incident and almost certain to all mens natures to behold with sore eyes the new grown felicity of others and to exact a sharp account of their Fortunes especially whom they have seen inferior to or equal with themselves Envy is curious and out of the best person or act will raise something to caval at It is a hard thing for a man willingly and gladly to see his Equals lifted over his head Nothing can more try a mans Grace then question of Emulation That man hath true light that can be content to be a Candle before the Lanthorn of others Any Superiority is a mark of Envy Nature in every man is both envious and disdainful and never loves to honor another but where it may be an honor to it self Envy though it take advantages of our weaknesses yet is ever raised upon some grounds of happiness in them whom it emulateth it is ever an ill effect of a good cause The malignity of Envy is thus well answered When it is made the evil Effect of a good Cause Envy when it is once conceived in a malicious heart is like fire in Billets of Juniper which is said to continue more years then one Envy is nothing else but sorrow for other mens good be it present past or to come and joy at other mens harms opposite to mercy which grieves at other mens mischances and mis-affects the body in another kind Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it or will admit of an excuse Envy alone wants both Other sins last but a while the gut may be satisfied anger remits hatred hath anend but envy never ceaseth That man is wife and well advised that incurreth the envy of men for matters of greatest weight and importance Envy is nothing else but grief for another man's good and joy for his ill and hath his root from malice Envy like poyson works not where it finds no hurt He whose Fortune or Valour hath made him higher then others let him not repose himself to eyes if he will shun hands otherwise he causeth envy in those who ought to be his Equals because he hath outstript them fear in him who should be his Superior because he equals him Equality is the producer of Envy The mixture of greater and less is good but that of Equals stark naught The continuance of Error doth ingraft depraved Opinions in the hearts of men Error is more tollerable in a Poet then in a Historographer The Errors of one man is a slippery place to cause others to fall Error is commonly join'd with Cruelty If Errors of practise should be stood upon there could be no true Church upon Earth Every Error doth not pollute all Truths No Truth can sanctifie all Errors Errors of judgement are more dangerous then Errors of practise but none so deadly as their's that were once in the Truth Errors are never the elder for their patching Corruption can do the same that age would do We may make age as well as suffer it The best may err but not persist in it When good Natures have offended they are never quiet till they have hastened a satisfaction There be two main defects of Wit Error and Ignorance to which all others are reduced By ignorance we know not things necessary by Error we know them falsly Ignorance is a privation Error is a positive act from Ignorance comes Vice from Error Heresie No man now a-days sheweth an Error and leaveth it man-kind is not so wise The Errors of sloathfulness are best discerned when all diligence is bootless They neglect their own Wisdom who without any judgement approve the invention of those that fore-went them and suffer themselves after the manner of brute Beasts to be led by them It oft times hapneth that an Error being once rashly committed through despair of remission admitteth no true penitence but either draweth on more grievous crimes Scelere scillus luendum est or maintaineth his Error by wilful obstinacy It is an old Rule among Soldiers that a great negligent Error committed by an Enemy is to be suspected as a pretence to Treachery There is no Error but hath some appearance of resembling Truth which when men find out they then publish to the World matter of contention and jangling not doubting but in the variable deformities of mens minds to find out some Protectors or Spectators the better by their help to nurse and cherrish such Libels as their own inventions have begot Pride and Luxury are the attendants of prosperous Estates The smallest Estates are to be governed with the greatest skill as small Barks in the midst of the wide Ocean There is no Estate so pure or ignoble as can keep a man from Fame An Estate gotten by lend means cannot be retained at first with sudden modesty and ancient gravity The worst Estate out of Hell hath either some comfort or at least some mittigation The best Estate requires careful menaging at home To the overthrow of an Estate oftentimes the inconveniences concur unthankful Friends decayed Friends bad Neighbors negligent Servants Casualties Taxes Mults Losses of Stock Enmities Emulations frequent Mutations Losses Surety-ship Sickness Death of Friends and that which is the worst of all Improvidence ill Husbandry Disorder and Confusion by which means we are drenched on sudden in our Estates and unawares precipitated insensibly into an inextrecable Labyrinth of Cares Woes Wants Grief Discontent and Meiancholly Essence is derived ab ipso esse to have a being All things have their value from our own estimationâ— The most precious things that are lose of their worth if they be not suted with our correspondent Natures whose sympathy addeth much more excellence then is discerned when they approve by themselves without such assistance as in the Diamond the Foyle and Gold It is never safe to measure Events by the power of the Instrument nor in the Causes of God to measure others by our selves In matters of judgement to be guided onely by the Event is the way to Error so Falshood may be Truth We commonly measure and censure all actions by the Event One is crowned for that which another man is tormented for as Caesar and Gracchus In future Events men look for help from Time and Fortune It oftentimes happens that a prosperous Event makes foolish Counsel seem wiser then it was The Evil that is ever in motion is not fearful That which both Time and Eternity finds standing where it was is worthy of terror It is a rare Evil that hath not something in it to sweeten it either in sence or in hope Evils and Sicknesses come on Horseback and go away on foot The best things ill used become evil and the worst things used well prove good Good and Evil in the Government of men hath this difference betweeen themselves That Good though it be brought forth by time and though by our studies and industries it be maintained corrupteth notwithstanding by degrees of it self and of it self also extinguisheth
but one wrench higher and they cannot be silent the just avenger of sin will not loose the glory of his executions but will have men know from whom they smart Men had rather die then endure torture therefore extorted confession cannot be good It is both lawfull and fit in things not prohibited to conform our selves to the manners and rights of those with whom we live The same day fotty years after England was conquered by William the father was Normandi conquered by William Rufus the Son it being the 27th of September 1106. A Conquest draweth to it the alteration of these three things viz. Apparell Law and Language Conquest is confirmed by continuing possession The price and honour of a Conquest is rated by the difficulty A Prince that hath conquered and joyned a strange Country to his domions ought to be circumspect what Governors he placeth there Conduction is that which is sooner overcome and altered by that which it nourisheth and Crudity is that which is strong and hard and will not suffer it self to be altered A short conclusion of long premisses best befits the memory Henry the eight in the 38th year of his Raign by his Letter commanded the Lord Gray not to demolish Cattillions Fort but in secret gives him a special command to ruine it Contraries are known by one method and the privative is known only by seperation of the knowledge of the positive Contraries are two opposites of one kind as black and white both colours moist and dry both qualities but substances have no contraries in themselves There be two enemies of peace first conscience of evil done secondly sence of fear of evil suffered the first we call sin the latter crosses A wide conscience will swallow any sin those that have once thralled themselves to a known evil will make no difference of sins but by their own loss or advantage wickedness once entertained can put on any shape trust him in nothing that makes no conscience of every thing Many times the conscience runs a way smoothlywith an unwarrantable action rests it self upon those grounds which afterward it sees cause to condemn it is a sure way therefore to inform our selves throughly ere we settle our choice that we be not driven to reverse our acts with late shame and unprofitable repentance Such as make conscience of sinning are carefull not to be thought to sin A good conscience is no less afraid of a scandall then of a sin whereas those that are resolved not to make any scruple of sin despise others constructions not caring whom they offend so they may please themselves Those which have a cleer conscience from any sin prosecute it with rigour whereas the guilty are ever partiall their conscience holds their hands and tells them that they be at themselves while they punish others The conscience may well rest when it tells us we have neglected no means for redressing our afflictions for then it may resolve to look either for amendment or patience A good conscience will make a man undauntedly confident and dare put him upon any tryall when his own heart strikes him not it bids him challenge all the world and take up all comers Contrarily he that hath a false and soul conscience lyes at every mans mercy lives slavishly and is fain to daub up a rotten peice with the basest conditions Conscience is the conserver of religion it is the light of knowledge that God hath planted in man which is ever watching over all his actions as it beareth him a joyfull testimony when he doth right so it curbeth him with a feeling that he hath done wrong when ever he commiteth any sin Conscience not grounded upon any sure knowledge is either an ignorant fantasie or an arrogant vanity The conscience is a conservation of the knowledg of the Law of God and Nature to know good and evil The conscience is that which approves good or evil justifying or condemning our actions The greatest bliss on earth is a pure conscience Nil conscire sibi nulla palescere culpa There is no sin but vexeth him in whom it is the first revenge is that no man is quit from his own guilty conscience There is least danger and most safety when mens consciences do make conclusions for and against themselves No man can wash his hands of that sin to which his will hath consented bodily violence may be in-offensive in the patient voluntary inclination through fear to evil can never be excusable Sin is the off-spring of the will not of the body where consent is not there is no sin A constitution is a gathering and uniting of the people together both in one Common-Weale and Church into a civill or divine Politie the forme of which politie is Order In Anno 682 Agathus commanded that the constitutions of the chief Bishop should be holden for Apostollicall The church of St. Saviour in the raigne of Crathlint founded in the Isle of Man was the first Bishops-See that was erected in Scotland three-upon is esteemed the mother-church churces are not now constituted but repaired If the church cast not out the knownunworthy the sin is hirs but if a man will come unworthily the sin is his No Element but through its mixture hath departed from its first simplicity so there is no church but hath some error or sin in it The naturall sicknesses that have ever troubled and been the decay of all churches since the beginning of the World changing the Candlestick from one to another have been pride ambition and avarice We must be directed by the Church but then the Church must be directed by the right rule the Scripture But if any Church as Rome shall tell the rest any thing that will notly even to that rule we may lawfully dissent The fittest place for prayer is the church and among the congregation especially if the petition be for publike graces and benefits and not in places of seperation or faction in private conventicles The church keeps a feast on no Saints birth day except the birth day of Saint John the Baptist The church is but one body yet the several members of it rest in divers places and are dispersed into several congregations which of themselves are called churches though they be altogether indeed but one church as Saint John in the Revelation writes to the seaen churches yet they were all but one church in seven parts Lingering is a kind of constancy suddenness argues fear Consultation is concerning things that vary and alter and medleth not with those things that be firm and stable The Bread and Wine by consecration cease to be common Bread and Wine being dedicated to a sacred use and so the Bread and Wine are made holy ceasing to be common such a change as this understood the fathers to be made in the Bread and Wine but not as touching the substance and being but as touching the qualities this change the reformed allow and by such a
neer bordered upon vice and leaning to it but by the reins of prudence may be restrained and kept in the right way so there is no nature so neer a-kin to vertue but may be corrupted by ill usage Therefore it is good to contemplate the affections of men as they are attended with good or ill and search how far they may be hurtful or valuable least we immoderately praise some and do unjustly undervalue others All living creatures by a secret instigation affect to be most doing of that thing in which they are best able Angels Angels when they appear are conceived to cloath themselves with the Elements Of all Creations that are so near us as Angels be God hath shut up the knowledge of them most from us in Scripture and no man yet hath given a satisfying reason for it Some hold that they be one of the three Invisibles to wit God Angels and the Soul of man all which the eye hath never seen their simple existence Angels are simple and abstract Intelligences and Substances altogether without bodies Antiquity Any man whatsoever may erre in matters of Antiquity The study of Antiquity is a fair knowledge which is most precious for the adoring of humane life and strong at least in pleading for humane oftentation The Order of Dignity is to be respected before the Order of Antiquity Apparel Apparel was first instituted by God for three causes first to hide our nakedness and shameful parts Next to make us more comely And lastly to preserve us from the injuries of heat and cold Apprehension Apprehension gives life to crosses The efficacy of Gods marvellous works is not in the acts themselves but in our apprehension Some are overcome with those motives which others have contemned for weak Appetite Our Appetite must be curbed our passions moderated and so estranged from the World that in the loss of Parents or Children Nature may not forget Grace Whosoever slackens the reins of his sensual appetite will soon grow unfit for the calling of God The concubisciple and irascible appetite are as the two twists of a Rope mutually mixt one with another both twining about the heart both good if they be moderate both pernicious if they be exorbitant If the Appetite will not obey let the moving faculty over-rule her and let her resist and compel her to do otherwise Forms God hath not appointed to every time and place those Forms which are simply best in themselves but those that are best to them to whom they are appointed which we may neither alter till he begin nor recal when he hath altered Apostacy An Apostate is an opposer of the Faith he once professed and is worse then he that opposeth that which he never profest Arts. The Fame of all eminent Arts is stained by the multitude of Artificers and the unskilfulness of them most of them being unable to do what they promise and seeking their commendation onely in the vain name of such an Art Art Military is despised in time of rest and quiet and Peace esteemeth alike of the Coward and the Couragious Practise brings or breeds Art and Art obtaineth Grace Beauty is more beholding to Art then Nature and stronger provocations proceed from outward Ornaments then such as Nature hath provided Art can never attain to Natures perfection imitate it never so near though our esteem prefers it and seeing it gets a little by emulation attribute much more unto it The practise of every Art is referred to the use or profit and thereby judged Art will be discovered if it be often used when that would be made seen which is not it must be curiously done if any good be expected Three things are sought in every Artist that is to say Nature Skill and Practise his Nature to be judged of by his Wits his Skill by his Knowledge and his practise by Use Edward the third brought Artisicers for mahing Cloth from Gaunt The strength of a battel consisteth in the Artillery and Shot Aristoeracy Aristocracy is a form of a Common-Weal wherein the less part of the Citizens with Soveraign Power command over all the rest Unthankful attempts are alwayes rewarded with grief and disgrace Harmless counsels are good for the innocent but in open and manifest villanies there is no hopes of safety but in audacious attempts Foul attempts are begun with danger and sometimes accomplished with reward Changes are the aptest times for greatest attempts delayes then are dangerous and soft quiet dealing draweth more evil then rashly hazarding All but Athiests however they let themselves loose yet in some things find themselves restrained and shew to others that they have a conscience Every thing hath a quantity that it cannot exceed and hath a power to attain to it from the generative causes whereof the thing it self is produced by which power if it be not hindered it dilateth it self gradually in time till it come to the fulness where it either resteth or declineth again as it grew up the manner of Augmentation proceedeth from the qualities that Nature hath infused into every thing and neither from matter or form Evil were as good not seen as not avoided To fore-know and not to avoid evil is but an aggravation of judgement Equal Authority where there is the self same power is commonly pernicious to all actions it being impossible to chuse two minds of so equal a temper that they shall not have some motions of dissenting It is the hard condition of Authority that when the multitude fare will they plaud themselves when ill they repine against their Governors Authority cannot fail of opposition though it be never so mildly swayed Soveraignty abused is a great spur to outrage The conceit of Authority in great Persons many times lies in the way of their own safety whiles it will not let them stoope to the ordinary course of nature There is no passion that doth eclipse the light of reason or sooner corrupt the sincerity of a good judgement then that of anger neither is there any motion that pleaseth it self in its own actions or followeth them with greater heat in the execution and if the truth chance to shew it self and convince a false pretended cause as the author of that passion it often times redoubleth the rage even against truth and innocencie The punishment of banishing offenders was first broght into this Island by Edward the Confessor Liberal modesty is decent but clounish bashfulness is disgraceful That no man should be too much discouraged for the baseness of his propagation even the base son of man may be lawfully begotten of God King Hnery the second was supposed to be begotten of Maud the Emâ—irsse some time before by â—tephen of Bloys before shee was married to Geffery Plantagenek Duke of Anjoy In the fifth year of Henry the eight was a battel fought neer Floddon-Feild between James the fifth King of Scoâ—s and the Kings Leivtenant of the North the Earle of Surrey in which the King
who with the beginning of the Popes of Rome was Primate of all Scotland and all the Isles of the same The 10. th year of William Rufus the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury being Primate of Ireland consecrated Malchus Bishop of Waterford which place was mada a Bishops-See at the same time In the 6. year of William the Conquerour it was decreed at a Synod holden at Windsor that the Arch-Bishop of York should be subject to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and that the Arch-Bishop of York with all the Bishops of his Province should come to such a place as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury should appoint to hold a Counsell at It is no true Bishop that desireth rather to be Lordly himself then profitable to others Leo the fourth Pope of Rome made a decree that a Bishop should not be condemned but by 72. witnesses The good Bishops of Rome continued almost 300. years the first of them was named Limus Blood is hot sweet temperate a red humor prepared in the meseraick veins and made of the most temperate parts of the Chilus in the Liver whose office is to nourish the whole body to give it strength and colour being dispersed by the veins through every part of it and from it spirits are first begotten in the heart which afterwards by the Arteries are communicated to all the other parts The force and power which lyeth in the blood the spirits and in the whole body is that which causeth the diversity of passions by reason that the passible part growing out of the flesh as from a root doth bud and bring forth with it a quality proves semblable The bodies misgriefes proceed from the soul and if the mind be not first satisfied the body can never be cured The corruptable body suppresseth the soul and the earthly mansion keeps down the mind that is much occupied Mans soul though it be immortal dyeth a kind of death it is called immortall because it can never leave to be living and sensitive and the body is mortall because it may be destitute of life and left quite dead in in self but the death of the soul is when God leaveth it and the death of the body is when the soul leaveth it so that the death of both is when the soul being left of God leaveth the body Labienus of Rome was the first on whom the punishment of burning bookes or writings was excluded upon Bookes are living Ideas of the Authors mind Something it is to have a fame go of a man yet words are as fame soon blown over when Libera scripta manet Books out live men Boldness or Valour is not terrified with a mans own danger but to fear in the behalf of others is humanity Boldness and fear are commonly misplaced in the best hearts when we should tremble we are confident and when we shoud be assured we tremble A cold and moist brain is an insepetable companion of folly Brevity although it breed difficulty yet it carrieth great gravity Brevity when it is neither obscure nor defective is very pleasing even to the choycest judgements Brevity makes counsell more portable for memory and easier for use The Brownists say they did not make a new Church but mended an old The Brownists seperate for these four causes or points A hateful Prelacie a devised ministery a confused communion and an intermixture of errors The Brownists charge Episcopacie with four heresies first their Canons secondly sin uncensured thirdly their Hyrarchy fourthly their Service book The agreement of brothers is rare by how much nature hath more endeared them by so much are their quarrells more frequent and dangerous Butidius a man well qualified and if he had taken a right course a man likely to have come to honourable preferment over much haste pricked forwards and at the first went about to out-go his equalls then his Superiors and at last of all to fly above his own hopes which hath been the overthrow of good men who contemning that which by a little patience is had with security hasten to that which gotten before his time breedeth their ruine and destruction Buying and selling of men and women which was used in England untill the third year of Henry the first was then prohibited In the third year of Henry the first by a Synod holden at London it was decreed that all burialls should be in their own Parish because the Priest should lose his â—ees The care of burialls the pomp of funeralls and magnificent Tombs are rather solaces to the living then furtherances to the dead A Canon is that which in a universal counsell is established Innocent the fourth was the first Pope that caused Cardinalls to wear red hats and to ride with trappings A Canteed containeth a hundred Townships Nothing cometh to pass without an efficient cause There be three sorts of causes naturall voluntary and casual Nothing is ended or begun without a Precedent cause that cause can hardly rise again and recover grace which hath been once foyled It is a sign of a desperate cause to make Satan our Counsellor or our refuge Although a man have a good cause he may fail in obtaining his right by Law unless he follow it earnestly defend it stoutly and spend freely Those things are casual whose act is not premeditated by any Agent It is the weakness of good natures to give so much advantage to an enemy Whaâ— would malice rather have then the vexation of them whom it persecuets We cannot better please an adversary then by hurting our selves this is no other then to humor envies to serve the turn of those that maligne us and to draw on that malice whereof we are weary whereas carelessness puts ill will out of countenance and makes it withdraw it self in a rage as that which doth but shame the Author without the hurt of the patient in causless wrong the best remedy is contempt In the first year of Richard the first the City of London received their Charter of freedom and to chuse twenty six Aldermen and out of that numto chuse a Major to rule the rest also two Bayliffs or Sheriffs whereas from the Conquest they were governed by Port-greeves In the 21. year of Henry the third the King at a Parliament at Westminster comfirmed the great Charter The 26. of Edward the first the great Charter was confirmed and at the same time it was enacted that the King should not charge the Subjects with any taxes or tullages but by Parliament It was also confirmed again in the 27. year of his raigne with these words added Salvo jure Coronae nostrae Edward the third confirmed the great Charter in the 15. year of his raigne The Duke of Orleans the French Kings brother challenged King Henry the fourth to meet him with 100. Knights compleatly armed against the like number and the vanquished to be ransomed at the victors pleasure A substantiall change is above the reach of all infernall powers and is proper to the