Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	heart_n	lord_n	way_n	4,954	5	4.7237	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80530	Experience, historie, and divinitie Divided into five books. Written by Richard Carpenter, vicar of Poling, a small and obscure village by the sea-side, neere to Arundel in Sussex. Who being, first a scholar of Eaton Colledge, and afterwards, a student in Cambridge, forsooke the Vniversity, and immediatly travelled, in his raw, green, and ignorant yeares, beyond the seas; ... and is now at last, by the speciall favour of God, reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England? Printed by order from the House of Commons.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1641 (1641)	Wing C620B; ESTC R229510	263,238	607

without the troublesome connexion of a body But man is stored with a fairer number of perfections albeit those perfections which the Angel hath spread farther in fairenesse then these of man Shall this faire creature the noble work of God worship the meane work of man an Image which is but ashes in the likenesse of an Image and which the Popish Doctors confesse if a Papist or other person be driven with extremity of colde hee may burne to relieve his body Goe now man and worship him who when thy body falleth to the poore condition of a stone or block or of the Image that men would perswade thee to worship and stirreth onely as it is moved by a living power and shall be left not a man but the Image of a man the Image of God being departed with and in the soule shall acknowledge his owne Image if not defaced with the worship of Images or other sinnes and call thy soule and his Image home to his rest CHAP. 3. I Cannot come so nigh but I must needs have one pluck at the invocation of Saints By what device can we invocate the Saints without great injury to Gods glory For the more help we crave and expect from others though with some reference to God the lesse wee seeme to depend upon God and want of dependance be it reall or rationall and onely in appearance breeds neglect And a simple wretch beleeving that in what place soever of the world he is hee is there heard by his Saint and his petition granted and as they teach more easily granted doe you think his heart is not vehemently prompted to deifie his Saint I have heard an Italian say in Rome and hee spoke to me when he said it being transported with a high thought of the Popes greatnes so like the greatnesse of God that hee did exceedingly pitty the poore blind Englishmen who beleeved aright in some things and embraced many verities as that there is one God and three persons and the like and yet did not beleeve so plaine and open a matter that the Pope is God upon earth But they meet me as I goe A vile sinner is unworthy to appeare before God in his owne person Is it so Why then doth Christ make publike proclamation Come unto me all yee that labour and are heavy laden Mat. 11 28 and I will give you rest Wee must come unto him that giveth rest And all must come even they that labour under the waight of a burdened conscience they that are in labour and desire to be delivered of a Hedghog that wounds and teares them in their tender inside The spirits labour when men are upon dying and wee that labour to keepe life and soule together must come to him And it is God who as the Prophet David saith Humilia respicit in coelo in terra looks back upon the humble things of heaven and earth For as the low things of earth are humble in respect of him so also the sublime high things of Heaven But he bowes downe his attention to all as the Sun visiteth with equall clearenesse the garden of flowers the greene medow the field of Lillies and the dirty ditch One example is eminent And behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts and cryed unto him saying Have mercy on mee O Mat. 15. 22 Lord thou Son of David my daughter is grievously vexed with a devill Shee was a woman of Canaan but for her unworthinesse her name is concealed And shee came out of the same coasts but what coast or where her house stood or whether or no she had a house wee must not learne And yet shee boldly cries unto him for mercy She gives him his titles by which she acknowledges his power and his gentlenesse For she calls him Lord and the Sonne of David a meek man And shee goes to him for a remedy against the devill that came to destroy the works of the devill Her daughter was possessed with a devill and quod possidetur saith Thomas of Aquine expounding the definition Tho. Aqu. 1. p. q. 10. art 1. of Eternity given by Boetius firmiter quietè habetur We hold fast and quietly the thing we possesse Yet shee hopes and feares and feares and hopes againe and in that hope goes to him couragiously Now certainly hee will come running towards her and meet her above halfe way It is quite otherwise But hee answered her not a word O poore woman why then Ver. 23. the Popish doctrine will appeare probable Christ will not answer a word to a vile sinner speaking in her owne person Had he but look'd upon her with a compassionate eye and said Alas poore woman she would have called him Son of David once again But he answered her not a word And his Disciples came and besought him saying Send her away for she crieth after us She follow'd still and her cries went before her if hee will not see her he shall heare her and he shall know that she is a woman His Disciples begin to think that shee is as much vext with a devill as her daughter shee cries so loud and beseech him to send her away But he answered and said I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Ver. 24. Poore wretch what shall become of her She is lost and lost againe lost in her selfe and lost in her daughter but shee is not of the sheep of the house of Israel And therefore if hee be sent to none but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel hee will never finde her though shee be lost and hee finde what is lost Then came she and worshipped him saying Lord help mee Make roome Ver. 25. give way there now she comes She breaks through the presse and down she falls upon her knees before him shee feares that shee was rejected because she had not worshipped him and now she humbles her heart and her body and lifts up her hands crying Lord help me Is it possible now that Christ should not melt into compassion and thaw into sweet drops of teares and mercy But he answered and said It is not meet to take the Ver. 26. childrens bread and to cast to dogs What a dog If shee be a dog shee is not a curst dog Was ever a dog heard to cry Lord help me I wonder she breaks not out Am I a dog I would have you well know I am not a dog I am a woman You a man sent from Heaven and call a woman dog Had I beene call'd any thing but an unclean dog I had not car'd I doe not remember that I ever bark'd or bit any man And must I now be call'd a dog Her language is of another straine And she said Truth Lord Ver. 27. yet the doggs eat of the crums which fall from their Masters table The woman will be a dog or any thing that hee calls her and shee

one stretched out with pride that should after two months die like a Dog in a ditch He saw another pawning his very soule for honour that should not live out the fourth part of a yeare to enjoy it What silly fooles the Devill makes us Here he saw one catching and scraping for mony that he was certain should be call'd to a strict account and cast into Hell within the short space of a month There another cheering up pampering his flesh with dainties and still the tother cup that the wormes were within lesse then seven dayes to enter upon Here he heard one swearing and tearing God the holy name of God and there presently he heard God also swearing in his wrath that he should not enter into his rest And here another venting as many lies as sentences while he heard God say cut him off let him speake no more it is my course for the longer he lives he will be the more wicked He might see two goe reeling in their drunkennesse one of whom the same night should break his necke from a window and the other be stab'd to death in a riot Two more following the vile motions of their owne filthy lusts and in league with base women that the same weeke should cut their purses and throats together He saw the greatest part of them pursuing earnestly their owne sinfull desires and either diseases gathering to a head inwardly in their bodies or Gods judgements outwardly mustering their forces to send them to Hell out of hand These mournefull passages Christ saw and being very sorry to see them wept He pronounces the sentence of destruction against the City and he weepes while he does it Hinc illae lacrymae Hence came those teares He wept not put on with the thought of his owne passion though very nigh but of their destruction And therefore he sayes Daughters of Jerusalem weepe not for mee for whom then Lord but weepe for your selves and for your children Doe we love our children our pretty little Babes let us weep for our sins that we may not weepe for them And can we see Christ weep him that died for us weep and not offer our service to wipe the teares from his eyes Saint Gregorie Nazianzen rapt out of himselfe in consideration of the poore condition of the poore cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O my dainties and their misery And thus we may cry of the soules in Hell of some of our friends and neighbours that died lately O our joy our quiet and their miserable torments which we ought not to pity which God pities not When I have wrote all I can write I feare all will end here There is a blessed repose in God for good men and a cursed prison for wicked livers But we are so busie in the world betwixt both that we have no time to thinke of either to looke upwards or downewards Yet know that we cannot stay betwixt both forever We are certainely appointed for one where we must reside for ever and ever Good Reader stand firme against the Devill and against his two Factours the Flesh and the World Beware you that thinke your selves to be morall men and women of little sinnes Of sinnes little in our weake estimation because they canker not our credits nor cast upon us the staine of wicked livers Doe wee give to our endeavours in their commission a command to please God or men Saint Austin speakes like himselfe Noli quotidiana peccata contemnere quia minima sunt sed time quia plura sunt Plerunque minimae bestiae si multae sint necant Doe not contemne thy daily sinnes because they are small but feare them because they are many Small beasts if they bee many many times kill And the smallest sinne that can be committed but once committed troubles exceedingly and offends the most cleane cleare eyes of God If you are still obstinate the Devill is more good then you the blacke Devill of Hell For Grace is not offered to him and therefore he cannot lay hold upon it It is offered to you with entreaties and you refuse it And moreover the Devill is confirmed in his obstinacie you are not God invites you I am sure of it I am sure I came from him The Angels and Saints from Heaven all the chosen of God from all parts of the world pray you as very desirous of your company The holy Church entreats you for I came likewise from her to you Lissen to your thoughts marke there your own poore soules beseech you trembling like the Hart shot neare the heart and strucke with the fear of eternall damnation crying to you we were made for God O put us into his hands Our hearts are very sicke of a very dangerous disease worse then the Plague chilnesse in Gods service Let us write upon the dore in red letters as they doe upon the dores of houses infected with the Plague the pen being dipt in the bloud of Christ Lord have mercie upon us Yes yes have mercie upon us and not for our sakes not for our Fathers sakes not for our Ancestors sakes not for the Saints and Angels sakes not for the Virgin Maries sake but for Jesus Christ his sake CHAP. XIX EXtraordinary occasions require extraordinary proceedings The Copie of a Letter sent to my Lodging in Thames-street Mr. Carpenter AN old acquaintance of yours sends his hand accompanied with his heart to you although he dares not trust you either with his person or name Especially considering that you traduced an innocent man before the Bench as a seducer because he lov'd you and therefore desired you to remember from whence you had fallen and repent of your errour Poore man I pitie you and therefore I pitie you because I love you Whither so fast Looke backe God is a Father still and his Church still a mother and each hath many bowels of compassion You seemed to us a man of a good nature and religiously enclined And I remember when your Pen also was imployed in the behalfe of the Catholike Church And yet I understand that you are not contented to speake but that you have wrote also and are now ready to speake from the Presse the dishonour of her that was your own Mother and is Christs own Spouse Thinke without passion Is not this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight with God And with what weapons when you fight with him can you wound him to hurt him Or did he ever fight and at last went not away conquerour As God hath furnished you with gifts of nature which you by his helpe have bettered with labour so he requires the imployment of them in his owne service And if the imployment or use be not reasonably paid a severe account must be rendered Can you without a pressure of conscience call that a Church in which you are a thing so torne and distracted Can your soule which hath hungred after heavenly things feede now with the swine upon

store of miracles but I had not the honour to see one of them Only one of the Jesuits came one day after dinner hastily to us Schollers and told us with much laughter how he had perswaded a good old wife that shee was cured of her infirmity by the Virgin Mary though she did not feele ease suddenly and that she must not faile to bring the figure in wax of the part cured and hang it up with other figures of that kind before the Image in honour of the Virgin Mary and to preserve the memory of the Miracle CHAP. 2. I Will not have to doe with Controversie but as it lyes in my way For if I turn my stile altogether from the sweet and peaceable comforts of the Spirit to the noise and loud alarums of Controversie I am a fish took out of the water And therefore I professe if they write a thousand times and I answer as often I will never stirre a foot from this very spirituall way of writing let them object a disability on my side or what they please The command of Christ to my soule is Goe and preach and every thing that comes from mee while I am I shall be if it be holy an act of obedience to that command But I lose time This Image-worship performed with much bending of the knee and body is a learned kinde of Idolatry Nicephorus entitled by them Scriptor Catholicus the Catholike Writer confesseth it was a custome introduced first in imitation of the Pagan Idolators But who can give a law of religious worship which took not beginning from Christ or his Apostles God forbiddeth all worship of this ugly stamp in those holy words of the law Thou shalt not bow downe thy selfe to them nor serve them We see that Exo. 20 5. the prohibition imposeth a tye upon the outward gesture And their answer will not hold together that we are onely commanded not to make or bow downe to an Image which wee make as well our God as our Image and bow to as to our God because God in his law immediatly addeth For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God Jealousie in us is a superfluity of love and being mingled with feare and suspition feareth every shadow and appearance of neglect and suspecteth every likenesse of evill And therefore howsoever they change the phrase and plead that the worship dwelleth not in the Image but lodging as it were at the signe of the Image goeth on her journey to God and to the Saint Yet God being still a jealous God his jealousie will be very fearefull and suspitious of all worship which is not directed the next way to him for though his love be cleane from all defect acting with us now his part is the jealous Lover And what a puzling is here of ignorant peoples brains with these ordinations and terminations And this holy parcell of holy Scripture Josephus the Jew with us maketh a part of the second Commandement But with what threats and promises God keeps us to the keeping of this Commandement Visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the children Ver. 6. unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keepe my commandements The iniquity of the Fathers shall be punished in the children if they be also children of their sinnes and idolatrous practises but hee will shew mercy unto thousands whose Fathers abhorred such odious wayes yea though their children are not inheritors of all their Fathers vertues because hee is more prone to mercy And as farre as thousands exceed in number the third and fourth generation so farre will his mercy be more active and operative then his Justice And this odd kinde of worship is exceedingly scandalous to all the heathenish world of unbeleevers and especially to the Jews who yet ake both in body and soule and know they doe so partly for their Fathers old sins of Idolatry There standeth a great woodden Image of the Crucifix in St. Pauls Church in Rome But why doe I say it standeth Alas it cannot stand Out of which they teach that Christ talked with St. Brigit And the Curtaine being drawne the people fall downe before it and sigh and knock their breasts and then the little beads drop I have seene an Image of the Sun through the mouth of which in the old time the devill spake to the people But while I am reasonable I shall not beleeve that God would ever speak out of an Image and tempt some to Idolatry and confirme others in it And it doth not suit with his greatnesse to come so neere the devill in his wayes who long deceived the world by a counterfeit way of speech in Oracles and who practised to speak in Images almost from the beginning of the world Indeed the great Doctors of the Church commonly call the devil Gods Ape because hee much labours to be like him that he may passe for him and deceive with more Authority But no good man hath ever said in expresse termes that God doth imitate the devill for when wee imitate another wee learne something of him And they will not deny if they be not brasse all over but as well their Priests tutored by the devill as the old Priests in imitation of the devill have spoke to the people from the mouths of Images And the dressing of Images in silks and velvets what is it but the baby-sport of children onely the little childe hath more wit then to worship his idle Baby I have seene an old worme-eaten Image of the virgin Mary in Rome carried with all earthly pomp and triumph in Procession to which the people kneeled where it came with as humble submission as they could have done to God himselfe if hee had there appeared with all his Court of Angels in his Glory And before this Image I because I was somewhat dexterous in observing the State of their Service was admitted even to the saying of Masse Shall man the living Image of God worship the senselesse Image of a man or woman being a more ignoble creature then himselfe As the perfections of all things joyne hands in God with an infinite accesse of excellence So the perfections of all things but God scattered in them embrace one another in man in a finite and bounded manner Man hath being with a stone is lives and encreases with a plant is lives encreases and is sensible with a beast is lives understands and is spirituall on the surer side with an Angell It is a strange saying but as true as truth An Angell is more perfect then a man but a man is enriched with more perfections then an Angell and comes more nigh to his Maker this way then an Angel David saith of him Thou hast made him a little lower then the Angels The Angel indeed is more compleatly Psal 8. 5. perfect as being of a finer substance and borne with large naturall knowledge and

I am very wel contented with the sweete condition in which thy wisdome hath placed me Thou art wisdom it self other wisdome is not wisdom but as conformable to thy wisedome And I doe most humbly yeeld up my selse to comply with the ranke and quality in which I am by thy royall appointment And I remaine indifferent to have or to want to be sicke or in health to dye or to live As thou pleasest so be it And if I could learne thy farther and utmost pleasure I would goe through the world to effect it though I should labour to death in the performance An Act of the feare of God O Lord I feare thee because as thou hast made me of nothing so thou canst reduce me to nothing in one turne of an instant Which perhaps would be a greater losse of my selfe then to be lost in Hell Because then I should not be thy creature I should have no being no dependance of thee but should be lost branches tree roote and all It had beene better for Judas that he had never beene borne because then hee should never have tasted of life or being But when he was Judas which was better for him not to be or to be miserable thou onely knowest I feare thee because as thou art infinitely mercifull so thy justice is infinite And because sinne being but a temporall thing quickly committed and past over and sometimes as soone almost forgot as committed a meere flash is answered notwithstanding with eternall punishment as fighting against an eternall God And yet I feare thee not as a slave but as a sonne For I have more love towards thee then feare of thee though I much feare thee And also my hope weighs down my feare And though all this be true teach me to worke out my salvation with feare and trembling with a great feare which may cause trembling An Act of Praising God O God I doe praise thee for thy most infinite goodnesse thy most infinite power and for all thy most infinite attributes and perfections If thou hadst not beene what thou art I had never beene what I am Yet I praise thee for the first although the other had not followed and yet I praise thee because it followed I doe praise thee for all the benefits which have beene or shall be hereafter bestowed upon the humane nature of Christ and upon all thy Saints and Angels one of which is the continuance of glory Upon men women and children from the beginning of the world to the end of it and especially upon thy chosen vessels for all thy benefits upon ignorant persons who did not know thee and therefore could not love thee nor keepe thy commandements for all thy benefits upon wicked persons that would not and upon dumbe and unsensible creatures that could not praise thee And upon me a vile one Thy blessed name be blessed by thy selfe and by thy Angels and Saints for ever and by men women and children while they live and by all creatures till they cease to be creatures And let all the people say Amen We must be seriously carefull that these Acts in their exercise be true and goe to the bottome of the heart not faigned and superficiall Rule 7. WHen any thing comes to you by way of speciall blessing or gift kneele downe in some private place and receive it as immediately from the hands of God saying O God This is not the gift of destiny or chance of men or Angels it is thy gift onely it passes from thee to me by creatures appointed for the just execution of thy good pleasure upon whom in this respect I beg a blessing If thou hadst not first ordained it for me it could not have thus passed from hand to hand and at last beene reached to me From thee therefore I take it O thou sunne sea fountain spring treasure of all goodnesse O thou good and gracious giver of all good gifts and graces O thou good and perfect giver of every good and perfect gift Catch all occasions to speake of God and praise him and stretch out the discourse as farre as you can And be heartily glad when you heare the holy name of God glorified or his goodnesse mercie justice or other excellencies magnified Yea out of the Devils temptations raise occasions to praise God which is a most short and compendiarie way to divert him as when the Devill hammereth evill words and actions into your minde as he doth especially when you are angry to bee used at any times turne upon him and say Blessed be God that keepeth my feete from falling Hallowed be his name who threw downe proud Lucifer from the gates of Heaven And alwayes reserve a time wherein to blesse God privately for the gifts which others do praise in you And being dispraised rejoyce Rule 8. HAve alwayes some pious and short sayings floating upon thy memory at the end of thy tongue and in thy heart like Arrowes in a Quiver which thou mayst at every turne dart into the lap of thy beloved and use upon every call of occasion As at the sight or hearing of anothers misery This very stroke might have bruised me as it hath my neighbour why was not I the man I might have beene as easily found out amongst the crowde as he But I am Gods favorite And I should bee more wicked then he that is most wicked if God should with-draw his grace favour and helpes from me At the sight of a blinde man Lord I see thee daily in thy creatures O thou that art the eye of thy selfe and that lookest through the clouds upon the world I can looke up to thee At the sight of a lame man I might have beene like this poore imperfect creature but now I will bestirre my selfe and goe readily to thy house and there say and not saintly but heartily O Lord O God O Lord God thou art the giver and preserver of all things When thou lookest up to Heaven say That way lies my Countrey wherein God shines out upon his Saints and Angels to whom they now sing with heavenly musicke and most melodious harmony mee thinkes I heare their voices What good power will draw the curtaines of Heaven that I may likewise see their glory And when downe to the earth I doe or can walke daily over the loathsome carcasses and rotten bones of thousands that have beene gallant men and women and beene carried up and downe in coaches and when I have done all I must die This way lieth hell O the confusion that is there O the darknesse In sorrow How can I be troubled when God and his Angels rejoyce continually In joy I will rejoyce in the Lord againe I say I will rejoyce At other times My tongue and lips which have concurred to speake against thee shall now joyne their forces but what to doe to speake of the marvellous things which thou hast done in our dayes and in the ages before us My hands that have

where in passages are farre otherwise related then they were done When I was a Spaniard a Priest having beene put to death in England there came presently a relation that the quarters of the Priest being brought to the Judges house he commanded them to be laid by a hanch or two of Venison which by chance had beene then presented to him and most unhumanely compared the one with the other jesting and scoffing at them The English Jesuits have beat the Spaniards into such a stupidity by perswasion that they scarce either see them or the Schollers even in the streets but they run to them and kisse their garments thinking they will all very suddenly be Martyrs And somtimes they runne upon confessed sinnes that they may please and flatter the senses of people Michael Angelo a Painter of Rome having enticed a young man into his house under the smooth pretence of drawing a picture by the sight of him bound him to a great woodden Crosse and having stabbed him to the heart with a Pen-knife in imitation of Parrhasius that had tortured an old captive in the like cause drew Christ hanging and dying upō the Crosse after his resemblance yet escaped without punishment And this picture because it sets forth Christ dying as if the picture it selfe were dying and with a shew of motion in every part and because it gives the death of Christ to the life is had in great veneration amongst them And that their Churches may not want fingers they take somewhat from their children in their cradles which if many of their Priests did misse they would not be so much mischievous neither should I and others have had ground to suspect the young English Jesuits in their Colledges that are so full of sport and play with the fairest amongst the boyes One example in a kinde will suffice it hath beene often in the mouth of an English Monk that he hath wrought more conversions of ours to their way in Tavernes then ever any of his Order hath done with all their observances of times and places But he more loves Tavernes and Women then soules or the tongues of his fellow-Monks are not true to him Surely this Monk deserves not to be kneel'd to when he is first seene for a blessing as the Papists of England are wont to behave themselves towards their Priests He will give a curse rather by drawing his humble suppliants if men to the Taverne if women to his chamber It is no hard matter to varnish over these abuses Reader be carefull Arts are wondrous things they will make new things change old things doe all things If you be not very wise and wary they will deceive you with excuses glosses pretences professions expressions accusations And he that suffers himselfe to be deceiv'd by another is his foole O how easie it is with a word a gesture a countenance to make men ridiculous It is not possible to write but many things will lie faire to the stroke of a troubled and carping disposition Their way is known they joyn their heads hearts pains and pens together Some Index-men looke into Authors some invent the matter What pertaines to severall Sciences is distributed to severall Masters of those Sciences One disposeth the matter another cloaths it in language On my part there are but two I and my selfe and one of these two knowes no more then the other They know me and the secrets of my life their Authours and their personall faults shall escape my knowledge Thus indeed they stand on the higher ground But Christum loquenti linqua nunquam defuit saith Prudentius a tongue was never wanting to Christs oratour And every Christian hath lived in open warre ever since he was christened with all the Devils in Hell CHAP. VII NOw that I may take my leave mannerly I shall turne with an Apostrophe to the Papists First my old friends pray leave to stile your selves Catholiques at least for this reason If you be Catholiques our great ones that are very great and yet more good then great differing and dissenting from you in many and those waighty points of faith as it is confessed on both sides what are they you thinke mischievously but speake if you dare And what differeth it to call them I know the tearme in expresse words and to call them so by necessary consequence Well well goe and leave it It is too common with you to blurre and stigmatize whole States and like the Jtalian to wound deeply even when you crouch humbly Secondly bee not so importunate for Mercie before you deserve it For Mercie being more neerely allied to goodnesse then to power is not so much engaged in the illustration of power as in the preservation of Goodnesse And Goodnesse will not be Goodnesse if it concurre with Mercie in giving way to the propagation of Evill of Idolatry and the doctrine of Devils or in countenancing the professours of superstition and prophanenesse The Prophet David proclaimeth that hee was alwayes an enemy to Gods enemies And Mercie hath no proper object I meane both divine Mercie and all other Mercie regulated by it but those mournefull conditions by the repeale of which either true Innocencie may be restored or Gods holy truth and service advanced and that either in the fruit or in the flower either in the perfection or in the preparation or God glorified not in the by but directly God is mercifull to sinners else I am in a miserable case but upon supposition of their future amendment not upon a demand that they may remaine inwardly in statu quo prius in their former perverse estate Thirdly doe not pretend a submission of heart except you be heartily submitted For men will not think that you who erewhile were generally I will not say so insolent but stirringly disposed that it was not easie for a serious Protestant to walke on his way without reproaches and affronts from some of you are now grown so humble and submissive on a sudden except they worke as you doe by enforcement and force their understandings to which they are never bound but in matters of Faith when they leade them captive in obsequium fidei in obedience to Faith Fourthly doe not promise onely that to lawes you humbly will submit but doe it For hitherto you have not Which I thus make strong by proofe You have fostered and cherished many thousands of Priests in your houses and now doe in opposition to and in defiance of the firme lawes of this Kingdome who cease not to trouble the whole State Kingdome and to set all on fire with their scandalous and fabulous reports and with their seditious and libellous Pamphlets who daily pervert the Kings good subjects and draw them by as many devices as the great Plot-master of Hell can hatch or invent from their duty to God and allegiance to the King then which there are no stricter obligations no ties more sacred You promise to doe the contrary of

censured by an earthly Judge though ingulfed in the most horrible crimes that in all the extravagancies of the heart were ever committed Let him enter a Fox raigne as a Lion die like a Dog as Pope Boniface Let him commit whoredome upon Altars give Benefices to his Whores and golden Chalices consecrated to holy services which an honest Lay-man cannot touch breake open doores burne houses put out his God-fathers eyes cut off his fingers hands tongues and noses of his Cardinals not remembring what he said when he did first invest them in purple Ego te creo socium Regis I create thee to be the fellow of a King and moreover invocate the Devill and drinke to him as Pope John the twelfth Let him be a most notorious Conjurer and make himselfe over by compact body and soule to the Devill as Pope Silvester the second Let him be carried with the Whirle-winde of ambition and have poysoned sixe other Popes to hew out his owne way before him as Pope Hildebrand Yet he sits above the reach of censure he flies with the Eagle above the Thunderbolt That they may give sinewes to this doctrine they produce an Act of a Councell celebrated in Rome which saith Concil Rom. Neque praesul summus a quoquam judicabitur quoniam scriptum est non est discipulus supra Magistrum Neither shall the chiefe Bishop be judged of any because it is written the Disciple is not above his Master And that they may adde strength to this plausible falshood they bring in the reare an eminent example For when Bassus and Marinianus laid to the charge of Pope Sixtus the third that he had in the rage of his lust defiled a consecrated Virgin Maximus the Consul crie out Non licet adversus Pontificem dare sententiam It is not lawfull to give sentence against the chiefe Bishop Looke how they shuffie the matter and give it from one hand to another amongst themselves But is not this to encourage sinne to permit and flatter evill and to suffer it to grow out and openly spread it selfe when it may be easily beate downe in the blossome This doctrine hath so farre given heart to all kindes of wickednesse that if we search into every successession of Bishops scattered through the whole Christian world and examine every linke of every chaine we shall not meete in any Sea with sinnes that deserve to be called sinnes with relation to the foule enormities of Rome Are not these evill fruits of evill doctrine and yet no man almost doth name the Pope but under the sacred title of his Holinesse But though his Holinesse is not liable to reproofe a man would think his wickednesse should And how silly is the Church of Rome in teaching that although the most holy and most learned Bishops that ever lived should joyne their heads and hearts in a Councell and there using the pious helpe of holy Scriptures of other Councels and Fathers before them and of humble prayers for the powerfull assistance of the holy Ghost should with an unanimous consent decree what is to be preached the Pope notwithstanding might come in the upshot and though a most wicked and illiterate creature lawfully pronounce all the Decrees to be of no weight no effect no validity The generall Councell of Chalcedon upon sound premeditation made an absolute Decree that the Bishop of Constantinople should have equall power through all the great extent and latitude of his government with the Bishop of Rome which Canon Pope Leo and Pope Gelasius quickly rejected and the single authority of one man tooke place because our Saviour had said to Saint Peter I have prayed for thee that Luk 22. 32. thy faith faile not But every prayer of Christ was granted therefore the Pope cannot erre It must here follow that either the Decrees of Councels are fallible or the Popes sentence Is it not strange that God should communicate his holy Spirit to the contempt of Councell more fully to a private person for so he is in this matter being one though a publike sinner then to the whole Church the Spouse of Christ Let the Pope claime to himselfe all power in all affaires who now can chide his ambition or give the lie to his infallibility CHAP. VI. ONe of my great admirations concerning the Church of Rome is that whereas there are many Churches yet extant of great antiquity and some wherein Christ was almost if not altogether as soone heard of as in Rome she will not consort and comply with them in things which were wholly in use amongst the Primitive Christians If she desires with a Christian desire and not with a desire onely of her owne advancement to win them why doth she not come as neere to them as it is most evident they come to the Primitive Church This way of the Bishop of Rome was never Gods way Which I will demonstrate in a plaine discourse though not plaine to the plaine that I may a little ease my reader in his journey with various objects God as he was ever God so he was ever good For the most eminent Attribute of God saith Dyonysius is goodnesse The nature of goodnesse is to spread and diffuse it selfe And every good doth spread and diffuse it selfe according to the variety and greatnesse of goodnesse which it hath And therefore God the Father being infinitely good doth infinitely spread and diffuse himselfe upon the Son And the Father and Sonne being infinitely good doe infinitely spread and diffuse themselves upon the holy Ghost And if the Father Sonne and holy Ghost doe not in any kinde spread and diffuse themselves infinitely upon the Angels and us it is because we being creatures and by course of necessary consequence finite are not capable of an infinite diffusion The Charity by which a good man loves good might be infinite if the subject could be infinite Now as in the works of nature and first diffusion of his goodnesse upon his creatures God the first cause would first worke by himselfe and himselfe bring about the most weighty matter of making all these fine things of nothing and moreover of waking nature out of her dead sleepe in the Chaos that it might appeare to us who should afterwards heare the grave and strange story of the Creation that hee was all-sufficient and could not be at a fault for want of help Yet managing the continuance of the worke it pleased him to use the meane assistance of second causes as of Angels and intelligences that he might adde worth and honour to them by so great imployment So likewise in the workes of Grace and second diffusion of his goodnesse upon his creatures the great worke of enfranchizing the world by his Bloud himselfe alone would performe but in applying the merits and vertue of his Passion to the chosen vessels of honour and mercie he doth graciously call in a manner to his aide Apostles and Apostolicall men And as God being the Author of

nature fals under himselfe and workes with every creature or second cause in a manner and measure agrreable to their naturall and ordinary way of working So likewise being the Author of Grace and having never yet for some great reasons best knowne to himselfe made two men with a perfect agreement either of face or nature sendeth Apostles and Preachers who have in their commands a speciall injunction of being 1 Cor. 9. 22 like to him who saith I am made all things to all men that I might by all meanes save some And God himselfe not onely in executing the generall Acts and Decrees of his Providence over his creatures but also and more especially in the more notable praxis and speciall exercise of his providence over his Church from the beginning of the world was all things to all men CHAP. VII GOD hath full power and absolute dominion over all his Creatures because he call'd yea catched them out of nothing and because to speake in the Apostles dialect in him they live move and have their being And therefore hee may lawfully give Lawes to them to the due and strict observation of which they are strongly bound under paine of his high displeasure seconded with most heavie punishment Wherefore giving a Law to the Jewes by the mediation of Moses he beginneth with an argument of his authority and dominion over them I am the Exod 20. 2. Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Aegypt out of the house of bondage This laid for the corner-stone I thus proceed in the building In the infancie and childhood of the world when sinne was not as yet so active so quicke so cunning but dull and clownish and to foreshow the backwardnesse of nature in matters pertaining to Heaven yes to naturall knowledge and even humane society and also that it might fully and plentifully appeare to after-ages how nature is wrought and polished as in materiall things by Art so in spirituall matters by Grace The Law by which God for the most part guided man was onely borne with him was young as he was young and grew as he grew non scripta sed nata lex as the Orator saith being a Law not written and sent in a letter to us from Lycurgus Solon or Moses but borne with us or if written written onely in the soule of man where it continually remaineth in the shape of a light discovering to the view of the Soule the beauty of good and the deformity of evill For Good is faire and amiable and the cleare eye of reason beholdeth in it at the first sight a singular convenience with the will of man and a sympathy with Heaven And therefore they who were bound onely with the looser ties of the Law of nature and who now in strange Countries and in wilde and uncouth places dispense their actions by the light of reason beare a Preacher in their hearts Ill is blacke and deformed and reason in the first glance seeth a loathsomenesse a Toad in it and heareth presently as it were a jarring and disagreement with God and Heaven And therefore the drunkard the lascivious person and others of the same torne and ragged coate loath in deed not by any pious act of Christian vertue but by a deed of nature their owne beastlinesse and can by no meanes endure to be call'd what they are For as the Beast runneth the Bird flieth from danger as the one prepareth his den the other his nest as they looke abroad for daily nourishment provide carefully for their young know what will satisfie their cold of hunger what coole their heate of thirst what complyeth with their different appetites follow the leading of their admirable properties and by a secret instinct cheerefully performe the severall acts of their nature So man since he dealt with the Tree of Knowledge naturally knoweth good as opposed to evill as he naturally distinguisheth light from darknesse Againe some things are good in themselves and not good onely because God commands them to be loved and imbraced and these in the first place the light of nature sheweth to be good And some things are evill in themselves and not evill onely because markt and branded with a prohibition and these chiefely the light of nature showeth to be evill For if the light or law of nature in its owne nature did not make it cleare to Caine that he ought not to have killed his good brother Abel how did he sinne or what branch of law did he breake in killing him sinne being the violation of a law But certainly he trespassed upon that first principle of nature in morality Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri ne feceris what you would that men should not doe unto you doe not you unto them And hither Saint Paul pointeth For when the Gentiles which have not the law doe by nature the things Rom. 2. 14. contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves One step more and we are in the bottome Although the the Sage Aegyptians in Damascius cried out three times in every performance of their heathenish mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unknowne darknesse yet by the plaine and easie search of humane power the old Philosophers found that there was a God and that he was but one in Essence that he was every where that he was omnipotent and the like though verily their knowledge both of God and his workes was rather opinion then knowledge it did so hang waver For the Philosopher opening his minde occasionally concerning the birth of the world sometimes he was and sometimes againe he was not Aristotle In one Arist l. 1. de coelo 1. Top. c. 9. booke hee judgeth absolutely that the world stood in the same state in which now it is in all eternity In another he stops like a man come unawares to a place where the way is divided and doubts which path leads to the truth In a third booke discussing the generation of living things Lib. 3. de generatione animalium c. 11. he sayes a man shall not beleeve amisse who shall take it for certaine that the first man and beast upon supposition that they came of the earth were either produced out of a Worme or an Egge and at length breaking the Egge in long handling concludes it is the most consentaneous to reason that they both drew their first parentage from a Worme And thus hee sought creepingly amongst the Wormes for what hee could not finde though very neere him In like manner he played with the Immortality of the soule It pleased him and it displeased him He tooke it and he threw it off againe And he was more willing in the end to disclaime it then owne it And the flowings and ebbings of his owne braine had he studied inward might have urged him to a greater confusion of thoughts and more trouble of minde then Euripus in which Saint Gregorie Nazienzen teacheth