but can afford them a full-handed harvest thereof They wander as the Apostle saith Heb. 11.27 in sheepskins and goatskins being in want straitned and afflicted wherein though the floods of affliction lift up their waves and are ready to overwhelm their souls and the windes of temptation as ready to overturn them yet if with St. Peter they can stretch forth the hands of their faith unto Christ he will pluck their feet out of the danger that gapeth for them and cover them with the wings of his protection as the Mercy-Seat covered the ark And as the Serpent if he have but a small part of his body joyned to his head he still lives So the afflictions of the children of God though they take from them all that this world hath added to them yea their bodyes from their souls if yet they keep their souls united unto Christ their head they still preserve their lives uncouquered when as the wicked whom every breath of disaster driveth away whom the satisfying of every sinfull desire shall force from that power of godlynesse which they ought in each action to expresse are dead while they live as the Apostle S. Jude saith Jude 12. twice dead and plucked up by the rootes If therefore the unstinted malice of the devill should leave us with Iob as naked as when wee came out of our mothers womb rob us of the instruments of our earthly eternity and our loves greatest inheritors our children deprive us of our lives sweetest companion our health and print our bodyes more full of boyles and sores than Dive's dogs could have licked and which doubles all these leave us nothing but a Wife whose weaknesse he corrupteth as he did in Paradise to become a fellow-tempter with himself and friends who in the depth of of this Misery shall rather make our griefs smart more with salt upbraydings than any way asswage them with the oyl of consolation and that all this sharp siege be laid against us to pluck us from our allegeance to Christ and to cut us off from being members of his body wee must willingly banish all the but cobweb comforts of this life to hold on the rock of comfort Christ Jesus with the disciples we must forsake our nets to follow him with the Patriarch Joseph leave our garments behind us and fly away rather than yeeld to any sinfull pleasure which should separate us from him yea devesting our selves of all our wealth fly away naked with the yong-man in the gospell rather than abandon our vertue which should apparrell our minds In which losse of outward things there is this advantage that it is a great allay unto the devills temptations for as a Serpent saith Pliny shuns a naked man but pursueth a clothed so the devill doth not so easily assayl a poor man with temptations who with the possession hath also laid aside the affection of temporall things but he hath a great advantage of prevayling over the rich as the Apostle saith They that will be rich 1. Tim. 6.9 fall into temptation and a snar of the devill and into many unprofitable and hurtfull lusts which drown men in ruin and destruction Wee must therefore part with the fruit of our bodyes to preserve us from the sin of our souls and rank our friends health wife yea life and all in the number of trifles knowing how infinitly they are over-ballanced by the proper worth of Christ as also by the benefit which reflects upon us from him Heb. 12.2 who is the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame and sitteth at the right hand of God Very many are the examples of heathen men who for some privat good unto themselves as the attainment of learning or some publique good unto their Country as the safety thereof have willingly surrendred up themselves to divers forms of outward calamity Democritus pulled out his own eyes Crates cast all his goods into the sea Pythagoras banished himself from his native soyl Anaxagoras neglected all publique honours all privat contentment that he might let his thoughts loose wholly to the studdy of Philosophy Ancurus the son of Midas sacrifised his life to the floods Curtius to the flames that they might fix their Countries in their former safety Codrus the king of Athens when both he and his enemies had enquired at the oracle of Apollo who should be conquerors and that it was answered They whose king should fall in the battell hence it being proclamed through both armies that no hands fury should direct it self against the king of the contrary side Codrus to delude the policy of his adversaries shrowded under the habit of a common souldier mingled himself in the battell and there with over-daring valour provoked death to seise upon him and so preserved as many by his valiant death as he had done by his just life And shall those heathen perform all these things for the gaining or keeping of some such thing as can but in the second file challenge a place in our affections and shall not wee doe and suffer more to hold Christ in our hearts by faith and love with whom the availes of the whole world being counterpoysed prove too light as he himself testifieth saying What doth it profit a man Math. 16.26 if he win the whole word and lose his own soul But above all matchlesse herein have been the examples of holy Martyrs and Saints in all ages of the Church whose unspeakable sufferings for the love of Christ and rather than they would beleeve or doe or so much as think a thought which was not warranted by his word were such that though they could not win pitty to their suffering or belief to their assertions yet by their patience and courage in suffering they taught the highest degree of admiration to the hardest conceipts Let then these great letters in the Christ-crosse-row make up a book for us which running wee may read and coppy out their actions for our lives imitation But alas how farr are most men in these dayes strayed from the Serpentine prudence of our forefathers in their care of preserving their head Christ Jesus unassayled or at least unhurt but rather like Judas who sold him for thirty pence many of us are ready to sell him thirty times for a penny The cruelty of the Iewes was piety compared to us that which the most of them did was as S. Paul confesseth of himself Heb. 6.6 ignorantly through unbeleef but wee professe wee know him professe wee beleeve in him and yet crucifie again to our selves the Son of God When thou contemnest or neglectest the Ordinances of God thou spittest in thy Saviours face when thou disobeyest the just commandements of thy superiours thou plattest a crown of thornes on his head when thy hands are hands of iniquity and thy feet are swift to shed blood thou nailest his hands and his
to drink who being afterwards strangled with a halter was thus jeasted at by the People amphora pendet non homo it is a pitcher that is hang'd and not a man And in this delight doe men drown the head of their reason and darken the eyes of their understanding and so like blind men fall from hence into the depth of all other impieties With Noah they discover the nakednesse of their dispositions to the derision of every beholder are ready in they drunkenness with Alexander the great to kill their dearest friends with Marcus Antonius to vomit on the Tribunall with Lot to defile their own daughters yea what beastly evill is there amongst those which nature herself shames to behold to which this vice opens not a way St. Augustine reports of a certain young man who being drunk ravished his mother Stabd his Father and wounded two of his sisters to death And therefore the Poets say that Bacchus the Heathenish God of wine was born in thunder and is usually painted with horns because that drunkards are alwayes pushing and quarrelling and their effects dangerous and dreadfull And no lesse dangerous are the effects of gluttony though not so common because more costly and yet too too common for doe we not see that although heathenism be banished yet Idolatry is still maintained amongst us and men having no other Idol doe idolize themselves and make that dunghill covered with snow their bellies their God whose altars their tables they make to crack with the weighty Sacrifice of their delicious viands they impoverish sea and land to enrich their tables and tenter their inventions with unheard-of dainties to please the witty gluttony of a meal What hewing and squaring is there of their belâ—y-timber their diet while their souls in the mean time as the Prophet speaketh are daubed up with untempered morter What cost is there what curiosity in despite of nature to preserve things beyond or to hasten them before the time that shâ— hath allotted for their season And for the better relish of these their cates they wish with Philoxâ—nus their necks as long as a cranes that they may feel the more sweetnesse in their meats and drinks Meates for the belly and the belly for meats saith St. Paul but God shall destroy both it and them To this doe men add the excesse of over-coftly apparrell and perfumes of sumptuous buildings and rich furniture of revellings and dancings pastimes and sports consuming therein more than would maintain an army wearing the price of a Lordship at their eates yea at their shooes with Poppea the wife of Nero. They out vie the bravery of the Lillies as much as they did Solomons and strive to outshine the Stars in the number and luster of their pretious Stones disdaining to let their feet touch that earth whâ—lst they live which their heads shall be covered with when they are dead whose glory like a flaming palace while it shines consumes them and in the end will bring them to ashes Lucius Plotius who was proscribed in the Triumvirate and Muleasses the expulsed King of Tunis were bound to bewayl the unhappy excesse of costly perfumes who hiding themselves for fear were betrayed to their enemies by the smell of their sweet odors And in these and the like kinds of excesses doe men drown both their reason and their fortunes both their souls and bodyes and are not only passive but active in their own ruine they doe not only stand under a falling house but pull it down upon them and are not only executed which implyes guiltinesse but they are executioners which implyes dishonour and executioners of themselves which implyes impiety And when in these prodigious impieties men have melted their patrimonies they are forced to continue their profusenesse by injustice oppression cosenage and all kinds both of craft and cruelty like birds and beasts of prey satisfying their own ravenous desires with the ruins of others and making one sin the fuell to another with those shames of nature and monsters of mankind Nero Caligula Domitian and many others But above all the example of Cleopes a king of Egypt is most remarkable in this kind who wanting money to finish the witnesse of his folly begun in the building of a Pyramis and being barren of all other means basely prostituted the body of his most beautifull daughter to every slave that would bring one stone ready polished to the building thereof And although there are but few King and Emâ—erours or persons so vastly rich as to make themselves guilty of such monstrous impieties according to the uttermost extention thereof yet in the intention and vehemency of their desiâ—es as their practice according to their ability doth shew there are too many who are the pictures of Sardanapalus and Nero in miniature and their contents bound up in a smaller volume And no lesse then the most frequent of the former evills doth unlawfull Lust tyrannize amongst men who consume therein their bodyes and goods their good names and their souls which is such a shamefull nature that it doth fly the naming of such fearfull consequences that they exceed the naming Who is there that with holy Job hath made a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a woman to lust after her and is not rather like unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob who went a gadding to see the maids of the Country untill she was none her self By whom the Stews are more boldly frequented than the Church or at least more willingly 2 Pet. 2.14 having eyes full of adultery as saith S. Peter and that cannot cease to sin Such is the heat of their unlawfull desires that it cannot hide it self in their hearts but must â—eep out at their eyes which like burning-glasses collect the beams of beauty which set their hearts on fire on whom the law of Zaleucus of Locris were deservedly executed who commanded that the eyes of the adulterer should be pulled out Lust is an infernall fire whose fuell is gluttony and drunkenness whose sparks are obscene words whose ashes are uncleanness whose smoke is infamy and whose end is torment And in these and many more voluptuous courses doe millions of men ruin their souls into whom as into the herd of Swine the devils doe enter and carry them head-long into the deep of eternall perdition I deny not but there is a lawfull use of all Gods creatures he made as the Scripture saith Oyl to make a man have a cheerfull countenance and wine and bread to strengthen mans heart and there is a place allowed to silks and gold and pretious stones both for our use and ornament to each one according to his ability and dignity They that are in Kings Courts may wear soft rayment but it was the character of the rich glutton in the Gospell to be clothed in purple and fine linnen and to fare deliciously every day and it was the brand of the children of Israel that they sat down to eat
that fear standing at the dore of our hearts would resist the entrance of sin into our souls and teach us to apply such a mean and moderation to all worldly endeavours that as the Apostle saith wee should use this world as though we us'd it not 1 Cor. 7.31 The latter means wherby we must make deaf our ears to the powerfull charms of the devils temptations is the meditation of our own end like the Serpent which stops her other ear with her tayl Which meditation may justly claim the exercise of our most serious thoughts since the devils suggestions are chiefly plotted for the undermining of this consideration Who is therefore likened to a Serpent which biteth the horses heels that he maketh him cast his rider mans body is this horse his soul the rider his heel his end the meditation whereof if the devill doe bereave us we are overthrown both horse and man There is no stronger bit to curb the temptations of our unbridled flesh than to consider what a dear price we shall pay for our pleasures in our death and at our judgement In all thy works remember the last things saith the wise-man and thou shalt never sin Eccles 7.40 The birds direct their passage through the ayr with their tayls so doe the Fishes in the Sea the rudders motion guideth the Ship and the beasts with their tayls beat away the flyes temptations are flyes whence the Devill is called Beelzebub which signifies the God or Father of flyes all which are repelled by the mediation of our end signified by the Serpents tayl and the course of our actions for which we embarque our selves thereby as by a rudder rightly steered to the Port of happiness When the devill tempteth us to pride our flesh to lust the world to vain delights if we did but allow this meditation of our end a full place in our thoughts that we must die one day we may dye this day and that after death commeth judgment wherein we must satisfie to the uttermost farthing the great debt of our sins and that in such a manner and measure as neither eloquence nor silence can express surely I think we should not as many doe run on in evil faster than the devill can drive them and dare him to present them with a temptation which they dare not execute but rather like the Peacock who when he looks upon the blackness of his feet le ts fall his Plumes and forgets the beauty of his train So wee casting our thoughts down upon our end should neglect all the delights that temptations promise in their sinfull satisfaction Every man when he is upon his bed of sickness when hee is counting his last sand when death is so neer him that hee cannot turn his eyes from it every one seeing it in his eyes then how many vows and promises doth he offer up of â—esisting all tempâ—ation unto sin unto which he hath formerly too easily consented if he may but by the return of his health renew again the almost expired league betwixt his body and his soul Yea even the devill himself as the old dâ—â—â—ich hath it when he waâ— sick would be a Monk and a holy man Aegrotat Daemon Monachus tunc esse volâ—bat Convaluit Daemon Daemon ut ante fuit The Devill was sick the Devill a Monk would be The Devill was well the Devill a Monk was he But if we did in our healths entertain this consideration of death and the day of judgement and make it as familiar and present to our minds as the approaches thereof are neer unto the sick no doubt but it would work in us the same never fayling effects If wee did make remembrance our Philips boy to ring the knell of mortality each morning in our ears and if with S. Jerome there were no action of our life in whose performance we did not think wee heard the sound of the Archangels trumpet proclaming this convocation in our ears Arise ye dead and come to judgement if we did remember these tormenting flames which God hath prepared for the devill and wicked men Isay 30.33 whose fuell is fire and much woâ—d the breath of our Lord like a torrent of brimstone enflaming it which though it torment them yet it shall not consume them as though they should have a period of their pains but like the Salamander they shall live still in the flame and be denyed with Dives a drop of water more than their tears which will be so far from asswaging their heat that the saltness thereof shall encrease their ames and yet in the high boyling of this their heat such conflicts of punishment shall meet in them that through extream cold they shall gnash their teeth for as our Saviour saith there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth If I say these meditations were in us and did abound surely they would strengthen us to strangle temptations in their conception and to resist the untimely birth of sin If the rich man mentioned in the Gospell had thought that his soul should have been hurried that night to hell he would never have dream'd of building his barns bigger Few men will steel at the gallows or speak treason on the rack but it is our putting the evill day far from us that makes every day evill to us We forget the evill of punishment which make us commit the evil of sin Wher wee may prevent our sins by remembring of the punishment then we think not on it and when we think on it which is not til we feel it then it is to late to prevent it O how humbly think you would the fallen Angels behave themselves if they were enthroniz'd in their antient glory O how abstemiously would our first Parents have walked by the forbidden fruit if they might have been repossessed of their earthly Paradice And how temperatly would Dives have used the pleasures of this life if hee might have been redeemed from hels tormenting flames Let us then be as carefull not to fall into their evils as they would bee if they were risen out of them which care the meditation thereof will mainly strengthen as the oyl of Scorpions doth heal their sting that while death and hell are in us by remembrance we may never be in them by sufferance For as 't is said if the Basilisk see a man first it kils him but if a man see that first he kils it So if death see and apprehend us first being unprepared it destroys us but if we see it first by meditation and preparation we kill it and become the death of death and may justly take up that joyfull acclamation of S. Paul 1 Cor. 15.55 O death where is thy victory O death where is thy sting Yet all must dye For deaths meditation though it take away the sting of death yet it takes not away the body of death But here 's the difference that death which is the wicked mans shipwrack is the good
WISDOME AND INNOCENCE OR PRUDENCE And SIMPLICITY In the examples of The SERPENT And the DOVE Propounded to our imitation By Tho. Vane Doctor in Divinity and Physick LONDON Printed for J. Crook and J. Baker and are to be Sold at the sign of the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1652. To the Right Honourable MILDMAY Earl of Westmorland Baron Despencer and Burwash MY LORD YOu who have bin my Patron have most right to the Patronage of any thing that is mine Hence it is that I presume to present this unto your Lordship both to confess my obligation express my gratitude Which although it be in a small proportion yet seeing men doe not refuse their dues though never so little nor courteous men sleight gratitude although offered in never so small a service if it hold any proportion with the ability or opportunity of the offerer I hope that this under these considerations shall not be rejected by your Lordship being tendred by him who is Your Honours Most humble obliged and grateful Servant THO. VANE Of the Prudence of the Serpent and Simplicitie of the Dove CHAP. I. OUR Saviour Jesus Christ sending forth his Apostles to preach unto the world and knowing well what enmitie God put from the begining betwixt the Seed of the Woman and the Serpent and that from thence the children of this world should persecute the children of God like a wise Captain discovers unto them the strength and power of their Enemies and withall furnisheth them with armes fit for their defence He tells them in the 10. chapter of S. Matthews Gospell that he came not to send peace but the sword that they must not look like Samson to be lulled asleep in the lap of Dalila but like Jona to be cast into the sea to appease the storm to be swallowed up by the whales the tyrannous monsters of the earth to be arraigned before the seats of justice to be chased from citty to city yea to have those in whose names are included the greatest notes of friendship to be as farr from it in exercise as they are neer it in title and to have for a mans enemies those of his own howshold In sum to find nothing in the world but a world of wolf-turn'd men as it is in the 16. verse of the said chapter Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves whence followeth this instruction Be yee therefore prudent as serpents and simple as doves Christ also came as he saith to seek and to save that which was lost Luke 19.10 and that which was lost in Adam being the wisdome of the understanding and the innocence of the will he propounds unto us these two as patterns to renew them thereby no beast being so wise as the Serpent Gen. 3.1 as the scripture saith who was therefore in the brasen Serpent set up in the wilderness a type of Christ who is the wisdome of the father nor any so simple and innocent as the Dove which is therefore the Emblem of the Holy Ghost who is the fathers love Bee prudent to encounter with the policies of the world be simple and free from pursuing the pleasures of the world Be prudent as serpents to discover the worlds snares be simple as doves to cover their sins Be prudent as serpents to decline the worlds injuries be simple as doves in not revenging the injuries of the world Be not altogether as Doves left yee fall into others dangers be not altogether as Serpents left yee endanger others for as prudence joyned with malice is not more prudence than wickedness so simplicity joyned with ignorance is not so much simplicity as folly In simplicity therefore avoid folly in wisdome malice Prudence without simplicity is the mother of evill doing simplicity without prudence is the mother of evill suffering but prudence simplicity joyned together are like the two fires Castor Pollux whereof if one appear alone unto the sea-men it threatneth shipwrack but both together promise a safe harbour So prudence and simplicity joyned together doe cause all the actions for which we embarque our selves to arrive at the port of prosperous successe but parted asunder shipwrack our souls on the rocks of malice or the flats of folly Therefore as the Cherubims over the Ark had their faces towards each other and both toward the mercy seat so must prudence and simplicity be joyned together and both will tend unto blessedness Prudence is practicall wisdome and is in the generall of verie large extent consisting in the knowledge of what is best and fittest to be done in all emergent occasions and in working accordingly It hath also divers parts and divers kinds which I intend not to pursue my purpose only being to speak of it so farr forth and no further than it may be attributed to some particular actions of the Serpent wherein there is though not a realitie which is properly the habit of a reasonable soul yet a resemblance of spirituall wisdome by our Saviour thought worthie our imitation Which exhortation though directed immediatly to the Apostles only yet is applyable to every Christian And as our Sauiour said to his auditors concerning watching What I say unto you I say unto all watch Luke 13.37 So what he saith in this case to his Apostles he saith unto all Christians Bee prudent as serpents and simple as doves What therefore the cabinet of truth grave historie hath preserved for us concerning the wisdome-presenting qualities of the Serpent I will unlock and proportionate our imitating actions unto their just measure Now the Prudence of the Serpent whereon our imitation must attend doth emblazon it self in divers particulars which are these that follow CHAP. II. THE first is the renewing of his youth with the handmaids thereof the vigor of his senses and their operations which he effecteth on this manner When he feeleth the heavie plummets of age swiftly moving toward their end the wheeles of the clock of life he thus winds up again He fasteth certain dayes saith Aristotle whereby his body is dryed and his skin loosened then by the eating of a certain bitter herb he doth vomit up a virulent poysonous humour which was the cause of his infirmity at length that he may temper the roughnesse of his skin he bathes himself in water and seeking a narrow chink or hole in some rock or other place he wriggles himself in and forceably drawing himself through slips off his skin and lastly resting in some such place where the sun doth most favourably display his beams he recovers a new skin and hardens it fit for his use and with it investeth himself with new vigor adding thereby cleenesse to his eyesight strength to his bodyes motion increase to his stomacks appetite and digestion and by this meanes doth he renew the almost expired league between his bodie and his soul This also affirmeth both Avicen and Pliny To this line of the Serpents example must we
apply our imitation renewing our lives by the works of Penance First by Fasting whereby wee shall dry up the flux of Intemperance then by taking down into our hearts a dose of the bitter herb of of Contrition whereby wee must vomit up of the poyson of sin at our mouths by Confession and washing our selves in our tears and in the river of the sanctuary the word of God passing through the straits of a firm resolution to serve God and forsake sin we must put off the old man with the lusts therof and by the heat of the sun the love of Christ drying up our facilitie and proness unto sin we must put on the new man Ephes. 4.24 which is created according unto God in justice and holiness of truth and so recovering new strength unto well-doeing wee shall more cleerly understand spirituall things more ardently affect God and our neighbour and more earnestly hunger and thirst after righteousnesse and thus shall wee renew again the life of grace in our decayed souls As abstemious John Baptist was the fore-runner of the birth of Christ so must abstinence usher the new birth of a Christian but the devill enters into the voluptuous as he did into the herd of swin or as into Judas when he had eaten the sop Prayer the weapon by which wee overcome even God himself is by nothing so much sharpened as by Fasting And therefore in the whole current of Scripture shall wee find these two in the examples of holy men linked together like the bells and pomegranates on the vestments of Aaron Prayer rendring a sweet sound Fasting a sweet smel which is therefore compared to cinamon and balsum which drying up the corruption of dead bodies keep them sweet Cúm S. Aug. caro arescit per abstinentiam ab humore luxuriae tunc reddit deo odorem continentiae when the humor of luxurie is dryed up in our flesh by abstinence then doe wee render unto God the sweet odor of continence Neh. 1.4 The Prophet Nehemia saith When I heard these words I sate down and wept and mourned many dayes I fasted and prayed before the face of the God of heaven Also the Prophet Daniel Dan. 9.3 I turned my face unto my Lord God to ask and beseech in fasting sackcloth and ashes And then did he receive an especiall revelation concerning the birth and death of Christ St. Peter when he was fasting saw the vision in the house of Simon the tanner Acts 10. Also Acts 13.2 As they ministred unto our Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said unto them separate Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have taken them Here wee see that fasting-prayer is most pleasing unto God even as emptie-bellied instruments are sweetest to the eares of men Facilius per jejunium oratio penetrat coelum saith S. Jsodore The darts of our prayers being headed with fasting doe more easily pierce the heavens And as fasting-spittle as Pliny saith kills a serpent so doth fasting-prayer put the devill to flight and with him the many troups of his temptations wherewith he assults our disarmed senses And therefore our Saviour buckling himself to grapple with the devill made this one peece of his armour as the Scripture saith He fasted forty dayes and forty nights S. August saith Fasting doth purge the mind it englightens the soul it subdues the flessh unto the spirit and moulds in a man an humble and contrite heart It purgeth the mind by consuming and drying up the humour of luxury even as the fire which came down from heaven licked up the water about the sacrifice of Elias It enlightens the soul by lightning of the bodie and freeing it from those clogs of flesh to which in not a few it is a prisoner for the bellies fullnesse is mother of the minds dullnesse and repletions of meat in the body breed obstructions of vice in the soul whence saith the Prophet David Psal 34.13 Their iniquitie hath proceeded as it were out of fatnesse then immediatly followes They have thought and spoken wickednesse It subdues the flesh unto the Spirit by striking the swelling sayls of pride and incontinence enabling us to say with S. Paul 1 Cor. 9.27 I chastise my body and bring it into servitude and like Abraham it casts out the bondwoman and her children the devill with his spawn of sin not suffering the handmaids of our affections to advance themselves against their mistresse reason And lastly it makes our souls humble and contrite as the Psalmist saith Psal 72.7 I did humble my soul with fasting And this is the second condition required in the renewing of our lease of life The Passeover was commanded to be eaten with bitter herbs Exod. 12.8 and they that will feed profitably upon Christ our Passeover must have their hearts embittered with compunction and sorrow for their sins Surgeons when a bone that hath been broken is set awry are forced that they may set it right to break it again so the rectitude of our souls being broken by our fall in Adam whereby we goe halting all our lives after that we may set our hearts aright which are thus wryed and crookeded by sin we must break them again by an humble sorrow for all our sins Which must not continue for one assault alone but wee must multiply our stroaks and breakings of our hard hearts untill our sorrow swim in our eys and furrow our faces with our tears even as Moses by striking the rock twice made a river of water to gush forth And we must be sorry that we can be no more sorry and with the men of Israel 1 Kings 30. weep till we can weep no more It is not enough to afflict our souls and bow down our heads for a day or to be like the marble which is moyst only against wet weather to weep only when the threatning storms of punishment hang over our heads remaining still inwardly as hard as the marble For as S. Gregory saith Hee that bewayleth his sins yet doth not forsake them makes himself lyable to so much the greater punishment by how much he contemns that pardon which hee might have attained by weeping But if like the Israelites wee pass through the red Sea of our tears of true Contrition we shall leave all the Egyptians our sins overwhelmed therein S. Aug. saith as Grief is the companion of repentance so Tears are the witnesses of grief into which if wee can melt our selves like Niobe through those dolefull images which sorrow imprints in our over-tender hearts for our outward losses of goods or friends or the like and cannot dischannell one rivolet from the fountains of our eys as a tribute due for the Ocean of sorrow which we owe unto the cause of those losses our sins surely we have either no sense of our sins which is bad or no fear of Gods judgements which is worse or no love unto his goodness which is worst of all For
if we had the heat of that love would reflect so strongly on our hearts clouded with sin that it would wholly dissolve them into tearfull sorrow even as the Sun printing hard his hot beams upon a gross thick cloud powrs it down into rain The Prophet David was of a far other temper and yet had an excuse as colourable as any one being a man and amongst men a souldier and amongst souldiers one of the hardiest whom no danger could reach to fear no temporall domage to grieve and yet such impression did sorrow make in his heart for sin that he saith I will wash my bed every night and water my Couch with my tears O faelices lachrymae quas beata manus conditoris absterget saith S. Bernard O those happy tears which the favourable hand of God shall wipe away And O those happy eys which have chosen rather to melt themselves into such tears than to lift themselves up with pride to look aside with disdain or asquint with envy These tears of Compunction and sorrow for our sins doe afford us the same refreshing that taking of soyl doth unto the hunted deer who being hotly pursued by hellhounds the Devill and his temptations and our hearts embost and panting under their pursute are wonderfully refresh'd and restor'd to our lost strength by washing our selves in the bath of our relenting tears into which who so enters as into the troubled waters of Bethesda's pool is assuredly healed of his sins If then the bitter sorrow for sin be the mother of such sweet and wished for effects let us seal up our desires with the words of S. Aug. Let repentance bitter repentance be the continuall companion of my days grief continuall grief the insatiate terror of my life and if I be not worthy to lift up my eys to heaven in prayer yet at least I am worthy to put them out with weeping CHAP. III. THe third thing required to the renewing of our lives is Confession The Dog when his stomack is surcharged with any hurtfull meat by eating grass vomits it up again so when we have burthened our consciences with ever-hurtfull sin wee must by eating the bitter herb of Contrition disgorge our sins at our mouths by Confession For as in a wound so long as the iron or steel or any part of that which gave the wound remains it obstructs the healing so doe the remains of sin in the Conscience through non confession control the influence of any remedy applyed thereunto as Solomon saith Prov. 28.13 He that hideth his sins shall not be directed but he that shall confess and forsake them shall obtain mercy An impostume breaking inwardly threatens death unto the party but outwardly it is a means to purge and cleanse the body So sin suppressed and smothered within our hearts doth empoyson and choak our souls but breaking out at our mouths by Confession it doth purge and clear the conscience and like the breaking out of the lips in an ague is a sign of our amendment So as S. Paul saith Rom. 10.10 With the mouth confession is made unto salvation Which Confession that it may be thus profitable must be also generall When a mans body sweats all over say the Physicians it is a sign of strength of nature but if it sweat in some parts and not in others it is a symptom of debility and weakness and no less testimony is it of the weakness and wickedness of the soul if wee doe not purge our souls universally of all our sins These parcell Confessors are like the children of Israel who cast out most of the heathen out of the land of Canaan yet suffered the Gibeonites to remain and made a league with them who thereby became as nails in their eys Num. 33.55 and spears in their sides so the least sin that remains with us uncast out by Confession will be a prick unto our consciences and an instrument of our destruction Now Confession as it must be accompanied by universality so it must be ushered by examination whereby looking back into the book of our consciences wherein the names of all our sins are written we must awaken the remembrance of all our thoughts words and deeds and muster them up together that so by Consession they may be cast forth as a sick man who being about to take a Purge first takes a Preparative to open the passages that so by the purge they may be the more easily ejected And that we may amongst the millions of our actions know which of them are to be superscribed with the title of sin we must have recourse unto the word of God as it is expounded unto us by the Church and the Pastors thereof which like the Mariners card and compass will demonstrate unto us how neer or far off our actions are from the immoveable North Pole of Gods commandemants And as when the Sun shineth not into a house the ayr seemeth clear but if it once enter in at the window it then appears full of motes and dust so the light of Gods word shining in our understandings will discover an infinite number of sins which before its access wee could neither perceive nor would we believe And as the word of God doth shew us our faults so also doth it cleanse them like unto a bason of water wherein a man may both see the spots in his face and wherewith he may wash them away as the Psalmist saith Ps 118 9. How shall a young man amend his way by keeping of thy words In this word of God therefore this river of the Sanctuary in imitation of the Serpent must we wash our selves which not unlike a certain water in Macedonia which being drank by the Sheep maketh them white so this received into our hearts doth blanch our souls with the whiteness of innocence Now where the Well of Gods word is deep and a stone rowled on the mouth thereof that is is hard to be understood with Rachel mentioned in the scripture Gen. 2.9 we must get some Jaacob to remove it that is some one that hath wrestled with God as the name of Jaacob signifies and that hath thereby obtained his assistance unto his studies and endeavours that so he may administer unto us But let us beware above all things that wee doe not drink down the water of Gods word with the abusive interpretation of heretiques for then contrary to the former effect of the Macedonian water it will be like that water in the troughes for the sheep wherein Jaacob laid his pilled rods which made them bring forth spotted lambs so will this make us bring forth opinions erroneous black and foul The serpent as I said in the beginning after his fasting his eating a bitter herb his casting up a poysonous humour and his bathing himfelf in water seekes some narrow hole through which drawing himself he slips off his old skin and drying his slipperinesse in the sun recovers a new one so
others posterity who like Jaacob and Esau struggle in the worlds womb the earth as if so little a room were too streight a dwelling for so great enemies Which enmity unveiled it self in the worlds infancy betwixt Cain and Abell who as the Poets feign like the serpents teeth sown by Cadmus were no sooner grown up but the one destroyed the other Ismael scoffed at his brother Jsaac Micol laughed at her husband David and king Ahab hated the Prophet Micaiah and the reason was because he told the truth It is the godlies goodnesse that purchaseth them hatred for as likenesse is the cause of liking so the contrariety of manners produceth contrary affections God is light the godly are enlightned God is truth the godly are true the devill is the Prince of darkness the wicked are darkned the devill is the Father of lyes the wicked are lyars what communion then betwixt light and darknesse truth and falshood Christ and Belial John 15.19 God and the devill Because yee are not of the world saith our Saviour therefore the world hateth you Now this hatred discovers it self either against our bodies or our souls either as the Scripture speaketh like the great Bulls of Bason they encompasse us on every side or like the little foxes they destroy Gods vineyard Thus in the dawning of the Churches day by the tyranny of the wicked did the Prophets and holy men of God fall like the morning dew and the seeds of grace which themselves had sown they watred with their own blood Thus the holy Christian Martyrs in the noontide of the Churches day when the sun of persecution reflected on them as hotly as the noon-sun on Jonas head did calmly bleed oyl to the Apostles lamps whose bright flames yet serve to light Posterity to heaven Thus also these latter ages in some places and at some times have paid as large a tribute of patience to heaven and sufferance in the world as any that went before them and have constantly kept the faith untill they lost themselves in keeping it like Naboth who kept his possession with the losse of his blood And thus in all ages have the diamonds of the world the godly who were made to be pretiously set in the esteem of men been brought to the extremest degree of calamity that witty cruelty could invent or unrelenting malice execute And thus also did the non-such of well-doing and evill suffering our Saviour Jesus Christ by the malice and cruelty of the Jews surrender up a life more spotless than innocence unto a death most shamefull and ignominious even to the death of the Cross the horror of whose torments left not where to adde unto it by the wishes of his enemies And if they doe these things in the green wood saith he himself Luke 23.31 what shall be done in the dry Nor doth the malice of the devill and wicked men stint it self here or satisfie it self with the suffering of our bodies then were their assaults little their victories less seeing that the vertuous like the palm tree spring up by pressing and like the Vine spread further by pruning The rod of persecution like Aarons rod that budded doth encrease the godly both for number and goodness making them both more and better Therefore doth the devill lay siege unto our souls by the temptations of prosperity and pleasure also hoping that as it is in the fable of the Wind and Sun striving who should make the wayfaring man put off his cloke what foul means cannot fair means may effect In which his two main engines are the flesh and the world the flesh within us the world without us The flesh he corrupteth with bliss-promising suggestions which like a treacherous Citizen betrayeth the fort of our will into the hand of him our enemy and thus a mans enemies are as our Saviour said they should be Mat. 10.36 those of a mans own house But with no better success then Tarpeia the Vestall Nun betrayed the Capitoll bargaining for the bracelets on the enemies hands who when they were entred did not cast their bracelets only but their bucklers also into her lap which with their weight prest her to death Even so the devill many times over-satisfying mens unlawfull fleshly desires with their sinfull weight presseth their souls into the pit of destruction The world also I mean the wicked men thereof he sets like so many lime-twigs and snares to entrap our souls and as fisher-men doe make one fish a bait to catch another so the devill doth make a bad man a bait to catch a good Wicked men are most pernicious creatures and easily pull down vengeance upon others either by the desert of their sin or by the infection who like men that have the plague out of a malignity of disposition which attends upon their disease desire to infect others and to draw them as the scripture saith to the same confusion of luxury 1 Pet. 4.4 with themselves Vicia ad vicinos serpunt contactu nocent saith Seneca Sin amongst men is like the rot amongst Sheep of a catching and infectious quality and he that thinks to partake the company of wicked men and not participate of their vices multiplies the miracles where walkers on the water with Peter are not drowned and in the fire with the three children are not burnt The nature of things is such saith S. Chrisostome that where a good man is joyned with a bad the bad is not bettered by the good but the good corrupted by the bad As sickness by accompanying the sick is derived to the healthy but not so health unto the sick And as the Salamander extinguisheth the fire and is not burnt therein so the wicked amongst the godly are ready to quench the heat of their vertue and not to be enflamed thereby Therefore saith the Apostle S. Paul Be not companions with them Joseph by living in the Court learned to swear by the life of Pharoah and Peter when he was amongst the high Priests servants denyed his master The warmer hee was by the high Priests fire the colder he grew in love towards God Psal 105.35 They were mingled among the Heathens saith the Prophet David of the children of Israel and what was the issue They learned their works Therefore as our Saviour adviseth us Beware of men First of men whose cruelty no meekness can asswage of men whose blood-thirstiness no lives can quench of men from whose persecutions no place is secure and if they persecute you in one City fly into another let a discreet fear give wings unto your feet and a godly confidence steel unto your hearts If opportunity open a way unto your flight refuse it not if not let an unrebated resolution arm you for sufferance Beware also of the company of wicked men who like bemyred dogs defile with fawning For howsoever fishes living in the salt water retain a fresh tast and savour not of the brinish quality of
the Sea wherin they live and it may bee true which Solinus reports of the river Tigris in Armenia that it passeth many miles through the lake of Arethusa and yet mingles neither fishes nor waters with the lake but is quite of an other colour from the same yet Inficitur terrae sordibus unda fluens Clear running streams are infected with the neighbourhood of filthy soyls and pure men with the soul conversation of the wicked Swallows they say would not build in Thebes because the wals thereof were so often besieged nor let good men or those that desire to be such hasten to the company of those whose mind-infecting manners doe threaten their destruction Apoc. 18.4 Be not partakers of her sins that ye receive not of her plagues saith S. John The reason why our Saviour would not give the Disciple mentioned in the Gospell leave to goe back to bury his dead Father was say some Divines lest his unbelieving kinred should corrupt him again for bad men keep others from goodness as the dead carcasses did the raven from Noahs Ark. It was part of the vow of the Nazarites not to defile themselves with dead bodies no more should good men stain themselves with the dead conversation of the wicked Run we then from these as Moses did from his rod turned to a Serpent for if we joyn our selves to Beelphegor Psal 105.27 we will like the children of Israel eat the offerings of the dead And to decline the cruelty of some in the destruction of our bodies whose rage knoweth no mean let us wisely with the Serpent fly into the wilderness where we shall find Jesus the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the brasen Serpent which was there lifted up who will encounter for us with that roring Lion and subtil Serpent the devill with his viperous generation and either rescue us or revenge our evils And to avoid the contagious company of others whose motions although more silent yet not less deep or dangerous than the other yea much more for this like lightning which melts the sword but hurts not the scabbard passeth through our Bodies and empoysons our Souls with the insinuating venome of sin let us with the Serpent hide our selves in the holes of the rock in the wounds of the rock Christ Jesus whose blood is more Antidote than all the sins of the Universe can be Poison so shall we avoid both the bodily and spirituall dangers whereunto the cruelty of some and the contagion of other wicked men would expose us CHAP. V. ANother work of prudence in the actions of the Serpent by just title claming our imitation is this The Serpent if he be assaulted his chiefest care is directed to the preservation of his Head for which he exposeth his whole body to the danger knowing that therin is the castle of his life in so much that when he is in danger he winds himself round into many rings placing his head in the center and as Pliny saith if he have but two fingers length of his body left with his head his life will still remain in him in like manner should our endeavours bend themselves to hold our head Jesus Christ and that which doth knit and cyment us to Christ true faith and charity for the safeguard whereof we should expose all else to hazard and in comprison whereof we should neglect whatsoever of profit or delight the world can adde unto us and say with S. Paul Phil 3.8 I account all things as dung that I may gain Christ Natura est sui conservativa saith Philosophy it is inbred in the nature of each thing to endeavour its own preservation so is it in the nature of grace now when wee cannot keep our selves from the endomagement of all parts wee must learn from the wise Serpent that our care of preservation must chiefly be directed unto that whose well-being doth chiefly concern us The fountain of life in a Serpent is in the head and the life of a Christian is in Christ who is the head of his Church as S. Paul saith Colos 3.3 your life is hid with Christ in God If then our prosperity wealth honour liberty or ought else that wee enjoy cannot bee compatible with the preservation of our head Christ Jesus more than the ark of God in the temple of Dagon and that a dangerous suffering of evill must only free us from the danger of doing evill of evils the least must fall under our election and wee must choose rather with S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles to leave all and follow Christ than with Demas to forsake Christ and follow the world Skin for skin Job 2.4 and all that a man hath will he give for his life said the devill and truly of Job wealth honour liberty worldly peace wife children and friends which are but skins things slight triviall and superficiall in comparison must we part with to preserve the life of our souls by the true faith and love of Christ for he that doth not forsake all if need be for him is not worthy of him as he himself testifieth And what Cicero said of his Country which he held second to nothing in the merit of his respect we may more truly say of Christ and true religion Cari sunt parentes liberi propinqui amici at omnes omnium charitates patria una complexa est Our Parents are dear unto us so are our children our kindred and acquaintance but all the love of those doth Religion alone comprize If we did but justly poyse the poverty of the worlds great riches and the riches of a good Christian in his greatest poverty who holding Christ hath with him the treasures of wisdom and goodness who is the Magazine and Storehouse of them all wee would count it a piece of folly in that man who should abandon the one to abound in the other below the degree of Esau's who sold his birrh right for a mess of pottage or of Esop's dog who snapping at the shadow let goe the substance O how much better is it to sit on Iobs dunghill and with him to know that our Redeemer liveth than in Solomons throne with the Kings of the earth or in Moyses chair with the Scribes and Pharisees and to bandy our selves against Gods annointed with the one and to say well and not doe it with the other Most true it is that very many of the Children of God like the ark of the testament which was continually hurried from place to place untill it was setled in the glorious temple of Solomon so are they untill they be setled in the more glorious kingdome of heaven And like Noahs Dove which found no rest untill it returned to the ark so they have their bodyes worn with continuall afflictions untill they be layed up in the common wardrob of the grave They are exposed to almost as many miseries as they live minutes no place being so barren of trouble
mans harbour where striking sayl and casting anchor he returns his lading with advantage to the owner that is his soul fraught with good works unto God leaving his bulk still mored in the haven which is but unrig'd to be new built again and fitted for an eternall voyage And as that earth in which the men of China doe bury their clay after a hundred years doth render it purified and refined and fit out of it to form their choysest dishes so our graves after many years shall restore us again glorified and immortalized and fitted vessels for the house of God Of the simplicitie of the Dove CHAP. I. AS the Serpent is the wisest amongst the Beasts of the field and is therefore propounded as the pattern of our imitation in the vertue of wisdome so the Dove doth farre leave behind her the examples of all the brute creatures in the practise of simplicity And therefore the Holy Ghost who is the love of the Father which love is the Fountain of Simplicity deigned above others in the exhibition of his testimony of Christ to invest his Deitie with the form of a Dove Whose harmlesse simplicity on which our imitation must attend discovers it self as Pliny saith in these particulars First she hurts nothing with her clawes Secondly she hurts nothing with her bill Thirdly she wants a gall Fourthly she nourisheth and bringeth up both her own and others young ones Now these severall pieces of the Doves simplicity do teach us that as she hurts nothing with her clawes no more should we throw any evill upon others by our hands or actions Secondly as she hurts nothing with her bill no more ought we to prejudice any by our words Thirdly in that shee wants a gall it forbids us to give birth unto a thought which shall direct it self against the good of our neighbour The first noteth unto us the simplicity of our works the second of our words the third of our thoughts Fourthly in that she nourisheth others young-ones we are directed not only to doe no evill but also to doe good and that not to our own alone but also to our neighbours yea though they be our Enemies These are the particulars which shall bound this brief discourse All works are intimated by the hands as the principall instruments of working and therefore Pilat when he would assoyle himself of that impious act of Christs condemnation washed his hands And the Prophet David saith â—sal 25.6 I will wash my hands among the innocent Therefore did the Pharisees wear the Commandements written about their hands to intimate their performance Now they who are altogether barren in good works are like unto Jeroboam whose right hand was dryed up And they who interline their good works with bad are not unlike Nehemiahs builders who held a trowell in one hand to build and a sword in the other to destroy One evill action amongst many good ones corrupts the vertues of all the rest like Pharaohs lean kine that did eat up the fat or the Colloquintida in the young Prophets broth which made them cry out O thou man of God death is in thy pot 4 King 4.40 And not only to doe no wrong but even to doe no hurt though lawfull is very sutable to the Doves Simplicity Our Saviour who gave us this precept gave himself also for an example who amongst all his miracles enrowled in Sacred writ never did any that tended to destruction but only in cursing the barren figg-tree S. Aug. saith all justice is comprehended in this word innocence all injustice reprehended To the injustice of the hands or deeds is referred generally all actions that strike at the body or goods of our neighbour God saith by Moyses Exod. 22.21 22. Thou shalt doe no injurie to a stranger neither oppresse him ye shall not hurt the widdow nor fatherlesse child More particularly to the injustice of Magistrates of Lawyers and publick officers who corrupted through hope fear hatred or love hope of preferment fear of mens power hatred of their persons or love sometimes to their persons but most times to their mony have renewed the antient copies of injustice yea and augmented them Pleaders tongues being like the tongue of a ballance their hands the scales into one of which if you put one pound into the other two the tongue will alwaies incline to that which is the heaviest Who is there that in the generall execution of the place of Magistracy or the particular designation to the decision of a controversie in the giving of voyces in matters of Election or in their choyce unto places of dignity which rest in their particular power swerveth not from the rule of justice and simplicity measuring the merit of the person not the quantity of the gift or relation of kindred or acquaintance Like Titus Manlius who in a case of justice gave Sentence against his own Son O no Themystocles saying pleaseth them better who being requested to bear himself indifferently in his censure answered Be it far from me not to pleasure my friends in all things Princes Courts doe swarm with their flattering dependents who either bridled with the fear of their displeasure or spurred on with the hope of preferment doe bind themselves with the sale of the liberty innocency and simplicity of their consciences to run the same course with them in avowing all their enterprizes in obeying all their commands like Pilat who lest he should strike against the rock of Caesars offence condemned the innocent Lamb of God unto death and Judas who betrayed him for a piece of money The example of Martinus a Cardinall is very memorable who travelling on his way one of his horses fell lame which the Bishop of Florence supplied with the free gift of another which Bishop afterwards comming to Rome craved the Patronage of the Cardinall in a cause of his to whom he answered first let me redeem my liberty and gave him another horse and now saith he if your cause be just I am your Patron I would this were the practise of all the Clergy and that of Philoxenus of all Courtiers who as Plutarch reports being demanded of Dionysius the King of Syracusa what he thought of certain verses of his answered according to his opinion that they were naught whereat the King displeased condemned him to digge in the Quarry-pitts but by the intercession of friends being restored Dionysius demanded again what he thought of other verses of his but he knowing that they were naught and remembring his late punishment answered not a word but called to one of the Guard to carry him again to the Quarry-pitts And he that will not with Phyloxenus rather suffer evill then doe it may deservedly receive the just punishment of Syamnes a certain Judge who as Herodotus reports being corrupted by money to give wrong Sentence King Cambyses caused his skin to be pulled off and nayled to the Tribunall that they that succeeded terrified by his example might