Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	blood_n	life_n	lord_n	4,921	5	3.7317	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93889	Catholique divinity: or, The most solid and sententious expressions of the primitive doctors of the Church. With other ecclesiastical, and civil authors: dilated upon, and fitted to the explication of the most doctrinal texts of Scripture, in a choice way both for the matter, and the language; and very useful for the pulpit, and these times. / By Dr. Stuart, dean of St. Pauls, afterwards dean of Westminster, and clerk of the closet to the late K. Charles.	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.; H. M.	1657 (1657)	Wing S5518; Thomason E1637_1; ESTC R203568	97,102	288

that neglect the good opinion of others neglect those vertues which should produce that good opinion therefore St. Jerome protests to abhor that paratum de trivio as hee calls it that vulgar that street that dunghil language as long as my own conscience reproaches me of nothing I care not what all the world sayes wee must care what the world sayes and study that it may speak well of us For though it is true that a fair reputation a good opinion of men is not a foundation to build upon yet it is a fair stone in the building and such a stone as every man is bound to provide himself of For for the most part most men are such as most men take them to bee neminem omnes nemo omnes fefellit all the world never joyned to deceive one man nor was ever any one man ever able to deceive the whole world Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus Virgil. THe Poet here layes the greatest lenity and change that can bee laid to this kinde of people that is in contraria that they change from one extream to another where the Poet doth not onely mean that the people will bee of divers opinions from one another for for the most part they are not so for for the most part they think and wish and love and hate together and they do all by example as others do and upon no other reason but therefore because others do Neither was that Poet ever bound up by his words that hee should say in contraria because a more milde word would not stand in his verse but hee said it because it is really true the people will change into sundry opinions And whereas an Angel its self cannot pass from East to West from extream to extream without touching upon the way between the people will pass from extream to extream without any middle opinion Last minutes murtherer is this minutes God and in an instant Paul whom they sent to bee judged in hell is made a judge in heaven Act. 28. 6. the people will change therefore as David could say I will not bee afraid of ten thousand of men Psal 3. 6. So hee should say I will not confide in ten thousand men though multiplied by millions for they will change Wee finde in the Roman story many examples particularly in Commod us his time upon Cleander chief Gentleman of his chamber of severe executions upon men that have courted the people though in way of charity and giving them corn in the time of dearth or upon like occasions there is danger in getting them occasioned by jealousie of others there is difficulty in holding them occasioned by lenity in themselves therefore wee must say with the Prophet Jer. 17. 5. Cursed bee the man that trusteth in man Sequamur patres tanquam duces no● tanquam dominos Cajetan LEt us follow the Fathers as guides not as Lords over our understandings as Counsellors not as Commanders It is too much to say of any Father that which Nicephorus sayes of Chrysostome In illius perinde atque in Dei verbis acquiesco I am as safe in Chrysostomes words as in the word of God It is too much to say of St. Peter himfelf that which Chrysologus sayes that hee is Immobile fundamentum salutis the immovable foundation of our salvation Mediator noster ad Deum the Mediator of man to God The holy Patriarchs in the Old Testament were holy men though they strayed into some sinful actions The holy Fathers in the primitive Church were holy men though they strayed into some erroneous opinions but neither are the holiest mens actions alwayes holy nor the soundest Fathers opinions alwayes sound Molius est mihi non esse quàm fine Jesu esse Aug. I Were better have no being than bee without Jesus I were better have no life than any life without him For as David could finde no being without Jehovah a Christian findes no life without Jesus For what Jehovah was to David Jesus is to us Man in general hath relation to God as hee is Jehovah being wee have relation unto Christ as hee is Jesus our salvation salvation is our being Jesus is our Jehovah and therefore as David delights himself with that name Jehovah for hee repeats it eight or nine times Psal 6. a short Psalm And though hee ask things of a diverse nature at Gods hands though hee suffer afflictions a diverse nature from Gods hands yet still hee retains that one name hee speaks to God in no other name in all that Psalm but in the name of Jehovah So in the New Testament hee which may bee compared with David because hee was under great sins and yet in great favour with God St. Paul hee delights himself with that Name of Jesus so much as that St. Jerome saith as he loved him excessively so hee named him superabundantly It is the Name that cost God most and therefore hee loves it best It cost him his life to bee a Jesus a Saviour The Name of Christ which is anointed hee had by office hee was anointed as King as Priest as Prophet but his name of Jesus a Saviour hee had by purchase and that purchase cost him his blood Of a devout use of this very name do some of the Fathers interpret that Oleum effusum nomen tuum that the Name of Jesus should bee spread as an oyntment breathed as a perfume diffused as a soul over all the petitions of our prayers as the Church concludes for the most part all her Collects so Grant this O Lord for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christs sake Nihil de causâ suâ deprecatur qui nihil de conditione suâ miratur Tertul IN which the Father describes a patience of steel and an invincible temper Hee means that the Christians in those times of persecution did never intreat the Judge for favour because it was not strange to them to see themselves whose conversation was in Heaven despised and condemned upon earth They wondred not at their misery they thought it a part of their profession a part of the Christian Religion to suffer and therefore they never solicited the Judge for favour they had learnt by experience of daily tribulation the Apostles lesson Think it not strange when tribulations and tentations fall that is make that your daily bread and you shall never starve use your selves to suffering at least to the expectation of suffering acquaint your selves with that accustome your selves to that before it come and it will not bee a stranger to you when it cornes Sanctus in irâ Dei emendari non vult erudiri non vult August A Saint is loath to fall into Gods hands loath to come into Gods fingers at all when hee is angry hee would not bee disputed with all nor impleaded nor corrected no not instructed not amended by God in his anger The anger of God is such a Pedagogy such a Cat●chi●m such a way of teaching as the Law

heart and let the creature bee where hee will in heaven or on earth hee abides in this is led up and down by this and not by truth and so is called according to that which is in him and informs him a sinful deceitful hearted man There is truth in the heart ●or in the midst of the heart the expression is I think with allusion to the natural form of the heart The heart hath a tunicle and a ventricle one to cover it the other to hold life bloud and spirits and these small ventricles are in the midst of the heart and these the life of the heart Truth within the tunicle of the heart is not enough it must bee in the ventricle in the midst The expression imports th●s much that if truth bee not in the soul as the soul of the soul as the life bloud in the heart giving life and motion to all the soul is not healed by it of its unsoundness and so consequently no upright heart The Psalmist speaking of a righteous man saith That his mouth speaketh wisdome and his tongue talketh of judgement But is this enough to give the formality of a righteous man Many can talk very soundly and judiciously and yet very unsound at heart Observe therefore what follows where hee centers the formality of integrity the Law of God is in his heart none of his steps shall slide Psal 37. 31. the small lines of truth the string of the heart the Law of God a Law in and unto the heart binding and loosing that which lives as it were a life by it self continually moving when all other parts are still that this organ which makes so many steps to others and yet not making one step but in and under the Law of Truth and Christ this is an upright heart Meditatio pascit scientiam scientia compunctionem compunctio devotionom Augustinus MEditation gives a man a sight and knowledge of himself of his sins of the riches of Gods mercy in Christ and such knowledge is it which works compunction of spirit wee are to bee taken up in the duties of Thanksgiving and to bee more than ordinarily inlarged therein There is no such way to inlarge the heart in that duty as by meditation to heat and warm our hearts So Psal 104. 33. 34. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live my meditation of him shall bee sweet I will bee glad in the Lord. There is nothing so feeds spiritual joy and so maintains and holds up that holy flame that should bee in a mans heart as doth meditation that is the oyl and fuel that keeps such fire burning the sweeter our meditation is the more is the heart prepared and inlarged to prayses and thanksgivings and joy in the Lord. Therefore as in other Religious exercises so more particularly in the Sacrament one special duty to bee done is to take up our hearts with serious meditation And for the better raising and feeding this meditation it is good when wee are come to the Lords Table to do as Solomon wishes to do in that case Prov. 23. 1. When thou fittest to eat with a Ruler consider diligently what is before thee Hee adviseth it for a mans better caution if hee bee a man given to his appetite that hee may not bee desirous of such dainties as are set before him But in this case it is good to consider what is set before us to provoke our appetite and to stir up in us a longing after those dainties Consider therefore what is set before thee what is done before thee Consider the Sacramental promises the Sacramental elements the Sacramental actions Behold then and meditate what a feast God hath prepared for us and set before us such a feast as that Isa 25. 6. A feast of fat things a feast of wine on the lees c. Alas how lean are our souls what hunger-starved spirits have wee but here bee fat things full of marrow to feed and fat our lean souls How dead and dull are our hearts but here is wine upon the lees wine that goes down sweetly That will cause the lips of those that are asleep to speake that will refresh and quicken our spirits Here wee see the bread broken the wine powred out Here wee see Christ crucified before our eyes now wee see him hanging and bleeding upon the Crosse we now see him pressed and crushed under the heavy burthen of his Fathers wrath Now wee see him in the Garden in his bloody sweat Now wee may behold him under the bitter conflict with his Fathers wrath upon the Crosse Behold the man saith Pilate This is our duty by meditation to present unto our selves the bitterness of Christs passion Exod. 24. 8. And Moses took the bloud and sprinkled it on the people and said Behold the bloud of the Covenant So here Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world And behold the bloud of that innocent and spotless Lamb yea behold him now shedding his precious blood to take away the sins of the world and look upon him as the Scape-goat bearing and carrying our sins upon him Represent we unto our selves in our meditations as lively as wee are able all the sorrows of Christs passion This Christ commands and makes it one main end of the institution of the Sacrament Do this in remembrance of mee Therefore appointed hee the Sacrament that therein wee might in special manner meditate upon his passion and his love to us therein David had a Psalm of remembrance Psal 38. in the title But for the death of Christ his love in it and the benefits by it wee have not onely some Psalms of remembrance as Psal 16. 22. and 69. and others But besides the Lord Christ hath to the worlds end appointed a Sacrament of remembrance that this great work of Christs death and his infinite love and mercy therein might above all other works bee meditated upon and had in remembrance FINIS A Catalogue of such Sentences of the Fathers and other Ecclesiastical and Civil Authors as are explained and applied to the use of the Pulpit and the practice of Christians in this Book QVàm malè est extra legem viventibus quicquid meruerunt semper expectant Page 1. Vestium curio sit as deformitatis mentium morum judicium est 3 Quicquid propter Deum fit equaliter fit 5 Sordet in conspectu Judicis quod fulget in conspectu operantis 6 Bone res neminem scandalizant nisi malam mentem 7 Non omne quod licet etiam honestum est 9 Quae per rationem innotescunt non sunt articuli fidei sed praeambula ad articulos 10 Mors optima est perire dum lachrimant sui p. 12 Nemo me lac hri● is decoret nee funera fletu faxit cur volito vivus per ora virum 14 Ne excedat medicin● modum 15 Si molliora frustrà cesserint medicus ferit venam 17 Suâ sponte cadentem

Curremus post te wee will run after thee if wee would joyn in publick considerations wee should run together Quantumlibet sis avarus sufficit tibi Deus St. Augustine ACcustome thy self to finde the presence of God inall thy gettings in all thy preferments in all thy studies and hee will bee abundantly sufficient to thee for all Bee as covetous as thou wilt bee as ambitious as thou canst the more the better God is treasure God is honour enough for thee Avaritia terram quaerit saith the same Father adde Coelum wouldest thou have all this world wouldest thou have all the next world too Plus est qui fecit coelum terram hee that made heaven and earth is more than all that and thou mayest have all him Upon this St. Cyprians wonder is just Deum nobis solis contentum esse nobis non sufficere Deum that God should think man enough for him and man should not bee satisfied with God that God should bee content with Fili da mihicor my Son give mee thy heart and man should not bee content with Pater da mihi spiritum my God my Father Grant mee thy Spirit but must have temporal additions too Non est castum cor saith St. Augustine Si Deum ad mercedem colit as hee saith in another place Non est casta uxor quae amat quiae dives shee is never the honester woman nor the lovinger wife that loves her husband in contemplation of her future joynture or in fruition of her present abundancies so hee sayes here Non est castum cor that man hath not a chaste a sincere heart towards God that loves him by the measure end proportion of his temporal blessings And indeed what profits it a man if hee get all the world and lose his own soul and therefore that opinion that there was no profit at all no degree towards blessedness in those temporal things prevailed so far as that it is easie to observe in their Expositions upon the Lords Prayer that the greatest part of the Fathers do ever interpret that Petition Da nobis hodie Give us this day our daily bread to bee intended only of spiritual blessings and not of temporal so St. Hierom saith When wee ask that bread Illum petimus qui panis vivus est descendit de ●olo wee make our Petition for him who is the bread of life and descended from the bosome of the Father and so hee refers it to Christ and in him to the whole mystery of our Redemption And Athanasius and St. Augustine too and not they two alone refer it to the Sacramental bread that in that Petition wee desire such an application of the bread of life as wee have in the participation of the body and blood of Christ Josus in that Communion St. Cyprian insists upon the word Nostrum our bread for saith hee Temporal blessings cannot properly bee called ours because they are common to the Saints and to the Reprobates but in a prayer ordained by Christ for the faithful the Petition is for such things as are proper and peculiar to the faithful and that is for spiritual blessings only If any man shall say Ideo quaerenda quia necessaria wee must pray and wee must labour for temporal things because they are necessary for us wee cannot bee without them Ideo non quaerenda quia necessaria sayes St. Chrysostome so much of them as is necessary for our best state God will give us without this laborious anxiety and without eating the bread of sorrow in this life Non sperandum de superfluis non desperandum de necessariis sayes the same Father It is a suspicious thing to doubt or distrust God in necessary things it is an unmannerly thing to press him in superfluous things They are not necessary before and they are not ours after for those things onely are ours which no body can take from us and for temporal things Anferre potest inimicus homo invito let the inimicus homo bee the Devil and remember Jobs case let the inimicus homo bee any envious and powerfull man who hath a mind to that that thou hast and remember Naboths case and this envious man can take any temporal thing from thee against thy will But spiritual blessings cannot bee taken so ●idem nemo perdidit nisi qui spreverit sayes St. Augustine No man ever lost his faith but hee that thought it not worth the keeping Perfect a obedientia est sua imperfecta relinquere August THis Peter and Andrew declared abundantly when they left their Nets and followed Christ yet however in this leaving of their Nets there is no example of devesting ones self of all means of defending us from those manifold necessities which this life layes upon upon pretence of following Christ it is not an absolute leaving of all worldly cares but a leaving them out of the first consideration primum quaerite regnum Dei so as our first business bee to seek the Kingdome of God For after this leaving of his Nets for this time Peter continued owner of his house and Christ came to that house of his and found his mother in Law sick in that house and recovered her there Upon a like Commandement upon such a sequere follow mee Matthow followed Christ too but after that following Christ went with Matthew to his house and sate at meat with him at home And for this very exercise of Fishing though at that time when Christ said Follow wee they left their nets yet they returned to that trade sometimes upon occasions in all likelihood in Christs life and after Christs death clearly they did return to it for Christ after his Resurrection found them fishing They did not therefore abandon and leave all care and all government of their own estate and dispose themselves to live after upon the sweat of others but transported with a holy alacrity in this present and chearful following of Christ in respect of that then they neglected their nets and all things else Not to be too diligent towards the world is the diligence that God requires St. Augustine doth not say Suae relinquere but Sua imperfecta relinquere that God requires wee should leave the world but that wee should leave it to second considerations that thou do not forbear nor defer thy conversion to God and thy restitution to man till thou have purchased such an estate bought such an office married and provided such and such children but imperfecta relinquere to leave these worldly things unperfected till thy repentance have restored thee to God and established thy reconciliation in him and then the world lyes open to thy honest endeavours Others take up all with their net and they sacrifice to their Nets because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous They are confident in their own learning their own wisdome their own practise and which is a strange Idolatry they sacrifice to themselves they attribute

that thou mightest leave it that thou mightest imploy it charitably yet it might prove a net and stick too close about thee to part with it You leave your nets if you leave your over-earnest greediness of catching for when you do so you do not onely fish with a net you fish for a net even that which you get proves a net to you and hinders you in the following of Christ and you are less disposed to follow him when you have got your ends than before Hee that hath least hath enough to weigh him down from heaven by an inordinate love of that little which hee hath or in an inordinate and murmuring desire of more And hee that hath most hath not too much to give for heaven Tantum valet Regnum Dei quantum tu vales Heaven is alwayes so much worth as thou art worth A poor man may have Heaven for a penny that hath no greater store and God looks that hee to whom hee hath given thousands should lay out thousands upon the purchase of Heaven The Market changes as the plenty of money changes Heaven costs a rich man more than a poor because hee hath more to give But in this rich and poor are both equall that both must leave themselves without nets that is without those things which in their own consciences they know retard the following of Christ Whatsoever hinders my present following that I cannot follow to day ' whatsoever may hinder my constant following that I cannot follow to morrow and all my life is a net and I am bound to leave that Dilige dic quod voles August LEt the Congregation see that thou studiest the good of their souls and they will digest any wholesome increpation any medicinal reprehonsion at thy hands Wee say so first to God Lord let thy Spirit bear witnes with my spirit that thou lovest me and I can indure all thy Prophets and all thy vae's and the woes that they thunder against mee and my sin So also the Congregation sayes to the Minister Dilige dic quod voles shew thy love to mee in studying my case and applying thy knowledge to my conscience speak so as God and I may know thou meanest mee but not the Congregation lest that bring mee to a confusion of face and that to a hardness of heart deal thus with mee love mee thus and say what thou wilt nothing shall offend mee Thus dealt Paul Heb. 13. 22. I beseech you brethren c. And the strangeness of the case is exalted in this that the word there is solatii I beseech you suffer a word of comfort What will you hear willingly if you do not willingly hear words of comfort With what shall wee exercise your holy joy and cheerfulness if even words of comfort must exercise your patience And yet wee must beseech you to suffer even our words of comfort for wee can propose no true comfort to you but such as carries some bitterness with it wee can create no true joy in you without some exercise of your patience too Wee cannot promise you peace with God without a war in your selves nor reconciliation to him without falling out with your selves not eternal joy in the next world without a solemn remorse for the sinful abuses of this Wee cannot promise you a good to morrow without sending you back to the consideration of an ill yesterday for your hearing to day is not enough except you repent yesterday But yet though with St. Paul wee bee put to beseech you that you would suffer instruction though wee must sometimes exercise your patience yet it is but a word of instruction and counsel and though instruction bee increpation sometimes yet it may easily bee suffered because it is but a word a word and away Wee would not dwell upon increpations and chidings and bitternesses Lacrimae sanguis animae Aug. Ser. de tempore THe repentance and contrition of a sincere Christian for his sins upon his death-bed is such that at more pores then his weak body sweats drops of water his sad foul weeps blood and this more for the displeasure of God than the stripes of Gods displeasure I●●i verè irascitur Deus cui non irascitur nihil eo infoelicius cui nihil infoelix contigit VVHom God loves hee chasteneth Heb. 12. 6. Which rule of divine Occonomy is so general and without exception that even those duties that are promised a reward here as Alms-deeds are yet to expect the payment of this reward with some mixture of affliction the hundred fold which some men are promsed to receive though they bee secular blessings as houses lands c. yet must they bee with persecutions Mar. 10. 30. Licet in modum stagni fusum equor arrideat magnos hic campus mantes habet tranquillitas ista tempestas est Hieron IT was more safe for Peter to bee called Satan by Christ than for Judas to bee called Friend such an appellation was a Sarcasme in a complement as when God tells his people by his Prophet Hos 4. 14. I will not visit c. Gods not visiting here was the greatest plague imaginable and their highest affliction was not at all to bee punished Triticum non rapit ven●●● inanes pal●ae tempest●●● jactantur Cyprian de simpli●i●at● Frela THe Church is the Barn-floor the sincere and hypocritical Christian are the corn and the chaffe in that floor persecution and heretical doctrine are the two winnowing windes to discern betwixt both the corn is solid and immoveable and will sooner bee ground to powder than yeeld either to the rough blasts of persecution or those smooth flattering gales of heresie whereas the chaffe is carried about and distracted with every winde either of persecuting or pleasing doctrine Eph. 4. 14. N●tu● elinguis ne hoc qui dem habens ut rogare possit hoc magis rogat quod rogare non potest Hieron Tom. 1. Epist THe Cripple that cannot stir works more upon our charity than the importunate sturdy beggar that follows the length of a street ● and the very dumbness of those impotent persons in the Gospel was rhetorick equally as powerful with our Saviour as all those acclamations and Hosanna's of the Jews the fear and modesty of that poor woman in the Gospel that blushed to ask the cure of her bloody issue had it by a touch that very touch was an effectual prayer and every finger a several votary to beg the blessing Ant ubi mors non est si jugulatis aquoe DEath meets us every where and is procured by every instrument and enters in at every door by violence and secret influence by aspect of a star and the stink of a mist by the emissions of a cloud and the meeting of a vapour by a full meal or an empty stomach by watching at the wine or by watching at prayers by the Sun or the Moon by a heat or a cold by sleeping nights or sleeping dayes by water frozen

was The Law is a School-master saith the Apostle but the Law is such a School-master as brings not a rod but a sword Gods anger should instruct us but if wee use it not aright it hardens us Though Gods anger bee one of his wayes yet it is such a way as you may easily stumble in and as you would certainly perish without that way so you may easily perish in that way For when a sinner considers himself to bee under the anger of God naturally hee conceives such a horror as puts him farther off As soon as Adam heard the voyce of God and in an accent of anger or as hee tuned it in his guilty conscience to an accent of anger when Adam heard God but walking in the Garden but the noise of his going and approaching towards him Adam fled from his presence and hid himself among the trees Much more then if the Lord come in anger if hee speak in anger if hee do but look in anger a sinner perishes Hee did but look and hee dissolved hee melted the Nations Hab. 3. 6. David was an obsequious patient to take any physick at Gods hand if there were no anger in the cup. He provokes God with all his emphatical words Judge mee prove mee try mee examine mee Psal 26. 1. bring not onely a candle to search but even fire to melt mee But upon what confidence is all this For thy loving kindness is ever before mine eyes If Gods anger and not his loving kindness had been before his eyes it had been a fearfull apparition and a dangerous issue to have gone upon So also Psal 139. 23. Try mee O God and know my heart But how concludes hee And lead mee in the right way for ever As long as I have God by the hand and feel his loving care of mee I can admit any weight of his hand any furnace of his heating Let God mould mee and then melt mee again let God make mee and then break mee again as long as hee establishes and maintains a rectifed assurance in my soul that at last hee means to make mee a vessel of honour to his glory howsoever hee rebuke or chastise mee yet hee will not rebuke mee in anger In scalâ prima ascensio est ab humo Basil HE that makes but one step up a stair though he be not got much nearer to the top of the house yet he is got from the ground and delivered from the foulness and dampness of that So in Davids first step of prayer Psal 6. 2 3. O Lord bee merciful unto mee Though a man bee not established in heaven yet hee is stepped from the world and the miserable comforters thereof There are certain steps and ascensions of the soul in prayer and though a sinner may grow up to this strength of devotion to supplications to prayers to intercessions to thanksgivings yet at first when hee comes first to deprehend himself in a particular sin or in a course of fin hee comes bashfully shamefully tremblingly hee knows not what to ask hee dares ask no particular thing at Gods hand but though hee bee not come yet to particular requests for pardon of past sins nor for strength against future not to a particular consideration of the weight of his sins nor to a comparison betwixt his sin and the mercy of God yet hee comes to a Miserere mei Domine to a sudden ejaculation O Lord bee merciful unto mee how dare I do this in the sight of my God And thus likewise in the regeneration of a sinner though hee come not presently to look God fully in the face nor conceive nor prefently an assurance of an established reconciliation a fulness of pardon a cancelling of all former debts in an instant though hee dare not come to touch God and lay hold of himself by his body and blood in the Sacrament yet the Evangelist calls thee to a contemplation of much comfort to thy soul in certain preparatory accesses and approaches Behold saith hee that is look up and consider thy pattern behold a woman difeased c. Matth. 9. 20. shee knew there was vertue to come out of his body and shee came as neer that as shee durst shee had a desire to speak but shee went no further but to speak to her self shee said to her self saith that Gospel If I may but touch but Christ Jesus supplied all performed all on his part abundantly Presently he turned about sayes the Text and this was not a transitory glance but a full sight and exhibiting of himself to the fruition of her eye that shee might see him Hee saw her said St. Matthew here hee did direct himself upon others and leave out her and then hee spake to her to overcome her bashfulness hee called her daughter to overcome her diffidence hee bids her bee of good comfort for shee had met a more powerful Physitian than those upon whom shee had spent her time and her estate one that could cure her one that would one that had already for so hee said presently Thy faith hath made thee whole From how little a spark how great a fire from how little a beginning how great a proceeding Shee desired but the hem of his garment and had all him De infirmitate blandimur ut liberius peccemus libenter infirmamur Bernard VVE flatter our selves with an opinion of weakness and wee are glad of this natural and corrupt weakness that wee may impute all our licentiousness to our weakness and natural infirmity But did that excuse Adam said that Father that hee took his occasion of sinning from his weaker part from his wife that thou art weak of thy self is a just motive to induce God to bring thee to himself who hath surely born all thine infirmities But to leave him again when hee hath brought thee to refuse so light and easie a yoak as his is not to make use of that strength which he by his grace offers thee This is not the affection of the Spouse when the person languishes for the love of Christ but it is when the love of Christ languishes in that person The former weakness is a good motive for mercy if in a desire of further strength wee come to that of Lazarus his sisters to Christ Behold Lord that soul whom thou lovest and hast dyed for is weak and languishes Christ answered then This weakness is not unto death but that the Son of God might bee glorified Joh. 11. 3. hee will say so to thee too if thou present thy weakness with a desire of strength from him hee will say Why will yee dye of this disease Gratia mea sufficit you may recover for all this you may repent you may abstain from this sin you may take this spiritual physick the word the Sacraments if you will onely as God said to Joshua bee valiant and fight against it and thou shalt finde strength grow in the use thereof Acceptus in gratiam hilariter veni

his fault that fruit ne contristaretur delicias suas lest hee should cast her off whom hee loved so much into an inordinate dejection but if hee satisfied her and his own uxoriousness any satisfaction is nothing But what had I for heaven Adam sinned and I suffer I forfeited before I had any possession or could claim any interest I had a punishment before I had a being and God was displeased with mee before I was I was built up scarce fifty years ago in my mothers womb and I was cast down almost six thousand years ago in Adams loyns I was born in the last age of the world and dyed in the first How justly do wee cry out against a man that hath sold a Town or sold an Army and Adam sold the World he sold Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriatchs and all the Prophets and if Christ had not provided for himself by miraculous Generation hee had sold him too Agnoscere nolumus quod ignorare 〈◊〉 possumus Cypri de mortal THere is no meditation more serious than upon the vanity of the world no consideration more seasonable than of the brevity and uncertainty of time it self no knowledge more wholesome than of the diseases of the minde no contemplation more divine than of humane misery and frailty Which though wee read in the inscription of every stone see in the fall of everyleaf hear in the knol of every bell taste in the garnishing and fancy of every dish smell in the stench of every dead corpse feel in the beating of every pulse yet wee are not sensible of it wee will not take knowledge of it though wee cannot bee ignorant of it In which consideration the Wise man whose words are as goads and nails vers 11. pricks us deep with the remembrance hereof so deep that he draws blood sanguinem animae the blood of the soul as St. Austin termeth our tears Lachryma sanguis animae For who can read with dry eyes that those that look out of the windows shall bee darkned who can hear without horrour that the keepers of the house shall tremble or consider without sorrow that the daughters of Musick shall bee brought low or comment without deep fetched sighs upon mans going to his long home and the mourners going about the streets to wash them with tears and sweep them with Rosemary Infans nondum loquitur tamen prophetat August Serm. de bono pat IT is lamentable to hear the poor infant which cannot speak yet to boad his own misery and to Prophecy of his future condition and what are the contents of his Prophecie but lamentations mournings and woes Saint Cyprian accords with Saint Austin in his doleful note Vitae mortalis anxietates dolores procellas mundi quas ingreditur inexordio statim suo ploratu vel gemit● rudis anima testatur little children newly born take in their first breath with a sigh and come crying into the world as soon as they open their eyes they shed tears to help fill up the vale of tears into which they were then brought and shall bee after a short time carried out with a stream of them running from the eyes of all their friends And if the Prologue and Epilogue bee no better what shall wee judge of the Scenes and Acts of the life of man they yeeld so deep springs of tears and such store of arguments against our aboad in this world that many reading them in the books of Hegesias the Platonick presently brake the prison of their body and leaped out of the world into the grave Others concluded with Silenus Optimum non nasci proximum quam primum mori That it was simply best never to bee born the next to it to dye out of hand and give the world our salve and take our vale at once Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus avi primi fluit Horat. THe prime scope of the book of Ecclesiastes is to stir up all Religious mindes to set forth towards heaven betimes in the morning of our dayes Chap. 12. vers 1. Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth to enter speedily into a strict course of holiness which will bring us to eternal happiness to dedicate to God and his service the prime in both senses that is the first and best part of our time For as in a glass of distilled water the purest and thinnest first runneth out and nothing but lees and mother at the last so it is in our time and age our best dayes first run and our worst at the last And shall wee offer that indignity to the Divine Majesty as to offer him the Devils leavings Florem aetatis diabolo consocrare faecem Deo reservare to consecrate the top to the Devil and the bottome to God feed the flesh with the flower and the spirit with the bran serve the world with our strength and our Creator with our weakness give up our lusty and able members as weapons to sin and our feeble and weak to righteousness Will God accept the blinde and the lame the lean and the withered for a sacrifice How can wee remember our Creator in the dayes of our age when our memory and all other faculties of the soul are decayed How shall wee bear Christs yoak when the Grashopper is a burthen unto us when wee are not able to bear our selves but now under the sole weight of age What delight can wee take in Gods service when care and fear and sorrow and paine and manifold infirmities and diseases wholly possess the heart and dead all the vital motions and lively affections thereof Senes in limine mortis vitae sunt avidissuni Aristot de long brevi avit IT was Aristotles observation that old men that have their foot on deaths threshold would then draw back their leg if they could and at the very instant of their dissolution are most defarous of the continuance of their life and seeing the pleasures of fin like the apples of Tantalus running away from them they catch at them the more greedily for want is the whetstone of desire and experience offereth us many instances of old men in whom St. Pauls old man grows young again who according to the corruption of nature which St. Austin bewayleth with tears Malunt libidinem expleri quam extingui they are so far from having no lust or desire of pleasures as being cloyed therewith that they are more insatiable in them than in youth the flesh in them are like the Peacocks Quae cocta recrudescit which after it is sod in time will grow raw again so in them after mortification by diseases and age it reviveth Sophocles the heathen Poet might pass for a Saint in comparison of them for hee thanked God that in his old age hee was free from his most imperious Mistriss lust These men on the contrary desire to enthral themselves again in youthly pleasures and concupiscence in them is kindled even by