avoyd his wickednesse Justice amongst the Antients was supposed to be a Virgin because she ought alwaies to be pure simple and uncorrupt And surely their wisdomes fail them who think that their corruption injustice and injurious handling of others can raise them to the true pitch of Greatnesse seeing that like Jonathan and his armour-bearer who clymed up to the top of a rock on their hands and feet they rear themselves hereunto by groveling base and sordid means For the truth of greatnesse rests not in the height of worldly wealth or honour but of justice and simplicity And therefore Agiselaus observing the Asians usually to crown their King of Persia with the title of Great wherein saith he is he greater than I unlesse he be wiser or juster Now as the simplicity commended unto us is likened to the Doves so many of the contrary vices have their resemblance in the nature of other birds There is the desperate Cock the contentious man whose injurious quarrellings make good the motto of Ishmael in himself Gen. 16.12 His hand against every man and every mans hand against him There is the Peacock the proud man who contrary to the children of Israel who thought themselves grashoppers in comparison of the Giants of Canaan he thinks himself a giant in worth and excellency and all others but grashoppers in comparison of himself when indeed he is but a swoln impostume casting out rotten and loathsome matter in his words and actions There is the Cuccow that layes her eggs in the nests of other birds the close adulterer whose children sit at other mens fire and eat at other mens tables There is the Swan that sings sweetly yet devours his own kind such are flatterers and hypocrites who as our Saviour saith Math. 23.14 Praying long prayers devour widdowes houses There is the Swallow that staies with us in the Summer but flyes away in the Winter such are false friends who abide with us in our prosperity and with it depart shewing that they were friends to it and not to us There is the Cormorant the covetous man who spares not to grind the faces of the poor to withhold the hire of the labourer to cosen the fatherlesse and widow yea any man yea God himself by robbing of the Church and with holding things consecrated with wicked Achan Who when they have ransacked the bowels of the earth for treasure are forced through their fears to hide them there again like the Adders young who being newly come out of their damms bellie run thither again for safety if affrighted with any danger There is also the Vulture that follows armies to prey upon dead carkasses the griping Usurer who waits upon prodigall heirs to devour their decaying fortune unto whom whosoever seeks for succour is like unto a sheep which in a storm runs under a bramble for shelter where he is sure to leave part of his fleece behind him These and the like are the practises of those who are not as they ought to be innocent and simple as Doves CHAP. II. THe second part of our Dove-like simplicity consisteth in our not prejudicing any in our words as she hurts nothing with her bill S. Paul's command is Tit. 3.2 to speak evill of no man which S. James knew to be so difficult that he saith James 3.2 If any man offend not in word that same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body Nabals churlishnesse Shemey's rayling the childrens mocking the infirmity of the Prophet Elizeus derisions and upbraydings misconstruction of our neighbours actions the divulging of the faults of our brethren false accusations against them and detracting from their just merit these are words which as Solomon saith are like the prickings of a sword yet these are the unworthy and customary exercises of our tongues amongst such as are not unacquainted with the language of Canaan Epist Judae 2. Michael the Archangel when disputing with the devill he contended about the body of Moyses durst not rayle against him but sayd our Lord represse thee but these men speak evill of things they know not saith S. Jude and by their rash and precipate judgement of other mens actions their misconstructions and interpreting to the evill part let blood the good name of their brethren even to the fainting yea death of their dear credit and many times in the effect thereof to the destruction of their lives Thus delt the devill with Job the Children of Ammon with David the Jews with our Saviour Impossible it is for a man so evenly to deport himself that his actions can escape the unjust construction of fame-wounding tongues such were the Pharisees in their censure of Christ and S. John Baptist Math. 11.18 John came neither eating nor drinking and they say he hath a Devill the Son of man came eating and drinking and they say behold a glutton and a drinker of wine a friend of Publicans and sinners These are the most direct Antipodes to the simplicity of words who when they cannot find faults doe make them and like corrupt stomacks turn all the good meat they eat into corruption Little less are they that wound the fame of their neighbours in tale-bearing by revealing of their sins and slidings like impious Cham who discovered and derided the drunkenness of his father Noah for which hee was justly cursed And by every ones adding therto in their reports making it like a Snow-ball which the further it rowls the more it gathers And in the mentioning of mens worth by detracting from it or allaying it with infamous aspersions thinking by disparaging others to give the greater lustre to their own commendations and to raise their own on the ruins of another mans good name Calumniation is the infallible note not only of an unchristian but also of an ignoble disposition and surely they are conscious to themselves of their own unworthiness who need the foyl of another mans fault to set off their own vertue Hecuba when shee was with child of Paris dream'd that she was brought to bed of a fire-brand and such indeed he afterwards proved So these men deliver themselves of that foul-mouth'd monster detraction whose dangerous effects are able to enflame the world with mutuall discords As S. Bernard saith There is a detractor who speaketh but a word and yet that word in a moment doth poyson the ears and wound the hearts of the hearers Whose sting like that of the venemous Tarantula bred in the kingdom oâ— Naples which is not to to be cured but by musick can find no remedy but the melody of a sincere and patient mind prepared to indure whatsoever it can inflict yet able to spunge out whatsoever it can object The name of Devill in the Greek from whence it is derived signifieth a Calumniator and calumny and detraction with all its kindred are devillish sins whereby men goe about like him seeking whom they may devour prying and listning after
but can afford them a full-handed harvest thereof They wander as the Apostle saith Heb. 11.27 in sheepskins and goatskins being in want straitned and afflicted wherein though the floods of affliction lift up their waves and are ready to overwhelm their souls and the windes of temptation as ready to overturn them yet if with St. Peter they can stretch forth the hands of their faith unto Christ he will pluck their feet out of the danger that gapeth for them and cover them with the wings of his protection as the Mercy-Seat covered the ark And as the Serpent if he have but a small part of his body joyned to his head he still lives So the afflictions of the children of God though they take from them all that this world hath added to them yea their bodyes from their souls if yet they keep their souls united unto Christ their head they still preserve their lives uncouquered when as the wicked whom every breath of disaster driveth away whom the satisfying of every sinfull desire shall force from that power of godlynesse which they ought in each action to expresse are dead while they live as the Apostle S. Jude saith Jude 12. twice dead and plucked up by the rootes If therefore the unstinted malice of the devill should leave us with Iob as naked as when wee came out of our mothers womb rob us of the instruments of our earthly eternity and our loves greatest inheritors our children deprive us of our lives sweetest companion our health and print our bodyes more full of boyles and sores than Dive's dogs could have licked and which doubles all these leave us nothing but a Wife whose weaknesse he corrupteth as he did in Paradise to become a fellow-tempter with himself and friends who in the depth of of this Misery shall rather make our griefs smart more with salt upbraydings than any way asswage them with the oyl of consolation and that all this sharp siege be laid against us to pluck us from our allegeance to Christ and to cut us off from being members of his body wee must willingly banish all the but cobweb comforts of this life to hold on the rock of comfort Christ Jesus with the disciples we must forsake our nets to follow him with the Patriarch Joseph leave our garments behind us and fly away rather than yeeld to any sinfull pleasure which should separate us from him yea devesting our selves of all our wealth fly away naked with the yong-man in the gospell rather than abandon our vertue which should apparrell our minds In which losse of outward things there is this advantage that it is a great allay unto the devills temptations for as a Serpent saith Pliny shuns a naked man but pursueth a clothed so the devill doth not so easily assayl a poor man with temptations who with the possession hath also laid aside the affection of temporall things but he hath a great advantage of prevayling over the rich as the Apostle saith They that will be rich 1. Tim. 6.9 fall into temptation and a snar of the devill and into many unprofitable and hurtfull lusts which drown men in ruin and destruction Wee must therefore part with the fruit of our bodyes to preserve us from the sin of our souls and rank our friends health wife yea life and all in the number of trifles knowing how infinitly they are over-ballanced by the proper worth of Christ as also by the benefit which reflects upon us from him Heb. 12.2 who is the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame and sitteth at the right hand of God Very many are the examples of heathen men who for some privat good unto themselves as the attainment of learning or some publique good unto their Country as the safety thereof have willingly surrendred up themselves to divers forms of outward calamity Democritus pulled out his own eyes Crates cast all his goods into the sea Pythagoras banished himself from his native soyl Anaxagoras neglected all publique honours all privat contentment that he might let his thoughts loose wholly to the studdy of Philosophy Ancurus the son of Midas sacrifised his life to the floods Curtius to the flames that they might fix their Countries in their former safety Codrus the king of Athens when both he and his enemies had enquired at the oracle of Apollo who should be conquerors and that it was answered They whose king should fall in the battell hence it being proclamed through both armies that no hands fury should direct it self against the king of the contrary side Codrus to delude the policy of his adversaries shrowded under the habit of a common souldier mingled himself in the battell and there with over-daring valour provoked death to seise upon him and so preserved as many by his valiant death as he had done by his just life And shall those heathen perform all these things for the gaining or keeping of some such thing as can but in the second file challenge a place in our affections and shall not wee doe and suffer more to hold Christ in our hearts by faith and love with whom the availes of the whole world being counterpoysed prove too light as he himself testifieth saying What doth it profit a man Math. 16.26 if he win the whole word and lose his own soul But above all matchlesse herein have been the examples of holy Martyrs and Saints in all ages of the Church whose unspeakable sufferings for the love of Christ and rather than they would beleeve or doe or so much as think a thought which was not warranted by his word were such that though they could not win pitty to their suffering or belief to their assertions yet by their patience and courage in suffering they taught the highest degree of admiration to the hardest conceipts Let then these great letters in the Christ-crosse-row make up a book for us which running wee may read and coppy out their actions for our lives imitation But alas how farr are most men in these dayes strayed from the Serpentine prudence of our forefathers in their care of preserving their head Christ Jesus unassayled or at least unhurt but rather like Judas who sold him for thirty pence many of us are ready to sell him thirty times for a penny The cruelty of the Iewes was piety compared to us that which the most of them did was as S. Paul confesseth of himself Heb. 6.6 ignorantly through unbeleef but wee professe wee know him professe wee beleeve in him and yet crucifie again to our selves the Son of God When thou contemnest or neglectest the Ordinances of God thou spittest in thy Saviours face when thou disobeyest the just commandements of thy superiours thou plattest a crown of thornes on his head when thy hands are hands of iniquity and thy feet are swift to shed blood thou nailest his hands and his
feet when thou oppressest or dost not relieve the poor thou givest him gall and vinegar to drink when thou dost or consentest to any thing which endomageth his children his Servants thou cryest out with the Jewes crucify him crucify him Qui in deum delinquit eum relinquit Hee that sins against God forsakes him Whosoever purchaseth any profit enjoyeth any pleasure giveth way unto any Passion satisfieth himself in any action which Gods word hath pronounced unlawfull it is he that contrary to the prudent serpent hazards the losse of his head putteth himself in danger to be separated from Christ to preserve his hands or his feet his hayr or his nayles or any thing that is of lower valew and is like unto the Jewes who cryed out not him but Barabbas Such are all covetous persons whose greedy affections are like Pharaoh's lean kin which when they had eaten up the fat it could not be perceived that they had eaten it but were still as evill-favoured as they were before so these men whatsoever they devour are never satisfied but have their desires as vast and empty as ever and are like Apprentises Christ-masse-boxes to take all in but to restore none till they be broken nor they till they bee dead Such are also the Receivers of bribes who like Gehazi when they receive a bribe believe they receive a Blessing for so he called it but as he found it so shall they that a bitter Curse is couched under it for whatsoever men get by bribery sacrilege oppression ufury cosenage forswearing lying or the like is like to prove as fatall to them as that peece of flesh which the Eagle stole from the altar that had a coal clave to it which set her nest on fire Such also are all those who doe spend their means as unlawfully as these get it who as S. Gregory saith when the poor members of Christ are pinched with hunger and want doe profusely spend their Estates on harlots on drink on dice on balls on plays on vain and soul-killing pleasures or else their time in idleness and impertinent visits like one Vatia on whom was made this Epitaph Here lyes Vatia who grew old in nothing but idleness Or else in vain obscene foolish fruitless discourses interlarding their speeches with lies to make them more plausible powdring them with oaths to make them as they think more gracefull O what a folly is it in those men and in whom almost is not that folly that when they may hold Christ and the consequent thereof their Salvation for denying of themselves unlawfull gains or pleasures such as perish like Jonas gourd as soon as they be sprung up and leave nothing behind them but repentance when they may keep the true faith and love of Christ with the loss of their lives by which loss they shall gain it of their honours of their estates of their friends for which they shall be recompenced even in this life an hundred fold will yet notwithstanding with Jeroboam for the politique respect of keeping of his kingdom with Peter for the declining of some bodily danger with Ananias and Saphira for with-holding back a little money with Saul for preserving the fattest of the Cattle with the man of Israel for the unchast embraces of a harlot with Baltazar for câ—rowsing in the cups of the Sanctuary yea with our first Parents for an apple or a piece of bread as Solomon saith will transgress and suffer themselves to be separated from the fountain of life Christ Iesus rather than say with holy Joseph Gen. 39. How can I doe this evill and sin against my God O let not let not the least shadow of such weakness fall upon our souls as shall make us prefer any thing before our union with Christ but let us as we ought witness the truth of the Apostles saying in our selves Mat. 19.27 We have forsaken all and followed thee Now that which must knit and glue us unto Christ is faith which while we hold we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts the temptations of the devill as saith the Apostle The devill and his instruments the wicked while they rob us of our externall felicities doe but as David did unto Saul cut off the lap of our garments but if they force us from the fortress of our faith as he did unto Goliah they cut off our heads Let us therefore keep faith and a good conscience and make no shipwrack of that precious merchandize like Hymeneus and Alexander reproved by S. Paul but in all the rough tempests of this lifes calamities let us anchor our faith and hope upon Christ who is the sure ground of our salvation In all the Syren enchantments of sinfull pleasures with Ulysses let us tie our selves to the main-mast of a strong immoveable godly resolution whereby whatsoever evill wee suffer or seeming good we may enjoy to rent us from the stedfastness of our faith we may ever with such a calm and constant indifferency give them entertainment that neither the one nor the other may remove us but that we may still remain like a man in an open field who to which part of the horizon soever he sends his eye he himself is alwaies in the center And let us not like the dirty-minded Gadarens banish Christ out of our Country for the loss of a few swine nor forsake our profession of him nor swerve one hayrs bredth from the line of his Commandements to inherit whatsoever either profit or pleasure or ought else hath endeared to the eye of the world seeing their purchase is care their possession trouble their essence vanity and their end misery But rather in the midst of this worlds conflicts let us engrave that triumphant motto of S. Paul on the Ensign of our Faith Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or anguish or famine or nakedness or perill or persecution or sword I am certain that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor strength nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. CHAP. VI. A Fourth excercise of Prudence in the Serpent not unworthy our imitation is this The Serpent when hee swimmeth to avoid the danger of drowning keepeth his head alwaies lifted above the waters So wee while wee swim through the Sea of this lives actions must ever bear up the head of our reason that we be not drowned in pleasure and delight The world is a Sea and man a ship adversity is his ballast prosperity his sayls passions his Saylors and reason his Pilot who sits at the helm to steer his course aright adversity like ballast keeps us even and steddy but when our over-busie passions doe hoyse up more sayls of pleasure than our weak barks can bear we run our selves under water and over-whelm our reason
they were like unto that flower which Pliny speaks of which springs in the morning is full blown at noon and fades at night Heb. 11.25 and therefore chose rather to bee afflicted with the children of God than to enjoy the temporall pleasure of Sin counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the Egiptians The world for the frailty and inconstancy thereof is by S. John compared to a sea as he saith in the Apocalips Before the thron there was a sea of glasse Apoc. 4.6 like unto crystall by which sea is meant the world which for it's frailty is glasse for it's unconstancy a sea A sea swelling with pride blew with envie boyling with anger deep with averise frothy with luxury It is a Sea tempestuous with controversies stormy with afflâ—ctions tumultuous with disorders The sea yealds an obedient conformity to the motions of the moon and swels highest in a joyfull imitation when shee is in the spring-tide of her light either towards the heavens as in the change or towards the earth as in the full and as shee doth wax or wain so doth he either flow into a pleurisy or ebbe into a consumption of his waters and even thus is the world the page of fortune whose unconstant and ever-changing motions doe hurry about like spokes in a wheel the condition of all mortalls as the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 7.31 The fashion of this world passeth away An hour-glasse doth change it's posture every hour and that part which was even now above is now below that which was even now full is now empty nor can one side be filled but by emptying the other such is the world every moment turn'd upside down and men are now full now empty Nor can they often fill themselves without the ruin or prejudice of others yea many times as Laban did to Jaacob when men have toyled in it's service many years it rewards them with loathed Leah insteed of loved Rachel Like Jael it carrieth milk in one hand to nourish and a hammer and a nayl in the other to destroy and as Joab did to Amasa while it kisseth us it killeth us And although like the moon it be sometimes at at the full of glory yet is it even then like her also mingled with the spots of adversity and subject to the change of every moment And therefore as they say at the consecration of the Popes the Master of the ceremonies goeing before carrieth in one hand a burning taper in the other a stick with some flax tyed on the top thereof which he setting on fire cryeth with a lowd voyce Pater sancte sic transit gloria mundi Holy Father so passeth away the glory of the world The plenty of histories in this kind exceedeth our Arithmetique every particular mans condition almost being a volume of the worlds frailty and a constant witnesse of it's inconstancy Adonibezec in the first of the book of Judges who had been the triumphant Victor over seventy Kings and in his wanton cruelty cutting off the thumbs of their hands and feet made them pick up crums under his table enforcing the act yet depriving them of the power making them doe that which hee had disabled them to doe was ere long returned with an equall measure which made him cry out Judg. 1.7 As I have done so God hath rewarded me Nabuchadonozor's unparallel'd mâ—tamorphosis who knoweth not Who in the despite of Philosophy prov'd in himself the transmigration of Species and from a man fell into a beast in nature now as was in practise before to shew that when men sinne against the light of nature they may suffer against the law of nature It is reported of Demetrius one of Alexander the great his Captains that in the whole circle of his life being threescore years and four after the measure of his age had stil'd him man never continued three years in one condition Of Julius Caesar also that great awer of the world and tyrant over the Common-wealth it is doubted whether in the whole course of his life Fortune were an indifferent arbitrer unto him of good and evill successe but in the misery of his death no doubt all his lives happinesse was exceedingly overballanc'd who in the Zenith and highest erection of his glory with three and twenty wounds the deepest whereof given by his dearest Brutus and that in the Court of his deadly enemy Pompey yeelded up his life a sacrifice to the peoples liberty The like unhappy change pursued the ever-renowned and once highly advanced Captain Belisarius who after he had triumphed over the Persians and reduced to the Roman obedience all Africa and Italy which had been long possessed by the Gothes and Vandalls and after he had brought one of the Kings of the Vandalls to such a passe that hee begged three things a loaf of bread a spunge to wipe his eyes and a harp to tune his sorrow to his wife who was given him for a help became the only help to his destruction whose insolent behaviour against the Empresse like winds thrown upon the Seas raised such billows of indignation in the Emperour that they put this good mans fortune to an utter shipwrack who did not only lose all his goods but the means wherby he might get more his sight and was forced to beg his bread with Da obolo Belisario Viator and thus though blind did most cleerly see the frailty of this worlds felicity Therefore Dionisius the King of Syracusa represented the brittle felicity of his kingdome unto his Parasite Damocles which Damocles had made to seem exceeding great through the multiplying glasse of his flattery by seating him in a royall throne at a sumptuous Banquet with all the state and glory of the kingdome about him but withall causing a naked sword to be hung over his head which was only held up by a horses hair which every minute threatned his destruction It was likewise the custome of the Romans in their triumphs for a slave to ride behind in the Chariot with the triumpher who did often whisper unto him to look behind him there was likewise a whip and a bell tyed to the Charyot to admonish him that notwithstanding the present exaltation of his honour he might be brought to such a degree of calamity as to be scourged or put to death of which the bell was the signe it being the custome of the old Romans to ring a bell before a dead Corps lest any by approaching too neer should defile themselves thereby Now if we would allow these and the like images of the worlds frailty a place in our considerations and remember that all the glory beauty and pleasures thereof are as truly short as they are seeming sweet and that though they bee sweet in the enjoying yet they are bitter in the end surely it would so steel our resolutions against the devils temptations it would so stop our ears against the voyce of his charms