Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	soul_n	time_n	1,787	5	3.7088	3	false

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

and for us all MEDITATION III. ANd the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his Gen. 2. 7. nostrhils the breath of life and man became a living soule For when the Angels enriched with such absolute gifts and dowries of nature by occasion of their shining and beautifull nature had lost and lost beyond recovery the fairest beauty under Heaven which is Grace God turning his Omnipotencie to the Creation of man made as if he feared the like inconvenience all that is visible in Him of Earth of base and foule earth Which lest it should continually provoke a loathing he hath changed into a more fine substance covered all over with a fair and fashionable skinne but with a condition of returning at a word and halfe a call from Heaven unto Earth and into Earth That although he might afterwards be lifted up in the scale of his soule hee might be depressed againe presently on the other side by the waight and heavinesse of his body and so might lay the deep and low foundation of humility requisite to the high and stately building of vertue If now God should turn a man busie in the commission of some haynous crime into his first earth that presently in steed of the man should appeare to us an Image of clay like the man and with the mans cloathes on standing in the posture in which the man stood when he was wholly tooke up in committing that high sinne against God Should we not all abominate so vile a man of clay lifting himselfe against the great God of Heaven and Earth And God breathed upon his face rather then upon any other part of his body because all the senses of man doe flourish in his face and because agreeably to his own ordinance in the face the operations of the soule should be most apparent as the signes of feare griefe joy and the like wherefore one calls the eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most exact and accurate images of the Damascenus in vita Isidori minde But stay I grant that God in the beginning first rais'd all things by a strange lift out of nothing And I confesse it is true not that which Pythagoras his Schollers had so often in their mouthes Ipse dixit and no farther but ipse dixit facta sunt as the Prophet David singeth God spake the word and all this gallant world rose presently out of nothing as if sencelesse nothing had heard his voyce and obeyed him And I am sufficiently convinced that God brought our first Father from cōmon earth that we cannot touch without defiling our fingers to earth of a finer making call'd flesh But how are we made by him wee come a naturall way into the world And it is not seene that God hath any extraordinary hand in the work Truly neither are the influences of the Sunne and Starres apparent to us in our composition yet are they necessary to it Sol homo generant hominem sayes Aristotle The Sunne and a Arist man betwixt them beget a child The reasonable soule is created by God in the body at the time when the little body now shapen is in a fit temper to entertaine it For the soule is so noble and excellent both in her substance and operations that shee cannot proceed originally from any inferiour cause nor be but by creation And if God should stay his hand when the body is fitly dressed and disposed for the soule the child would be borne but the meanest part of a man And doubtlesse God useth Parents like inferiour officers even in the framing of the Body For if the Parents were the true Authors and master builders of the body they should be endued naturally with a full and perfect knowledge of that which they make They should fully and perfectly know how all things are ordered and fitted in the building They should know in particular how many strings veins sinewes bones are dispensed through all the body in what secret Cabinet the braine is locked up in what posture the heart lyeth and what due motion it keepes what kinde of Cookery the stomack uses which way the rivers of the bloud turne and at what turning they meet what it is that gives to the eyes the principality of seeing to the eares of hearing to the nose of smelling to the mouth of censuring all that passes by the taste and to the skin and flesh the office of touching Nor is this all But also when the body is taken up and borded by a sicknesse or when a member withers or is cut off truly if the Parents were the only Authors of the body they might even by the same Art by which they first framed it restore it againe to it selfe As the maker of a clock or builder of a house if any parts be out of order can bring them home to their fit place and gather all againe to uniformity So that every man naturally should be so farre skill'd in Physick and Surgerie and have such an advantage of power that his Art should never faile him even in the extraordinary practice of either To this may be added that the joyning together of the soule and body which in a manner is the conjunction of Heaven and Earth of an Angell and a beast could not be compassed by any but a workman of an infinite power For by what limited art can a spirit be linked to flesh with so close a tye as to fill up one substance one person They are too much different things the one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks a ray of the S. Greg. Naz Divinity the other a vile thing extracted from a dunghill Nor is there any shew of semblance or proportion betwixt them And therfore to make these two ends meet is a work which requires the hand and the onely hand of the Master Workman The Divines give three speciall reasons why God joyned a body to a soule First moved by his infinite goodnesse because he desired to admit a body as well as a spirit to the participation of himselfe and all creatures being spirituall or corporall a body could never have beene partaker of blessednesse had it not beene joyned to a spirit Secondly for the more generall exercise of vertue in the service of God for a soule could not have acted many vertues without the aide of a body as the vertues of temperance and chastity For the Devils are not delighted with the sinnes contrary to these vertues but for our guilt Thirdly the perfection of the universe For as there are creatures only spirits as Angels and creatures onely bodily as beasts and trees so it was a great perfection that there should also be creatures both spirits and bodies By which it is evident that God placed man in a middle condition betwixt Angels and beasts to the end he might rise even in this life with Elias to the sublime and superiour state of

proud that wee passe with such a noise to heare newes and to talk vainly to heap sin upon sinne and the world weary of the burthen passeth by us and presently God heapeth punishment upon punishment Foolish men and women how we sweat and spend our selves we see the spade working and deep graves digg'd every day and yet live as if we did not beleeve we should dye In the streets one goes this way another in hast that way a third crosses the way turnes againe then looks behind him and would faine goe two wayes at once It is wonderfull How stirring and busie wee are about the present things of this world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so called by the Apostle because nothing is ours but what is present He is a fond and miserable man that pleaseth himselfe in the thought of any thing but God and Heaven Fix here my soule and thou shalt find more true and solid pleasure in one meditation of Heaven though it is absent then in all earthly things although present and before thee MEDITATION XI THe soule being created for God and bearing his image or stamp God is the most proper end of the soule as the earth if it be lawfull to compare great things with little is the most proper place of a stone And therefore a stone being tossed from the earth as soone as it can shake off vim impressam the impression of the force which mov'd it that being out of breath and spent if there be no stop it presently returnes with all possible haste as it were glad being let goe and set at liberty to the earth which ownes it And so the just soul to God The soule in statu conjunctionis in the state of her conjunction with the body being wedded to it as to a fellow-helper sees by the eyes heares by the eares and in a manner feeles by the body Now the soule having beene created in the body and never yet us'd but to this kinde of knowing by the senses is so busied so kept in continuall work and so amused with the representations of the senses that shee is little urgent in the desire of her end as being tooke up with great diversity of other imployment which being alwayes new and therefore strange begets a zealous attention in the soule and so turnes her from God It is true if she listen to the whisper of an inspiration or heare a discourse of heavenly things she likes it well and feels a pleasant tickling of sweetnesse because it is agreeable with her end and then perhaps the desire of her end awakes sits up but other occurrences calling earnestly for admittance the soule gives way and the desire of the last end lyes fairely down and sleeps again But the soul being now in statu seperationis in her state of separation from the body they having been newly divorced and missing her body and her accustomed way of knowing by the senses missing the former use of the world and the things she saw and heard in the body thinks presently where am I I am another kind of creature Then being freed from all hinderance she begins to stirre towards her end For now she is like a stone as farre in the ayre as it can goe vvhere it cannot rest but quit of the force gives back and furnished vvith Guides shee flyes vvith all readinesse to God in his Kingdome the place of installment as to her last end Here I have the reason why the Divines say that whereas there are two much different paines in Hell poena sensus the paine of sense caused by the fire of Hell and poena damni the pain of losse by the losse of God the paine of losse is the greatest For the reprobate soul being thrust out of the body and having received her doome in the very place of her expulsion is struck presently with a strong apprehension of her end and of the worth and excellency of it and of her miserable solitarinesse without it from which shee being turned the wound bleeds and shee suddenly cries out wanting a Comforter My end where is my end I misse something the best thing what God O where is God I misse my end And then shee catches at him and misses and missing cries out and catches again and still misses crying I want rest in my end in God Where is my end that is God and God that is my end There is no rest for a soul out of the body but in God as there was no true rest for a soule in the body but in God I have bin long at hard labour now in the end I would rest in my end For I cannot be at rest without my end O my end while I continue without my end my torment will continue without end O what shall I do Where shall I begin How shall I end without my end And then catching at her end shee is caught her selfe away to hell fire and carried farther from her end Where she shall be alwayes catching and alwayes missing alwayes seeking and never finding alwayes complaining either of her paine or of her losse but most of her losse or of her losse of all but her paine and her losse which she would faine lose but cannot from which most wofull estate God deliver me But the just soule presently after the first apprehension of her end shal be joyned unseperably to it in which end shall be the end of all earthly motion and therefore all rest Blessed are the dead saith St. Iohn whom Dionysius salutes by the Revel 14. 13. Dionys Areop in ep ad Joan. in exilio agente Ver 11. name of Divine which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours But of the damned hee sayes confidently in the same Chapter they have no rest day nor night Have I heard a malefactor appointed by judgement to be starved after the gnawing and devouring of his owne armes crying bread bread If I suppose he cryes rest rest it is the voyce of the damned person MEDITATION XII VVE see many times and most commonly men and women lying on their death-beds some little while before their passage or departure in wondrous traunces took away from their senses At which times some look very cheerefully smiling like Angels and send from them shoots of joy and gladnesse And some looke frightfully and fill their death-chamber with shreeks and clamours We cannot in the generall give the causes of these different effects For the most part it is thus At such a time the soule heares her house crack and now threatning a fall And she sees that after the fall all the house will be so confus'd and out of order that shee will not be able to stirre about or doe any thing belonging to the keeping of a house and that then there will be no reason why shee should rather be in her house then in any other part of the world And in a manner rising

to speake with a Jusuite at his chamber in London found him earnest in his study behinde a curtaine After the discussion of their businesse the Jesuit stepped hastily downe to give order concerning the entertainment of his friend And in the interim the Frier looked behinde the the curtaine and found before his chair a written book The title of the Chapter which then lay open was By what motives to stirre a widow or other free person to give her estate into the hands of the Church and how afterwards to dispose of her The Frier by whom I was informed named to me a principall man of his Order who then had one of these bookes lying by him Whatsoever the Scribes and Pharises practised I doe not read that they commended the art of devouring widowes houses to writing for the information of their posterity THe fortune of the booke as it was related to me is this The Jesuits dare not print it lest it should at any time slip besides their hands into the world And the Jesuits that are sober natur'd and seriously given are never suffered to heare of this booke it is onely permitted to practical men and at such a time after their entrance into the Order but not before I had formerly heard of this booke and that it was full of damnable conveyances My Reader may see with halfe an eye that I relate things briefely and plainely and that I build upon the testimonies which they give one of another being a sure way The learning of bookes plowes not halfe so deepe Another Frier struck both the Jesuits and the Monks in one turning of his tongue with these words The Jesuits are the daily plotters and actours of businesses which we can never answer And were not the Monks ashamed to give out the other day that a mad man of their Order wrought miracles These Friers have a sleight by which they confirme their young ones They have printed under a picture of Saint Francis Saint Francis obtained of God by his prayers that whosoever dieth in his Order and hath the benefit of confession shall insallibly goe to Heaven The Monks have made the like promise under the picture of Saint Benet But let them unloose this knot without cutting it If their confession come from a penitent heart it will bring them alone to Heaven in the opinion of the Romanists if it come not from such a bruised heart Heaven is denyed to it by all their Doctors The Jesuits are a little more solid They have a picture wherein are printed at large the Prophecies of many Jewish Rabbines foretelling that God would send a religious and learned company of men into the World in the decaying and old age of it as I imagine for the elects sake Now I began to turne my thoughts a seeking againe because I had not yet found what I looked for And therefore I pretended the want of health and loth to continue a begging Frier upon these tearmes freely begged leave to depart CHAP. VII I Was now even cloyed and surfeited with these vanities And I meditated upon a conversion to the Church of England But although I staggered having drunke deepe of the poysoned Cups of Babylon yet my whole heart was never converted neither did I ever apply my selfe with an open profession to the Church of England before this happy time And still my heart gaped for more knowledge of their wayes Wherefore I was commended to an uncloister'd Monk in Paris with whom I lived a while as a stranger and enjoyed the great benefit of a faire Library This Monk communicated with the Church of Rome but inclined very much to the Greeke Church Yet his two Monks for they were all his family inclined every way as they went being seldome sober In Paris I found the fault of Doway that many schollers lived by theft and that men threw themselves into danger of their lives who stirred abroad in the black of night as well neare the Colledges as elsewhere These are not good orders of Universities neither is this a promising and hopefull education of Priests In this Towne I lay at watch for a better occasion You shall have more hereafter Now onely one farewell to the Friers They have many Rules of a strange out-landish nature and condition He that will be rul'd by reason may judge of this Rule A Frier is licensed by his Rule to touch and receive money with his Garment his sleeve or the lappet of his coate but not with his hand He is utterly forbid to touch it with any part of his flesh I see there may be an equivocation committed as well in manners as in words And I saw this Rule kept by a Frier who received a French crowne into a paper In the defiance of this and all other Rules of the like profession I give to him who is pleased to take with his bare hand and heart Rules directory in a Christian life and founded either in themselves or in their grounds upon the received principles of Gods holy word Rule 1. REmember alwayes that God is alwayes with you about you in you and in every part of you and of all his creatures and that when you goe from one place to another you leave God behinde you and yet he goes with you and yet you finde him where you come because he was there before you came And that although not alwayes the same yet some Angels and Devils are alwayes by you watching over you and carefully observing your behaviour yea and oftentimes beholding your heart in outward actions And let your thoughts and tongue bee alwayes running and repeating Shall I commit an act of high treason against so great a King so just and severe a Judge so good so pure a God and in his presence It is he whom Joseph meant when hee said How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God How sweet is God that sendeth his first and most perfect creatures his holy Angels downe from Heaven with an injunction of stooping and attending to the meane and homely affaires of men The Angels are daily conversant with us and yet are never discharged from the glorious vision of God to whom they are united being present with them wheresoever they are such a pretious mixture and composition of good things ought the life of man to be it must be compounded of holy practise and heavenly contemplation The Devill standeth ready to dash out our braines to destroy the body and to devoure the soule to disturbe the peace of nature to confound the elements to mingle Heaven and Earth to trouble all wishing earnestly and earnestly entreating that God would turne away his milde face his gentle eyes and say Goe my Executioner revenge my cause upon the World And yet God will not O the delicacie of the Divine sweetnesse Learne the nature of the Devill In one thing especially the fall of the Angels was like the fall of man For as man was more

which cryeth to God onely for helpe which is throughly obedient for Gods sake to lawfull authority bee it amongst Heathens which doth not permit and countenance sinne by which onely God is dishonoured And she cannot be the cleane spouse of Christ which God and his Truth being infallible performeth the most high and most reverend Acts of religion upon uncertainties As prayeth absolutely for a soule turned out of the body without a certaine knowledge of her being a determinate friend or enemy of God And worshipeth that with the worship of God for God which if the Priest be deficient in his intention or defective in his orders is in her owne opinion a creature And she is not the faire spouse which hath lost her attractive beauty and which all Jewes and Infidels hate and abhorre justly moved at least with a notorious shew of Idolatry And therefore I beleeve that the Church of England is the Spouse of Christ as being free from these blemishes and conformable to Scripture And in the defence of this Faith I stand ready to give up my sweete life and dearest bloud And if I die suddenly to this Faith I commend the state of my eternity An Act of hope in God I doe hope in God because hee is infinitely full of goodnesse and is like a nurse which suffereth pain in her brests till she be eased of her milke because hee is most able and most willing to helpe me because he hath sealed his love with most unbreakable promises and because hee knoweth the manifold changes and chances of the world the particular houre of my death and the generall day of judgement in all which I hope greatly this good and great God will deliver me An Act of the love of God I such a one in perfect health and memory able yet to revell in the world to enjoy wealth and pleasure to scrifice my body and soule to sensuality doe contemne and lay under my feete all goe behinde me Satan sworne enemy of Mankinde and love God purely for himselfe For put the case he had not framed this world or beene the prime cause of any creature in it put the case hee had never beene the Author of any blessing to mee yet excellencie and perfection of themselves are worthy of love and duty and as the object of the understanding is truth so the object of the will is goodnesse and therefore my will shall cheerefully runne with a full career to the love of it Saint Austin S. Aug. hom 38. hath taught me Qui amicum propter commodum quodlibet amat non amicum convincitur amare sed commodum He that loves his friend for the profit he reapes by him is easily convinced not to love his friend but the profit Wherefore although I should see in the Propheticall booke of the divine Prescience my selfe not well using the divine helpes not rightly imploying the talents commended to my charge and to be damned for ever yet still I would love him away ill thoughts touch me not I would insomuch that if it were possible I would even compound and make to meet hands the love of God and damnation For although I were to be damned yet God could not be in the fault and though I should be exceedingly miserable by damnation he would yet remaine infinitely good and great by glory and though I did not partake so plentifully of his goodnesse yet many others would O Lord I love thee so truely that if I could possibly adde to thy perfection I freely would but because I cannot I am heartily glad and love thee againe because thou art so good and perfect that thou canst not be any way more perfect or good either to thy selfe or in thy self And I most humbly desire to enjoy thee that thy glory may shine in mee and that I may love thee for ever and ever It grieves me to thinke that if I should faile of thee in my death I should be deprived in Hell not onely of thee but also of the love of thee Note pray that other vertues either dispose us in a pious way towards our neighbour as justice or doe order the things which are ours and in us as many morall vertues or they looke upon those things which appertaine to God as Religion or they direct us to God himselfe but according onely to one Attribute or peculiar perfection As the vertue of Faith giveth us to beleeve the divine authority revealing to us Gods holy truth Hope to cast Anchor upon his helpe and promises But with charity or the love of God we fasten upon all God with respect to all his perfections we love his mercie justice power wisedome infinity immensity eternity And faith hope patience temperance and other vertues leaving us at the gate of Heaven charity enters with us and stayes in us for ever An Act of Humility O Lord if others had beene stored with the divers helpes the inspirations the good examples the good counsell the many loud cals from without and yet from thee which I have had they would have beene exceedingly more quicke more stirring in thy service Many Acts which I have thought vertues in me were onely deedes of my nature and complexion My nature is be spotted with many foolish humours I am unworthy dust and ashes and infinitely more unworthy then dust and ashes A Sinner I am not worthy to call thee Father or to depend in any kinde of thee to live or to be The foule Toade thy faire creature is farre more beautifull then I a Sinner-Toade Verily if men did know of me what thou knowest or what I know of my selfe I should be the rebuke and abomination of all the world An Act of resignation to the will of God Whither shall I flie but to thee O Lord the rich store-house of all true comfort The crosse which seemeth to me so bitter came from thy sweet will Can I be angry with thy good providence Is it not very good reason that thy royall will should be done in earth as it is in heaven And though perhaps it was not thy direct and resolute will that all my crosses should in this manner have rushed upon me yet the stroke of the crosse being given it is thy direct intention that I should beare it patiently I doe therefore with a most willing hand and heart take Gaule and Vineger delivered by thy sweete hands I doe kisse and embrace both the Giver and the gift And moreover give up my selfe and all that I have to the disposition of thy most sacred will health wealth that which I best love here and liberty and life and all are ready when thou callest Crosses are good signes For the more I suffer now the greater I hope shall be my glory And therefore to thee be the glory An Act of content I am fully and absolutely contented O Lord with thy glory And it is the head of all my comforts that thou art God and doest raign over us And

Institution by which they differ from others is to teach and instruct secular people and to reside in Benefices and be Parish Priests Here I have a notable trick to discover and I shall ever stop and stand amazed and ponder the malice of the Jesuits when I think of it Their best and most able Schollers they send alwayes to Spaine and onely their weaker vessels to Rome in their ordinarie proceedings whereof some are lame some crooked others imperfect in the naturall part of speaking The reason of it is excellent knowledge The Schollers being with them and subordinate to them in their Colledges and now far from their Country it is a great portion of their labour to win them by favours promises threats in the by and much cunning to be Jesuits and so they never leave any if all they can doe will doe withall for the Secular Priests but the leane and bony end and the refuse of them For the Jesuits and the Secular Priests are great opposites and much contrary in their opinions and the weaknes of the one wil help negatively to the strength of the other The Pope being informed of this Jesuiticall device gave a command at Rome where his power is absolute in all kindes that every Scholler the yeare of his probation being expired should bind himselfe by an oath not to enter into any order of Religion till after three yeares durance in England And then they began to set on foot the trick I told you of But if one desires admittance into a mission who by reason of some defect for example the defect of having entred into an order and returned with dislike cannot according to their rules be a Jesuit if hee comes with strong and able commendations they will send him to Rome though he be a deserving man that he and such as he may stand like a good face or a fresh colour over the device that lyeth inward They have a very godly-fac'd answer to this objection and say these imperfect creatures are as God made them and they are sent over by their poore friends to be Priests and we that weare out our bodies and lifes in the education of Youth have good reason to chuse the sounder part and they which come to us are not taken from the Church but restored to it in a more excellent manner But first according to their own Principles they are bound to goe along with the Founders intention and the Founder intended the maintenance for able men Secondly they doe not performe their obligation of Charity towards the body of the Clergie which they notably maime and disable and yet in those places they are onely Stewards for the Clergie Thirdly they doe great injurie both to their Church and their cause which suffereth oftentimes by such Martyrs of Nature and such unskilfull Defenders Some of which cannot read Latine nor yet hard English See how God worketh for us by their sins Fourthly they delude the Popes command concerning the oath and wholly frustrate his purpose and their fourth vow of obedience to his Holinesse stands for a cypher in this businesse And much more What remaineth now but that malice is predominant in the action and that they make themselves Gods and turne all to their owne ends CHAP. 13. AT St. Omers their manner is to make triall of every one that comes what nature and spirit hee is of and what progresse he hath made in learning partly by applying subtill young Lads to him which keepe him company and turne him outward and inward againe and make returne of their observations to the Jesuits and partly by their owne sifting him either in discourse or examination or in some other more laboured exercise Which triall when I had undergone an old Jesuit gray in experience and a crafty one and one whose name you have in your minde when you think Not being then Vice-provinciall of the English Jesuits look'd soberly upon me and told me of a spirituall exercise in use amongst them which would much preferre me in the service of God if I was pleased to make use of it I yeelded And the next day in the evening I was brought into a Chamber where the Curtaines were drawne and all made very dark onely a little light stole in at a corner of the window to a Table where stood pen ink and paper and order was given me by my ghostly Father a cunning man a man that did not walk in the light that I should not undraw the Curtaines or speak with any person but himselfe for certaine dayes and what the spirit of God should inspire into my heart concerning my course of life I should write there being pen ink and paper And he left a Meditation with mee the matter of which was indeed very heavenly and hee brought every day two or three more Hee visited me two or three times a day and alwayes his question was after how doe you childe and so forth What have you wrot any thing Feel you not any particular stirrings of the spirit of God And alwayes I answered plainely and truly no. Having beene kept in darknesse some dayes and alwayes left to a more serious and attentive listning after the holy Ghost and perceiving no signes of a releasement I began to suspect what the man aim'd at And I prayed heartily that my good God would be pleased to direct me Think with me Had these Meditations beene appointed meerely and precisely for the elevation of my soule to God they had beene excellent but perverted and abused to serve mens ends they were not what they were But I thought I would know farther e're long The holy man came againe and still enquired if I knew the minde of the Holy Ghost My answer was I did hope yes but I was loth because ashamed to speak it Being encouraged by him I said That in my last Meditation the spirit of God seemed to call me to the Society Hee knew the phrase and the sense of it was God moved me to be a Jesuit He presently caught up my words and told me I was a happy man and had great cause to blesse God for so high a calling with much to that purpose And when he had his end my Meditations had their end and the Curtaines were drawne and having beene enlightned from Heaven it was granted that I should enjoy the light of the world and there was all the good man look'd for But had not the Holy Ghost spoke as he did hee would not have beene thought to speake like the Holy Ghost And now I was brought downe from my dark Cell with great joy and lightsomnesse and all the Boyes were unexpectedly sent abroad with me that afternoone to recreate their spirits and be merry with the new-borne childe Yet afterwards a performance being required of what I had promised my heart gave back For I had been counselled by some of the lesse Jesuited Schollers to goe in a mission and read farther in the practice of

a Mediatour betwixt God and Man but not one that is invisible and above as God is Certainly God could have given his blessings without the motion of prayer but the device was to exercise us in humility and obedience towards him us here below and in the performance of charitable offices towards our neighbours for our greater advancement hereafter And should it be freely given to them to the Papists that the Saints expresse their charity to us in praying for us it will not presently follow that we must be Petitioners to them For they may pray for us that is for the atchievement of our last end and yet not know the particularities of our conditions and not be able to heare our prayers It is a great way to the place where the Saints dwell and we pray softly And therefore God heareth us because he is every where Intra omnia sed non inclusus extra omnia sed non exclusus saith Isidorus within all Isid things but not shut in them without all things but not shut out of them And although the Saints should behold in the vision of God in whom are all things what we doe and pray for yet still they are finite and their powers limited And if the whole world should pray to a Saint at the same time it would be a great imployment to give hearing to all the multitude He that sees him who sees all things sees but a little of what hee sees that sees all things And the blessednes of the seers doth not so much as partially consist in the seeing of what is done below And that God imparteth to them any such revelations by which they may appeare to us so like to him wee are not warranted to beleeve I rather think that the wills of the Saints and Angels in Heaven lye fast asleepe in the will of God No Saint would grieve for his Father though he should know he is now broiling in the most searching flames of eternall fire because his will is wholly resigned to the first and superiour will in the order of wills the will of God He grieves not for him because the sentence of God hath past upon him and the sentence is irrecoverable because it is absolutely will'd And who can make it credible that the Saints know what sentences are past and what are yet to passe I was borne a poore beggar When I could not begg and I live a beggar and shall dye one My cry shall ever be Good Master my Master and Master of all the world give somewhat to a poore beggar for Jesus Christ his sake CHAP. 5. I Blame exceedingly in the Jesuits and others their neglect of holy Scripture An old man amongst them and a profound Scholler said in a vaunting way that hee had never read a word of holy Scripture in holy Scripture but as he found it scattered and cited in other books And when I made a Latin Play amongst them and God in his tendernesse forgive me for it acted the part of a Minister and preached upon the Stage having took for my text those holy words of Christ to St. Thomas Blessed are they that John 20. 29 have not seene and yet have beleeved Moving excessive laughter at every word I was not reprehended by them but highly commended And in Rome when I composed a Play of a mixture of English and Latin and still personated a Minister though I much profaned the words and phrases of holy Scripture all past for very well done Nothing almost is more common with the Italians then to frame their jests of the phrases or passages of holy Scripture which because they are witty please and spread exceedingly It is worthy to be learned that as in all subordinate Sciences they so contrive the states and resolutions of their questions that they may serve the better to the setling of their Doctrine in Divinity so they have the like ayme even in their ordinary carriages if the carriage be capable of it And running with this byas they neglect even outwardly holy Scripture that in Divinity they may the more seemingly inferre the insufficiencie of it in the decision of Controversies forming an argument out of their owne practice with which argument though no argument they are patiently convinced to whom their practice is a Canon and indeed holy Scripture it selfe There came to this Colledge when I was there a poore old forlorne Spanish Souldier and his arrant was to begg an almes This is ordinary and wherefore should I relate it The extraordinary is to come He confessed weeping to some of the Schollers that he had beene a busie man in the great Fleet that came for England in Queen Elizabeths dayes and that the heavy hand of God had so waighed him downe in all his enterprises since the foule attempt of that mischievous Plot that he could never prosper in his common affaires nor yet see any man who had engaged his person in that businesse that prospered I may ad out of his words that seemed not to beare with Caine or like a wandering Jew the curse of God upon his forehead O all yee true English hearts love God and serve him The Jesuits perhaps will deny they had any hand in that Invasion But lest they deceive you I will tell you some news from Rome It is known there that the Pope tooke and the Jesuits gave the better halfe of the Colledgemeanes sold out-right to the use of that Fleet And that the Scholers were overthrown with the Navy For the number of Scholers being great and now greatly neglected part of them by the fearfull judgement of God were forced to beg from Town to Town And I have heard of a great Extremitie into which some of them fell but the form of it is quite falne out of my mind Still praise thou God ô my soul I have read a Latin book in Rome written by Father Parsons the Jesuite that I told you sate in the Coblers stall after Gods expression to us in the overthrow of the Fleet where he labours to reduce that overthrow as Fa. Floyd the Jesuit did the fal of the house in Black friars not to an act of Gods good pleasure but of his suff●ranc● where with many arguments he encourageth all Catholike Princes to the like attempt where he confesseth that the Spanish ships had many Engl. Priests in thē but hee saith they came onely to mitigate and temper the severity of the Spaniards and to give the distinction betwixt Catholikes and Protestants It is very ordinary in Policie to give faire causes for foule ones Non causam pro causa That which was not the cause for the cause it selfe Every cunning man doth so My memory beares mee witnesse I have been told by them that either at the time of the Spanish fleet or of the Gunpowder Treason the Jesuits thought themselves so secure of a successe agreeable to their mindes That they had cast and written how all things

continuall importunity was from the Divell he did easily bring on his argument as it were under-hand and by stealth to other creatures that had a greater substance and a more noble being Give not place to the Devill in small things But if these impious Manichees had but stood a while and rightly considered by what crooked entry hurtfull things came into the world at least with leave to be hurtfull and how all things in the visible world even now after Gods heavie curse upon the earth offer themselves to be guided to good ends and are for the most part used by Physitians in the recovering and conserving of health or if they had but examined and scanned the perfections every thing hath in respect it is honoured with a being they would have thought it no absurdity to call God in the sight of Heaven and Earth Creatorem coeli terrae the Creatour of Heaven and Earth and of all things in them God hath made one thing lesse perfect then another to the end we may more highly esteeme his better things For as contraries though enemies are wont to set out one the other and the Swan seemes whiter when the Crow is in presence so in adversity the lesser things make good the greater And if divers creatures had not wanted their due perfections many long stories of great Miracles had beene cut off and the ignorant world had not knowne that it was hee who made nature by whose power she was restored And perfect men should not have had such open admonishment to reflect upon their owne talents and to praise God for his singular benefits to them If no man had ever beene blinde who would thanke God above an easie and ordinary manner for his eyes the windowes of his soule and if none were deformed who would praise beauty And howsoever Aristotle to bring in the phrase calleth monsters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sinnes of nature God was 2 Phys text 82. willing that nature should erre sometimes in the right stroke and looking to his end seemed to erre with nature in the worke And never was any famous picture but the same end was intended by the Painter in the pencilling For monsters doe serve in this great picture of the world like shadowes in pictures to give the eye a fairer view of the fairer colours The darknesse of the night though it hath none in it selfe yet gives a great lusture to the day And Summer is more esteemed because it was usher'd into the world by a wither'd and shaking Winter By which it is manifest that not onely these things passe with change to avoide tediousnesse which hapneth even in the highest ranke of things if they be earthly but also that the meaner sort by onely shewing themselves upon the stage helpe much to the value and estimation of the better O thou delightfull change and vicissitude my thoughts must needs change to praise thee Albeit he made thee who is unchangeable yet he well knew thou wouldest shew well in the world though not in him I will no more to every kinde of change give that soule name Inconstancie I see now that ordered changes are to be desired But in imitation of thee I must change againe It is more certaine then that which is certaine or certainty it selfe that he made all things who moved Dan. 3. in Apocryph the three children in Daniel as well to invite to the praise of God heate fire they being then in the fire cold frost lightning clouds night and darknesse as other creatures though oftetimes they bring in their traine danger and sometimes hurt with S. Aug. sib de nanea benise 6. them which objection Saint Austin bendeth against the Manichees For all creatures by waving towards the end for which God made them praise God The Sunne runnes apace to doe his will Let it goe that many things were not fashioned in the first Creation which after the quality of the earth was altered by the curse were seene to appeare in strange and antick shapes being indeed the children of the curse not of the earth as thornes and brambles which come against us with their pikes in so great a number and most commonly without helpe of tillage or other husbandry or any call or signe from us that a Rose cannot grow but secretly armed with thornes even in the place where it is to be plucked And for living creatures given up to mans use they turne head against man because Adam bore armes against God for whom he was made And by this foule cranny came all the scattered troops of crosses into the world and all hurtfull creatures which were more hurtfull to the Manichees then all other people as being cause of their errour For the Jewes have an ancient tradition that Adam before his fall being seated on an eminent place in Paradise other living creatures passed by him in a decent order and bowed their humble heads in signe of honour and duty at which time hee gave them all names some thinke conformable to their natures Moses singeth of God his Deut. 32. 4. Psal 104. 24. worke is perfect and David playeth to the song O Lord how manifold are thy workes in wisedome hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy riches Consideration 6. GOD as he is infinite in himselfe so he doth certainely steere all his actions to an infinite end which cannot be any thing but himselfe All flouds wander out of the Sea and finding they have lost their way runne hastily another way to finde the Sea These subject creatures are given us to stand in divers places and take us by the hand and so deliver us from hand to hand till at last they leade us to God and put us safe into his hands and to serve us upon supposition that we serve God and therefore I not serving God am a Thiefe and a robber if I take them in my wants to relieve me Since all bread is the bread of children I not being a child cannot use it but I mustabuse it And a true lover of God doth not converse and deale with more creatures then will bring him with just conveniencie to his end nor with any but in a measure proportionable to his end And such a one was Saint Austin after hee had beene the space of nine yeares a Manichean and was now converted who faith S. Aug. l. 10 Confes c. 11 Hoc me docuisti Deus ut quemadmodum medicamenta sic alimenta sumpturus accedam Howsoever I lived before when I lived and yet did not live yet now whereas Filius tantarum lacrymarum perire non potuit according to the prophesie of my great Master Ambrose A sonne of so many teares as Monica my mothershed for me could not perish this thou hast taught me O God to take meate as men doe medicines not for pleasure but necessity to put me another step forward towards thee and to maintaine the thred of my

such huskes God for his Christs sake open your eyes that you may see and know him and his Church and also your selfe Which he prayes day and night that loves you night and day The Answer Sir VVHereas you stile your selfe my old Acquaintance without any farther illustration I have greater reason to feare and to flie then to hope and pursue because amongst my old Acquaintance more have beene evill then good And by the sequell it appeares that you stand in the ranke of the evill ones And that you are my old Acquaintance in the same construction as the World is old of which one sayes Mundus qui ob antiquitatem sapere deberet c. The World which because it is so old ought to be wise growes every day more unwise as it is more old A hand I have received and a good one but that as good a heart came with it will not sinke into my heart The hand is faire but how shall I know the heart is not foule Indeed Aristotle sayes that speech is the picture or image of the minde But hee meanes when the speech is the mindes true Interpreter You cannot be ignorant that it is a received though a close principle amongst the Jesuits We may be free of faire words because they goe not from us as drops of bloud or money with losse or expence O the riches of experience Both the Indies are poore compared with them That you dare not trust me with your name or person gives evidence for me that I am more true to my Superiours then to you And good reason Because I conceive there mediates no reall tie betwixt you and me but the worne and old tie of old Acquaintance And I never learned that God obliging a man to his old Acquaintance joyned them with the bonds of extraordinary love in the least degree or bound them to a performance of the acts depending upon it But I am glewed to my Superiours by the firme tyes of extraordinary love and subjection and therefore of duty and obedience I am in reference to them as an inferiour part in respect of the head and shoulders And therefore if my old Acquaintance shall strike at the head or annoy the body of which I am a foote I shall kick him down if I can even to the ground and say there lies my old Acquaintance The man whom you propose to me under the title of an innocent man and a lover of me and of my soule would have beene more truely described if you had said A wilde Priest a swaggarer a lover and haunter of the Taverne even when the sword of death hung by a small haire over his head It was my chance to meete him in the Kings high-way attired like a Knight or Lord travelling alone in a faire Coach drawne with foure great Horses towards the house of a Lady whose Priests have beene the pernicious cause of many grievous disorders in the Countrey where I live and this in a most dangerous and suspected time And having there endeavoured to pervert me and breake the bonds and ligaments of my duty to God and of my Allegiance to the King besides the concealement of such a treason in regard of the Law how should I have answered such a concealement in f●ro interno in the inward court of my heart and at the Bench of my conscience Occisio Animarum the murder of soules is the highest breach of the Commandement Thou shalt doe no murder Was not this a murderous attempt in the Kings high-way And pray does he that attempts to murder the soule of a man love the man If he lov'd me hee lov'd all me or he lov'd not me I confesse we argue differently because our arguments proceed upon different grounds and suppositions If my grounds stand fast my discourse will prove irrefragable You call me poore man And I am so or I am sure was so when you knew me And you pitie me and your pitie is baptized the childe of your love Saint Gregory Nazianzen hath a pretty phrase when he sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Many speake golden words but their speech though it points at the practique and the object be some practicable thing is both in the act and in effect all speculative that is both the intention and execution end and vanish away in speculation It seemes then that your love is not unlike the water of Aesculapius his Well which no commixtion or approximation can urge to putrifie Let those beleeve it to be sweete that have not tasted of it The bitternesse is scarce yet out of my mouth I am going in hast and you call after me whither so fast And shall I tell you whither Shall I in good earnest I will then I am going and my businesse requires hast to see if I can finde any Priests or Jesuits lurking in the secret corners adjoyning or neighbouring to the Parliament house I know that their life though it be mixt hath so much of action in it that they must alwayes bee doing You desire me to look back At your entreaty I do so And looking back I still finde that every where there are whole swarmes of waspish and turbulent Papists For that which followes God is a Father still and so forth I learned all that lesson in my conversion to the Church of England And I hope I shall never forget it You tell me that I seemed to your people a man of a good nature and religiously enclined Here is a plaine Jesuiticall flattery with a sharpe sting in the taile of it Why now you seeme too seeme to praise when you dishonour But how will you make it seeme that I did onely seeme It is very naturall and proper that bonum reale a reall good should be also bonum apparens should appeare to be good For otherwise it would not trahere in amorem sui draw men to love it But it is an Ethicall observation that men used to foule sinnes are so conscious of them and yet so desirous to disavow them that their guiltinesse still hammering upon their sinnes their obstinacie helped with their cunning presently takes their tongues off from acknowledging them to bee in themselves and because if they be being accidents they must be in convenient subjects fastens them upon others You remember one thing and you understand another I remember likewise that being a young stripling I was active in bestowing my service upon your Church fomented with your envenomed suggestions But give it me in a Demonstration at least a posteriori that your Church is the Catholike Church or Christs owne Spouse Your arguments are like your invincible Armado's which in their first appearance make a mighty Moone but are burnt and confounded in the end by a bold English man or an honest Hollander It is rooted in me that there is little symmetry little proportion betwixt you and the Spouse of Christ She is humble harmelesse bashfull compassionate zealous of her Lords honour and jealous