his Profession was when he parted from sober company he asked leave of his father to take leave of himself and parted from himself when he bad reason adieu That charity begins at home was the first thought that came to the Prodigal after the Prodigal came to himself and it was a happy escape that during his desperate Lunacy for want of Acorn husks he had not made use of an Oaken bough He began to go out of himself when first he would fain be his own man but when he came again to himself he was half way home to his own happiness He begg'd heartily for his own curse when he first asked his Fathers blessing and had not the swine fared the better of the two the herd should be drowned ere himself would cry Peccavi Swine and Drunkards meet Companions Swine and Lustmongers very fit Sty-fellows Hogs and Epicures Boars and Hell-Stalions Sows and Harlots Pigs and Prodigals pity such proper English that runs so naturally should ever know any other construction then what the nature of the beast admits Though this be but a Parable yet here 's a Parent and a Prodigal a Blessing and a Curse an elder and a yonger brother a faithful and unfaithful servant a penitent childe and a pardoning Father a self-justifying servant yet a wise rewarding Master indeed the whole mystery of mans Salvation In which Parable He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto his Conscience and unless he resolves to dye in this Bedlam and perish in the other he will be of this Prodigals minde When he came to himself and said c. Luke 15.17 The true Ornament Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair c. But let it be the hidden man of the heart 1 Pet. 3.3,4 HOw is not plaiting the hair a commendable Ornament with what deformed beauties then is this Age disfigured how handsomly it makes it self ugly what pains it takes to be ridiculous better the brain were out of his place then the excrescency thereof or the whole head ake then one hair not well How many happy Good-morrows might the soul bid it self by asking blessings of her heavenly Father whilst she stands sacrificing the precious Morn to the Idol in the Looking-glass how many Virgin-Oraizons might be early up at heaven whilst the ingenious fancy is so zealous at new-modelling that careful careless Love-lock or the Woodcocks snare as if there were some Gordian Magick in each curl But doth this refer onely to the Feminine then is this Age Hermophrodited is not he the most admired Comet that can be most fantastick Some are so well read in the Glass and Comb as to divide a hair and again reconcile them with a wet finger others curl them with a powder doubtless both these do stand very much on their heads no wonder their Brain-shell is so addle when the choycest of their Intellects walk with its heels upward that the whole Microcosm can espy no other Horoscope then that of the Antipodes You may guess the substance of what 's within by the dust of what 's without and if ever a Wit did put a Solecism upon his own brain 't was when he first went to School to adorn his head on the outside for every sober man wears his head with the wrong side outward but he whose head came newly out of a Mill-sack makes more of the offals of his Cranium then the brain it self is worth And is this then the grave Christians Ornament Away you that profess piety blazon no more vanity such dusty cob-webs are no mettal for the Helmet of your Salvation be not so vainly ingenious in dressing but a Virmins Forrest with such odoriferous curls 't is but a spans length off and other Virmin by the dust and oyncture of your own rottenness shall do it for you Shall not he that covereth himself with a cloud Lam. 3.44 that putteth on the garments of vengeance for clothing and is clad with zeal as with a cloak Isa 59.17 send baldness in stead of well-set hair Isa 3.24 and smite with a scab the crown of the head ver 17. he that clothes the grass of the field shall strip thee naked If ever therefore thou hopest to put on the garments the four and twenty Elders wear about the Throne Rev. 4.4 or if ever thou expectest to be clothed with immortality of bliss away with the bravery of your tinckling Ornaments with the wimples and the crisping pins Isa 3.18,22 the Prophet there compares your Cauls and Tyres to the Moon no wonder sober mindes conclude you Lunatick And you that are the Amazons of the Age but of the Masculine-Gender that take your pastime in War yet walk as if shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace if you must needs wear Arms in Halcyonian days put on the Shield of Faith the Breast-plate of Righteousness and the Helmet of Salvation Belt your selves with the Girdle of Truth but do not draw the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God out of any other Scabbard then the Scriptures This is that true Ornament which becomes every sober wise grave modest and true Christian Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair c. But let it be the hidden man of the heart 1 Pet. 3.3,4 News from the Grave They have taken away the Lord out of the Sepulchre and we know not where they have laid him John 20.2 TAken him away did the high Priests bribed Soldiers tell her so what incredible News is this none but a Sadduce will believe it Thou art mistaken Mary the Lord was never there there 's no circumscription by a Sepulchre of him that fills Heaven and Earth though a Manger cradled the Babe no Grave can comprehend the Lord was this Sepulchre larger then Solomons Temple or will he whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain 1 Kings 8.27 be confined by a few clods of earth Indeed the Angel bad the two Maries See the place where the Lord lay Matth. 28.6 but the Lord himself told the Thief To day shalt thou be with me in Paradice Luke 23.43 Thus the body of the Lord was in the Grave but not the Lord of the Body If the Resurrection be such a mystery of Faith to such as were Co-temporaries with the First-fruits thereof Acts 23.26 no wonder now 't is such a miracle of Grace to practice the Faith thereof If the case of non-Resurrection doth undistinguish the reasonable soul from Bruits no marvel the Sadduces of this Age are such beasts to deny it yet if Christs own Disciples in this high point of Faith could scarce believe their eyes 't is more then an O Altitudo of Mercy if the news at Jerusalem pass for currant at the other end of the world 'T is an unsavory Quaere to ask with what body Lots wife shall arise and but a shallow Hypothesis whether Aarons Rebels or Aarons two Sons shall rise first He that surfets himself to death with the luscious Mummia of another mans Corps shall doubtless bring out of the Grave as much as he carried in yet the other rise never the leaner Though he surfeted with the others Epigastrium or happily dyed with a piece of his belly in his mouth yet do not think that he shall rise with two Diaphragmes or the other be answerable as a Murtherer for the body he destroyed after he was dead The veriest Cannibal in all Tartary shall rise but with one body though a thousand be incorporated with him and if ever there come any Feminine Mummia out of Egypt to the Drugsters shambles thou mayest eat it without the least danger of rising an Hermophrodite That such Parables are incredible with the highest meer Naturalists is no news to the weakest Christian who hath more grace then to doubt what he hath no reason to believe If there be such a Sadduce in England as to deny the Resurrection he must needs be beholding to a Pythagorian Metempsycosis to bespatter one Heresie with the dirt of another for admiting that ridiculous old Fable of the Souls progress from one body to another by Traduction from such absurd premises might possibly follow the conclusion of the worlds non-conclusion to the perpetuation thereof to prevent a Resurrection It is not without all controversie whether the Christian demi-Jews of late or the Jewish demi-Christians of old are deepest buried in the Ignorance of a Resurrection they took our Savior to be John the Baptist or Elias or one of the Prophets as if one of their souls were passed by a kinde of Transmigration into our Saviors body these take Paul or Apollo or Cephas to be our Savior as if his very Personality were passed by a Mystical Union into one of their Souls Thus the naked Ignorance of any Fundamental Truth ever ends in Heresie which Heresie persisted in ever concludes in blasphemy It was Mary's complaint here upon a mistake That they had taken away the Lord out of the Sepulchre and she knew not where they had laid him Me-thinks I hear Mary's eccho at this hither end of the world may it be but the like mistake resounded by many of us that pretend to look so much after him viz. That they have taken away the Lord out of the Sanctuary and we know not where they have laid him FINIS Imprimatur 1º Martii 1649. Joseph Caryl