probably some may demand wherefore the Almighty should so earnestly and desirously require our love before or more then any or all things else that are in mans power In answer whereunto I may say that man hath nothing else to present that is so much his own or that is so much worthy of Gods acceptance nor so easie and beneficiall to himself for man to give as his love And therefore that which is least painfull or chargeable and most easie and beneficiall to the giver man and which withall is most pleasing to the Receiver God God the Receiver in his infinite goodnesse hath required of man the giver onely his love If a man were in danger to lose
himself under the Law and the Gospell Deut. â— 5 Thou love him with all thy heart and with all thy soule with all the strength and faculties thereof For as a great Prince coming to an Inne takes up all the rooms in the house not holding it to stand with his state to have any stranger a sharer with him so is it and much more with God And that again because as S. John saith 1 John 3.20 God is greater then thy heart so that all is too little for him though he hath all And if he will not endure that one Temple shall receive both his Ark and the Idoll Dagon will he be content 1 Sam. 5 in his bed-chamber which is mans heart to endure his enemies the World the flesh and the Devill to have their abode or to lodge there No one saith Christ cannot serve two Masters I am sure not two such that are so contrary and opposite as God is to the Devill the World and the Flesh neither saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 6.14 can light dwell with darknesse nor Christ with Belial The Prophet Elijah saith unto the people 1 Kings 18.21 How long halt ye between two opinions if the Lord be God serve him but if Baal then follow him God will not cannot endure any corrivall much lesse any bedfellow with him in the heart of man Moses tells Pharaoh Exod. â—â— that God will not suffer him to leave so much as an hoof behinde in Egypt when he goes to sacrifice to God for the least possession is a kinde of engagement against God The world or the Devill like the counterfeit mother cries divide it let me have a part t is no matter which living or dead so God hath not all to himselt alone whereas the true mother of the living child â— Kin. 3. will admit of no division but she will have all or none and such is Gods desire for if the heart be divided as Hâ—sea speaks of Israel â—os 10. it is as the childe divided which cannot live to the true Parent But O man consider how reasonable and just God is in requiring thy whole soule and how unjust and unreasonable thou art in denying it him entire or dividing it in parts betwixt him and his enemies Consider I say when he created the goodly universe of this world and so gloriously adorned and furnished it not onely with the fruitfull plants and fragrant flowers but with those bright Lamps in Heaven that he made all this and gave it entire to thee alone making thee the sole Lord thereof in respect of any other creatures over all which also he gave thee temporall power and dominion and as though in this he had shewed but half or indeed but the least part of his love consider that God himself gave himself wholly to thee was incarnate suffered died rose and all onely for thee and not for any other And is not this argument sufficient that the least thou canst return in gratitude should be thy heart entire not to be cut into parcels or shreds some whereof to be given to the giver of all and the rest to his and thine own enemies But some perchance may say though this is just and reasonable which is required yet it is most difficult for man clothed with flesh to performe this duty so strictly commanded to love God with all the affections and thoughts of the soul and these ever to be fixed on him and nothing else neither on parents friends or things of this life In answer hereunto I must tell you that God knoweth what we are and whereof we are made and therefore in this strict command or absolute request of all our love he prohibits us neither to love parents children friends no nor the things of this world so we love them with these two rules or cautions 1. That we love neither friends nor things on earth with such a degree of affection as may alienate or divide our fouls from God And therefore God himself hath not onely commanded us to love our neighbours all our neighbours of what rank or distance soever so they be men and to seek in the second place things necessary for the life and well being of our selves and those who depend on us and for whom we are to provide but hath figured the fame in proportioning our heart which though it hath a large and broad superficies upward to look and dilate it self to Heaven yet it hath but a cone or small point downwards to the things beneath The second caution in our love to any thing besides God is that whatever we thus love it must virtually tend and move to the service and glory of God And in this our love resembles the point of the needle in the Sea-mans Card or the Geometricians paire of compasses the former of which though it be ever moving and as it were casting about to severall parts yet it still returns and reteins its whole setled course to the true pole star and the latter though the one foot of the Compasse circuit and surround the circumference or globe of the earth yet the other stands ever firm and constant to the point which point here as that star before in this our application is God So that God who without any shew of covetousnesse in himself or wrong to thee might require all thy substance all thy actions and all thy time wholly to be dedicated and spent on his immediate holy service yet grants rhee the fruits of thy honest labour thy wealth and bids thee give his poore onely th t which thou mayest well spare and of the fruits of thy increase he takes onely a tenth and from thy worldly travails onely a seventh part and that Love which he wholly and entirely calls for is the affection and love of thy heart Shall I summe up all There is none so ungodly in this world but assents to this generall doctrine that God is to be so loved as he requires but all the question and difference lies in the performance and manner of loving for the most wicked in some sort may be said to love God But how and why for it is but with a carnall or worldly minde and to their own end and behoof as by him to enjoy life health wealth pleasure and delight and so they love God for these things that if he would confirm his letters patents unto them that these they might perpetually enjoy they would readily release unto him all the grant and interest made to them in Heaven On the other side the true lovers of God so love the world as that thereby and therewith they may the better serve him and promote his glory without which they desire neither the things of the world nor long to continue in it They love these things so as a man doth his horse his cloak or garment the one to carry him through his journey to his Inne and the other to keep him warm and
to defend him from the hurt or violence of the weather so that the love of the first is like that of the Strumpets all for reward or what will ye give me and by these means he makes the principall of what he should love God but the accessory to the thing he loves and the accessory indeed the things of the world and flesh he makes the principall part of his love Whereas the true lover makes God the prime originall principall cause and mover of all his love and all things else but subordinate and subservient to this love The regenerate and unregenerate children of God in this world make use of Gods blessings and so return their love to God as Isaac blessed his two sons Jacob and Esau where the father in blessing Jacob ver 28. begins with heaven Gen. 27. God give thee of the dew of heaven yet he after adds the fatnesse of the earth but in blessing Esau ver 39. he begins with the earth Behold thy dwelling shall be of the fatnesse of the earth and of the dew above In like manner God gives his truly beloved Israel the dew the desire and love of heaven in the first place but to the Edomite first the fatnesse of the earth and according as their desires are set so also are their loves this mans to the world and the others to God And by these their loves as by certain and infallible rules ye may know and discerne what they are CHAP. XX. The love of the heavenly Angels unto man IN this Chapter of Angels my Authour is very large and attributes mare unto Angels then I can finde sufficient ground for therefore I shall abbreviate and deliver no more from him then I conceive is warrantable Which is In Scripture we have no mention of an Angel untill the world was above nineteen hundred years old Gen. 16.7 and who that Angell was that appeared and talked with Hagar is questioned By the learned among which many are of opinion that it was God himself for that he said ver 10. I will multiply thy seed and that she answered v. 13. and called the name of the Lord that spake unto her Thou God seest me But if this were not God but a created Angell the question may be wherefore Moses so faithfully and fully speaking of Gods works in that great Creation neither then nor in all the time since till this of Genesis hath any word of an Angell Some are of opinion that Moses writing more especially to his Countrymen the Jews omitted the history of the Angels creation lest the Jews over apt as the most simple people are to Idolatry might by it have fallen into such an esteem of them as to have adored them Or Moses writing his history of the Creation in brief exprest onely what more directly concerned man to know concerning his duty and service to God yet when he finds a just and necessary cause he then omits not to speak of them as in this story of Hagar Now what they are though we have not in Scripture any exact discourse or definition of their natures yet the Psalmist hath exprest the end and office why they are created when he saith God shall give his Angels charge over thee Psame 91.11 to keep thee in all thy waies and this that they may the better do he adds in another Psalme He maketh his Angels Spirits Psalme 114.4 his Ministers a flaming fire or a flame of fire as the Apostle renders it Which summed up the result will be Heb. 1.7 that Gods good Angels are created for the good and benefit of Gods good servants on earth to whom under and from God they are in a kinde of ministery or service as is expresly spoken by the Apostle Are they not all ministring Spirits Hebr. 1.14 sent forth to minister for them who shall be heires of salvation And Psa 34.8 The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that feare him and delivereth them And that they may do God service for mans good God hath made them for their activenesse agile and swift as Spirits and for their fervency and zeale in discharge of their office as a flame of fire The Scripture is plentifull in the confirmation thereof therefore when Hagar is blessed in the promise of a great issue Gen. 16. it is done by an Angell and when she and her son were in a famiâ—hing distresse they receive their comfort by an Angel Gen. 21.17 and they were Angels that brought and delivered Lot out of the fire in Sodome Gen. 19. â—15 When King Hezekiah and the people of Judah were in eminent danger to be swallowed up and destroyed by the vast and potent army of the Assyrians 2 Kings 19. then the Angel of the Lord smote of the Assyrians in one night 185000. And we finde the three servants of God cast into the fiery Furnace when God sends his Angell and delivered them that trusted in him then Daniel cast into the Lions Den Dan. 3.28 we see in the same place the Angel of God shutting the Lions mouths Dan. 6.22 that they cannot hurt him And the blessed Babe Christ his Mother and supposed Father being in jeopardy of their lives by that blood-sucker Herod Matth. 2.13 behold the Angell of the Lord counsels and guides them forth from the malice and rage of that tyrant And an Angel of the Lord did as much for Peter Act. 12.8 when he was cast into prison and ready the same night to have been destroyed by another Herod Many rare examples have we of the deliverances of Gods servants out of great and imminent dangers and of other their helps and comforts in time of need and distresse by the hand and help of Gods ministring Spirits the good Angels To shut up all they were Angels who pronounced John the Baptist to be the light and forerunner of the Messias 〈◊〉 1.13 Mat. 1.10 They were Angels who proclaimed the birth of the Son of God Mat. 4.11 our for ever most blessed Saviour Angels they were that ministred unto him after his long fasting Luk. 22.43 and that comforted him in his sad passion Matth. 28.5 and Angels that preached the joy of his resurrection Joh. 20.12 Thus farre we may safely go and with the warranty of Sacred writ pronounce to Gods glory and his mercy the loving offices performed by Angels to Gods dear servants but to say as my Authour and diverse otherwise learned Divines do that every particular man hath his Tutelar guardian Angel to attend guide and protect him I cannot say for the two places by them cited to prove this where it is said of the little Ones Mat. 18 1â— Their Angels in heaven do behold the face of God which is in heaven and that where it is said of Peter It is his Angel Act. 12.15 confirme not their Tenet For by their Angels and his Angel in those two
Texts may be understood these or such Angels as God had especially appointed as helps for them and yet not that thence it should necessarily and generally follow that every man hath and is to have his particular Angel But in this I will not be peremptory but submit my opinion to the judgment of the better learned and so from the love of God and Angels I will follow mine Author to speak of the love of man to man CHAP. XXI Of the love which man oweth to his neighbour WHen the Pharisee demanded of our Saviour Christ which was the great commandement in the law Jesus said unto him Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart Mat. 22.36 c. This is the first and great commandement and the second is like unto it Thou s halt love thy neighbour as thy self on these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets whence it appeareth that the love of our Neighbour is next unto and a declaration of that former of our love to God And that it is so farre necessary that when the Pharisee only asked which was the great commandement Christ not only answered him directly to that but thought it requisite to adde what the hypocriticall Pharisee least cared for to know or practise namely what God had commanded touching his neighbour yea and S. Chrysostome addes that in some respects preachers have more cause to inforce this doctrine of love to our neighbour then that of our love to God for that all things which we see feel have and enjoy prompt and move us to this whereas there are many and severall occasions daily offered through our words bargains transactions and private interest to divert or lessen our love to our neighbour and therefore I shall set you down some reasons moving to and confirming the necessity of this duty And the first shall be that our Saviour Christ gave us this commandement which indeed is in the nature of an inestimable legacy even then when he was to depart this life and to leave the world and we usually say and hold it true that the charge or gift of a dying friend sticks and works most in the heart of the friend living and therefore Christ at the last point as it were before his passion speaks unto his disciples and in them unto us saying My time is short and I finde death approaching Joh. 13.34 before which I have one especiall remembrance to give you that you love one another and that in no ordinary way or according to the course of this world but so to love one another even as I have loved you who conversed with you kindly communicated all to you friendly and have truly laid down my life for you Therefore my last Will and Legacy to you is that as I have loved you that even so yee love one another And to strengthen yea to sweeten this gift of command Christ in the words following gives a good reason for saith he by this kind of love among you as by a cognizance or badge all men shall know that yee are my disciples and I this will prove if not in the eyes and estimation of the world yet I am sure in the hearts of all good men in the esteem of Saints and Angels and in the eyes of my heavenly Father a peece of great honour unto you to be know through your mutuall love to be my disciples The brethren of Joseph fearing that he might call to minde and revenge the injuries done unto him by his brethren Gen. 50.16 they sent a messenger unto Joseph who said unto him Thy Father did command before he dyed forgive I pray thee now the trespasse of thy brethren and their sinne which words of his dying Father when Joseph heard he wept faith the text and spake kindly unto them and not only exprest his love by words and tears but he comfortted and nourished them and their little ones and the like love with Joseph if we have any bowels toward so dear a friend our Lord and Master as Christ was we will shew for his sake who dying commanded us so to love one another as he loved us who gave his life for us And yet lest as Christ foresaw and foretold that in the last days as iniquity should increase so charity would wax cold and thereby both our love to such a dead friend and for his sake to our neighbour would grow faint and dye he therefore gives us a second reason to love our neighbours which with man may happily work more then the former because it contains in it the unspeakable benefit and reward acquired by this love to our neighbour and this benefit is no lesse then the kingdome of heaven with the full fruition of all the unutterable and unconceivable joyes with Christ for ever All which are evidently and expresly promised and annexed to this love for when God in the Law and our Saviour in the Gospel have pronounced life and the kingdome of heaven to those that keep and fulfill the law and their commands the Apostle as the Embassadour of God hath plainly pronounced and proclaimed that love is the fulfilling of all this law Rom. 13.10 indeed our Saviour himself spake no lesse and from it this our Apostle might take his Commission when he said Mat. 22.40 on love depends all the Law and the Prophets Neither doeth the reward of our love to our neighbour terminate and end in this great blessing declared but it works before it comes to that and produceth singular and infinite blessings therefore our Saviour before he commends the keeping of this commandement of love to his disciples Joh. 14.14 he prefaceth what ever yee shall aske of God in my name that will I doe then in the next words he subjoyneth as the means to obtain this wonderfull grant and blessing saying v. 15. this is to be performed if yee love me and keep my commandements that is to love one another And yet as though this were not the halfe of that blessed reward which Christ annexeth to this love he goes on saying it you love v. 16. I will give you the Comforter who may abide with you forever even the spirit of truth intimating hereby and that plainly that as by love we receive the comfort of the holy Spirit and truth so without it neither truth nor comfort will or can dwell or abide with us And which is a third reason to incite and stirre us to this love nature it selfe infuseth this love into the heart of man which in this sympathiseth with the sensitive creatures that all so love and agree together according to their severall kindes that they not only fall not out among themselves to hurt each other but feed nourish flock and herd together helping and defending each other against the assaults and hurts of other enemies to their kind And this reason of love drawn from common reason is and
ought much to be strengthned by that bond of naturall propagation for that what God vouchsafed not to other creatures no nor to his good Angels he granted unto man as an especiall bounty and sign of his love that all mankind should proceed from one generall Father Adam that so all his posterity as descending from one and the same root might all love as being in or indeed as all but one I read that when Trajan the Emperor had sent to Pliny Praetor in Sicily to destroy all the Christians there the Praetor forbore the execution and counselled the Emperor rather to cherish then extirpate them for saith he they are a people which live in obedience to law they neither rob nor kill nor injure any but live as hating none but loving all And when I read that of S. Paul love is the fulfilling of the law I finde that the Apostle in the same text by way of command bids to owe no man any thing but mutuall love Rom. 13.18 whence I conclude that love as it is a command from God so from and by God it is held as a debt and so injoyned as that though we daily pay it yet we should never be discharged from it but that we should with our days and years grow yearly and daily more in this debt of mutuall love But there is a fourth reason perswading and urging this love which is stronger then that of nature and this is our spirituall brotherhood as being not so much one from our naturall parents as one by our spirituall birth and regeneration in our baptisme whereby being united to our head Christ we are all become members of Christs mysticall body and this if any thing will inforce our love It was the argument which good Abraham used to Lot Let us have no breach nor difference betwixt us but let us love and live in accord For saith he and he thought he could bring no stronger argument for it then this me are brethren Gen. 13.8 And we Christians may say we are all brethren not by one Father in the flesh but by one Father which is in heaven and by one Mother the chast undefiled spouse of Christ and by these we become heires not of an estate got by force or fraud and which may be taken away by fire theeves injustice or an usurping power but of an inheritance in the heavens where neither theef nor usurper shall ever come to help himself or hurt us When S. Paul had shewed how in Christ we are all become one body 1 Cor. 1â— 1â— he then inferres that no one part can pride it selfe over an other saying I have no need of thee but that as members in the naturall body so much more being members in this mysticall body of Christ we should be tenderly compassionate and not only not to have Schismes and breaches but much more not to hurt or offend but rather to help and defend each other from wrong and oppression and so farre as the law will permit to act as Moses did when he saw his contreymen to be oppressed or wronged Exod. 2.13 S. Chrysostome useth an other metaphor to perswade this love when he tells us that this spirituall brotherhood is as the cementing stones together in an arch or other building where as the one supports the other so all united bind and keep all fast and safe together To which well may that of S. Paul be applyed that love or peace is the bond of perfection and therefore Col. 2.14 Eph. 4.3 keeps the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace In which texts as love is the bond ligament or hold-fast of the Christians mysticall body so it is the bond uniter and knitter together of all the perfection that man in this world can attain unto You see the great sweet and powerfull effects of this spirituall love begotten by our baptisme into Christ which is much cherished and increased by the Sacrament of his body and bloud It was not only acted by Caliline but long before him and since I would I could not say the like of Christians that they strengthned their leagues and covenants of holding together as it were in one binding each other to defend and keep them though they were covenants with hell and death yet these I say they entred into and strengthned by drinking the bloud either of themselves or others a covenant we have taken and received the Sacrament of the bloud not of beasts or man but of God himself that as we are all members of one body which is Christ so we will love one another In the reall and true performance whereof if we fail S. Paul tells us that we have not only taken that Sacrament unworthily 1 Cor. 11 27. but therein we have taken our own damnation because saith he we did not discern the body and bloud of Christ but did eate and drink these as of course and in ordinary and not considering that if we kept and performed the commandement and covenant of love the seal whereof was the body and the red inke the bloud of Christ that then we should have life everlasting in him but otherwise nothing but infirmities sicknesse and death And whether we finde not these sad and deadly effects to have fallen upon us for the want or breach of Gods commandements and our covenant signed and sealed in the Sacrament of Christs body and bloud judge and seriously think of it while I proceed to The fifth reason why man should love his neighbour which is grounded upon the nature of the Law-giver God for generally such as the legislator is such are his laws So that be the law-maker a bloudy man his laws savour of cruelty and bloud whereas be he of a sweet meek disposition his laws are full of mercy and love Now God being love it self his law or command to man that he love his neighbour relisheth of Gods own nature as flowing from it So that the nearer we come to the fulfilling this law of love the nearer we approach to the nature of God which is love Christ therefore though at first he took not away all legall sacrifices yet he profest that he would have mercy and not sacrifice Mat. 9.13 or mercy rather then sacrifice but so as in the sacrifice of Cain if it were mingled with the hatred of his brother Abel he rejected it and in this or such a sacrifice he saith I will have mercy and not sacrifice and accordingly when the Scribe answering Christ according to his own doctrine that to love our neighbour as our self Mar. 12.13 is more then all sacrifices Christ hereupon finding that the Scribe answered discreetly and to the truth he said unto him Thou art not farre from the kingdome of God which is as much as if Christ had said thus to teach and so to doe is the straight way to the kingdome of God and without it there is no other way In the
Leviticall Law we read that God finding the Jews to be hard hearted and merciless to incline them to better and more loving dispositions he gave them severall Laws wherein he forbids them to eate bloud and to boyle the kid in the milke of the damme and injoyns them to leave the gleanings after harvest for the poor and some grapes for the passenger and that every seventh year the land should have rest and the benefit thereof to accrew unto the poor And although Christ was a zealous and strict observer of the Sabbath as consecrated to Gods service Mat. 12.27 yet for the necessary reliefe of man he is content to dispense with some part of that days service and therefore concludes that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath And according to this law of God and Christ Moses under the law and S. Paul under the Gospel were so zealous in their loves to their brethren that the former desires to be blotted out of Gods book rather then his countreymen should be destroyed Exod. 32 and the latter rather then his brethren in the flesh should not be saved he could wish himself to be separated from Christ Rom. 9. or excommunicated from the Church Some ancient Fathers are of opinion that when Elijah laboured to draw the Israelites from their Idolatry to God 1 King 17.6 and that himselfe was there involved and driven near to famme that God sent Ravens a kind of bird which leaves her young featherlesse and meatlesse to feed him that thereby he might mollifie the heart of the Prophet to be more tender to his countrey-men and by his prayer to obtain rain and the fruits of the earth for them And without conjectures the text is plain that the widow of Zarephah her compassionate love in feeding the Prophet out of her small remainder of her little meal and oyle is recompensed with such an increase 1 King 17.16 that neither her oyle nor her meal failed so long as the famine continued So true is that of our Saviour Be mercifull as your heavenly Father is mercifull and Give Luke 6.37 38. and it shall be given unto you good measure as to the widow last mentioned pressed down shaken together and running over for with the same measure that you mete with all it shall be measured to you again A sixt reason for this law of love is drawn from the end of all good laws which are made that we may live in security enjoy our peace which is accomplished principally by this love to our neighbour The old law given to the Jews by which they conceived that they might hate and kill their enemies Gal. 5.1 S. Paul calls servitude or bondage but the law of grace which commands love to all he terms liberty because as by that law slavery so by this liberty is acquired to every state Again S. Paul building upon the same foundation raiseth his work by bowels of mercies Gol. 3.12 kindnesse humblenesse of mind forbearing one another if any man have a quarrell against any even as Christ also forgave you even so doe ye and above all these things put on Charity which as it is the foundation of all so it is the bond of all perfection S. Jerome writes of S. John that being through age grown so weak that he was carried by his disciples to the Church he ever and anon repeated this saying of our Saviour Love one another and being asked by them why so often he commemorated this text rather then any other he answered that in this they should fulfill the whole law insomuch as none could love God unlesse he loved his neighbour In which others agree saying that the love of God is the center of all our true love on which the heart as on a point of the Compasse being set the other point moves about the whole circumference of the world and indeed he that carefully observeth the tenor of the Epistles of that beloved and loving disciple S. John he shall finde this often insisted upon that the love of God and of our neighbour are so inseparable that he that doth the one cannot but doe the other for that the love of God necessarily produceth the love of our neighbour And therefore when our Saviour before his departure out of the world would set a mark of distinction whereby his disciples should be known from all others the note or mark was not preaching or prophecying for happily Judas Hymeneus Philetus Diotrephes or others might say as those of whom Christ speaks Lord Lord have not we prophecied in thy name Mat. 7.21 22 23 nor was the note of distinction the working miracles or casting out devills for Simon Magus and others in Christs name did the like and of those and such like Christ saith I take you not for my disciples Depart hence I know you not Joh. 13.35 for my mark is love and by this men shall know that ye are my disciples and such as for whom I have prepared a place in my kingdome CHAP. XXII The manner how we are to love our neighbour THe Scripture hath given us three rules by which we are taught how to love our neighbour The first is that of our Saviour Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Mat. 22.33 the second is that which Christ likewise prescribes as I have loved you Joh. 13.34.1 Cor. 12 12. so shall ye love one the other the third is that of S. Paul comparing the members of Christs mysticall body to the parts of mans body naturall The loving our neighbour as our selfe is to be understood first as desiring the same graces spirituall and eternall to thy brother as to thy selfe secondly wishing in all things else the like to be done to thy neighbour as thou wishest to be done to thy self And against this first rule of love we find in the world two offenders the one in the excesse the other in the defect and among the former besides some others whom I might touch I may not amisse place some preachers in our times who as some Physitians through covet of gain or other respects so much intend the cure of others that they neglect the health of their own bodies so these by their preaching raise others and lye still themselves in their own sins of whom and such like I may use S. Pauls words Thou art inexcusable O man Rom. 2.1.21 for thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self ' and likewise wise that of our Saviour Physitian thou that professest to cure others heal thy self The Defective Lover hath one scale wherein to weigh himself and another for his Neighbour which Moses tells us is an abomination before God yet too many such there are Deut. 25. who looking into their neighbors vertues or miseries they see them with diminishing-glasses whereby they seem little or not considerable the first as not to be commended and the latter as not
have been known so overcome with the desire of having that they did not themselves desire to enjoy their wealth but have lived as Tantalus feigned by the Poets to stand in a goodly stream of water with a tree full of pleasant fruit over his head yet was ready to starve for hunger and choke for thirst and such is that wretched mans estate who in his abundance can hardly find in his heart to afford himself necessaries but in stead thereof he is well pleased to live in the middest of all his wealth as a rat imprisoned in a trap standing in a roome full of grain or as a ferrit with his lips sewed up So that to such men their wealth is of no more use then a shadow whereof they can make no more advantage then for sight to look upon And this is so far from giving joy to the possessors of wealth that when Christ pronounceth his first blessing saying Lu. 6.20 Blessed be the poor for yours is the kingdom of God then as answerable hereunto he denounceth his first woe to the rich 〈◊〉 â—4 saying Woe unto you that are rich for you have received your consâ—lâ—tâ—â—◠〈◊〉 which last words may be understood Iro◠〈…〉 by the way of a scornfull jeere unto them 〈◊〉 call it a consolation to have riches or at the most they can intend no more then woe be to you hereafter for here and only here you have that you call consolation in your wealth And this is evident from that parable uttered by Christ Luk. 16.25 where he saith under the person of Abraham to the rich man Son remember that thou in thy life time received thy good things this was thy consolation the good things of this world in this life and therefore now in hell thou art tormented where we see that as the poor Lazar that suffers here on earth shall be comforted in heaven so the rich miser that comforts himself here in his wealth shall be tormented in hell so that with these it fares as with the Hen that scratcheth hard to get her living yet dead is served to the best mans table when the hawke a bird of prey well fed and attended on once dead is cast to the dunghill And this is the evil of all evils or that may comprise all evils in it self that by the covetous desire of riches the soul is too often in jeopardy of being cast into utter darkness In the Gospels our Saviour speaking of riches and cares of the world Mat. 13. Mark 4. Luk. 8. which chook and hinder the growth of Gods seed sowed in mans heart he calls them thornes and besides the reason here assigned by our Saviour riches and worldly cares may be rightly likened to thorns 1 They grow for the most part in the worst grounds so the love of riches comes up in the most sordid and basest souls 2 They draw and suck the juice and fat of the earth from other good seeds and plants whereby they oft times to the 〈…〉 of the world seem neer sterved and so 〈…〉 it with the rich man and his poor neighbour 3 If the poor harmless sheepe shall chance to fall among these thorns the rich men he is sure to be fleeced 4 Thorns hinder and often wound the poor travailer in his journey many a man to his sad experience hath found the like in his way to heaven 5 Thorns are smooth and not discerned to prick or hurt save only by the point and end and so it fareth with riches which few men seem to be troubled with till they grow to their end of death or come to the end of judgement and then they prick and wound or as S. Paul phraseth it they pierce the soul through and round with torturing paines Now the same Lord who hath compared the cares and riches of this world to thorns committed not the purse the bag of these thorns to any of his beloved Apostles or Disciples save only to Judas that miscreant wretch because he considered what a vexation and torture they would prove unto them 2 He knew that as the prodigall mentioned in the Gospel never returned unto his father untill all his temporall goods were spent so neither could he have had any good or comfort in his disciples company so long as they had been intangled therewith as indeed he had not till they had left all and followed him And the leaving these Christ held so necessary towards the attainment of eternall bliss that he pronounceth it as impossible for a rich man to enter heaven Luk. 10.23 as it is for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle But lest these words might have reflected upon holy men then living and dead yet rich Christ expounds himself to speak noâ— simply of men that are rich though at 〈…〉 seemed to speak so but of men that trust in 〈◊〉 riches and for such to enter into heaven it is impossible for God will admit none thither but such as trust in him and they cannot trust in him who trust in their riches To conclude this point in a word â—ol 3.5 S. Paul in one place of his Epistles tells us that covetousness is Idolatry and the root of all evill and in another place that no idolater unclean person or sinner can enter where God is in heaven now put these two texts together and it must evidently and necessarily follow from them that the covetous cannot possibly enter heaven because he is an Idolater trusting in his riches and hath moreover with it the growth of all other sins springing from this one root But if I proceed any further in this Argument I may fear to be taken for some Scholar that is poor and given to his book or contemplation and therefore for the prosecuting this theme so far I may expect the like entertainment as our Saviour Christ had who twice and but twice for ought I read was derided and laughed at once was when he said that the maid who was really dead was but a sleep and for this say the Gospels they laughed him to scorn Mat. â— 24 and the other occasion that moved the Pharisees with others to laugh at him was when Christ had Preached against such as pretended to serve both God and Mammon and hereupon the text saith that the covetous hearing these things they derided him Luk. 1â— 14 so that although this sin of covetousness be the most large spreading ingendring and corrupting sin and therefore such as hath been most severely spoken against by Christ and his Apostles yet so common it is to the â—â—st and the most are so hardned in it that 〈…〉 to speak against it were but to be laâ—ghed at And the rather say these worldlings for that riches are the promised and granted blessings of God as in reward to the well doers and therefore for that most of the Patriarchs good Kings and holy men have been very rich they held it a
foreseeing both the evill that he would fall into and that evill which should fall upon him And to the first evill man from the first was so prone and subject that before he was much more then a day old he fell into it which like an ill weed grew so fast that before the flood in the first generation God saw that the wickedness of man or mankind was great Gen. 6.5 and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evill continually If we consult with King David and Solomon they will speak as much for their times and the like will S. Paul and the other Apostles for the times wherein they lived and as the ends of the world are fallen upon us so have we exceeded all that went before us in eviâ—l And for the evill or misery which man suffers in this life I need say no more then what Job and S. Paul have said before who besides divers others have compared mans life to a warfare or the life of a souldier in which if there be any misery or iniquity to be found in any profession or trade in a small quantity then here it is bound up altogether in an huge volume for all sins in them are so rife and common from the least to the greatest that you may truly speak of it as is said in the Gospel of the unjust Judge Luk. 18. he feared neither God nor man But that I may contract my self and speak to the misery of mans life under the comparison of it to the life of a souldier I must necessarily tell you what the enemies are with which man in this life is to graple The first and chief of these is the Generall the Devil who for his agility is called a spirit for his subtility and stratagems a serpent and an old Dragon for his strength and power to devour a Lion and in his band and under his command are principalities and powers in high places and legions of these without number Mat. 4. and this enemy is of that undaunted spirit that he durst encounter the Son of God as we read in the Gospel and although he were foiled by him yet in revenge and with greater malice he never hath ceased to war against the upright Job the chosen vessell S. Paul Rev. 12.7 against Michael and his Angels yea we find him fighting with the Church and Saints of God Lev. 13.7 and as he scratched buffeted and wounded Job and S. Paul so the Church and the Saints in his encounter he overcame them and yet continually this enemy as S. Peter witnesses 1 Pet. 5.8 walks up and down seeking whom he may devoure The second enemy of man in this life is the Devils Major generall or Marshall of the Field the World 1 Jo. 5.19 which as S. John speaks like the Generall himself is wholly set on to do mischief being the great Malignant and in this company ye shall find Pharaoh who injoyns Israel to continue their task in making brick but takes away their straw like the Roman Conquerors to cense and number the people to fight under their banners and to pay all taxes and customes though both against their wills and such are the slights of these souldiers that as Cain Joab and Judas they will talke of peace speak friendly and kiss whom they mean to devour And in their company they have the whore in the Revelations arayed in purple Rev. 17.4 and gilded with gold having a cup of Gold in her hand full of all abomination and filthiness and with that she allures and deceives her followers although upon her forehead was a name written Mysterie Babylon the great the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth V. 6. and this woman ye shall find drunk with the blood of the Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus Christ The third enemy of man in this life though not so cruel and bloudy to man as the former yet as dangerous to him as being of his own family and lying in his own bosome and this is his flesh and this enemy is so dangerous to man that when he may flee from the world or resist the Devil as the Apostles counsails against them yet of this fleshly enemy we may speak as of the Sun none can shelter or defend himself from the heate thereof nor fly from it for it is mans self Against this enemy called the thorn in the flesh 2 Cor. 12.7 S. Paul though a chosen vessell strugled fought and prayed yea he prayed thrice that it might depart from him but as to this suit he was not heard and therefore he crys out Rom. 7.24 ô wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin For though I find the spirit willing and resisting yet this flesh I find weak and yeelding in so much as we may here use the words of S. James James 1.14 every man is tempted by his own lust and to his enemies assaults every man noble ignoble rich poor young old more or less is subject according to the heate that is in him For can a man carry fire saith the wise man in his bosome and not burn Amnon had often seen his sister Thamar and was not inflamed but at the last he was tempted and overcome Will you now take the sum of all Then know that this life of man is a Sea of trouble a school of vanity an inticement to fraud a labyrinth of errour a dungeon of darkness a den of theeves a wood of thornes a valley of teares a troubled stream of care and sorrow a tale of lyes and a sweet poyson And he that can delight himself in these may love this life but not else For though man be as a souldier who may not move out of his station untill his Generall God Almighty who placed him here call him and bid him go yet his love and delight should not rest upon the place and imployment but upon him who placed him here to fulfill his commands and to fight for his glory CHAP. XXXII The Honour of this world deserves not mans love VVHen I speak here of worldly honour Prov. 22.1 Eccles 7.1 I understand not a mans good name or his godly just and honest life which the wiseman calls a pretious oyntment to keep mans name sweet and delightfull in life and after death For this is to be desired and preserved by every good and wise man Neither do I understand here such praise and glory which are the attendants and followers of our good and laudable actions But I understand by honour that exaltation or lifting up a man to some more eminent place office or title of dignity above others of his rank for some excellency seen in him above others and this to be given him not as a summary reward of his virtuous actions for the true reward hereof is his blessedness and felicity and is the gift of God but as a
wearing pearl or costly array unlesse it be an enemy unto modesty shamefastnesse sobriety or an hinderer of good works but rather then any of these be hindered or diminished away in Gods name with pearles and costly array The great Philosopher Aristotle setting down the qualities and duties of a good and fit wife saith she must be apt to rule within doores according to the will of her husband 2. That she neither carry our nor take in ought against her husbands mind 3. That she be cleanly and handsome to please her husband and not fine and trim to please other men 4. That she be no busie-body in others houses or affaires 5. That she should observe her husbands qualities and conditions that so if they be good she may follow and teach them if ill to avoid them her self and as much as she can to weed them out of her husband or by little and little to wean him from them 6. That with a godly and loving fear she be carefull not to give her husband cause of offence and if he be offended or troubled with discretion and meeknesse to pacifie and mitigate his passions 7. To be a compatient or fellow-sufferer as a true yoke-fellow in all estates as well in adversity as in prosperity We read that Admetus being sick and the Augures inquired of how he might recover they answered it could not be but by the death of his best friend which his wife hearing answered he cannot have a better friend then me his wife and thereupon to recover him she killed her self I propound not this as a thing to be imitated but to shew of what power the compassionate love of a wife is to which I might adde that of Phinehas his wife who upon the report of her husbands death 1 Sam. 4.19 fell in travail and died and from these and many the like instances we may conclude that the compassionate love of women to their husbands is as Salomon said Gent. 8.6 as strong as death And now having touched some duties and qualities of good wives I shall add a few observations or exhortations if you please to call them so whereby wives may the better be inabled to performe those duties and to make those qualities be more gracious and seem more glorious And the first shall be that the wife learn to be obedient to her husband with a loving fear as well in his absence as in his presence For though the husband happily in some respects may be inferior to her yet she having yeelded to be his wife she hath withall made him her head and it is an honour to the wife to reverence her husband that he may appear to others worthy of honour The second is that she be modest and bashfull even in her greatest desires and best delights fire being blown may seem to resist the breath although by it it is kindled Nolo nimis facilem saith one Poet I refuse the too easie yeelder and fugit ad salices se cupit ante videri saith another she fled to the covert and seemed desirous to be first seen both intimating that a gentle and modest refusall provokes and inflames desires I observe that Rebecca when she had travailed many miles uncovered now approaching near the place where Isaac her husband was to meet her that she then put on her vaile that love or desire in women is most to be esteemed when she seems to refuse with one hand yet ready to entertain and imbrace her husband with the other A third may be that she be not garish in her dressings or to disguise her self with spots patches or paintings I have read that a Judge who perswaded the husband who had put away his wife to take her again being so fair and comely the husband answered that it was not his wife for she that accompanied with him at home was none such and indeed though wives generally say all their dressings and slâ—bberings is to please their husbands yet I may answer with that of S. Augustine to covetous fathers who pretend all their care is for their children saith the father vox pietatis it is the voice of piety but indeed excusatio iniquitatis it is but an excuse or cover of their iniquity For observe when Jezebel paints and when Esther puts on her bravery the first doth it to appear not to her husband but to Jehu whom she would inflame and the other to Ahashuerus whom she would inamour I pray observe that when you would make the child leave the dug you smear it with mustard or the like such are Mercury waters or such slâ—bbers to a good and wise husband neither can this counterfeit beauty or artificiall dressing so much allure or please the husband for the time as the wives ordinary familiar homelinesse will distast or take off at all times else The fourth observation is that wives as they are called so they should be house-wives For so saith the Psalmist Thy wise sall be as the vine about thy house Ps 128. not in the streets or fields but on the sides of the house The males only were commanded thrice a year to go to Jerusalem to serve the Lord Exod. 24 but not the wives but the husbands were to go so far from their own homes And the spouse called his beloved a Dove Cant. 2. which delights her selfe only in her mate at home and he courtech her to solace her self in the clifts of the rocks not in the markets exchanges or play-houses yea when the Spouse invites her to recreate her self with the flowers figs and pleasant fruits her answer is Dilecius meus mibi all my delight is in thee my Spouse Armenia being asked by her husband Tygranes how she liked the King answered that she looked not wishly on him for her eyes were all the while on her husband A fifth may be that the wife though she be fair rich or honourable yet ought she to be frugall and carefull for the estate at home The Germans used antiently to present a yoke of Oxen to the new maried couple intimating thereby that they as yoked should draw together and S. Paul calling mariage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a yoaking together 2 Cor. 6.14 charges the man and woman not to be unequally yoaked The Greeks when they would express a careless prodigall wife called het Ocnus his Asse for this Ocnus being a rope-maker that laboured and wrought all day yet before night his Asse eat more then he got by his work you may adde that if an Oxe and Asse be yoaked if the Oxe draw never so much and the Asse hang back so little good will come of their yoaking that as a father said in another case non solum non trahunt sed rumpunt quod junctuÌ„ est they not only draw not but break what was joyned I can conclude this observation with no better counsell then that in the Proverbs Chap 31. from the 11. verse to the 25.
which I leave and commend to your reading and meditation A sixth is that the wife be nor apt to resist or crosly to reply against her husband Prov. 15.1 The wise man in generall tells us that a soft answer frangit reads the vulgar breaks anger wherein is a mystery that that which is soft can break and it can be no less then a secret in nature infused by God into the soul of man and note that woman though at first she were made out of a rib yet that is not so hard as some bones and it was out of the husbands rib too that it should not resist him who was the matter of her being Fire we all know will soon break out by the collision or clashing of two hard matters as iron beating on flint but rub a thousand weight of oyle or feathers against twenty flints no fire will issue and lightning and thunder breaks the sword in the scabbard A woman complaining that her husband was so waspish and crosse that she could not contain but reply her neighbour taught her this remedy that while her husband was chiding she should hold water in her mouth till his fit was over which with thanks the woman found to be an especiall remedy I have red that anciently among some Greâ—ks the Bride on the day of mâ—riage was presented with a horse bridled and sadled not to teach that she should be ready to ride and gallop abroad but that she should be as that horse with her tongue bridled and silent at her husbands command In a word that I talk not too much in an argument of silence Prov. 31.26 Bathsheba tells the wife that she must open her mouth in wisdome and that in her tongue must be the law of kindness not sharpness or replies but what ever the husband be kindness must be observed by her as a law and by this law she shall find great ease and no small benefit to her self For the wives gentle meekness which is a seventh necessary requisite is like goats milke to an adamantine husband which as is storied will of it self dissolve the hardest diamond which no iron steel or the like can do For the soul of man as the Pâ—ilosopher observes is a generous and noble piece which though it cannot be drawn or forced yet it may be led and won Or like a strong well fenced Castle it may be mined but not battered S. Paul to win the Thessalonians made himself like a Nurse 1 Th. 2.7 which stills and gaines the love of the Child by lullabies a merry note and the dug and not by curstness 2 Tim. 2.24 25. Gal. 5.22 or blowes And the servant of the Lord who desires to win soules and bring them to Christ must be gentle patient meek for this is the fruit of the holy Spirit which descended on Christ in the figure of a Dove a Dove which as they say hath no gall neither can she chatter though offended but only mourns In a word the Psalmist saith the wife must be as a vine not as a scratching bramble no nor though sweet as a rose yet she must not be pricking as a rose but as the vine which brings not forth sowre but pleasant grapes to make her husbands heart not sad but merry For close of this if the husband be a Naball a churle a fool a distempered person let the wife learn to be an Abigail who would not move or stir him to choler or griefe when he was in heate of wine 1 Sam. 25 36. but after his rest when she found him well tempered then she speaks unto him and gently too I will summe up the duties of a wife with that precept of S. Paul which I will read as the Hebrews Tit. 2.5 backward or beginning with the last first and the last duty here exprest is that she be obedient to her husband and that is to be wrought or caused by the next before it when he commands her to be good that is benign gentle courteous The third duty ascending is that she be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like the tortoise except on sufficient cause ever in her shell that is an house-keeper or housewife The duty preceding this is that she be chast for this chastity is a great preserver of retiredness when on the contrary gadding abroad is no great friend to chastity The duty first here placed and which is first in repute and esteem is that she be discreet and prudent Which vertue is not only a great help to preserve chastity and to keep the wife at home but an especiall cause or worker of the wives courteous carriage and due obedience to her husband according to that of Salomon Prov. 19.14 Ecclus 26.14 A prudent woman is the gift of the Lord and a silent and prudent woman is the gift of God So S. Paul in setting down the commendable virtues and duties of wives begins with this let them be discreet or wise for without this they will hardly be châ—st Seldome housewives and never good and obedient to their husbands To this observation I may add one more as the last to this point that neither the Apostle nor any other pen-man of God ever commended beauty wealth honour as to be sought after in the choice of a wife But house-wifery chastity gentleness obedience and the crown of all prudence and therefore I should never counsel any to make choice of a woman in mariage who is confident of her wit wealth beauty or birth nor the woman to be maried to that man that presumes on his wisdome wealth power or honour for when these are over valued in either each will undervalue the other to contempt or at least to some discontent I have been long I hope women will not beshrew me for it in setting down the duties of wives to their husbands I shall be shorter and I wish that they would not blame me for it in the duty of the husband because as Christ and the Apostles spake of the law so the whole duty of the husband is comprised in this one word love So that though under love both in the law and the husbands duty many things are required which are not simply and properly called love yet all these flow and stream from this one spring of love and this is the cause that S. Paul only saith Eph. 5. Col. 3. husbands love your wives Now love being 1. naturall 2. carnall 3. politicall 4. divine I may say in a qualified sense that all these loves are commanded the husband under this one word love a naturall love because the woman was of and from man being flesh of his flesh 2. the carnall love because thee shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into or one flesh 3. politicall for a sweet society and peopling the world 4. a divine love 〈…〉 be in holiâ—â—â—â— such as Câ—â—â—â—â—hawed compriseth all that possibly any woman can require or desire from her husband For
if he love her he wisnes her well he doth well for her he gives her what in justice and reason she â—n desire he suffers for her more then she would he is carefull not to displease and most willing to give her honour and all good content God when he gives lawes and precepts to man he concludes them all in this Love the Lord thy God and S. Paul Rom. 13 10. love is the fulfilling of the law And to this love as portrayed the husband is bound so saith S. Paul men ought so to love their wives Eph. 5.28 and this expresly proves it to be the husbands duty to love his wife Which S. Paul barely saith not it is his duty though his word as from God were a law and there needed no other confirmation for it but he proves it For the man to his wife is as Christ to his Church and Christ loved his Church and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so ye husbands ought to love your wives Secondly the wife is not flesh of thy flesh but is made one flesh and one body and as it were one person with thee Eph. 5.28 so Ephes 5.28 and therefore man ought to love his wife And if you ask me how he ought to love her this the Apostle expresseth too and most plainly saying 1. as Christ loved his Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so ye husbands ought to love your wives Where note that the Apostle means not by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to tell the husband that he ought to love his wife in that high measure and degree as Christ did love his spouse the Church this is not possible for man to do but as Christ did truly and heartily love the Church so ought mâ—n to love their wives And a second 〈…〉 should love his wife the Apostle adde in the same place when he saith he ought to love her as hit own and as himself and be it that the man love his wife so the woman covets too much that would desire more then that her husband love her as he doth himself for no man v. 29. except a mad one saith S. Paul hateth but rather cherisheth and nourisheth his own flesh Now S. Basil taking it for granted that the man according to this duty and rule loves the wife more then the wife her husband demands the reason for it and answers it thus That woman was made subject to the guidance of the man and therefore to make a compensation as it were the man by his love is made in some sort subject to his wife so that the husband though he be in his naturall capacity a Lord to his wife as Sarah called her husband yet in a sweet manner he is through his love become her servant so that though God gave the woman long haire which might be as reynes in the mans hand to guide her yet God gave her an eye that her husband may say as Christ to his spouse Cant. 4.9 thou hast ravished or taken away my heart with one of thine eyes and be the man the head of the wife yet the wife by her ravishmâ—nt of the man is become according to the place or part whence she was first taken the heart of the man and hereby it comes to pass that as Christ taught the man is to leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and all this is wrought by mans love to his wife Well therefore did S. Paul Ephes 5. speaking of this loving subject call it a mystery a mystery in nature and a mystery in grace and each applied by the Apostle to the husbands love for as Eve was taken out of Adam so the Church from Christ she from Adam cast into a sleep the Church from Christ sleeping in Death Eve was from the side opened the Church from Christs side pierced Adam therefore was to to love Eve as his flesh and bone Christ his Church as his blood and life and hereupon the Apostle concludes Men therefore love your wives as Adam did Eve and as Christ did the Church For man and his wife are coupled as in the bond of nature so in the covenant of grace and this is the mystery which S. Paul calls the love of man to his wife And another mystery there is couched in the words of the Apostle when be saith that the man and wife being two subjects or persons are made and become one for though two yet but one body and two but one soul and affection to love each other as himself Eph. 5.28 v. 33. so that two should be one in and by love and yet by the power of the same love this one to become two to help each other against all enemies adversaries or opponents and here is the mysterie and such a mysterie as love onely under God can and should make between man and wife Which love as it is strong as Death Can. 8.6 so it feares not nor stoopeth to death but undauntedly encountered for the object be it the wife or the spouse beloved S. Paul tells us it was so in that most divine love of Christ to his Church who gave himself even to death for her and so hath it been in many a man naturall love to do the like for his beloved He touch but one example of Tiberius who finding two snakes in his bed-chamber was told that if he killed the female his wife must die if the male himself whereupon to preserve his wife he chose rather to kill the malâ—â—â—nd himself to die and happy is that conjunction which is so cemented by love that each can say as Castor and Pollux as brethren vive tuo Coujux tempore vive meo live ô my spouse thy terme and live thou mine The Greeks though most abundant in expressions by words yet in this case of husband and wife seem defective and scanty For as Ephes 5. and Col. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 5. Col. 1. which is in generall a man stands for husband so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in generall a woman signifies in the Apostle a wife which defect if it may be so called is supplied by our English when we translate that man and woman by husband and wife and not unfitly from the first creation of both for as the woman was made for the man to be a comfort unto him as a wife Gen. 2.18 so the man being alone and wanting any under God on whom to place his love and delight is to settle these on the woman his wife therefore saith the Apostle husbands love your wives Eph. 5.22 these being the objects of your solace and delight and as they were made helps to the husband Which word husband as it notes the man to be the band of the house and all therein so primarily and principally of his wife by which he is put in minde to keep her from shattering as the band in sheaves or as the band of
is the key to thy worldly blisse and happinesse and the fruit of a well grounded and holy mariage Which happinesse appears and is evidenced on the mans part 1. When it is said thy wife shall be as a vine Ps 128.3 which is both pleasant and profitable pleasant on the sides of thy house for shade and refreshment and profitable because fruitfull Fruitfull two ways 1. Bringing that forth which makes thy heart merry being as she was made a help and comfort unto thee 2. Fruitfull in children And not onely brings she pleasure and profit to her husband but honour too for so we read a vertuous wife is a crown to her husband Prov. 12 14. For as the lewdnesse of the woman turns to the husbands shame witnesse the word Cuckold so her discreet and good life becomes his honour and as the crown of gold is to the Kings head such is a virtuous wife to her husband for an ensign of his honour and not an externall temporary windy honour placed begot or setled in the opinion of men but that intrinsick during reall honour which is the fruit of Gods favour for so Who findeth a wife findeth a good thing Prov. 18.22 where good the adjunct to the subject wife is necessarily to be understood else the thing that he findeth would scarce be good And would you know how this wife becomes such a good thing then read Proverbs 19.14 where you shall find that a prudent or good wife is from the Lord and Prov. â—â— 14. if a present from God the Lord then sure she is a good thing especially if yee adde what is before to that of Proverbs 18.22 he that findeth this good thing the wife obtaineth and receiveth her not only as a gift but as a gift of honour and favour from the Lord. I might surfeit an husband with a glut of happinesse if I should here repeat and inlarge the manifold blessings redounding to him from a good wife of whom I may speak as the Philosophers and Fathers did of health saying it is bonum such a good as without which there is scarce any sublunary thing good unto him God said at the first It is not good that man should be alone without society and company that is to be without a woman his wife therefore good it is to have her 2. It was not good to be without an help meet for him which is mans case without a wife therefore it is good to have her Thirdly it is not good for a man to be without arrowes the weapons of defence against his foes now these arrowes are his children which honestly cannot be had without a wife therefore it is good to have her I could adde to these 600 more goods attending an husband with a good wife But that I may not clog you Ireferre you to that which I might here repeat and inlarge Prov. 31. from the 10. v. to the end of the Chapter and to these places in Ecclesiasticus ch 7.19 ch 25.8 and ch 26. v. 1 2 3.13 14 15 16.22 23 24 25 26. and ch 36. v. 14. and ch 40.23 so that I may say merrily yet truly an egge is not so full of good meat as a virtuous wife is of good things And as to the husband such a wife is a blessing and a good thing so no lesse good and blisse is acquired to the wife who hath found a good husband I have heard women jestingly I hope say that if the husband be the head the wile shall be the Cap and surely the wife hath no readier means to attain this then by her discreet subjection to her husband according to that of our Saviour in severall places repeated by the Evangelists He that humbleth himself shall be exalted and this accords with that before mentioned a vertuous wife is a crown to her husband Prov. 12.4 now the place for a crown to be set is his head and as the crown is to the bearer an ensign of honour so honour we know is in honorante formally and efficiently in the giver of honour which in this case is the virtuous wife and hereby she acquireth to her self the just title of honour and this she hath gained by being a wise wife But if this satisfie not all women then let them hear and find other blessings and good things arising from mariage which single she neither had nor well could have for hereby she hath not only the society but the love the union the body the soul the all things of the man her husband and what greater or more good can she wish or desire under heaven Again when Adam had all the world given him yet it was not said for these or for all these thou shalt leave thy father and thy mother but when he had his wife then and not till then was it spoken Thou shalt leave father and mother and all things except God and shalt cleave to thy wife and is not this a blisse or a good thing to a wife May I not without offence say that a woman before mariage was as it were an headlesse thing for as the man was said without her to be without an help or helplesse so she without him to be without an head headlesse for so S. Paul speaks The husband is the head of the wife Eph. 5.28 2. Whereas before mariage she was but half an one now by wedlock she is made a whole and perfect one for her husband and she as Christ and his Church so S. Paul saith are made one 3. S. Paul goes further when he saith that he the husband as Christ is the head Eph. 5.23 and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Saviour of the body which word Saviour Zanchius the learned and judicious expositer doubts not to refer as to Christ so to the husband and if so then the wife by mariage not only gets an head but a Saviour under which word as in the Greek more is included saith Cicero then can well be exprest yet so much at least is evident and easie that the husband may well be called the wives Saviour not only in that he labours and travailes for her maintenance of life and security against all harm and danger but because he it her guide and teâ—cher in the ways to her salvation for so much S. Paul implies when he saith if the wife will learn any thing for the benefit of her soul 1 Cor. 14 35 let her aske her husband who as be is her head to guide so he is in part and in a saving sense her instrumentall Saviour And not singly in this but that by this husband she may receive another blessing that is children Ps 128.5 6. for so it is proclaimed The Lord shall blesse thee in seeing thy children where they are a blessing from the Lord Ps 127.3 ver 5. and children are an heritage and reward of the Lord yea blessed is the man that hath his quiver