one Glance from thy Turrets upon these Spirits and remember in what State they once lived In a City built and furnish'd as Richly as Infinite Power and Wisdom could contrive and expend for its Glory The very Gates of Pearl and the Streets of pure Gold An House made with no other Hands than what a God hath Yet from all that Heighth and Magnificence Pride has tumbled them down into a Tophet whose Chambers are deep and large too but whose Fire burns and is enkindled by the Breath of an incensed God into a streaming Flame for ever And are you sure Sir that your Walls are strong enough to secure you from the like Tragedy 'T will be a dreadful Change to pass out from your Stately Pallace into a scorching Hell. But what must we pity Devils then No but our selves rather who in a dreadful Fearlesness are merrily passing on to the same Misery and sure they Merit little Pity from us who lay so many Trails of Ruine for us to drag us into the Sorrows themselves endure and would but Mock and deride us if in Torments with them Nor have I the Charity of Origen to believe that all the Flames in which they Suffer will ever prevail to Purge out the Malignity of their Poisonous Natures nor refine them into Purity Truth it self hath averr'd that their Fire shall never never be quenched and if it were not so he would have told us No Reader no Pride hath done their work for them to the purpose and thoroughly fix'd them the open avowed Irreconcilable Enemies of God and all Goodness yet still methinks to see these Great and Mighty Princes footing it as Servants upon Earth or wandring in the Air with the Shackles of Vengeance at their Heels for these Principalities with the Fingers and Toes of their Native Royalties cut off to be banish'd into the place of Dogs to pick Scraps from under the Table and to swallow the Bones of Eternal Affliction with no other Drink than the Poison of Dragons and the Dregs of the Wrath of the Almighty cannot be in the sense of all but a sad and deplorable Spectacle And though we cannot so Pathetically commiserate their Degradation and Sorrows yet are we more senceless and hardened than they if when after God hath hung them up before the Sun in the Fetters of his fiercest Anger and made them the lasting Monuments of his fiery Indignation to all Generations If I say while we Gaze on Them we do not Compassionate our selves and fortifie our Spirits by all imaginable Care against the Mischiefs of Sin that of Pride especially which hath brought all these Plagues and Judgments upon them Buoys of dire Vengeance chained here To raise up Vniversal Fear To Quash the Mountains and melt down The Pride of each Terrestrial Crown Rattle your Fetters into th' Ears Of a Deaf World that laughs at Fears While yet You Tremble These Secure As if as Innocent as Pure As once were you themselves Immure Methinks an Hierarchy in Hell Might sink the Tumour thô it swell If not the Baffle will soon appear All on Themselves not Me when There Adam's Tragedy Brethren in the Common Nature however distinguished by Accidents of Life The Progeny of the first Adam subjected by Him to Sin and Death Redeemed from all by the Blood of a Saviour Were there in you an Heart agreeable to that Grace Do not Baffle the Project of the Trinity to save you nor Frantickly Tear off the Plaister designed to Heal you Heaven is no place for unsanctified Flesh stand to the Tryal if you dare The Judge is at the door that will more sensibly convince you who hath sent you word before-hand That without Holiness no man shall see God. Hast out of the Rotten House of your first Father and while Vengeance pursues you you are Mad indeed if you fly not to the City of Refuge 1 COR. XV. 22. In Adam all dye SIN having made this havock above and glutted it self with Angels Blood let us now pass on to take a view of the direful Desolations it hath wrought below 'T will fight neither against Small nor Great but only against Kings for having already destroyed these Spiritual Princes it still pursues the High Game and now le ts fly at the first and Greatest on Earth When the Eternal Word spake things into Being that had no Pre-existence and commanded admirable Order and Form to start up out of Confusion and Chaos He not only gave a Naked Life to his Creatures but cloathed them with unexpressible Beauty and Ornament each Creature richly garnish'd in his Natural Dress that was meet and proper to it But to Man the Lord of all did he reserve a double Suit He designs him the Epitomy of the whole Creation and to participate of both Natures His Better Part the Soul he Enamels with the sparkling Beams of his own Divinity and Cloaths it in no other than his own Livery and Creates it a Spirit like himself Glorious in Holiness This inestimable Jewel he wrap'd up in a Casket the Body very curiously and wonderfully wrought to become a Chariot for the Noble Soul to move in And this very Case he fashioned into such excellent Symmetry of Parts and Perfection as should shew in each Lineament and Proportion the unparallell'd Wisdom and Power of its Maker and was so far from needing a Mantle to cover Defects as Nakedness it self was its best Ornament and Innocence its Natural Robe God himself delighting to see him in no other Vesture and himself not blushing to appear before his great Creator in it All the Creatures did their Homage to him in no other Dress when they presented themselves so humbly to take Name which He as their God on Earth gave Wisely and Suitably to their Natures The Loss of a Rib was so far from being any Blemish to his Person that he soon finds it again wrought up into the Perfection of a Delicate Lady as Beautiful and Entire as Himself And being but himself divided renders him still more compleatly Perfect And thus the Lord of the Creation receives his Stately Bride from the immediate Hands of his God and is Bessed in the Fruition of a Princess Congenial to his Nature and Honour When in a Paradise of unspeakable Pleasures did this High and Happy Pair deliciously enjoy themselves and their Maker with all the Reciprocations of the Dearest Love and Joy. Now to Consummate this Happiness the Perpetuity of all is kindly offered them on the Easie Condition of a Thankful Obedience Alas 'T is but the Rent of a Pepper-corn for so vast a Revenue The Great Landlord will reserve to Himself a Propriety but in one Plant which by no means he must Encroach on under the Penalty of certain Death while the Fruition of all the Rest shall be Sealed to him by Another which is Hallowed into a Sacrament for immutable Confirmation to him He humbly Bows and is content to live no longer than
of some Thousands of Years have given too clear a Testimony of that dismal Truth yet she might comfort her Self in this That his Care should constantly attend them too he will ever be ready to administer to Them also and to all but such whose outragious Madness would leave them utterly uncapable of his healing Prescriptions and whose Infection would work to so high a Pitch as to cause them desperately to slight the Remedies that his Wisdom and Goodness had prepared for them No Bounds no Rampires could hinder the Flood-Gates of mine Eyes from flowing out into the deepest Streams at the hearing the Account of this rueful Massacre All the World destroyed at one blow in their Great Representative Not a Birth but what should add a Rebel against Heaven and a Subject to Sin That 's a Triumph with a Witness that insults over the Ruine of the whole Race T was but a Left Wing of the Angels that Pride had unhappily cut off but here the whole Progeny of Adam lye mortally bleeding to Death and not one escapes to tell the sad Story of their own Defeat Nay God Himself wounded in the Rout Necessitated to take the Field and fall in it too be Buried in the Common Grave and had there seen Corruption had not his Divinity reliev'd him Come Reader let us conferr a while There is a passage lately dropt from that Great Physician who upon view of his Patients corrupted Blood seem'd to shake his Head and pity her whole Progeny It would be worth a little pains to search out the Truth and make some Experiment in our selves Sure he meant not that Bedlam her first Production who so barbarously kill'd his Brother in the Field where the Mad Blood boil'd up so hotly within him and the poor Innocent fell by his Bloody hands from no provocation at all but loving him who had wrought so good a Cure upon him and was growing up towards perfect Recovery No no 'T is the whole Posterity and our selves are surely included Come let us try out the matter Hast thou never felt her Mad Blood frolicking in thine own Veins and the Distemper gotten up into thy Head too How often have the Felicities of a Deity been presented by Pride upon the Stage of thy Fancy And how brave it would be to drink thy fill of Nectar with the Gods Hast thou never walked with thy Trident as Neptune and commanded the Sea to own thy Authority How many Rags of thy Poverty hath Imagination dipt into Purple and hung them up as the Ensigns of thy Royality How many Staves hast thou gilded into Scepters and holden them forth to thy Subjects to kiss What was in the Brain of that Emperour that set him awork to out-thunder Jupipiter And what are the dreadful Claps of thine Oaths and Blasphemies but desperate Charges upon God Himself which none but a perfect Frantick would adventure at What account canst thou give of thy Time and Life which is lent thee but a Moment for Eternity when that Eternity will be short enough to curse thine own Madness in trifling away Time Art thou fooling still with Feathers and Straws and idly knitting Knots in the Grot of thy Misery when with thy unhappy Father thou art thrust out of Paradise and hast no Acquaintance in that Holy Court where once he was so perfect a Favourite and which shews thee wholly distracted thou desirest none Hast thou seen other Light than what hath darkly glimmered through the Windows of thy Melancholly Cell or other Excellencies than what have Dazled thine Eyes in the Glories of Life Art thou priding thy Self in the very Shackles of thy Mournful Captivity and never knewest a greater Liberty Alas thou art lockt up in Bedlam still and Rovest about in thy Fancy when as the true Light and Life and Freedom are as far as Heaven from thee What maketh thee judge of the earnest Pursuits of a few here and there after an Invisible Happiness to be perfect Weakness and breach of Discretion and hast wondred they should look after another Heaven than that thou enjoyest already on Earth How hast thou preferr'd a Persian Devotion that is happy in a Visible God that shines upon his Votaries every day A perfect Stranger to that Faith that is the Evidence of things not seen Alas Man as a dangerous Frantick thou art close shut up in the Dungeon of Unbelief where thy Brain works upon a thousand Chimera's which evaporate all into Air and Nothing Come let us lay these things to Heart Is it nothing to thee that the same Pride which first infected Beelzebub the Prince of flyes hath Blown upon thy Great Mother and from her have issued those Swarms which overrun her whole Posterity From this Serpent hath come forth a Cockatrice whose fruit is a fiery flying Serpent in thine own Bosom These Cockatrice Eggs hatch every day in thine Heart and break out into ten thousand Vipers there Dost not thou feel them passing in and out as Wasps out of an Hive and ready to sting thee to Death Thy Saviour hath forewarned thee of the killing danger of them that are all bred in the Heart Mat. 15.18 Out of the heart proceed c. They have eaten into thy very Nature and like Sampson's Bees made their Nest in thy very Carkass and because they yield a sweetness thou lovest to have it so Unhappy Creature not knowing with Jonathan that the Curse is gone out and 't is present Death but to dip the top of thy Rod and taste of this Honey 1 Sam. 14.43 Yes Man 't is thine Heart is the Cage of the Vnclean birds That the very Stye of these filthy Swine That the Habitation of these Evil Spirits We pity the poor Creature that had a Legion within him at once but hast thou any less These are they that Metamorphise some into Dogs some into Swine others into Vipers the Jews into Serpents Herod into a Fox Nero into a Lyon Judas into a Devil and thy Self into all These have been the Elames that have burned into perpetual Desolations turning the whole Earth into a Field of Blood and ruinous heaps When the Son of God appeared from Heaven with design to asswage and allay their Fury they took Courage and made Head against him and never ceas'd till they sent him back to complain what an Hell he found upon Earth Indeed these Canaanites are left in the Land to Vex and Trouble the very Israel of God and he sees it best it should be so for Causes well known to himself but to grow so Audacious so far from fearing any Writ of Ejection to get them out that the very Blind and Lame of them as those in the Fort of Zion so impudently boast their security that they laugh at the Spear of the fiercest Opposition These Swarms like the Egyptian Frogs so violently invade us that as Guests of their own bidding they make themselves welcome and will feed on nothing but the very best in
think is troubled with the Vapours while he Builds himself into perfect Poverty Let him go on say they Experience at last may make him Wise when we shall have time enough to Ridicule his unparallel'd Folly. The Merchants and Traffacking Companies distracting themselves in the Croud of their Forreign Concerns are in earnest Expectation of those happy Returns that they think cannot fail to Enrich them The Poor Mechanicks Sweating as hotly in the hasty Pursuit of their meaner Accrewments and promising themselves a Brisker Trade in the ensuing Years The Laborious Villagers Manuring their Acres in the confident Hopes of Perpetual Harvests which alas they will never Reap and all without the least Eye or dependance on the Blessing of Heaven to Ripen them Imaginations forg'd in every Brain of an endless Prosperity which they take care to make sure to those Heirs which are never likely to Inherit it Courtships are made with as Flagrant Pretences of Love to Young Ladies as now in hopes of Establishing the Families into future Successions of Honour and Estate when alas they are rouzed from the Bed of Fondness and Delight when nothing remains but the Poor Complacency of Dying in each others Arms. Projects are contriv'd to Assign Children to this and that Employ that in greatest Probability may make them Happy The Toiling Hirelings are flattering themselves with the hopes of deliverance into better Services from the wearisome Tasks they at present Groan under The very Beasts are fattening up to the Yoke and Shambles when alas they shall never approach to either For the Women the Sources of this Plague their Provocations were so many and Great that my Pen in despair to number them up takes the wisest course to let them alone while their Minds are wholly Immers'd in Vanity they make up too great a Part of the Tragedy and I leave them to Skreak together at the approach of their Ruines O learn hence what the destructive end of Sin is that hath brought so Tremendous a Perdition on all the World And if such were the Havock by the Inundation of Water what will the Streams of Brimstone in Hell do and what the Flames of the last Conflagration How terrible is God in his Executions upon Sinners how Scorching his Justice and Vengeance Upon the Wicked He shall rain Snares Fire and Brimstone and an horrible Tempest This shall be the portion of their Cup Put them in fear O Lord that the Nations may know themselves to be but Men They are gone Reader and as of all things else that are past there is nothing remains of so Tragical a Story but the bare remembrance of it that hath so weak an Influence upon the Spirits of Men at so remote a distance of time that it hath lost its operating Virtue and Power and retains not the least Efficacy to deterr us from the Sin for which they perished If when the Earth opening her mouth to swallow up Corah and all his Confederating Rebels the surviving Thousands of Israel gave a Screek only and returned the very next day to the same Murmurs for which They died Nay if the very Children of Noah had so little sense of it that while himself lived his own Eyes were so unhappy to see them so early revolting into the very Provocations and Idolatries that brought the Flood first upon the World How should we hope that our Selves upon whom the Ends of the present One are come and which is grown Old in Wickedness and Ripe for a second Destruction should be affrighted out of our long riveted Lusts from any Reflection of our Minds on so Antiquated a Tragedy Yet hath God Enrolled the Execution in the perpetual Records and sent down his Son to take out a Copy of it and commanded him to Post it into his own Journal to give it a new and a fresher Life not without hope that it might Rouze us a little from our fatal Slumbers while the Noise and Horrour of the mighty Waters should sound in our Ears Yet doubted it still while he Prophesies that Himself should find us at his Second Coming plung'd into as deep Perpetrations as They and lock'd up under as perfect Insensibility of our Approaching Ruine from which nothing could awaken us but the surprizing Trumpet of an Arch-angel alarming us to Judgment and the Everlasting Doom For as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be also in the day of the Son of Man They did eaâ— they drank they married Wives they were given in Marriage until the day that Noah entred into the Ark and the Flood came and destroyed them all But what is become of Prides Kingdom now When with the Great Darius she is slown and hath left all the Rich Plunder of her stately and Golden Tents to the Spoil of the Conquerour Alas she has no pity for so many slaughtered Carkasses thrown over into the Ocean of Ruine Nor is it so much her Care to Protect as to Betray her unhappy Subjects She delights not so much in their Safety as Destruction she Dresses them up only for Sacrifice and they have the Pleasure to dye in their Holiday Cloaths She Combs their Heads and Shaves their Beards and Smooths up their rivelled Cheeks to expire with Octavius and lays them asleep on gentle Pillows She Courts them with Jael to come in to her and hides them from the Danger of others but then the Nail and the Hammer is in her own Hand which Pins them fast to the Earth With Alexander she hunts out more Worlds for them to Conquer and with the desperate Pharaoh leads them into the very Bowels of the Sea See how she drives them into Corners first out of Heaven then out of Paradise and now out of the World She is the Devils Spirit employ'd to furnish Inhabitants for the lower Region to an eternal Slavery Behold where she Perks on the Prow of Noah's Ship where she Splits her very sides with Laughter at the Glorious Present she has made to Lucifer What a World of Furniture hath she boarded away at once for his Spacious Palace How will his stately Rooms be hung with the Tapistries of Prides Tragedies What Horrid Stories will they represent of her Cruel Tyrannies And here she waits to drop her Cockatrices Eggs which she knows will Hatch themselves within the very Ark into another Brood for her She thinks not her Case so desperate yet as not to hope she has a Friend in the very Council of Eight One that has Courage enough to own her Principles and doubts not in a little time to grow up into Power and Strength enough advantageously to declare for her Interest Men of Renown Dash'd out of Breath Gigantick Huffs yet Pump'd to Death O Baffling Heaven Mighty Mountains Tumbled into swelling Fountains Lye sprawling there Trophies of strength Divine whose Massy Weight and Length Makes Justice smile A Righteous God Reducing all to Dust and Clod Chaos and Carcasses O Sin How Dismal have thy