SInce wee are sure that there is a spiritual death of the soul let us make sure a spiritual resurrection too Audâ—cter dicam saith St. Jerome I say confidently however God can do all things hee cannot restore a Virgin that is â—aâ—n from it to Virginity again hee cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soul than upon the body And therefore I may say with the same assurance that St. Jerome doth no soul hath so prostituted her self so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a Virgin again and give her even the chastity of Christ himself Fulfill therefore what Christ saith Joh. 5. 25. The hour is coming and now is c. bee this that hour bee-thy first resurrection bless Gods present goodness for this now and attend Gods leisure for the other resurrection hereafter and then doubt not but what glory soever thou hast had in this world glory inherited from noble Ancestors glory acquired by merit and service glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou bast had in this house of clay the glory of the latteâ— house as it is Hag. â— 9. shall bee greater than of the former Qui peacat quatenus peccat sit seip so detetion Clem. Alex. IN every sin a man falls from that degree which himself had before In every sâ— hee is dishonoured hee is not so good a man as hee was impoverished hee hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had infatuated hee hath not so much of the true wisdome of the fear of God as hee had disâ—armed hee hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God that hee had and deformed hee hath not so lively a representation of the image of God as before In every sin wee become prodigals but in the habit of sin wee become bankrupts afraid to come to an account A fall is a fearful thing that needs a raising a help but sin is a death and that needs a resurrection and a reâ—â—rection is as great a work as the very Creation its self It is death in semine in the root it produces it brings forth death it is death in arbore in the body in its self death is a divorce and so is sin and it is death in fructu in the fruit thereof sin plants spiritual death and this death produces more sin obduration impenitence and the like Transeant injuriae plerasque non accipit qui nescit Seneca HEe that knows not of an injury or takes no knowledge of it for the most part hath no injury But alas how many break their sleep in the night about things that disquiet them in the day too and trouble themselves in the day about things that disquiet them all night too Wee disquiet our selves too much in being over tender over sensible of imaginary injuries They that are too inquisitive what other men say of them they disquiet themselves for that which others would but whisper they publish and therefore that which hee adds there for moral and civil matters holds in a good proportion in things of a more divine nature in such parts of the Religious worship and service of God as are not fundamental non expâ—dit omâ—â—â— videâ—e non omnia audire wee must not too jealoussy suspect nor too bitterly condemn nor too peremptorily conclude that whatsoever is not done as wee would have it done or as wee have seen it done in former times is not well done Antequam unlneramur monemur Origen BEfore our enemies hit us God gives us warning that they mean to do so When God himself is so â—ar incensed against us that hee is turned to bee our enemy and to fight against us it was come to that Isa 63. 10. when hee hath bent his bow against us as an enemy it was come to that in the Prophet Jeremy Law 2. 4. yet still hee gives us warning before-hand and still there comes a lightning before his thunder God comes seldome to that dispatch a word and a blow but to a blow without a word to an execution without a warning never Cain took offence at his brother Abel the quarrel was Gods because hee had accepted Abels sacrifice therefore God joyns himself to Abels party and so the party being too strong for Cain to subsist God would not surprize Cain but hee tells him his danger Why is thy countenance cast down Gen. 4. 10. You may proceed if you will but if you will needs you will lose by it at last Saul persecutes Christ in the Christians Christ meets him upon the way speaks to him strikes him to the ground tells him vocally and tells him actually that hee hath undertaken too hard a work in opposing him This which God did to Saul reduces him that which God did to Cain wrought not upon him but still God went his own way in both to speak before he strikes to lighten before hee thunders to warn before hee wounds In Dathan and Abiâ—ams case God may seem to proceed apace towards execution but yet it had all these pauses in arrest of judgement and their reprieves before execution yet when Moses had information and evidence of their factious proceeding hee falls not upon them but hee falls upon his face before God and laments and deprecates in their behalf hee calls them to a fair trial and examination the next day Tomorrow the Lord will shew Numb 16. 5 and they said Wee will not come vers 14. Then God upon their contumacy when they would stand mute and not plead takes a resolution to consume them in a moment and then Moses and Aaron return to petition for them vers 25. And Moses went up to them again and the Elders of Israel followed and all prevailed not and then Moses comes to pronounce judgement These men shall not dye a common death and after and yet not presently after that hee gave judgement execution followed vers 31. God opened his mouth and Moses his and Aaron his and the Elders theirs before the earth opened hers In all which wee see that God alwayes leaves a latitude between his sentence and execution which interim is sphaera activitatis the sphere in which our repentance and his mercy move and direct themselves in a benign aspect towards one another Vili vendimus coelum glauci more Christiani sumus Tertul. HOw poor a clod of earth is a Mannor How poor an inch a Shire How poor a span a Kingdome How poor a pace the whole world and yet how prodigally wee sell Paradise Heaven Souls Consciences Immortality Eternity for a few grains of this dust What had Eve for heaven so little as that the Holy Ghost will not let us know what shee had nor what kinde of fruit yet something Eve had What had Adam for heaven but a satisfaction that hee had pleased an ill wife as St. Jerome states
possible to raise a dead body to life God out of my confession of the impurity of my best actions shall vouchlafe to take off his eyes from that impurity as though there were none but no spiritual thing in us nor faith nor hope nor charity have any purity any perfection in themselves Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux nox est perpetuo una dormienda Catullus THe Gentiles and their Poets describe the sad state of death so nox una dormienda that it is one everlasting night to them a night but to a Christian it is dies Mortis and dies Resurrectionis the day of Death and the day of Resurrection wee dye in the light in the sight of Gods presence and wee rise in the light in the sight of his very essence Nay Gods corrections and judgements upon us in this life are still expressed so dies Visitationis still it is a day though a day of Visitation and still wee may discern God to bee in the action The Lord of life was the first that named Death Morte morieris sayes God Thou shalt dye the death I do the less fear or abhor death because I finde it in his mouth even a Malediction hath a sweetness in his mouth for there is a blessing wrapped up in it a mercy in every correction a resurrection upon every death When Jezabels beauty exalted to that height which it had by art or higher than that to that height which it had in her own opinion shall bee infinitely multiplied upon every body and as God shall know no man from his own son so as not to see the very righteousness of his own Son upon that man so the Angels shall know no man from Christ so as not to desire to look upon that mans face because the most deformed wretch that is there shall have the very beauty of Christ himself So shall Goliahs Armour and Dives fulness bee doubled and redoubled upon us and every thing that wee can call good shall first bee infinitely exalted in the goodness and then infinitely multiplied in the proportion and again infinitely extended in the duration Solus Deus verè festumagat Philo Judae IT hath been disputed by many both of the Gentiles with whom the Fathers disputed and of the Schoolmen who dispute with one another ansit gaudium in Deo de semet whether God rejoyce in himself in contemplation of himself whether God bee glad that hee is God But it is disputed by them only to establish it and to illustrate it for I do not remember that any one of them denies it It is true that Plato dislikes and justly that saluration of Dionysius the Tyrant to God Gaude servato vitam Tyranni jucundam that hee should say to God Live merrily as merrily as a King as merrily as I do and then you are good enough to imagine such a joy in God as is only a transitory delight in deceivable things is an impious conceit But when as another Platonique sayes Deus est quod ipse semper voluit God is that which hee would bee if there bee something that God would bee and hee bee that if Plato should deny that God joyed in himself wee must say of Plato as Lactantius doth Deus potius seminaverat quam cognoverat Plato had rather dreamed that there was a God than understood what that God was Bonum simplex saith St. Augustine to bee sincere goodness goodness it self Ipsa est delectatio Dei this is the joy that God hath in himself of himself and there sayes Philo Judaeus hoc necessarium Philosophiae sadalibus this is the tenent of all Philosophers and by that title of Philosophers Philo alwayes means them that know and study God solum Deum verè festum agere that only God can bee truly said to keep holy day and to rejoyce This joy we shall see when we see him who is so in it as that hee is this joy it self But here in this world so far as I can enter into my Masters sight I can enter into my Masters joy I can see God in his creatures in his Church in his Word and Sacraments and Ordinances since I am not without this sight I am not without this joy Here a man may transilire mortalitatom sayes the divine moral man I cannot put off mortality but I can look upon immortality I cannot depart from this earth but I can look into Heaven So I cannot possess that final and accomplished joy here but as my body can lay down a burden or a heavy garment and joy in that case so my soul can put off my body so far as that the concupiscences thereof and the manifold and miserable incumbrances of this World cannot extinguish this holy Joy De fiderium generat satietatem satiet as parit desiderium Bern. THere is a spiritual fulness in this life of which St. Jerom speaks Ebrietas foelix satietas salutaris a happy excess and a wholesome surfeit Quae quanto copiosius sumitur majorem donat sobrietatem in which the more wee eat the more temperate wee are and the more wee drink the more sober In which as St. Bernard also expresses it in his Mellifluence Mutuâ interminab ili inexplicab ili generatione by a mutual and reciprocal by an undeterminable unexpressible generation of one another the desire of spiritual graces begets a satiety If I would bee I am full of them and then this satiety begets a further desire still we have a new appetite to those spiritual graces this is a holy ambition a sacred covetousness and a wholesome dropsie Napth alies blessing O Napthali satisfied with favour and full with the blessing of the Lord. St. Stephens blessing Full of faith and of the Holy Ghost the blessed Virgins blessing Full of grace Dorcas blessing Full of good works and of Alms-deeds the blessing of him who is blessed above all and who blesseth all Christ Jesus Full of Wisdome full of the Holy Ghost full of Grace and Truth But so far are all temporal things from giving this fulness or satisfaction as that even in spiritual things there may bee there is often an error or mistaking even in spiritual things there may bee a fulness and no satisfaction and there may bee a satisfaction and no fulness I may have as much knowledge as is presently necessary for my salvation and yet have a restless and unsatisfied desire to search into unprofitable curiosities unrevealed mysteries and inextricable perplexities And on the other side a man may bee satisfied and think hee knows all when God knows hee knows nothing at all For I know nothing if I know not Christ crucified and I know not that if I know not how to apply him to my self nor do I know that if I imbrace him not in those means which hee hath afforded mee in his Church in his Word and Sacraments if I neglect this means this place these exercises howsoever I may satisfie my self
with an over-valuing mine own knowledge at home I am so far from fulness as that vanity it self is not more empty Resurrectio à peccato cessatio à peccato non est idem Durand EVery cessation from sin is not a resurrection from sin A man may discontinue a sin intermit the practise of a sin by infirmity of the body or by satiety in the sin or by the absence of that person with whom hee hath used to communicate in that sin But resurrectio est secunda ejus quod interiit statio A resurrection is such an abstinence from the practise of the sin as is grounded upon a repentance and a detestation of the sin and then it is a setling and an establishing of the soul in that state and disposition it is not a sudden and transitive remorse nor only a reparation of that which was ruined and demolished but it is a building up of habits contrary to former habits and customes in actions contrary to that sin that wee have been accustomed to else it is but an intermission not a resurrection but a starting not a waking but an apparition not a living body but a cessation not a peace of conscience Now this resurrection is begun and well advanced in baptismate lachrymarum in the baptisme of true repentant tears But to put off this repentance to the death-bed is a dangerous delay For is any man sure to have it or sure to have a desire to it then It is never impertinent to repeat St. Augustines words in this case Etiam hac animadversione percutitur peccator ut moriens obliviscatur sui quidam viveret oblitus est Dei God begins a dying mans condemnation at this that as hee forgot God in his life so hee shall forget himself at his death Compare thy temporal and thy spiritual state together and consider how they may both stand well at that day If thou have set thy state in order and made a Will before and have nothing to do at last but to adde a Codicil this is soon dispatched at last but if thou leave all till then it may prove a heavy business So if thou have repented before and setled thy self in a religious course before and have nothing to do then but to wrestle with the power of the disease and the agonies of death God shall fight for thee in that weak estate God shall imprint in thee a Cupio dissolvi St. Pauls not only contentedness but desire to bee dissolved and God shall give thee a glorious resurrection yea an ascention into heaven before thy death and thou shalt see thy selfe in possession of his eternal Kingdome before thy bodily eyes bee shut When even thy death-bed shall bee as Elias Chariot to carry thee to heaven and as the bed of the Spouse in the Canticles which was lectus floridus a green and flourishing bed where thou maiest finde by a faithful apprehension that thy sickness hath crowned thee with a Crown of thorns by participation of the sufferings of thy Saviour and that thy patience hath crowned thee with that Crown of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge shall impart to thee that day In divinis nihil minimum Tertul. IT is a wanton thing for any Church in spiritual matters to play with small errors to tolerate or wink at small abuses as though it should bee alwayes in her power to extinguish them when shee would It is Christs counsel to his Spouse that is the Church Capite vulpes parvulas take us the little Foxes for they destroy the vine though they seem but little and able to do little harm yet they grow bigger and bigger every day and therefore stop errors before they become heresies and erroneous men before they become hereticks Capite sayes Christ take them suffer them not to go on but then it is Capite nobis take us those Foxes take them for us the bargain is between Christ and his Church For it is not Capite vobis take them to your selves and make your selves judges of such doctrinal matters as appertain not to your cognizance nor it is not Cape tibi take him to thy self spy out a recusant or a man otherwise not conformable and take him for thy labour beg him and spoyl him and for his Religion leave him as you found him neither is it Cape sibi take him for his ease that is compound with him easily and continue him in his estate and errors but Cape nobis take him for us so detect him as hee may thereby be reduced to Christ and his Church Neither only this counsel of Christ to his Church but that Commandement of God in Levitious is also appliable to this Non misereberis pauperis in judicio Thou shalt not countenance a poor man in his cause thou shalt not pity a poor man in judgement Though a new opinion may seem a poor opinion able to do little harm though it may seem a pious and profitable opinion and of good use yet in judicio if it stand in judgement and pretend to bee an Article of faith and of that holy obligation matter necessary to salvation Non misereberis thou shalt not spare thou shalt not countenance this opinion upon any collateral respect but bring it to the only trial of Doctrines the Scriptures Neither doth this Counsel of Christs Take us these little Foxes nor this Commandement of God Thou shalt not pitty the poor in judgement determine it self in the Church or in the publick only but extends it self rather contracts it self to every particular soul and conscience Capite Vulpeculas take your little Foxes watch your first inclination to sins for if you give them luck at first if you feed them with the milk and hony of the mercy of God it shall not bee in your power to wean them when you would but they will draw you from one to another extream from a former presumption to a future desparation in Gods mercy So also Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgement Now that thou callest thy self to judgement and thy conscience to an examination thou shalt not pity any sin because it pretends to bee a poor sin either prove so that it cannot much endanger thee nor much incumber thee or poor so as that it threatens thee with poverty with penury with disability to support thy state or maintain thy Family if thou entertain it not Many times I have seen a Suitor that comes in Forma pauperis more trouble a Court and more importune a Judge than greater causes or greater persons and so may such fins as come in Forma pauperis either way that they plead poverty that they can do little harm or threaten poverty if they bee not entertained Those sins are the most dangerous sins which pretend reason why they should bee entertained for sins which are done meerly out of infirmity or out of the surprisal of tentation are in comparison of others done as sins in our
into the hardness and sharpness of a dagger or water thawed into the floods of a River by a hair or a raizor by violent motion or sitting still by Gods mercy or Gods anger by every thing in providence and every thing in manners by every thing in nature and every thing in chance It was a sad arrest of the loosness and wilder feasts of the French Court when their King Henry 2. was killed really by the sportive image of a fight and many Brides have dyed under the hands of Maidens dressing them for uneasie joy the new and undiscerned chains of marriage Anceps forma bonum mortalibus exigui donum breve temporis Senec. I Have rend of a fair young German Gentleman who living often refused to bee pictured but put off the importunity of his friends desire by giving way that after a few dayes burial they might send a Painter to his Vault and if they saw cause for it draw the image of his death unto the life they did so and found his face half eaten and his midrife and back bone full of serpents and so hee stands pictured among his armed Ancestors so doth the fairest beauty change and it will bee as bad with you and mee and then what servants shall wee have to wait upon us in the grave what friends to visit us what officious people to cleanâ—e away the moist and unwholesome cloud reflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping Vaults which are the longest weepers for our Funerals Quid fit futurum cras fuge quaerere Horace LEt no man extend his thoughts or his hopes toward future and far distant Events This day is mine and yours but yee know not what shall bee on the morrow every morning creeps out of a dark cloud leaving behinde it an ignorance and silence deep as midnight and undiscerned as the phantasmes that make a chrysome childe to smile so that wee cannot discern what comes hereafter unless wee had a light from heaven brighter than the vision of an Angel even the Spirit of Prophesie Without revelation wee cannot tell whether wee shall eat to morrow or whether a squinzy shall choke us St. James notes the folly of some who were so impatient of the event of to morrow or the accidents of the next year that they would consult Astrologers and Witches and Devils what should befall them the next calends against this the Apostle opposeth his counsel that we should not search after forbidden Records for whatever is disposed to happen by the order of natural causes or civil counsels may bee rescinded by a peculiar decree of providence When Rithilda the widow of Albert Earle of Ebersberg had feasted the Emperor Henry the third and petitioned in behalf of her Nephew for some lands formerly possessed by the Earl her Husband just as the Emperour held out his hand to signifie his consent the chamber floor suddenly fell under them and Richilda falling upon the edge of a bathing vessel was bruised to death and staid not to see heâ— Nephew sleep in those lands which the Emperor was reaching forth unto her and placed at the door of restitution Quid brevi fortes iaculemur quo multal jaâ—â—te prâ—mâ—t nox Horat. AS our hopes must bee confined so must our designes let us not project long designes the work of our soul is cut short facile sweet and plain and fitted to the small portions of our shorter life and as wee must not trouble our inquiry so neither must wee intricato our labour with what wee shall never enjoy this rule doth reprove such projects as discompose our present duty by long and future designs such which by casting our labours to events at distance make us less to remember our death standing at the door Seneca tells of Gâ—nâ—cio Corneliuâ— a man crafty in getting and tenacious in holding a great estate and one who was as diligent in the care of his body as of his mony that hee all day long attended upon his sick and dying friend but when hee went away was quickly comforted supped merrily went to bed cheerfully and on a sudden being surprized by a squinzy scarce drew his breath untill the morning but by that time dyed being snatched from the torrent of his fortune and a likely hope bigger than the necessities of ten men this accident was much noted then in Rome because it happened in so great a fortune and in the midst of wealthy designes and presently it made wise men to consider how imprudent a person hee is who disposeth of ten years to come when hee is not Lord of tomorrow Aetate fruere mobili cursu fugit Sen. MAke use of this instant for this instant will never return again and yet it may bee this instant will secure the fortune of a whole eternity The old Greeks and Romans caught us the prudence of this rule but Christianity teaches us the Religion of it They so seized on the present that they would lose nothing of the dayes pleasure Let us eat and drink for to morrow wee dye that was their Philosophy at their solemn feasts they would talke of death to heighten the present drinkings I had reason to say that Christianity taught us to turn this into Religion For hee that by a present and a constant holiness secures the present and makes it useful to his noblest purposes hee turns his condition into his best advantage by making his unavoidable fate become his necessary Religion Non aâ—cipiâ—uâ— brevem vitam sed fâ—cimus Senec. VVEe complain the day is long and the night is long and wee want company and seek out arts to drive the time away and then weep because it is gone too soon And as the revenue of Egypt and the Eastern Provinces was but a little summe when they were to support the luxury of Mark Autony and feed the riot of Cloopatra but a thousand Crowns is a vast proportion to feed an Hermite Just so is our life it is 100 short to serve the ambition of an haughty Prince or an usurping Rebel to trample upon the enemies of our just or unjust interest but for the obtaining vertue for the purchase of sobriety and modesty for the actions of Religion God gave us time sufficient if wee make the out-goings of the morning and evening i. e. our infancy and old age to bee taken into the computation of a man Omnia crede mihi etiam falicibus â—ubia sunt Sen. EVen the beauteous spring hath blasts and sharp frosts the fruitfull teeming Summer is melted with heat and burnt with the kisses of the Sun her friend and the rich Autumne is full of sickness and wee are weary of that which wee enjoy because sorrow is its biggest portion And when wee remember that upon the fairest face is placed one of the worst sinks of the body the nose wee may use it not onely as a mortification to the pride of beauty but as an allay to the fairest outside of condition which
danger Detestabilis est coecitas si nemo oculos perdiderit nisi cui eruendi sunt Senec. BLindness were a most accursed thing if no man were ever blinde but hee whose eyes are pulled out with tortures or burning bafons And if sickness were alwayes a testimony of Gods anger and a violence to a mans whole condition then it were a huge calamity but because God sends it to his servants to his children to little infants to Apostles and Saints with designes of 〈◊〉 to preserve their innocence to overâ—â—ome tentation to try their vertue to fit them for rewards it is certain that sickness never is an evill but by our own faults and if wee will do our duty wee shall bee sure to turn it into a blessing If the sickness bee great it may end in death and the greater it is the sooner and if it bee very little it hath great intervals of rest if it bee between both wee may bee Masters of it and by serving the ends of providence serve also the perfective end of humane nature and enter into the possession of everlasting mercies However if all the calamities were true concerning sickness with which it is aspersed yet is it far to bee preferred before the most pleasant fin and before a great secular business and a temporal care and some men â—wake as much in the foldings of the softest beds as others on the cross and sometimes the very weight of sorrow and the weariness of sickness presses the spirit into slumbers and images of rest when the intemperate or the lustfull person rolls upon his uneasie thorns and sleep is departed from his eyes Solatium est pro honesto dura tolerare ad causam patientia respicit Senec. IN all sufferings the cause of it makes it noble or ignoble tolerable or intolerable For when patience is assaulted by a ruder violence by a blow from heaven or earth from a gracious God or an unjust man patience looks forth to the doors which way shee may escape And if innocence or a cause of Religion keep the first entrance then whether shee escapes at the gates of life or death there is a good to bee received greater than the evils of a sickness but if sin thrust in that sickness and that hell stands at the door then patience turns into fury and seeing it is impossible to go forth with safety rowls up and down with a circular and infinite revolution making its motion not from but upon its own center it doubles the pain and increases the sorrow till by its weight it breaks the spirit and bursts into the agonies of infinite and eternal ages If wee had seen St. Polycarp burning to death or St. Lawrence rosting upon his gridiron or St. Ignatiuâ— exposed to Lions or St. Sebastian pierced with arrows for the cause of Jesus for Religion for God for a holy conscience we should have been in love with flames and have thought the gridiron fairer than the marriage bed and wee should have chosen rather to converse with those beasts than those men that brought those beasts forth and have esteemed Sebastians arrows to bee the raies of light brighter than the Moon For so did those holy men account them they kissed their stakes and hugged their deaths and ran violently to torments and counted whippings and secular disgraces to bee the enamel of their persons and the oyntment of their heads and the embalming their names and securing them for immortality But to see Sejaâ—us â—orn in peeces by the people or Nero crying and creeping timorously to his death when he was condemned to dye more majorum to see Judas pale and trembling full of anguish sorrow and despair to observe the groanings and intolerable agonies of Herod and Antiochus will tell and demonstrate the causes of patience and impatience to proceed from the causes of the suffering and that it is sin onely that makes the cup bitter and deadly Non est magnum audiri ad voluntatem non est magnum August BE not over-joyed when God grants thee thy prayer the Devil had his prayer granted when hee had leave to enter into the herd of Swine and so hee had when hee obtained power of God against Job But all this aggravated the Devils punishment so may it do thine to have some prayers granted And as that must not over-joy thee if it bee so if thy prayer bee not granted it must not deject thee God suffered St. Paul to pray and pray and pray yet after his thrice praying granted him not that hee prayed for God suffered that if it be possible and that let this cup pass to pass from Christ himself yet hee granted it not Tentemus animas quae deficiunt a fide naturalibus rationibus adjuvare St. Hieron LEt us endeavour to assist them who are weak in faith with the strength of reason though God hath not given the Minister a power to infuse faith into men yet hath God put it into his power to satisfie the reason of men and to chafe that wax to which hee himself vouchsafes to set to the great seal of faith And truly it is very well worthy of a serious consideration that whereas all the Articles of our Creed are the objects of faith so that wee are bound to receive them de fide as matters of faith yet God hath left that out of which all these Articles are to bee deduced and proved i. e. the Scripture to humane arguments It is not an Article of the Creed to beleeve these and these books to bee or not to bee Canonical Scripture but our arguments for the Scripture are humane arguments proportioned to the reason of a natural man God doth not seal in water in the fluid and tranfitory imaginations and opinions of men wee never set the seal of faith to them but in wax in the rectified reason of men that reason that is ductile and flexible and pliant to the impressions that are naturally proportioned unto it God sets to his seal of faith and therefore faith it self by the Prophet Isaiah is called knowledge Isa 53. 11. By his knowledge c. saith God of Christ i e. by that knowledge that men shall have of him Insomuch that it is not enough for you to rest in an imaginary faith and easiness in beleeving except yee know also what and why and how you come to that beleef Implicite beleevers ignorant beleevers the adversary may swallow but the understanding beleever hee must chaw and pick bones before hee come to assimilate him and make him like himself The implicite beleever stands in an open field and the enemy will ride over him easily The understanding beleever is in a fenced Town and hee hath out-works to lose before the Town bee pressed i. e. reasons to bee answered before his faith bee shaked and hee will sell himself dear and lose himself by inches if hee bee sold or lost at last Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurgeâ— August
his fault that fruit ne contristaretur delicias suas lest hee should cast her off whom hee loved so much into an inordinate dejection but if hee satisfied her and his own uxoriousness any satisfaction is nothing But what had I for heaven Adam sinned and I suffer I forfeited before I had any possession or could claim any interest I had a punishment before I had a being and God was displeased with mee before I was I was built up scarce fifty years ago in my mothers womb and I was cast down almost six thousand years ago in Adams loyns I was born in the last age of the world and dyed in the first How justly do wee cry out against a man that hath sold a Town or sold an Army and Adam sold the World he sold Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriatchs and all the Prophets and if Christ had not provided for himself by miraculous Generation hee had sold him too Agnoscere nolumus quod ignorare 〈◊〉 possumus Cypri de mortal THere is no meditation more serious than upon the vanity of the world no consideration more seasonable than of the brevity and uncertainty of time it self no knowledge more wholesome than of the diseases of the minde no contemplation more divine than of humane misery and frailty Which though wee read in the inscription of every stone see in the fall of everyleaf hear in the knol of every bell taste in the garnishing and fancy of every dish smell in the stench of every dead corpse feel in the beating of every pulse yet wee are not sensible of it wee will not take knowledge of it though wee cannot bee ignorant of it In which consideration the Wise man whose words are as goads and nails vers 11. pricks us deep with the remembrance hereof so deep that he draws blood sanguinem animae the blood of the soul as St. Austin termeth our tears Lachryma sanguis animae For who can read with dry eyes that those that look out of the windows shall bee darkned who can hear without horrour that the keepers of the house shall tremble or consider without sorrow that the daughters of Musick shall bee brought low or comment without deep fetched sighs upon mans going to his long home and the mourners going about the streets to wash them with tears and sweep them with Rosemary Infans nondum loquitur tamen prophetat August Serm. de bono pat IT is lamentable to hear the poor infant which cannot speak yet to boad his own misery and to Prophecy of his future condition and what are the contents of his Prophecie but lamentations mournings and woes Saint Cyprian accords with Saint Austin in his doleful note Vitae mortalis anxietates dolores procellas mundi quas ingreditur inexordio statim suo ploratu vel gemit◠rudis anima testatur little children newly born take in their first breath with a sigh and come crying into the world as soon as they open their eyes they shed tears to help fill up the vale of tears into which they were then brought and shall bee after a short time carried out with a stream of them running from the eyes of all their friends And if the Prologue and Epilogue bee no better what shall wee judge of the Scenes and Acts of the life of man they yeeld so deep springs of tears and such store of arguments against our aboad in this world that many reading them in the books of Hegesias the Platonick presently brake the prison of their body and leaped out of the world into the grave Others concluded with Silenus Optimum non nasci proximum quam primum mori That it was simply best never to bee born the next to it to dye out of hand and give the world our salve and take our vale at once Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus avi primi fluit Horat. THe prime scope of the book of Ecclesiastes is to stir up all Religious mindes to set forth towards heaven betimes in the morning of our dayes Chap. 12. vers 1. Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth to enter speedily into a strict course of holiness which will bring us to eternal happiness to dedicate to God and his service the prime in both senses that is the first and best part of our time For as in a glass of distilled water the purest and thinnest first runneth out and nothing but lees and mother at the last so it is in our time and age our best dayes first run and our worst at the last And shall wee offer that indignity to the Divine Majesty as to offer him the Devils leavings Florem aetatis diabolo consocrare faecem Deo reservare to consecrate the top to the Devil and the bottome to God feed the flesh with the flower and the spirit with the bran serve the world with our strength and our Creator with our weakness give up our lusty and able members as weapons to sin and our feeble and weak to righteousness Will God accept the blinde and the lame the lean and the withered for a sacrifice How can wee remember our Creator in the dayes of our age when our memory and all other faculties of the soul are decayed How shall wee bear Christs yoak when the Grashopper is a burthen unto us when wee are not able to bear our selves but now under the sole weight of age What delight can wee take in Gods service when care and fear and sorrow and paine and manifold infirmities and diseases wholly possess the heart and dead all the vital motions and lively affections thereof Senes in limine mortis vitae sunt avidissuni Aristot de long brevi avit IT was Aristotles observation that old men that have their foot on deaths threshold would then draw back their leg if they could and at the very instant of their dissolution are most defarous of the continuance of their life and seeing the pleasures of fin like the apples of Tantalus running away from them they catch at them the more greedily for want is the whetstone of desire and experience offereth us many instances of old men in whom St. Pauls old man grows young again who according to the corruption of nature which St. Austin bewayleth with tears Malunt libidinem expleri quam extingui they are so far from having no lust or desire of pleasures as being cloyed therewith that they are more insatiable in them than in youth the flesh in them are like the Peacocks Quae cocta recrudescit which after it is sod in time will grow raw again so in them after mortification by diseases and age it reviveth Sophocles the heathen Poet might pass for a Saint in comparison of them for hee thanked God that in his old age hee was free from his most imperious Mistriss lust These men on the contrary desire to enthral themselves again in youthly pleasures and concupiscence in them is kindled even by
the defect of fewel it vexeth them that their sins forsake them that through the impotency of their limbs and faculties they cannot run into the like excess as in former times Their few dayes before death are like Shrove-tide before Lent they take their fill of flesh and fleshly desires because they suppose that for ever after they must fast from them Thus they spur on their jadish flesh now unable to run her former stages saying Let us crown our selves with Rose-buds for they will presently wither let us eat and drink for to morrow wee shall dye Respice sepulchra vide quis servus quis dominus quis dives quis pauper discerue si potes vinctum a rege fortem a debili pulchrum a deformi Aug. l. de nat grat THe hand of a dead man stroaking the part cures the Tympany and certainly the consideration of death is a present means to cure the swelling of pride in any form in this life many things make odds between men and women as birth education wealth alliance and honour but death makes all even Respice sepulchra saith St. Austin Survey mens graves and tell mee then who is beautiful and who is deformed All there have hollow eyes flat noses and gastly looks Nereus and Thirsites cannot bee there distinguished Tell mee who is rich and who is poor all there wear the same weed their winding sheet Tell mee who is noble and who base and ignoble the worms claim kindred of all Tell mee who is well housed and who is ill all there are bestowed in dark and dankish rooms under ground If this will not satisfie you take a sieve and fift the dust and ashes of all men and shew mee which is which I grant there is some difference in dust there is powder of Diamonds there is gold dust and brass-pin dust and saw-dust and common dust the powder of Diamonds resembles the remains of Princes gold dust the remains of Noble-men pin-dust the remains of the Tradesmen saw-dust the remains of the day-labourer and common dust the remains of the vulgar which have no quality or profession to distinguish them yet all is but dust At a game of Chesse wee see Kings and Queens and Bishops and Knights upon the board and they have their severall walks and contest one with the other in points of state and honour but when the game is done all together with the Pawns are shuffled in one bag In like manner in this life men appear in indifferent garbs and take divers courses some are Kings some are Officers some Bishops some Knights some of other ranks and orders But when this life like a game is done which is sometimes sooner sometimes later all are shufled together with the many or vulgar sort of people and lye in darkness and obscurity till the last man is born upon the earth but after that Erunt ipsis quoque fata sepulchris The grave which hath swallowed up all the sons of Adam shall bee swallowed up it self into victory Theodoro parum interest huminc an in sublime putrescat Erasmus ALthough the heathen Philosophers made little account of Burial as appeared by the speech of Theodorus to the Tyrant who threatned to hang him I little pass by it whether my carcass putrifie above the earth or on it And the Poet seems to be of his mind whose strong line it was Coelo tegâ—tur qui non habet urnam which was Pompeys case and had like to have been Alexanders and William the Conquerors yet all Christians who conceive more divinely on the soul deal more humanely with the body which they acknowledge to bee membrum Christi and templum Dei a member of Christ and temple of God If charity commands thee to cover the naked saith St. Ambrose how much more to bury the dead When a friend is taking a long journey it is civility for his friends to bring him on part of his way when our friends are departed and now going to their grave they are taking their last journey from which they shall never return till time shall bee no more and can wee do less then by accompanying the corpse to the grave bring them as it were part on their way and shed some few tears for them whom wee shall see no more with mortal eyes The Prophet calleth the grave Miscabin a sleeping chamber or resting place and when wee read Scriptures to them that are departing and give them godly instructions to dye wee light them as it were to their bed and when wee send a deserved testimony after them wee perfume the room Indeed if our bodies which like garments wee cast off at our death were never to be worn again wee need little care where they were thrown or what became of them but seeing they must serve us again their fashion being only altered it is fit we carefully lay them up in Deaths Wardrobe the grave though a man after hee hath lost a Jewel doth less set by the casket yet hee who loves much and highly esteemeth of the soul of his friend as Alexander did of Homer cannot but make some reckoning of the Desk and Cabinet in which it alwayes lay Wee have a care of placing the picture of our friend and should wee not much more of bestowing his body If burial were nothing to the dead God would never have threatned Coniah that hee should have the burial of an Ass nor the Psalmist so quavered upon this doleful note Dederunt cadaver servorum tuorum coeli volucribus O God the heathen are come into thine inheritance thy holy Temple have they defiled and made Jerusalem an heap of stones the dead bodies of thy servants have they given to the fowls of heaven Mors non est exitus sed transitus temporali itinere decursâ— ad aeterna transgressus Cyp. de mortal VVHich is verified from Rev. 14. 13. And I heard a voice from heaven c. From whence wee may learn first That if all that dye in the Lord are blessed from the very moment of their death and this blessedness is confirmed by a voyce from heaven Let us give more heed to such a voyce than to any whisper of the flesh or devil Whatsoever Philosophy argueth or reason objecteth or sense excepteth against it Let us give more heed to God than man to the Spirit than to the flesh to faith than to reason to heaven than to earth although they who suffer for the testimony of the Gospel seem to bee most miserable their skins being flayed off their joynts racked their whole body torn in peeces or burned to ashes their good confiscate their arms defaced and all manner of disgraces put upon them Yet they are most happy in heaven by the testimony of heavven it self the malice of their enemies cannot reach so high as heaven it cannot touch them much there much less awake them out of their sweet sleep in Jesus Secondly If the dead are blessed in comparison of the living
let us not so glew our thoughts and affections to the world and the comforts thereof but that they may easily bee severed for there is no comparison between the state of the godly in this life and in the life â—o come for here they labour for rest there they rest from their labour here they expected here they hunger and thirst for righteousness there they are satisfied here they are continually afflicted either for their sins or with their sins and they have continual cause to shed tears either for the calamities of Gods people or the stroaks they themselves receive from God or the wounds they give themselves there all tears are wiped from their eyes Here they are alwayes troubled either with the evils they fear or the fear of evil but when they go hence death sets a period to all fear cares sorrows and dangers And therefore Solon speaketh divinely when hee taught Croesus that hee ought to suspend his verdict of any mans happiness till hee saw his end Lastly If all that dye in Christ are blessed as a voyce from heaven assureth us wee do wrong to heaven if wee account them miserable wee do wrong to Christ if wee count them as lost whom hee hath found if wee shed immoderate tears for them from whose eyes hee hath wiped away all tears to wear perpetual blacks for them upon whom hee hath put long white Robes Whatsoever our losse may bee by them it cometh far short of their gain our cross is light in comparison of their super-excellent weight of glory therefore let us not sorrow for them as those that have no hope Let us not shew our selves infidels by too much lamenting the death of beleevers Weep wee may for them or rather for our loss by them but moderately as knowing that our loss is their gain and if wee truly love them wee cannot but exceedingly congratulate their feasts of joy their rivers of pleasures their Psalms of Victory their Robes of Majesty their Crowns of glory Water therefore your plants at the departure of your dearest friends but drown them not For whatsoever wee complain of here they are freed from there and whatsoever wee desire here they enjoy there they hunger not but feast with the Lamb they sigh not but sing with Moses having safely passed over the glassie Sea they lye not in darkness but possess the inheritance of Saints in light They have immunity from sin freedome from all temptations and security from danger they have rest for their labours here comfort for their troubles glory for their disgrace joyes for their sorrows life for their death in Christ and Christ for all Ut Romae mori non potest qui Romae non vixit ita qui in domino non vixit in eâ— non moritur Cor. Alapide AS a man cannot dye at Rome who never lived at Rome so none can dye in Christ who never lived in him and none can live in him who is not in him First then wee must labour to bee in him and how may wee compass this Christ himself teacheth us I am the Vine and my Father is the Husbandman every branch that beareth not fruit in me he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit be purgeth that it may bring forth more fruit as the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can yee except yee abide in mee Hence wee learn that wee cannot bear fruit in Christ unless as branches wee bee ingrafted into him Now that a graft may bee inoculated 1 There must bee made an incision in the tree 2 The graft or Syence must be imped in 3 After it is put in it must be joyned fast to the tree The incision is already made by the wounds given Christ at his death many incisions were made in the true Vine that which putteth us in or inoculateth us is a special faith and that which bindes us fast to the tree is love and the grace of perseverance If then wee bee ingrafted by faith into Christ and bound fast unto him by love wee shall partake of the juice of the stock and grow in grace and bear fruit also more and more and so living in the true Vine wee shall dye in him and so dying in him wee shall re-flourish with him in everlasting glory Nihil melius aterna lex fecit quam quod unum introitum ad vitam nobis dedit exitus multos Sen. Ep. 10. VVE come but one way into the world but wee go a thousand out of it As wee see in a Garden pot the water is poured in but at one place to wit the narrow mouth but it runneth out at a hundred holes Some dye by fire as the Sodomites by water as the old world By the infection of the aire as threescore and ten thousand in Davids time By the opening of the earth as Corah Dathan and Abiram Amphiraus and two Cities Buris and Helice Some meet with death in their Coach as Antiochus their chamber as Domitian their bed as John the twelfth the Theater as Caligula the Senate as Caesar The Temple as Zenacherib Their table as Claudius At the Lords Table as Pope Victor and Henry of Luxenburg Death woundeth and striketh some with a Pen-knife as Soneca a Stilletto as Henry the fourth A sword as Paul A Fullers â—e am as James the Lords brother A Saw as Isaiah A stone as Pyrrhus A Thunder-bolt as Amistatius What should I speak of Felones de se such as have thrown away their souls Sardanapalus made a great fire and leaped into it Luoretia stabbed her self Cleopatra put an Aspe to her breast stung therewith dyed presently Saul fell upon his own sword Judas hanged himself Deronius cut his own veins Heremius bear out his own brains Licinius choaked himself with a napkin Dortia dyed by swallowing hot burning coals Hannibal sucked poyson out of his ring Demosthenes out of his Pen c. What seemeth so loose as the soul in the body which is plucked out with an hair driven out with a smell frayed out with a phansie Verily that seemeth to bee but a breath in the nostrils which is taken away with a scent a shadow which is driven away with a Scare-crow a dream which is frayed away with a phansie a vapour which is driven away with a pusse a conceit which goes away with a passion a toy that leaves us with a laughter yet grief killed Homer laughter Philemon a hait in his milk Fabius a flye in his throat Adrian a smell of lime in his nostrils Joviâ—â— the snufte of a candle a childe in Pliny a kernel of a raison Anacreon and an Icesickle one in Martial which caused the Poet to melt into tears saying Onbimors non est si jugulatis aque What cannot make an end of us if a small drop of water congealed can do it In these regards wee may turn the affirmative in the 1 Cor. 15. 55. into a negative and say truly though not in
the Apostles sense O death where is not thy sting For wee see it thrust out in out meats in our drinks in our apparrel in our breath in the Court in the Country in the City in the Field in the Land in the Sea in the Chamber in the Church and in the Church-yard Domiviam potest aâ— est â—um utendi 〈◊〉 abutendâ— Justinian GOd may lend thee out even to Satah suffer thee to bee his Bayliâ—â—e and his instrument to the vexation of others So hee lent out St. Paul to the Scribes and Pharisees to serve them in their persecutions so God may lend thee out God may let thee out for a time to them that shall plough and harrow thee fell and cleave thee and reserve to himself but a little rent a little glory in thy patience So hee let out Job even to Satan himself so God may let thee out God may mortgage thee to a six months Fever or to a longer debilit so he mortgaged Hezekias God may lay thee waste and pull-up thy fences and extinguish their power or with-draw their love upon whom thou hast established thy dependance So hee laid David waste when hee with-drew his childrens obedience from him so God may lay thee waste God may let out all his time in thee in this world and reserve to himself onely a last year a last day a last minute suffer thee in unrepented sins to the last gasp so God let out the good Theef God is Lord of all that thou hast and art and then hee that is Lord owner Proprietary may do with that which is his what he will But God will not cannot devest his Domirsion nor sell thee so as not to reserve a power and a will to redeem thee if thou wouldest bee redeemed For howsoever hee seem to thee to have sold thee to sin to sadness to sickness to superstition for these bee the Ishmalites these bee the Midianite Merchants that buy up our Josephs our souls though hee seem to sell his present estate hee will not sell reversions his future title to thee by a future repentance hee will not sell but whensoever thou shalt grow due to him by a new land a true repentance hee shall re-assume thee into his bed and his bosome no bill of divorce and re-enter thee into his revenue and his audit no bill of sale shall stand up to thy prejudice but thy dejected spirit shall spirit shall bee raised from thy consternation to a holy cheerfulness and a peaceful alacrity and no tentation shall offer a reply to this question which God makes to establish thy conscience ubi libellus Where is the bill of thy mothers divorcement c. Isa 50. 1. Unde illi cura cordis cui ne ipsa quidem adhuc â—ris circumspectia Bernard POuâ— Domine custodiam ori meo was the prayer of David Set a watch before my lips And in the Law of Mases the vessel that had not the coveting fastened to it was unclean and therefore the inner parts of a fool are resembled to a broken vessel which hath neither part entire nor covering Hee can keep no knowledge while hee liveth Eccles 21. 14. Hereupon those more nobly bred amongst the Romans learned first to hold their peace and afterwards to speak For hee is an ill treasurer of his own thoughts that keeps not the doors of his lips shut and that heart is never locked fast upon any secret where a profuse tongue layes interest to the key And therefore nature hath provided well by fortisying this member more than any part of the body setting a garrison of the strong and stout men about it Eccles 12. doubly intrenching it with lips and teeth not so much to oppose a forreign invasion as to allay mutinies within for the tongue is an unruly member and sides much with the perverseness of our will and therefore reason should keep strict Sentinel upon it and as well direct as guard it Nature hath proportioned us a double ear and eye to a single tongue and reason interprets instantly Wee should hear and see twice ere wee speak once Natum esse Dee sempiternum est TO bee born with God is to bee eternal with God spoken by St. Austin against the Arrians and the Father opens himself by his old similitude Sicut splendor qui gignitur ab igne as light which is begotten of fire and defused is co-equal with the fire and would bee co-eternal too if fire were eternal So the Son with the Father this being before all time the other must kiss in the same everlastingness The Father thinking his reason built too slenderly doth buttress as it were and back it with the authority of an Apostle such an Apostle as was sometimes a Persccutor and therefore his Authority most potent against a Persecutor where hee stiles Christ the Power and Wisdome of God If the Son of God bee the Power and Wisdome of God and that God was never without Power and Wisdome how can wee scant the Son of a Co-eternity with the Father For either wee must grant that there was alwayes a Son or that God had sometimes no wisdome and impudence or madness were never at such a growth of blasphemy as to belch the latter If the reverend allegation of a learned Prelate or those more sacred of an Apostle cannot bring up the mouth of a malicious Heretick hear the voyce of a Prophet and a Father warbling upon that too Before mee there was no other God and after mee there shall bee none Isa 43. 10. Quis hoc dicit pater an filius saith Ambrose Who is here the speaker the Father or the Son hee cometh over him with a subtil Dilemma if the Son thus hee saith Before mee there was no other Cod if the Father After mee saith hee these shall bee none For both the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father must bee known when thou namest a Father thou hast also designed a Son because no man is a Father to himself when thou namest a Son thou confessest also a Father for no man is son to himself the Son therefore can neither subsist without the Father nor the Father without the Son the one being from everlasting wee may not depose the other from the like Omnipotency Vereor ne dum propter te fugis propter alios sis in periculâ— apud dominum Athan. in Epist ad Drac TO avoid all occasions of publick service for the Church under a pretence of humility or recluseness speaks too broadly the delinquent refractory your Anchorite that digs his grave in speculation meerly and your Moale that is earthed wholly in an affected solitariness are not liable so properly to obscurity as death such elaborateness tends not to perfection but disease and wee finde an Apoplexy and sleep no less on their endeavours than in their name all knowledge is dusted with them and it is no more a nursery of vertues but a Tomb. And indeed such sâ—lk-worms
years and judgement hee mouldring for non-imployment and dashed for slowness of promotion when others of cheap and thin abilities men without growth or bud of knowledge have met with the honours of advancement and trample on those dejected book-worms which dissolve themselves into industry for the service of their Church yet meet neither with her pomp noâ— her revenue nay some that have wasted their lamp and burnt their Taper to an inch of years have spent those fortunes in the travels of Divinity which would largely have accommodated them for more secular courses and enforced to retire themselves to the solitariness of some ten pounds cure and so spin out the remainder of their age in a discontented contemplation of their misfortunes and I pray God not in a murmuring against his Church Where the fault lyes hee that hath but slenderly transâ—iqued with the occurrences of the time may judge Spiritual promotions are slow of fooâ— and come for the most part halting or in a by-way Times more than calamitous when the inheritance and patrimony of the Church shall bee thus leased to avarice and folly when these her honours which shee intails upon desert shall bee heaped upon a golden ignorant who rudely treads on those sacred Prerogatives Strange monument of weakness he that reels under his own burthen stoops to be opprest with the weight of others and loe how hee tumbles to a mortal sin the School-men do stile it so directly opposite to a pair of vertues Justice Chastity unjust that the revenues due to worth should be packed upon bulkless and unable persons and uncharitable for him to undertake the guidance and pasturing of a flock who was never trained up in the conditions of a shepherd Neither is hee an enemy only of a double vertue but a companion of two such sins which seem to brave and dare the Almighty to revenge on the prophanâ—r Incâ—usion Perjury first in rushing on the profession not legitimately called then in purchasing her honours Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa Seneca VVHy should this sad toil of mortality dishearten us Groans and Sighs and Convulsions are the bodies passing-bells no less customary than natural and more horrid in the circumstance than the thing the retinue and complement of death speaks more terrour than the act The Adversary the Judge the Sentence the Jaylor the Executioner more daunt the Malefactor than the very stroke and cleft of dissolution Are wee so foolish as to fear that sayes the heathen which will dash or split us in the whole no it is the port which we ought one day to desire never to refuse into which if any have been cast in their younger years they need repine no more than one which with a short cut hath ended his Navigation For there are some whom slacker winds mock and detain and weary with the gentle tediousness of a peaceable calm others swifter wafted by sudden gusts whom life hath rather ravished thither than sent which had they a time delayed by some flattering intermissions yet at length must of necessity strike sail to it Some faint-hearted Adrian will to his power linger it and fearfully expostulate with a parting soul Quae nunc abib is in loca pallidula rigida nudula As if the divorce from the body were everlasting and there should not bee one day a more glorious contract When a confident Hilarian shall dare all those grisly assaults Soul get thee out thou hast seventy years served Christ and art thou now loath to dye Again some spruce Agag or hem'd Amalakite would bee palsie-struck with an amara mors death is bitter death mors death is bitter death is bitter 1 Sam. 15. When a Lubentius and a Maximinus have their breast-plate on with a Domine parati sumus Wee are ready to lay off our garments the flesh And indeed saith St. Austin Boughs fall from trees and stones out of buildings and why should it seem strange that mortals dye Some have welcomed death some met it in the way some baffeld it in sickness persecution torments I instance not in that of Basil to the Arrianated Valâ—ns it is too light that of Vincentius was more remarkable who with an unabated constancy thus shuns the rage of his merciless Executioner thou shalt see the Spirit of God strengthâ—n the tormented more than the Devil can the hands of the tormenter And that you may know a true Martyrdome is not dashed either at the expectation or the sense of torture as Barlaam will hold his hand over the very flame of the Altar and sport out the horridness of such a death with that of the Psalmist Thou hast â—aught my hands to war and my fingers to fight Seeing then wee are compalsed with such a cloud of witnesses what should scare a true Apostle from his Cupio dissolvi Let us take his resolution and his counsel too lay aside every weight and run with patience the race set before us Heb. 1â— Iniquitatem damnare novit Deus non facere August GOd knows how to judge not commit a crime and to dispose not mould it and is often the Father of the punishment not the fact Hence it is that the dimness of humane apprehension conceives that oftentimes a delinquency in God which is a monster of our own frailty making God not onely to foreknow but predestinate an evil when the evil is both by growth and conception ours and if ought savour of goodness in us it is Gods not ours yet ours too as derivative from God who is no less the Patron of all goodness than the Creator and it is as truly impossible for him to commit evill as it was truly miraculous to make all that hee had made good And therefore Terâ—ulliâ—â— in his first book de Triâ—â—â—â—â—â— makes it a non potest fieri a matter beyond the list and reach of possibility that hee should bee artifex mali operis the promoter and ingineer of a depraved act who chalengeth to himself the title no less of an unblemished Father than of a Judge If any then fall off from goodness hee is hurried no less with the violence of his own perswasion than concupiscence and in those desperate affairs Gods will is neither an intermedler nor co-partner Cujus ope scimus multos ne laberentur retentos nullos ut laberentur impulsos saith Aug. by whose hand of providence wee know many to bee supported that they might not fall none impelled that they should And in his answer to that fourteenth Article falsely supposed to bee his fieri non potest ut per quem a peecatis surgitur per eum ad peecata decidatur for one and the self-same goodness to bee the life and death of the self-same sin is so much beyond improbability that it is impossible let this then satisfie our desire of knowledge Et ab illo esse quod flatur non ab illo esse quod ruitur That his providence is the staffe and crutch