middest dulce venenum sweet poyson at last the Epithets of blandum and dulce being lost it is Scorpio pungens a stinging Serpent Well yet let it sting thee heere that it may not sting thee hereafter Happy is hee that learnes to bee sober by his owne madnesse and concludes from I haue sinned I will not sinne Madnesse may bee in his heart like a Tenant it shall neuer bee like a Tyrant Innocent Adam was naked and knew it not sinnefull Adam was naked and knew it Then comes God hearing his excuse of concealing himselfe deduced from his nakednesse Who tolde thee that thou wast naked Sure his guilt tolde him Wee haue beene mad and are now come to our selues to know our owne madnesse If it be asked who told vs that wee were madde I answere Euen the same grace of Gods Spirite that reclaymed vs from madnesse For the wicked since they loue madnesse be it vnto them and when they will neuer be recollected let them bee mad still But blessed be that God that helped vs praysed bee his holy Name that hath recalled vs. Hee hath in this life freede vs from madnesse as a Tyrant and shal hereafter free vs from it as a Tenant Thus haue you the Mystery of this spirituall Bedlam detected and a crue of Mad-men let out to your view whose house is the world whose bonds are iniquities whose delight is darkenesse whose master is the Deuil for those whom he keepes in this metaphoricall Bedlam without reclayming by the power of the Gospell hee hath ready prouided another materiall locall infernall Bedlam a dungeon not shallower then Hell wherein there is no light of Sunne or Starre no food but speckled Serpents no liberty to straggle but the Patients are bound with euerlasting chaynes and himselfe with his same-suffering spirites doe eternally whip them with roddes of burning steele and yron One houre in this Bedlam will tame the most sauage madde-men that were euer nurst among wolues or suck'd the brests of inhumanity I heare them talke of some irrefragable Rorers creatures not men whom no limits of reason can teddar vp let them take heed lest they become at that day Rorers indeed and rore for the very anguish of their hearts howling like Dragons that haue liued like Tygers Thinke of this Bedlam ye madde-men Eccl. 11. Reioyce O young man in thy youth c. Reioyce nay it were somewhat well if no more then ioy be mad in thy youth tempus insaniendi a time of illimited desire Let thy heart cheare thee and do thou cheare thy hart that thee with lusts thou that with wine and iunkets and walke frantikely inordinately in thy wayes by-wayes wrywayes for the way of truth thou wilt not know and in the sight of thine eyes such tempting and lust-prouoking obiects as those two Sentinels of the body can light vpon or if thou canst not yet bee madder extend thy desires to finde out experimentall madnesse but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into iudgement remember that there is an infernall Bedlam whereunto they that liue and die spiritually-mad-men must be eternally confined He that should now tell the Couetous the Ambitious the Voluptuous c. they are mad-men should appeare to them madde in saying so They rather thinke vs madde as Festus though madde himselfe without learning could tell Paul that Much learning had made him mad But we may answere for our selues as Augustine of Dauids madnesse Insanire videbatur sed regi Achish insanire videbatur Dauid seemed mad but to King Achish Wee are iudged mad-men of none but madde-men because wee runne not with them to the same excesse of riot because wee cut short our affections of their vain delights and drowne not our selues in the whirlepoole of their luxuries but girde repentance to our loynes with resolution they imagine vs franticke They thinke vs mad-men wee know them so And they shall at last despairingly confesse in this lower Bedlam We fooles accounted the godly mans life madnesse and his end to bee without honour Now is hee numbred among the children of God and his lotte is among the Saints Bee wise then in time yee sonnes of men trust not spirituall madnesse lest it bring you to eternall Bedlam From whose iawes when you are once entred bee you neuer so tame you cannot be deliuered 3. The Period Wee haue ended Mans Comma and his Colon but not his Sentence the Period continues and concludes it Wee 1. found his heart full of euill 2. Wee left it full of madnesse 3. Let vs obserue at the shutting vp what will become of it After that they goe to the dead Here 's the end of mans progresse now he betakes himselfe to his Standing-house his Graue The Period is deliuer'd Consequently After that Discessiuely they goe Discensiuely downe to the dead The Summe is Death is the wages of sinne 1. After that they haue nourished euill and madnesse in their hearts this is the successiue not successefull euent and consequence 2. They goe they shall trauell a new iourney take an vnwilling walke not to their medowes gardens tauernes banketting-houses but 3. To the dead a dismall place the habitation of darkenesse and discontent where finesse shall bee turned to filthinesse lustre to obscurity beauty and strength to putrefaction and rottennesse If a man lookes into what life it selfe is hee cannot but finde both by experience of the past and proofe of the present age that hee must die As soon as we are born wee beginne to draw to our end Life it selfe is nothing but a iourney to death There is no day but hath his night no sentence but hath his period no life on earth but hath the death Examine the scope of thy desires and thou shalt perceyue how they hasten to the graue as if death were the gaole prize or principall end which the vanity of humane endeuours runnes at Bee a man in honour in wealth in gouernment he still ambitiously blind languisheth for the time to come the one in hope to enlarge his greatnesse the other his riches the last his dominions Thus they couet the running on of time and age and rest not till they haue concluded their sentence and attayned their Period gone to the dead All men yea all inferiour things must be freed by an end and as the Philosopher answered to the newes of his sonnes death Scio me genâ—â—sse mortalem so God the Father of all may say of euery man liuing Scio me creasse mortalem I haue made a man that hath made himselfe mortal Man is a little world the world a great man if the great man must die how shall the little one scape Hee is made of more brittle and fragile matter then the Sunne and Stars of a lesse substance then the earth water c. Let him make what shew he can with his glorious adornations let rich apparrell disguise him liuing seare-cloths spices balmes
from our Parents Psal. 51. Behold sayth Dauid I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did my mother conceiue me The originall word is warme me as if the first heate deriued to him were not without contamination I was borne a sinner sayth a Saint It is saide Gen. 5. that Adam begate a sonne in his owne likenesse after his image and called his name Seth. This image and likenesse cannot bee vnderstood of the Soule for this Adam begate not Nor properly and meerely of the Bodies shape so was Cain as like to Adam as Seth of whom it is spoken Nor did that image consist in the piety and purity of Seth Adam could not propagate that to his sonne which hee had not in himselfe vertues are not giuen by birth nor doth grace follow generation but regeneration Neyther is Seth said to bee begotten in the Image of Adam because mankind was continued and preserued in him But it intends that corruption which descended to Adams posterity by naturall propagation The Pelagian error was Peccatum primae transgressionis in alios homines non propagatione sed imitatione transisse that the guilt of the first sinne was deriued to other men not by propagation but by imitation but then could not Adam be said to begette a sonne in his owne image neyther could Death haue seazed on Infants who had not then sinned But all haue sinned Rom. 5. As by one man sin entred into the world and death by sinne so death passed vpon all men for that all haue sinned This title then the sonnes of men puts vs in mind of our originall contamination whereby we stand guilty before God lyable to present and eternall iudgements Dura tremenda refers You will say with the Disciples Ioh. 6. This is an hard saying who can heare it beare it nay be ready to conclude with a sadder inference as the same Disciples after a particular instance Math. 19. Who then can be saued I answere We deriue from the first Adam sinne and death but from the second Adam Grace and Life As we are the sonnes of men our state is wretched as made the sonnes of God blessed It is a peremptory speech 1. Cor. 15. 50. Flesh and bloud cannot inherite the kingdome of God neyther doth corruption inherite incorruption It is a reuiuing comfort in the 6. Chapter of the same Epistle Such wee were but wee are washed but we are sanctified but we are iustified in the name of the Lord Iesus by the spirit of our God The conclusion or inference hereon is most happy Now therefore there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Iesus who walke not after the flesh but after the spirite Wee may liue in the flesh but if after the flesh wee shall die Si voluntati voluptati carnis satissacere conemur If our endeuours bee wholy armed and aymed to content the Flesh but if we bee led by the spirit cum dilectione cum delectatione with loue with delight wee are of the sonnes of men made the sonnes of God It is our happinesse not to bee borne but to bee new borne The first birth kills the second giues life It is not the seed of man in the wombe of our mother but the seed of Grace in the wombe of the Church that makes vs blessed Generation lost vs it must bee regeneration that recouers vs. As the tree falls so it lies and lightly it falls to that side which is most loden with fruites and branches If wee abound most with the fruits of obedience wee shall fall to the right hand life if with wicked actions affections to the left side death It is not then worth the ascription of glory to what wee deriue naturally from man Dauid accepts it as a great dignity to be sonne in law to a King To descend from Potentates and to fetch our pedegree from princes is held mirabile et memorabile decus a dignity not to bee slighted or forgotten But to bee a Monarch Imperium Oceano famam quiterminat astris Whose fame and Empire no lesse bound controules Then the remotest sea and both the Poles Oh this is Celsissima gloria mundi the supremest honour of this world yet Princes are but men saith the Psalmist Put not your trust in Princes nor in the sonne of man in whom there is no helpe His breath goeth forth hee returneth to his earth They may bee high by their calling Princes yet they are but low by their nature sons of men And meerely to bee the sonne of man is to bee corrupt and polluted They are sinfull the sonnes of men weake there is no helpe in them corruptible their breath goeth forth dying they returne to their earth It is registred as an euident praise of Moses his faith that for the rebuke of Christ he refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter There is no ambitiō good in the sons of men but to be adopted the sons of God vnder which degree there is no happines aboue which no cause of aspiring 2. Our Corruptiblenesse is heere also demonstrated A mortall Father cannot beget an immortall sonne If they that brought vs into the world haue gone out of the world themselues we may infallibly conclude our owne following He that may say I haue a man to my Father a woman to my mother in his life may in death with Iob say to Corruption Thou art my Father to the worm Thou art my mother and my sister It hath beene excepted against the iustice of God that the sinne of one man is deuolued to his posteritie and that for the fathers eating sowre grapes the childrens teeth are set on edge according to the Iewish Prouerbe Ier. 31. 29. As if we might say to euery sonne of man as Horace sung to his friend Delicta maiorum immeritus lues Thou being innocent doest suffer for thy nocent superiours This a Philosopher obiected against the gods strangely conferring it as if for the fathers disease physicke should be ministred to the sonne I answere Adam is considered as the roote of mankind that corrupt masse whence can bee deduced no pure thing Can we bee borne Morians without their blacke skins It is possible to haue an Amorite to our father and an Hittite to our mother without participation of their corrupted natures If a man slippe a syense from a hawth orne hee will not looke to gather from it grapes There is not then a sonne of man in the cluster of mankind but eodem modo nodo vinctus victus it is lyable to that common and equall law of death Vnde superbis homo natus satus ortus ab hum◠Proud man forgets Earth was his natiue wombe Whence he was borne and dead the Earth's his Tombe Morieris non quia aegrot as sed quia viuis sayth the Philosopher Thou shalt die oh sonne of man not because thou art sicke but because
became pregnant to the bearing of many children vpon whom shee afterward exercising the same skill brought them all to an vntimely graue So Per eandem redditur artem Haec Medaea ferox quae medicaea fuit So madly doe these frantickes spend their time and strengthes by doing and vndoing tying hard knots and vntying them affecting the issue of their owne braynes not a day together and destroying much seed in the birth of their thoughts because the conception now pleaseth them not The Prouerbe sayth that the most wilde are in least danger to bee starke madde but here wildenes is madnes an indefatigable frenzy an erring starre reserued for the blacke darkenesse a rolling stone that neuer gathers any mosse to stay it an incessant and impetuous fury that neuer ceaseth rouing and rauing till it come to the Center Hell Thus I haue endeuour'd to demonstrate Madnesse in the true definition forme and colours But as a man cannot so well iudge of a Summe whiles it lyes in the heape as when it is tolde and numbred out if this vnited and contracted presentation of madnes bee not so palpable in your conceites as you would desire it behold to your further satisfaction I come to particulars The whole denominates the parts as all of water is water all of flesh flesh so euery wilfull sinne is madnesse Doubtlesse when we come to this precise distribution and narrow scrutiny to the singling out of Frenzies you will blesse your selues that there are so few Bedlam-houses and yet so many out of their wits Stultorum plena sunt omnia It were no hard matter to bring all the world into the compasse of a fooles Cappe I dare not goe so farre onely magna est plenitudo hominum magna solitudo sapientum There is great plenty of men and no scarsity of mad-men Plurima pessima The most are not the best Pretiosa non numerosa Vile things breed as plentifully as mountaine-mise Goodnesse like the Raile flyes alone but Mad-men like Partridges by Coueys Nay we may say Magna solitudo hominum if it bee true that Lactantius sayes Nemo potest iure dici homo nisi qui sapiens est He is not a man that is a mad-man The foole is but imago hominis the shadow or resemblance of a man The world is full of madde-men and the madder it is the lesse it is sensible of the owne destruction Semel insaniuimus omnes Wee haue beene all once madde is too true a saying some in youth others in age The first is more obuious and common wildnesse is incident to youth the latter more perilous and of lesse hope to bee reclaymed If we must be madde better young then olde but better not be borne then be madde at all if the mercy of God and grace of Iesus Christ recollect vs not In the wordes of a Poet. All are once madde this holds for too strong truth Blest man whose madnes comes and goes in youth I promised to particularize and set open the gates of Bedlam to leaue madnesse as naked as euer sinne left the first propagators of it and mankind The Epicure shall leade the ring as the fore-man of this madde Morisco 1. The Epicure I would faine speake not onely of him but with him Can you tend it Belly-god The first question of my Catechisme shall be What is your name Epicure Epicure What 's that speake not so philosophically but tell vs in plaine dealing what are you A louer of pleasure more then of God One that makes much of my selfe borne to liue and liuing louing to take mine ease One that would make my belly my executour and bequeath all my goods to consumption for the consummation of my owne delights Hoh a good-fellow a merry man a mad-man What is your summū bonum Pleasure Wherein consists it Rehearse the Articles of your beleefe I beleeue that delicacies iunkets quotidiā feasts suckets marmulads are very delectable I beleeue that sweete wines and strong drinkes the best bloud of the grape or sweate of the corne is fittest for the belly I beleeue that midnight reuels perfumed chambers soft beds close curtaines and a Dalila in mine armes are very comfortable I beleeue that glistering silkes and sparkling Iewels a purse full of golden charmes a house neately decked gardens orchards fish-ponds parkes warrens and whatsoeuer may yeelde pleasurable stuffing to the corpes is a very heauen vpon earth I beleeue that to sleepe till dinner and play till supper and quaffe till midnight and to dally till morning except there bee some intermission to tosse some painted papers or to whirle about squared bones with as many oaths and curses vomited out in an houre as would serue the deuill himselfe for a Legacy or stocke to bequeath to any of his children this is the most absolute and perfect end of mans life Now a deft Creed fitte to stand in the deuils Catechisme Is not this madnes starke and staring madnes What is the Flesh which thou pamperst with such indulgence as thou feedest beasts to feede on them doest thou not fatte thy flesh to fat the wormes Goe Heliogabalus to thy prepared muniments the monuments of thy folly and madnesse thy Towre is polished with precious stones and golde but to breake thy necke from the toppe of it if neede be thy halters enwouen with pearle but to hang thy selfe if need be thy sword enamell'd hatched with gold and embost with Margarites but to kil thy selfe if need bee Yet for all this deathes properation preuents thy preparation and thou must fall into thine enemies hands Thou imaginest felicity to consist in libertie and liberty to bee nothing els but potestas viuendi vt velis a power to liue as thou list Alas how madde art thou thou wilt not liue as thou shouldst thou canst not liue as thou wouldst thy life and death is a slauery to sinne and hell Tut Post mortem nulla voluptas and here verse 4. It is better to a liuing dogge then a dead Lyon Thou art mad for for all these things thou must come vnto iudgement How many of these mad-men ramble about this City that lauish out their short times in this confused distribution of playing dicing drinking feasting beasting a cupping-house a vaulting-house a gaming-house share their meanes liues soules They watch but they pray not they fast when they haue no money and steale when they haue no credit and reuelling the whole weeke day and night only the Sunday is reserued for sleepe and for no other cause respected Bee not madde as the Apostle sayth Bee not deceiued for because of these things commeth the wrath of God on the children of disobedience Are not these mad men that buy the merry madnesse of an houre with the eternall agonies of a tormented conscience 2. The Proud Is the next Mad-man I would haue you take view of in this Bedlam The proud man or rather the proud woman or rather hac aquila both he and shee For if