his one day Sermon in a week wanting true life and spirit will not so much animate his Auditory to holinesse as will his six dayes example the Book that the people better understand lead them to dissolution and wickednesse God hath required that he be not outwardly much lesse inwardly imperfect and deformed and it is he who must make vertue visible and the visibility that will inflame our affection Scandall in others is error in him a monster no corruption being so bad as what proceeds from the best He cannot be fit for the charge of others Soules who is carelesse of his own and who will beget affection in others must first put it on himselfe Wee would hisse him from the Stage whose action were grossely dissonant from his words and part nor is he better then a cheater of God and the World who accepts of a spirituall living without performing the duties of the Spirit It is questionable whether an evill Minister be not inferiour to the holinesse of his Bels and much more miserable for he is like them in calling men to Religious performances in sounding to please their eares and in flattering and solemnizing the times but questioned upon a due accompt in this world or the next hee will finde himselfe much more unhappy But a truly Religious professor will abhorre the indecorum of being unsuitable to his Doctrine fearing lest thereby as much as in him lyeth he render both it and himself so seeming unprofitable that men if it were possible would become distasted of his calling and Religion it self He will rather shew himself Gods Minister in godlinesse and humility then the Devils Chaplaine in his first sin and impiety and therefore casting off all pride vanity ambition covetousnesse and the corrupt inventions of men he will conform himself to the purity and simplicity of the Primitive Church and become as awfull to wicked men in his presence as a Magistrate or Commissioner of God sent to take vengeance on their obliquities Hee will Preach God in sincere Devotion and not himself in vain affection and will seek the advancement of Religion more then of his own order and Hierarchy for it is the splendor of the good and sincere lives of the Clergy and not their pompe and state that must work upon our consciences He will be an obedient Child unto his Mother Church for she cannot think him worthy to live upon and serve at the Altar if he shall think unworthily of it to be observed by him He will feed his flock more with plain and sound Doctrine then with abstruse points of Divinity and janglings of controversies or the empty sound of language and conceipts which become not the gravity of the Pulpit and will value the peace of the Church before any particular conceited fancy of his own or others Subtilties and niceties he will confine to the Schooles and Assemblies of his own profession The mysteries of Religion once received being rather matter for faith then to be controverted and disputed especially among the vulgar who in no sort ought to be taught or acquainted to subject the transcendency of their Religion to the grossenesse of their reason He will not if he preach before the King ingratiate himself by an invective incensing him against his People much lesse in a popular Assembly be Satyricall against Magistrates but will better discharge his duty by instructing such as are present in theirs and forbeare his Castigation upon the absent He will be cautious of alledging in the Pulpit out of whatsoever Author their over bold and profane conceits of Religion as also of using especially insisting upon the plain and naked expressions which are found in the Scriptures concerning women for all that becommeth the Bible becommeth not the Pulpit and there is danger of leaving ill impressions in corrupt minds He will use his best judgement in tempering his Sermons to the best profit and health of our soules And considering it is naturall for the sweetest and pleasantest things to be the most nourishing he will discreetly season and order them as well to the good relish of attention as helpe of memory and remembring that the yoake of the Gospel is easie consisting of comfort and glad tydings and that a tender and wounded soule hath never leisure to heale with the continuall application of Cauteries and Corrosives he will feare to bruise the broken reed and beget more discomfort and despaire then faith and true consolation in the best and most attentive soules Briefly it is only such a good man that deserves preferment but he will rather goe without it then to buy it corruptly with the price of his Soule We expect no miracles from him nor can he expect good life and godlines from us except according to his profession he shew us the way Religion was planted and must be maintained by the Teachers holinesse and humility Si vis me â—â—â—re dolendum est prius ipsi tibi They have I thank them done much good upon me I would gladly make some requitall A Physitian A Good Physitian if any such there be forbad enough is the best in respect of the Arts uncertainty will more affect the life and health of his Patient then his own gain and living and will not minister Physick to him to do good to himselfe He will be sorry that by a surprize of his over-deeming election he findes himself imbarqued in a profession where it is hard to thrive and be honest in giving Physick only where there is reall need and a good confidence in himself that it shall doe good to his Patient for he will have discovered that his title is but as of a Mountaine from not moving and that nature is the true Physitian placed by God in every man for his preservation and himself but a Professor of a most conjecturall Art so that who commits himself from nature to him takes himself from a seeing to a blind guide Though it be incident to his Colledge to be over peremptory as being used to the authority of prescriptions and prostrate sick Patients yet he will avoid it for a discreet plausible and winning carriage upon the Patients good opinion and affection is the one halfe of the Cure He will not contemn an honest Emperick knowing that his own Art grew but from experience often casuall and that Gods blessings are not restrained to their Colledge and old Books He will not bee sparing of his interrogatories nor of his attention to his Patients relation who being sick and paying ought to bee born with and humoured But an humorous Physitian is a most intolerable disease for all is but too little to effect a true information and to doe well he will often suspect that the disease may grow from the minde In case of which discovery he will no lesse industriously indeavour the Cure of the body by it and his good precepts and instructions thoroughly urged to that purpose then by any other means it being often
Amen Amen Ianuary 29. 1637. THis house and staire resemble me no line Runs parallell nor due proportion held No Landing even by pre-engagement spil'd High low faire mean imperfect and what 's worst Anxious to fit succeeding to the first Full of crosse reason 't was our equall lot Casting our birth th'Ascendent was forgot Yet all in this are well and haply cast Leading to God and Heaven at the last The Verses above in their relations are not to bee understood but by him which knows and considers the house staire case and my fortune and condition The staire at last leads to a standing mounted for prospect which leads only to it self and Sky My Ash-wednesday Ashes No term or Metaphor can carry a more true full and lively expression then doth that of our regeneration we are in the womb of this world before our second spirituall birth such Embryons and imperfect Infants as can scarce admit to be affirmed of us that we are indued with life and sense It is more potentially then actually that we enjoy them We acquiesce in a stupid and corrupt condition we are fed and pleased in the impure nutriment of earthly and false delights we draw our nourishment by the Navill of our sensuality we are wrapped in our uncleannesse and of our selves we neither know nor affect any other being But when God of his great grace calls and urgeth us to our true and second birth in his Spirit he changeth our affections cloatheth us anew brings us to another light another Aire another condition He worketh in us a sight and feeling of our former infirmities and corruption he purifies refines and fits us for a more excellent life and knowledge He displayes unto us his farre more excellent beauties and glory we draw our nourishment by another roote more coelestiall more defecate we loathe and scorn our former being and become ravished in the joy of our change which is not without difficulty and cryes happy cryes happy distresse most gainfull change There we could not have lived ever nor ever been but blinde and miserable Our first life is vegetable sensuall common with beasts dark base cumbersome our regeneration is the only true and eternall life of the Soule There is no sincere pleasure content wisdome courage or peace without it Christ alone is the Man-midwife to bring us to such happinesse By thy grace Oh Lord am I born and without it better had I been unborn I was wildred in a Wood entangled in a dimme light amongst Bryers Thornes and wilde beasts but thou hast freed me and brought me into the faire open delightfull fields of thy grace I was engaged to a Sea of raging waves and stormes but thou hast instructed me to strike my greedy sailes to cast out my vaine lading and brought me to a most happy Port in thy most happy Climate I was an executor of the worlds trust but found the estate so entangled so subject to debts that thou hast taught me to renounce and free my self I will by thy Divine assistance avoid the Wood and be free from the Bryers the Sea and be free from Sea-sicknesse and stormes the worlds common courses and conversations and enjoy thee and my self exempt from troubles crying debts and importunate vanities The world does in Truth for the most part but magnas nugas magno conatu agere c. I have I thank God in honest sort paid every man his own and provided for my children It is not every mans case to be so disengaged I am free O God to live to thee and thee alone My Country needs me not nor doth it finde me fit for its service c. I am by Gods grace too rigid too straight a peece for such Ship-timber I grieve to see the world as it is nor can contribute ought but prayers to help it how can it be other then Cachecticall tainted with the licencious luxury of strangers intoxicate wantonnesse of Favorites dissolution of our Seminaries the Universities and Innes of Court Prevarication and corrupt example of Ecclesiastiques and sinister affections and illusions of Magistrates as one said Signa nostra sequentes prodimur nisi Christus se ipsum vindicet actum est The Church is compared to the Ark and I would it did not in some things too much resemble it It is full of various many unclean beasts and too floating and unsetled I would rather prove it a City built upon the Rock Christ Jesus firme and unchangeable he is the sole and all-sufficient fundamentall of our Salvation and whilest we confound our selves and seek for other let us take heed we lose not him and betray our selves not only to infinite uncharitable indiscreet fanaticall opinions and Schisms but even to Turcisme and Atheisme our wilde unsettled dissentions expose us too much to both Lord of thy great mercy teach thy Church and me to fix in a firmitude of thy saving Faith and Religion Banish undue policy banish will-worship and teach us to serve and honour thee in unity and truth of Spirit instruct and guide me in thy wayes and seeing thou hast made me a sociable creature and given me a working active spirit addresse me to the comfort of a sutable conversation to discourse and walk thy waies aright Thou must reveale such unto me for I finde it too hard to finde them Shall the Roman Religion afford so many and thy Truth so few who can perswade themselves to leave the world for thee If all other Company faile my desires be thou my guide be thou my comfort and I shall still happily subsist in thee and want nothing The world is a writing so full of fauks many corrections cannot mend it Una litura potest and that I have chosen Thus writing is troublesome and well nee possum vivere cumte nec sine te It is endlesse nor is it fit for me to write what I would or could May it please thee Oh God to turn to thy glory and my comfort these my weak endevours Amen Amen February 7. 1637. LIke to his joy who meets a sure guide to direct and conduct him in a faire way after he hath been long wildred and benighted in false soule and intricate wandrings such Oh Lord is my comfort in thy sweet exhibiting thy self and thy favour unto me I am now at ease I see and hate the solecismes of the times I am disentangled from a wildernesse of the worlds confused wayes and errors nor could any other guide have freed me Thy grace hath supported me in my writings in my health in my deliverance beyond expression Let vanity and sensuality delight themselves in trewand wantonnesse and wandrings but keep me Oh Lord in thy wayes and schoole and let me rather smart under the rod of thy Fatherly correction then become abandoned to an undue and licentious Liberty Perfection belongs to the one perdition to the other Accept my most humble thanks for thy infinite favours and bring me to the heavenly
French with an English as with a French man nor exercise half so much freedome or ingeniosity with a dull common or prevaricating as a lively generous and sincerely expressing spirit I well endure not to sow my seed but on good ground and expectation of a good return nor to converse with such as are so wedded to their own opinions and full of themselves that there is no room or indulgence for any other I am as tender of giving the least distaste or offence to another as to my self Though I love conformity yet no more then needs must to an absurd fashion and not at all to a vitious temporizing Here you may finde no small perplexity Art is long multiform infinite Nature short-sighted bounded we are obnoxious to a world of crosse indications and reluctances Art and Inventions owe us a faire amends for we suffer and are confounded more then a little by them were it in my power I would recompence restore help and piece out Nature by my Writings but I feare the best Authors often more disguise and confound then better and improve her Shee hath I confesse found some advantage from Invention as appeares in the extent and multiplication of Perspective Glasses Catacousticons digesting our Language to bee conserved by writing regulate and sublime observation in Astronomy and the course of the Heavens as the Ephemerides and exact prediction of Eclipses doe witnesse but how well shee might have subsisted and walkt without a Iacobs staffe and these helps let others discourse I acknowledge them much better then the invention of high heeles head dresses and training Gownes c. But may it not be a shame to Art that all this while it hath not taught us to flye and for swimming we are rather dis-taught by our Discourse and that cutting down and destroying great Trees upon otherwise barren soyles it is not able to teach them to bring forth Corne and inferiour Plants Fancy and the Melancholy humour are great Inventors but as the Melancholique humour breeds an Appetite so doth it ordinarily hinder digestion a stomach that surchargeth it self with variety digesteth ill and breeds crudities It is hard to make a just concoction and distribution of our unnaturall superinductions The craftier sort of people strip themselves of such clogs and incumbrances and insist too often in a corrupt and unreformed nature They look upon God if at all no farther then they finde him in Nature and in his Workes they passe over his supernaturall revealed Word and will as wanting the eye of Faith to discern it and either question the recommended interpretation or wrest it to their own sense and interest they admit no Law but their own Nature and worldly and sensuall advantage No man can know God and his will and contemn or slight it But Religion like Nature and the Senses is indemonstrable because nothing proportions unto it Every man frames God unto himselfe such as either his grace or our owne interpretation and sense deliver him unto us If our Divines were either so consonant in their interpretations or lives as were requisite wee should become better Christians then we are His will would not be so indifferent to us nor would we conceive him so indifferent as many do to our wills and actions Excepting Religion all other knowledge is so painefull to attaine and so troubled and muddy when wee come to stirre the bottome that the game is hardly worth the Candle God of his great mercy enlighten us and mend us Amen August the 2. 1638. To my best Clergy friend in relation to the best among us IT proveth according to your conceit for this my farther writing I affirmed to you as I then thought that nothing lay upon mee requiring farther vent In truth for the particular which I now fall upon it hath beene long since in my affections to write something therein but the tendernesse and daintinesse of the matter and censuring ticklishnesse of the time with-held mee possibly I have been too pusillanimously injurious to truth and ingenuitie too much misdoubting my owne strength and over prejudicate upon superiours in such restraint Religion as it now stands betwixt us and the Papists is the subject There have not beene wanting on the one side some who out of a Romish presumptuous and overflattering disposition and on the other some who out of a Scottish jealousie and distrust have over-boldly apprehended if not concluded that both our King and many of our Bishops are against their owne and our good and quiet too much affected that way I have formerly understood from you your opinion to the contrary and that grounded upon sound reason and mine hath runne with yours None should prove so great losers by such a change as our King and Archbishop of Canterbury and they are both of them too wise and sensible of their owne power freedome and splendor ever to consent to reenthrall themselves to those great usurpations and abuses which the Monarch of Rome exerciseth over such Princes and States as acknowledge him It is little that we of inferiour calling should suffer under him in respect of the continuall reluctancy wherein they would find themselves plunged Our King and State enjoy now that happy freedome which hath cost others full deare to have attained and have failed in their endeavours Yet a King of France is mighty even in the Court of Rome so farre as to bandy against the Spanish faction which is commonly great enough to be troublesome to the Pope himselfe The power of all other Princes and States are petty Planets in comparison of these of so little sway and eminency that their influence and operation is very little more then as they side adhere and involve themselves to the others interest Our King is now one of the most free and eminent of Christendome nor can there bee the least just feare that his wisedome and spirit upon whatsoever Antipuritan suggestion can consent to bring over himselfe an unbridled and unlimited jurisdiction and controller The usurped vicegerency of the Pope as God on earth is too imcompatible with the just temporall power of Kings to be willingly admitted The strained grosse and injurious pretences of the Roman Church have been too clearely detected and Christian rights and truths too strongly vindicated to relapse to former delusions whatsoever future remisnesse and indulgency the Pope may pretend nunquam ligat sibi manus there can bee no securitie against him and naturally as well as for their pretended truth and uniformity they will ever tend to recover their losses and pristine authoritie Many carry a reverend respect to that Church more out of a contemplation of what primitively they were and now should bee then what they long have been now are and are likely to continue Unitie in truth and sincere Religion were indeed above all things to bee wished as nothing is more to bee avoyded and abhorred then falsehood prevarication and imposture Whatsoever pretext of policy and devotion
a prop I should utterly despair of any good or quiet If some men chance to finde a strength rising against them they may partly blame themselves in their reservednesse a Cause may be starved at Law for want of fees and so may power by being over-sparing in a winning familiarity it is harsh to a noble Nature to think it self slighted a good Judgement may manage it self in an open freedome without profusion or betraying the bottome and there is the greater need to use it where there is little else to pay It is true that the King may seem to have made himself a great loser by giving ground so much from the way of his former course but it must first be cleared that it was the right way of his advantage and well examined others more their own Friends then his may prove the greater losers and his parting may be like Abrahams in the conclusion rather with the Ramme then the Childe The undoubted Laws of England are no such churles and niggards to their Prince as not to leave him a Royall power and splendid state but there must be at this time more then leaving after so much alienation exhaustion and contraction of debts there must be a plentifull supply and support this indeed after all our other payments will be a work but so it must nor doe I doubt but suddainly it will be vigorously undertaken if new jealousies interpose not themselves His Majesties condition requires it his goodnesse deserves it and his faithfull Subjects affection duty and reputation can doe no lesse It is true that we have already had a long time and paid dearely for it possibly there might have been a better husbanding but a good end will make all good and for the best As I said before that Grace of God and wisdome of his Majesty which have hitherto assisted us are my hope and confidence the Genius of the Kingdome doth as yet extraordinarily need them The consideration of Divine Service Episcopacy and Recusants in the scandall that these late times have drawn upon them or they upon the times is yet to be regulated and the conceived offence and danger springing from them to be prevented this you will say is a businesse and the greater by the greatnesse of the parties severally affected in them For the Common Prayer Book you know how the Scots esteem it multitudes of our own growing in all parts no lesse incurably impatient of it Bishops are in the same predicament but so much worse by how much a dead Letter hath neither so much imputed to it for our past troubles nor apprehended from it for a future propension to Popery But it may be said Punish then the men without rejecting that calling which certainly is more ancient then the Papacy and that surely might serve if there were not such a connaturality in the reasons for the one and the other that admitting the one the other will ever bee in danger to follow as hath been seen The Common-Prayer-Book hath also unquestionably much good in it but the scandall considered whether another forme of another tenure and extraction more of a peece and conform to the other Reformed Churches be not more fit and necessary to our quiet I referre to better judgements Gods Service and Worship is the substantiall and Morall part Episcopacy and this or that Form but the Ceremoniall and I would be sorry to see cutting of throats for Discipline and Ceremonie Charity ought to yeeld farre in things indifferent But must all the yeelding be on the Governours part God forbid that we should yeeld to every fanatical opinion and to fal into a way of Enthusiasts without any set Form of Directory or Liturgy Freedom of zeale and inspiration may be reserved to the Sermon or an after Prayer without engagement through the whole time of convention to go along and say Amen upon surprise The other great bodies of Reformed Churches are in great part prescript and regulate and as the ancient Druides who ruled the Religion of France and Britaine were said to hold their chiefe seat in the Isle of Anglesey so may his Majesty I perswade my self without going farther then the Dominions of his Crown of England take from his Islands of Gernsey and Iersey in this rare necessary some such modell at least with little alteration as may fit his greater Island and immaterially differ from our Brother Churches But howsoever it is necessary to come to a resolution and settlednesse whereby to prevent the numerous spreading of obstinate Sects which are said to grow too much upon us amongst which multiplicity it is somewhat strange unto me not to heare of any Lutherans considering our late Queen Anne was according to her Country conceived that wayes affected Now for our Recusants they have Petitions in Parliament to move a relaxation of the Lawes and a Commiseration in their behalfe And truely for the better and devoutest sort such as turne not their Religion into wantonnesse and malice I am moved to pity them but as they affect to move us to pity them I wish they would no lesse reflect upon us and consider the troubles and unsufferable condition that their leaders have affected and will ever affect to draw upon us and what a difference there would be in what we should suffer from them in respect of that being and conversation which they have injoyed amongst us to the proceedings of their Inquisition against us I referre you Charity begins at home and let them in the first place pity their abused selves let them crave the pity of their Pope and Priests who for their own unjustifiable ends are guilty of all their sufferings I spare them who spare no man and whose policy incompatible with all Monarchy and Government but their own enforceth the industry of others in the preservation of their true faith to God and their own safety Thus after my manner I runne and write with a light hand I touch but not to the quick You who carry a Key of my thoughts can further open mee and will I hope as you use bee indulgent unto mee London and the Parliament afford much company but to mee little conversation I am now in an opener Aire and with you I lye more open The truth is Carriages have been so Cabalisticall of all sides so unpleasant and inconvenient to participate or comply with that being embarqued to a concurrency of results I found enough to doe to look to my self as little desirous to counsell as affected or thought fit to bee called unto it No man ever acted lesse or suffered more then by my infirmity I have done this Parliament My good God hath still wonderfully supported mee and it may bee all to the best Much good may others finde and wee in them by their advancement My ends are onely to keep my self an honest man with an untainted Conscience and Reputation nor am I as I hope unhappy therein at least from the best A faire