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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57597	Shlohavot, or, The burning of London in the year 1666 commemorated and improved in a CX discourses, meditations, and contemplations, divided into four parts treating of I. The sins, or spiritual causes procuring that judgment, II. The natural causes of fire, morally applied, III. The most remarkable passages and circumstances of that dreadful fire, IV. Councels and comfort unto such as are sufferers by the said judgment / by Samuel Rolle ...	Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Preliminary discourses.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Physical contemplations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Sixty one meditations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Twenty seven meditations.	1667 (1667)	Wing R1877; Wing R1882_PARTIAL; Wing R1884_PARTIAL; ESTC R21820	301,379	534

would I prevail with men not to lean upon the broken Reed of uncertain Prophecies Whereon if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce him as was said of Egypt Isa 36.6 Pierce you they will more wayes than one as namely With shame when you see your considence disappointed With forrow when you see your hopes frustrated With reproach when others shall deride you and say Is this the good time you lookt for Is this the Deliverance you expected What now is become of all your Prophecies touching what would be such and such a year All this Reproach you might save if you would believe no more than what the Scripture warrants you to believe Where doth that speak of the glorious things that shall be in the year 1666 or give you to expect more from that than from any other year Are not Divine-Promises sufficient for your comfort unless you eake them out with human Prophecies as the Papists do the Counsels of Scripture with the Traditions of men It is well if some do not derive more comfort from fallible Predictions than from the infallible Word Is not the Name of the Lord a strong Tower Why then will you betake your selves to a refuge of lies It is enough for poor deluded Jews to be alwayes comforting themselves with one vain Prophecy or other as they are observed to be seldom without but it is below Christians so to do who have a sure Word of Prophecy which they should take heed to as to a light shining in a dark place Be consident Faith and Credulity are very different things The first builds upon a Rock the last upon Quick-sands Believe but be not Credulous many credulous people make many false Prophets as they say Receivers make Thieves There will never want people to make Prophesies so long as there are enough to entertain them and to trust upon them Jer. 5.31 The Prophets prophesie falsely and the People love to have it so There are too many that say in their hearts Si populus vult decipi decipietur If People will be deceived they shall Many small Prophets in this and other ages seem Merchant-adventurers for a little credit They will be the Authors of a Prediction right or wrong it is fit it be pleasing whether it be true or no If it come to pass they shall have a great deal of credit by it and in the mean time it makes them to be somewhat more taken notice of and if it be frustrated they are not the first that were mistaken there have been and are many false Prophets besides themselves When shall I see men so modest as to tell their uncertain Predictions as their Dreams not as heavenly Dictates in their own names and not in the Name of God saying Thus saith the Lord but rather My mind bodes me so and so Thus saith my imagination and I cannot withstand it At leastwise when shall I see others so wise as to hearken to them only as such and upon no other account till experience have proved them to be more than to It is time enough to believe a humane Prophesie when you see it fulfilled and you pay it a sufficient respect if in the mean time you suspend your judgment and forbear to censure it O Sixty-six Thou center of human Prophesies Thou Ocean into which all the Rivers of Conjectural Predictions did run If I live to see thee end as thou hast continued hitherto for thy sake if for nothing else yet upon other considerations too if men will find confidence to make a thousand Prophecies no wayes countenanced by Scripture I shall not find Faith to believe one of them MEDITATION XXII Upon the fire it 's beginning on the Lords-Day in the Morning VVAs there nothing in the Circumstance of Time in which that fire began viz. upon the Lords-Day Doth not Providence determine the times before-appointed as well as the bounds of our habitations Acts 17.26 Might not Herod read his sin in the time in which the Angel of God smote him and the Worms received a commission to eat him up which was immediately after he had received that Acclamation from the People saying It is the voice of God and not of man Acts 12.23 Neither can I think it was without its signification that London began to burn upon the Lords-Day Were not the Sabbath-Dayes-sins of London greater than its sins upon other dayes it being a certain truth that if mens actions be evil the better day the worse action as in case they be good The better day we say the better deed Justly might such a fire have hapned had it been only to punish the usual profanations of the Lords Day How many had been playing on that very day if by this sad providence they had not been set at work How many had been then imployed in servile and at that time unlawful Works if such a work of Mercy and Charity as was delivering themselves and their substance from the fire had not been put upon them How many had then been exercising themselves in Gluttony and Drunkenness in Rioting and Chambering in Filthiness and Uncleanness if the care of preserving themselves and their Goods had not diverted them How many that followed their honest Labours all the Week had wont to find their sinful pleasures on the Lords-Day Alass That the Day which God at first blessed as well as sanctified should then be cursed if I may so call it above any other dayes that went before it That Londoners should have the most restless Day that ever they had generally had both as to Body and Mind of that which was at first appointed for a Day of Rest On that Day in which God began to Create the World in the first Day of the Week did he begin to destroy that great City Yea The Day of Christ his Resurrection was the first Day of London's Death and Burial Did not good Men hope to have been Praying Hearing Singing of Psalms Eating and Drinking in remembrance of Christ on that very day in which they were forced to be quenching of Houses carrying out of Goods conveying away their Wives and Children How sadly were Churches filled on that Day not with Men and Women as upon other such Dayes but with Wares and Houshold-stuff And How much more sadly were they emptied some of them on that very Day not by exportation but by conflagration Poor Londoners carried their Goods to several Churches to sacrifice them to slames as it proved though with an intention to have secured them those places proving Sepulchres which they repaired to as Sanctuaries O fatal and never to be forgotten Sabbath No emblem as other of those dayes of that rest which glorious Saints injoy in Heaven but rather of the day of Judgment which is called The great and terrible day of the Lord Black-Sunday some will call it as formerly there was much discourse of a Black-Monday That was expected and came not this was not expected and

sort ought not to be bad in contempt or to be needlesly put into a combustion Alas were it not that God had put a divine stamp upon Magistrates as he hath been pleased to call them Gods surely they could no more rule the people when in the calmest temper that ever they are in some being alwaies too rough then they could rule the Sea What wisdom can it then be to put so unruly a body into agroundless commotion If this Sea once become troubled work and rage and foam and swell how much is it to be feared it may overflow all its banks and invade us with a ruining inundation It was not cowardize but prudence in Herod to decline putting of John to death for fear of the people because they accounted him a Prophet Matth. 14.15 Likewise in the chief Priests and Elders of the people not to reply unto Christ that the Baptism of John was of men because of the people who all held him as a Prophet Matth. 21.26 For my own part I dread the Insurrection of people no less than the consequences of Fire it self the beginnings whereof have appeared very contemptible so that it hath been said as is reported that such a fire as that was at the first might be pissed out but the conclusion fatal beyond all imagination Now do I long to be at the end of this Meditation but having promised to shew what the matter of those particles is whereof Fire consists and considering with my self that some good morall may be gathered and infer'd from thence as I have already hinted that sulphurious or oily particles are those whereof Fire doth altogether or mostly consist so I shall now undertake to prove that so it is and consider how we may improve it It is manifest that all mixt bodies here below are compounded of five Elements or principles viz. Spirit otherwise called Mercury Water or Phlegme Sulphur or an Oily kind of substance Salt and Earth For each natural body be it of vegitables Animals or Minerals is by chymical art reduced or resolved into these five From any such bodie may be drawn a spirit or generous subtile liquor an Oile a Water a Salt and a kind of Earth saving that the two last are rather said to stay behind than to be drawn now if each body that is burning be as it is both its own fire and its own fuell both that which burns and that which is burnt then one or more of the fore-mentioned principles so modified must be the matter and form of fire As for the Watery and Phlegmatick part of each body no man will so confound two Elements so contrary each to other as to say that is the Fire which consumes Then as for that Salt and Earth which belongs to bodies they are not the Fire that burns them up for that which burns so far forth consumes and flies away but Salt and Earth they remain after the greatest burnings under the form of Ashes True it is that spirit or spiritous Liquor which is in Bodies is capable of taking Fire as we see spirit of Wine will burn and Feavers arise in the bodies of men by vertue of their spirits being inflamed but then we must consider that there is but little of that which is called Spirit or Spirits in Timber and such like materials of houses as are destroyed by Fire neither is the Fire of any great duration which hath only Spirits for its fuell as we see in the bodies of men that those Feavers which only fire the Spirits never last above three or four daies and many times not above one day and are therefore called Ephemeral Having therefore quitted Water Salt and Earth from being the causes of Fire and also proved that the Spirits of such kind of bodies which have but little of Spirits in them cannot contribute much to the maintenance of a desolating Fire Sulphur or the oyly part of each body will appear to be the great Incendiary and to be more the matter fuell and fomenter of Fire than any thing else And that it is so doth yet further appear in that such bodies of all others are most apt to take Fire and to burn fiercely when they have so done in which there is most of a sulphurious or oily substance as Oile it self Pitch Tarre c. Moreover we see that when any body is thoroughly burnt the sulphurious parts are all or most of them gone as if conscious of what they bad done they had fled for it and which is most of all demonstrative when those parts are once gone all or most of them what remains will burn no longer as you see we cannot make a fire with Ashes for that they consist only of Salt and Earth with little or no commixture of Sulphur Sith then Sulphur or Brimstone though in an acceptation somewhat different from that which in commonly called by that name is the great matter of Fire and the Agitation Commotion and Flight of it is the very Form of Fire I shall the less wonder hereafter to finde the Scripture still joyning Brimstone and Fire together So Gen. 19 24. The Lord rained upon Sodom Brimstone and Fire Psal 11.6 On the wicked he shalt rain Fire and Brimstone And Isa 30.33 The Pile whereof is Fire much Wood. The breath of the Lord like astream of Brimstone kindleth it viz. Tophet Fire most usually kindleth Fire A stream of Brimstone in violent motion is Fire and here you see the breath of the Lord is said like a mighty stream of Brimstone to kindle Tophet which kinde of expression is more genuine and philosophical than most men know it to be and may hint unto us that thorough our ignorance it comes to pass that many expressions in Scripture seem to us no more proper and significant than they do it faring with us in the reading of holy Writ as with those that ignorantly walk or ride over precions Mines little do they think what a world of Treasure they tread upon nor if they did could they be content till they had gotten within the bowels of that ground which now they flightly trample upon But I have been too long in this Philosophical contemplation because it was such and must endeavour to compensate my prolixity in this with greater Brevity in the rest at leastwise of that sort if any such shall occur CONTEMPLATION II. Touching the Nature of Sulphur which is the principal matter and cause of Fire and how it comes to be so mischievous in the World BEing credibly informed that the Element called Sulphur hath had the greatest hand under God in the late dismal Fire as it hath had in all other whereby Towns and Cities have been laid waste it is but fit we should take him under serious examination and strictly enquire what he is by what waies and means he brings such great desolations to pass Sulphur that is Brimstone so called by Chymists because it hath some assinity with that which

else how was Christ heard and delivered as to the cup which he beg'd might pass from him Luke 22.42 Which nevertheless he was made to drink unless his being strengthened to undergoe it as the next verse tells us that then there appeared an Angel from heaven strengthening him as also his being inabled to triumph over principallities upon the Cross as is said Cor. 2.15 might be interpreted an eminent Deliverance vouchsafed him in and upon the Cross I am mistaken if the Apostle Paul in Rom. 7.25 doth not give thanks to God thorough Jesus Christ for delivering him as to the body of Death which yet he carryed about with him and therefore was not delivered from but under it as the foregoing words do shew O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death And in 1 Cor. 10.13 the Apostle saith God is faithful who will with the temptation also make a way to escape or to be delivered that ye may be able to beat it seeming thereby to insinuate that Deliverance and Temptation may stand together and do so when a man is not tempted above what he is able but together with the temptation hath assistance to bear it Were not the Israelites delivered in the red Sea Jonas in the great deep and Whales belly Daniel in the Lions den the three children in the fiery furnace I say were they not first truly delivered in each of these as afterwards from and out of them To be kept under water from drowning and in the midst of fire from being burnt is Deliverance with a witness Had the bush that did burn and was not consumed been presently quencht or snatcht out of the fire it had not been so eminently delivered as it was Deliverances under great troubles though least observed by many are of all others most oblervable and Emphaticall what more admirable promise than that Isa 43.2 When thou passest thorough the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest thorough the fire thou halt not be burnt neither shall the flame kindle upon thee No place can be more pertinent than that is to prove there is such a thing as Deliverance under trouble the notion is worth our pursuing because it is full of Comfort it opens as it were a new spring of consolation to those that are under trouble which many did overlook before as Hagar did those wells of water which were nearest to her Many people have no more joy and comfort than they have hopes of having their losses repaired in kind and their temporal troubles removed and God knows whether that may ever be when they themselves despair of it their hearts faile within them he that thinks himself utterly undone and that it will not be worth while for him to live if London be not suddenly rebuilt trading speedily restored when these things appear unlikely will be at his wits ends but he that knows and believes that God who is onely wise can make him and his happy though London should still lye in ashes and trade not revive in many years to come that God can work a Deliverance for him in and under all publick calamities and in despight of all and every of them he I say will in patience possesse his soul St. Pauls words 1 Cor. 1.4 are much to be heeded where he saith Blessed be God who comforteth us in all our Tribulations he doth not say who delivereth us out of all but who comforteth us in all our Tribulations and what is that but a Deliverance under trouble when God doth comfort us in it If there be such a thing as Deliverance under trouble many may and will rejoyce in the hopes of that who are past all hope though I think that should not be neither of ever seeing an end of their present troubles They look upon Deliverance out of the present calamities to be at so great a distance that they think the steed will starve whilst the grass grows and their carkasses will fall in the wilderness ere the time come for entring into Canaan But now by virtue of the notion I am speaking of though I should grant men of misgiving minds there are as great unlikelyhoods as they can suppose that they should ever re-enjoy such houses trades estates conveniencies as formerly or any thing comparable thereunto yet may they live in a dayly expectation of a comfortable Deliverance with and under those calamities which are like to continue upon them that God together with their temptations will make a way for their escape men so perswaded will be able to say with Habakkuk though the fig-tree blossome not and the labour of the Olive faile yet will or may they rejoyce in the Lord and joy in the God of their Salvation When Paul praved that the Messenger of Sathan which buffetted him might depart God gave him no assurance of that at least-wise for the present but yet told him that which satisfied him though that evil messenger were likely to continue namely that his Grace should be sufficient for him The Israelites knew that their captivity in Babylon would certainly last seventy years Therefore it was not thehopes of a speedy Deliverance from thence that did bear up the hearts of believers amongst them but the hopes they had that God would be good to them in and under their captivity and show them mercy in a strange land If the Israelites knew as it is like they did that they must wander no lesse than sorry years in the wilderness ere they came to Canaan it was the Mercy and Deliverance which they did expect in the wilderness not out of it during all that time that did support them as hoping that in that howling desert God would be no wilderness or Land of Darkness to them If God spread a table for his people in the wilderness if he give them water out of the Rock and Manna from heaven are not those things to be reckoned Deliverances namely from the evils that in such a place they might expect though Quailes should be with-held Though the famine were not removed yet seeing Elijah was sed the mean time though but by Ravens it must be acknowledged that he was delivered in and under famine If to the righteous there arise light in darkness as is promise there shall is not that Deliverance Though Paul and Silas were in prison and their feet in the stocks yet if they were so chearful there as to sing praises to God at midnight Acts 16.25 was not that a grea● Deliverance Surely Paul and others of whom he speakes were greatly delivered even under chastisement sorrow poverty and a kind of Death yea Deaths often or else he could ever say as he doth 2 Cor. 6.9.10 As dying and behold we live as sorrowfull yet alwaies rejoycing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing all things as if he had but the shadowes of evill but the reallity and substance of good things He is delivered from

they have The Israelites in the Wilderness had but bread and water when for their murmuring they were destroyed of the destroyer 1 Cor. 10. Beware of grumbling at Manna and lusting after Quailes lest for so doing your carcasses fall in the Wilderness as theirs did If the end of life were to eat and drink it were another matter but if the end of eating and drinking be that we may live such food as will keep us alive and in health ought to be accepted with thankfulness what a feast would a belly-full of bread be counted in a time of famine How precious was an Asses head yea a cab of Doves dung in the famine of Samaria 2 Kings 6.28 Are we better than Lazarus who would have been glad of Dives his crums If that were a parable then Lazarus is there put not for one person but for every one that is such as he is described to have been namely defigned for Abraham's bosome and yet glad of crums in this World Let me here diet with Lazarus if the will of God be so may I but be sure hence-forth to lodge with him in the bosome of Abraham Do we make light of food and raiment for us and ours alas what more can this World afford us though we have ever so much of it Solomon complaining how the hearts of men are taken up with thoughts and cares of worldly things which is conceived to be the meaning of that difflicult expression Eccles 3.11 He hath set the World in their hearts showes what the benefit of the World and of the things therein is I know saith he that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoyce and to do good in his life And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labours v. 12 13. I finde the rich man spoken of Luk. 16.19 distinguished from the beggar only by this that he are better meat and wore better cloaths For the Text saith That he was cloathed in Punple and fared sumptuously every day Now what great matter is it that our vile bodies should have every thing of the best What are our bodies especially if too much pamper'd but as so many reeking dunghils annoying our soules with ill steames and vapours or like dead carcasses joyned to living men a torture invented by Mezintius which are an unsufferable offence to them As it is said of Eve that she was first in the transgression and as she drew in her husband so our bodies many times like so much tinder do receive the first sparks of temptation or like the thatch of an house are first kindled and as that might set the whole house so do they the whole soul on fire Many sins begin at the body are occasioned or fomented or both by the over-sanguine or melancholy or cholerick temper or distemper thereof which shewes we are no debtors to the flesh to fulfill the desires thereof Moreover if we consider whence our bodies came and whither they are going it will appear there is no such cause to be greatly concerned for them that they should wear the finest wool and eat the sinest of the wheat Dust they were and to dust they shall teturn Why must they needs be sed so daintily which themselves must shortly become food for wormes when we feed our bodies too high what do we but feed our lusts yea feed diseases in our very bodies so that it is become a proverb that the English man digs his grave with his teeth Few kill their bodies by mortifying them but many by indulging them Christmat kills many more than Lent As the Ape is said to hug her young ones to death so many kill their bodies with too much kindness to them As over-pamper'd Horses oft times throw their riders and give them their deaths wound so are men too commonly thrown both in osickness sin and death it self by indulging their bodies over much The body as one saith well ought to be kept as not infra so neither supra negotium sed per negotio not too high for its work but equal to it Paul saith that he did keep under his body and brought it into subjection So far was he from cockring of it till it became his master as too many do There is no small danger in over-exalting our blood and natural spirits Job was never more afraid of his children than when they went a feasting from house to house Then did he offer a Sacrifice for each of them least they should blaspheme God or had done it A cheap and simple diet may preserve health and strength as well as the best dainties and costliest varieties Daniel and the three children who lived of pulse and water were fairer and fatter than all those which did cat the portion of the Kings meat Dan. 1.15 They are sometimes the leanest cattel which devoure the fat As for any service of God or men he shall be much more fit who having no pallatable diet eats but for necessitie and to satisfie his hunger than one that by the deliciousness of his fare is tempted to devoure more than he can well digest As for delight in meats and drinks he that brings but hunger and thirst enough to a course meale shall have more of that and those are sauces which the poor have usuallie most of than he that with balfe an appetite sits down to a great Feast Why then having a comperencie of wholsome food though but mean and ordinarie should we not be therewithall content Are we better then John the Baptist of whom it is said that his diet was Locusts and wilde Honey Some have found more sweetness in a draught of cold water such as their thirst hath been than in all the Wines and Spirits which they have drank at other times Why then may not a mean diet content us yea prove delicious to us as Salomon saith To the hungry soule every bitter thing is sweet Povertie brings such sawce with it as will make a dish of Tripe more savorie than a Venison Pastie is to a rich man Then as for Rayment if we have but that which may serve the turn to keep us warm and decent though it be course and plain why should we not be content therewith We read in Mark 1.6 John was cloathed in Camels-hair and with a girdle of a skin about his lo●ns which was as mean as could be do we not read of some of the primitive Christians that they wandred about in sheepe-skins and Goat-skins Heb. 11.37 Are we better than they would such habits become us worse than them Time was that God bid the Israelites to put off their ornaments that he might know what to do with them Exod. 33.5 Did God ever speak as if he knew not what to do with a people for want of ornaments Did he ever seem displeased that a people were not fine enough Why should that habit displease us that God may best like us in and know

powerfull I poor mean despicable let me forfeit all again yea take thou the forfeiture of all thy spiritual comforts again which yet I would not thou shouldst do for ten thousand Worlds DISCOURSE VIII Of its being a great mercy to most Men that their lives are continued though their livelihoods are greatly impaired I Have not forgotten the words of good Elijah when he fled into the Wilderness for fear of Jezabel who sought his life how he sate him down under a Juniper Tree and requested for himself that he might die and said It is enough now oh Lord take away my life 1 Kings 19.4 Nor yet the words of Job to the same effect Chap. 7.15 My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life nor yet that peremptory answer of Jonah when God asked him if he did well to be angry for the gourd who told God to his face He did well to be angry even unto death Jonah 4.9 These things are not recorded in honour of any of these three Men but as David speaks of himself I said this is my infirmity so may we say these were their infirmities they were good men but these were bad expressions and are delivered to us not for our imitation but for our warning and caution and as the Apostle speaks in another case 1 Cor. 10.6 These things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted But how incident is it to us to do the same thing even to wish for death when God hath deprived us of many comforts of life which formerly we enjoyed as if it were not worth while to live unless it be in wealth honour and prosperity This is such a pernicious error that I am very zealous to confute it and to establish that useful principle which is contrary to it namely that to escape with our lives is a very great mercy though we have no such comfortable livelihoods as we had wont to have yea though a bare livelihood or meer subsistence be all we have Job saith in one place I am escaped with the skin of my teet Job 19.20 meaning very poor and bare As Deodate parallels it with a proverb some use that such a one hath nothing left him but his teeth Though it may seem a paradox yet it is a very truth that it is a great mercy to most people living under the Gospel to escape viz. death and the grave though it be but with the skin of their teeth that is in as bare a condition as bare can be and live to live though it be uncler poverty disgrace restraint and many evils more Whilst the pride and passion of Men suggest the contrary Nature it self gives them the lie and votes for living when they vote for death as the fable of the Countrey-man doth ingenuously intimate who being weary with his bundle of sticks laid it by sate down and wished for death death over hearing him came and desired to know what he had to say to him Nothing replyed the Country-man but that thou wouldst help me up with my burthen Shewing that he was more willing to take up his burthen again than to lay down his life Why should a Man give all he hath for his life Job 1. if life be nothing worth when all a man hath is gone Were the enjoyment of honour riches pleasure the only or the greatest end of life when those were once taken away it would be scarce worth while to live nay death might be more elegible of the two but seeing the great ends of life are such things as are as much within the reach of those that are poor despised afflicted and that never eat with pleasure as the phrase is Job 20.25 As those who are rich renowned abounding with pleasures whose breasts are full of milk and their bones moistned with marrow who are wholly at ease and quiet as it is expressed Job 21.23 24. I say forasmuch as the great ends of life are as pursuable and as attainable by the former as by the latter of these as well the afflicted as the prosperous ought to look upon the continuation of their lives as a very great mercy Surely the great ends of life are that whilst it is called to day we should mind the things that concern our eternal peace that we should seek after God if haply by seeking after him we may finde him out Acts 17.27 That we should lay up a good foundation for the time to come that we may lay hold on eternal life 1 Tim. 6.19 That we should now sowe what we desire hereafter to reape viz. To the spirit that we may of the spirit reape life everlasting Gal. 6.8 that we might fight a good sight finish a good course keep the faith and so become assured that henceforth is laid up for us a crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4.7 These are the things which God did principally aime at in bestowing life upon Men and to which he would have all the good things that Men enjoy subordinated yea and all their evil things made some way or other subservient these are the greatest improvements that can be made of our lives and the best uses we can turn them to therefore these are the great ends of life Had Moses thought otherwise he had not esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt or chosen to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Heb. 11.25.26 Job could easily have answered that question which himself puts Job 3.20 Wherefore is life given to the bitter in soul which long for death which are glad when they can finde the grave I say he could easily have answered his own question if he had not been in too great a passion for he knew full well that the great ends of life were those that I have mentioned and therefore resolved accordingly that all the dayes of his warfare he would wait till his change should come viz. preparing for it as one that did remember that if a Man die he shall never live again viz. to amend the errors and to supply the defects of his former life Job 14.14 Now what should hinder but that a poor Man may pursue such ends of life as well as one that is rich yea the Scripture speaks as if it were harder for a rich Man of the two Luk● 15.24 when Jesus saw that he was sorrowfull he said How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdome of God It is easier for a Camel to go thorough a Needles eye than for a rich Man to enter into the Kingdome of God But if the poor man say whilst I seek the Kingdome of God what shall I do for other things in the mean time Let him take an answer from our Saviours mouth Mat. 6.33 Seek ye first the Kingdome of God and the righteousness thereof and all other things shall be added unto you

needs be the happier time of the two One was a time of provoking his adversarie the other a time of agreeing with his adversarie whilst he is yet in the way Matth. 5.25 or of kissing the Son lest his wrath be kindled and he should perish in the mid-way When thou shalt begin to take acquaintance with thy closet with thy Bible with thy own heart with the duties of meditation prayer self-examination contemplation of heavenly things to which thou hast forme●ly been a stranger thou wilt confess thou didst but then begin to live and that all thy time before thou were but like a dead body assumed and carried about by an evil spirit wert altogether like the voluptuous widdow of whom the Apostle saith that she is dead whilst she lives I know but one sort of men that may reasonably look upon life to be less desireable as to them than death and that may justly reckon it a greater priviledge to die presently than to live any longer and they are those that can say with Paul 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if our house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God eternal in the Heavens Such only may with good reason have mortem in desiderio that is long to be dissolved But yet they also must have vitam in patientiâ that is be content to live though in the midst of trouble But alas how few of these are there in the Christian world how rarely doth this flower of assurance grow even in the garden of the Church yea and amongst those that are no weeds themselves Then bless the Lord O my soul and let all that is within me bless his holy name yea let others praise the Lord with me and let us magnifie his name together that we are yet alive though haply stript of many mercies and comforts of life which we have formerly enjoyed O Life thou art sweet though full of care and feare and hardship and trouble on ever side because thou art a day of grace a time of making our peace with God and getting the assurances of his love Art thou yet dead in sins and trespasses go to Jesus Christ for soulquicknings and thou maist come to live spiritually ere thou die temporally and be secured withall from dying eternally Hath God hid his face from thee hitherto take a right course and yet before thou diest maiest thou see his face with joy Hath he concealed himself from thee hitherto and spoken roughly to thee as Joseph to his brethren when he called them Spies yet as he at last said to them I am your brother Joseph so may God to us I am your father I am he that blotteth out your sins for mine own names sake though thou hast all this while sate in darkness and as it were in the region of death yet may the Lord be hence-forward a light to thee Some render those words Deut. 34.5 Moses died upon the mouth of God as one descants God did as it were kiss him into heaven so may he do by thee when thou commest to die Maiest thou not yet hear him saying to thee as to his Church Isa 54.11 Oh thou afflicted tossed with tempests and not comforted I will lay thy stones with fair colours and thy foundation with Saphires Lord thou knowest how to make me more thankful for life without health wealth ease honour liberty friends than ever I was for life in conjunction with all of these Cause me to improve life to those ends for which thou hast given it and give me a blessed fruit of that improvement then shall I casily acknowledge that meerly to live with such a heart and for such a purpose is more valuable than without this to live and swim in all the profits pleasures and honours of this world DISCOURSE IX Of the comfort that may be received by doing good more than ever A Man may do more good at a time when he receives less No man ever received less good from the world or more evil than Christ did yet no man ever did more good in it nor yet so much He went about doing good Acts 10.38 yea and it was meat and drink to him John 4.34 that is it was matter of great delight and comfort to him There is a real pleasure in doing as well as receiving good Psal 119.165 Great peace have they that love thy law and nothing shall offend them It is surely a peace which passeth all understanding that can guard the heart and mind against all that might otherwise offend David had said but just before Seven times a day do I praise thee which shews how well he imployed himself and then he presently adds Great peace have they that love thy Law I have pitched upon this consideration because there are some who since the Fire do even despaire of ever receiving so much good in and from the world as they have formerly done from their trades because they are lessned their estates because they are impaired their friends because they are impoverished Now to such it may be a great relief to think they may receive as much comfort by doing as ever they have formerly done by receiving good yea and they may do as much good as ever they did I do not say as ever they could when yet they receive nothing like so much Some Stars receive less light from the Sun which yet give more light to the world some smaller lights are greater luminaries so may the world be better by us and for us than it had wont to be when yet it was never so bad that is so unkind and so unpleasant to us and so straight-handed as now it is There are more waies of doing good than with a mans purse onely though that is one way in which all must do good that have it Men may do good with their heads hearts tongues pens lives by their prayers parts graces precepts examples most men have one talent or other wherewith to do good though many have no hearts to use their talents though they be many and great Men of great estates do not alwaies keep the best houses or give the most relief to their poor neighbours neither are the ablest men in any kinde alwaies the most useful and serviceable to the publick Some persons as able it may be as those that write Volumes have never once appeared in print yea some of meaner gifts have furnished the world with many useful Treatises which shews that they who have received less may do more for God more for themselves more for the good of the Church and of the world than those who have received a great deal more who it may be are either over idle or over-bashful or too much awed by that Proverb That he that comes in print lies down and suffers every one that will to have a blow at him being over-tender of their reputations like the delicate woman that for delicacie will not set the sole of her foot to