from as high a descent as they doe and as they are sinfull I am more perfect and exceedingly more beautifull in the sight of God and all his Angels I doe not marvell now that the holy Psalmist spoke so heartily when he said Iniquitatem odio habui abominatus Ps 119. sum I hated iniquity and my soule had it in abomination Go sinne the Viper shall take place in our bosomes before thee For the Viper that eateth through the tender wombe of the mother never saw the mother before that blinde act of cruelty so that the Viper is onely cruell before he is borne and before he ever saw a gentle creature or this blessed light to which his mother brought him But the sinner sees God in his creatures And the Viper doth but defeate the body to bring a temporall death thou the soule to bring a death drawne out and lengthened with eternity CHAP. XVI TO sinne is to turne our backs with great contempt towards God Towards God standing in the midst of all his Angels and holding up Heaven with one hand and earth with another and to turne our faces and imbraces with great fondnesse to a vile Creature O that a true sight of this like a good Angell might alwayes appeare to us before we sinne As the proud man and woman turne from God the boundlesse treasure of all excellencie and sit brooding and swelling as upon empty shels upon the fraile and contemptible goods of minde body fortune The angry man and woman turne from God the sweetnesse of Heaven and Earth and side with their owne turbulent passions The Glutton and Drunkard turne from God to whom the eyes of all things doe looke up for their meate and drinke in due season and performe their devotions to their fat bodies and bellies quorum Deus venter est whose Phil. 3. 19. God is their belly Which Saint Paul spoke as it appeareth by the verse immediatly precedent even weeping The lascivious man and woman turne from God the Fountain of all true and solid comfort and take in exchange the pleasure of Beasts The covetous man and woman turne from God without whom the rich are very poore and dance about the golden Calfe making an Idoll of their money For Covetousnesse Coloss 3. 5. is Idolatry The envious man and woman turne from God from whom come both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not inward only but all outward gifts and stick to a repining at Gods liberality in others The sloathfull man and woman turn from God whose providence is in continuall action exercise and give flesh bones head heart and all to the pillow Judas had thirty pence for Christ but we have little or nought for him All the good gifts of the holy Ghost are struck to the heart by sinne S. John beheld in his Revelation a great red Dragon having seven heads and seven Rev. 12. 3. crownes upon his heads And againe a woman Rev. 17. 3. sitting upon a Scarlet-coloured beast having seven heads The seven heads are the seven deadly sinnes which the great red Dragon the Devill begetteth upon the woman the sinfull soule wherewith he resisteth and putteth to flight the seven choice gifts of the holy Ghost I remember the woman whom our Saviour dispossessed of seven Devils and the Leaper that by the Prophets appointment was dipped seven times in the river Jordane The Devill over-commeth the gift of feare The feare of the Lord is the brginning of wisdome with pride and presumption which utterly expell the feare of God With anger he smothereth the gift of knowledge For blinded with anger we judge not according to knowledge With envie he stifleth the gift of piety or godlinesse For by envie we bandy with our thoughts words and actions against our neighbours With lust and luxury he destroyeth the gift of wisedome by which we are made brutishly foolish With covetousnesse hee confoundeth the gift of counsell by which we are violently drawne from all good counsell in the pursuite of base but sweete lucre Covetousnesse being the roote of all evill With Gluttony and Drunkennesse he killeth the gift of understanding by which we are besotted and left altogether unfit to know or understand And with sloth he vanquisheth the gift of Fortitude by which we are made weake and infirme and benummed with feare and sorrow in the search of good things Here is a battell wherein the weake over-come the strong and all because the strong are fallen into the mischievous hands of a most barbarous Traitor a Traitor to God and his owne soule To sinne is to betray Christ and give him over to death and destruction that the sinne that is Barabas the murderer may live Here is a businesse O Lord And to sinne is to banish the holy Ghost with all his gifts to bid him goe go seeke a lodging amongst the rogues beggers And being unwilling to go as he is love it selfe and therefore struggling to stay to thrust him out of the soule by the head and shoulders as desirous in our anger to break a limbe of him if he had one O that we could remember at these times that we are the Devils officers And when sinne is not the privation of Grace because it comes where it is not it the more dimmeth and defaceth nature Sinne is the death and buriall of the soule which onely God can raise againe For as the body dyeth and falleth to the ground when the soule forsaketh it so the soule dyeth and falleth under the ground to Hell-gate when it is forsaken by God O Christian saith Saint Austin non sunt in te charitatis viscera si luges corpus a quo recessit anima animam vero a qua recessit Deus non luges O Christian there are no bowels of charity in thee if thou mournest for a body from which the soule is gone and doest not mourne for the wretched and forlorne estate of a soule from which God is departed One sinne is a greater evill greater above expression then all the evils of punishment that can be inflicted upon us by God himselfe in this world or in the world to come A greater evill beyond all measure then Hell-fire which shall never be quenched One sinne O what have I done many thousand times over It is the truth and nothing but the truth And therfore it is said of the sinne of evill speaking The death thereof is an evill death the grave Ecclesiasticus 28. 21. were better then it The words will beare another sense utilis potius infernus quam illa Hell were more profitable then it And this is proved as easily as written or spokē For the evils of punishment bereave us only of limited and finite goods as sicknesse depriveth us of health death of life But sinne depriveth us of God the onely Good that is infinite And the privation is alwayes by so much the more grievous by how much the good is more good of which
are very quick at their worke they live altogether by catching and snatching The French History hath one who Reymond Lullius being full of vaine affection to a vertuous Lady she to cure his Fever uncovered one of her brests and there shewed him a Canker which had eaten deepe into her body and was extreamely hideous to the sight adding these words See vaine man what thou hast loved Hee recovering himselfe from the fall began to lament grievously how vaine he had beene in loving that which he did not perfectly know All fond people would speake in the same phrase if the cloud hanging before their eyes were dispersed What amongst beasts is more fierce then a Lyon And yet a Lyon is a Lamb in respect of a wicked woman What Vide Chry. homil 15. in Matth. tom 2. is more cruell then a Dragon And yet a wicked woman is more a Dragon then the Dragon it selfe What is more devouring then a Whale And yet a Whale is not a Whale compared with a wicked woman Many Lyons spared innocent Daniel in the Den and yet one Jezabel devoured holy Naboth The Dragons and all the great army of poysonous beasts feared S. John Baptist in the the Wildernesse But Herodias and her dancing daughter cut off his blessed head at a blow serv'd it up to Herods table buried it in his Palace that if it should talke againe as one writeth againe being at hand it might be quickly brought to the Axe The whale kept Jonas safe and secure in his belly But Dalilah betrayed Sampson into the hands of those that bored his eyes out I praise the chast and modest woman For it is the nature of contraries that the one is as good as the other bad Goe fond man and visit all the brave women of the last age the great gallants of the Court and City court them in their graves and consider with what a little handfull of bones the vaine people of those times were so exceedingly taken what painted Images of dirt they fighed for about what trifles of flesh and bloud they vainely spent their dearest houres and for what lumps of carrion their weake heads so often aked The Devill striveth to keepe our love at worke upon vaine things because by love onely we are united to Heaven Rule 4. BEare a strong hand over your passions They are mutinous subjects and live within the wals Man is composed of foure contrary elements But they came to this composition upon composition upon faire tearms of agreement But the passions stand yet in the full force of passions There are two great contraries in matters pertaining to morality good and evill The one we naturally desire to obtaine to avoid the other Good considered within the compasse of its owne nature kindles love the prime and master-passion If it be or seem absent it stirreth a desire of it selfe If we desire it and conceive it possible hope begins to grow big and we follow it If impossible despaire starts up if the good was great and good playes the mad-man But when wee fully enjoy it joy smileth in us On the other side if we make a discovery of evill we hate it If it be absent we put wings to our feet and flie from it If it shew it selfe as inevitable we feare it But if it arrest us being present we are chilled with griefe And then anger loves souldier is at hand ready to strike at every turne and to turne all into a tumult And anger fights on both sides for we are angry with the hinderances which occurre in our pursuit of the thing we love We love before wee hate because we hate nothing but as opposite to a thing we love But here is the block of danger when good appeareth in the forme of evill and evill in the shape of good or when one is apprehended as the other no man loving evill but guilded with a pretence of good For then we love evill hate good desire evill flie from good hope for evill feare good rejoyce in the purchasing of evill grieve in the atchievement of good Every thing runs a most unnaturall and disordinate course and all the little world of man is disturbed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solon apud Phil. Judaeum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the grave Solon The Sea fals rises beates against the rocks and is grievously troubled with the windes but if it be not angred with any loud breath or blustering it is very smooth plaine and gentle When the passions are subject to Reason and Grace the minde of man is the Common-wealth of Plato an even and well-governed State But if one wheele be out of order the rest stand waiting for little purpose all the passions will adhere to the passion then predominant It is recorded that Semiramis was an humble Petitioner to the great King Aelian de var. hist l 7. of the Assyrians whose concubine she was that she might take upō her the government of Asia and command the Kings servants but for the transitory space of five dayes It was granted She came forth adorned with a Princely robe and her first words were O wretch Go take the King kill him And by one venturous step she climbed to a settled state of Imperiall government Semiramis representeth passion Suffer it to enter into your house and it will keepe possession give it once the upper hand and it will claim the course of gift as a priviledge A passion is like fire which is pliable to good uses while we keepe it in the place and office of a necessary instrument but if it passe without a guide it will bring us to an ill passe the passion will turne to action and make a great spoyle of all things In all the uproare of passion keepe the minde calme Yea when anger beginneth to inflame you thrust off the passion by maine strength and compose your selfe in a sweete pleasantnes of minde and face And say inwardly Sweet God how mild art thou that sittest quietly in Heaven when thou seest thy divine Majesty most grievously abused here on earth God doth not require of you to become Stoicks to pull up passion by the roote and to remaine unsensible For passions doe give an edge to vertue and are the supporters of it God desireth onely that in anger Reason should direct and carry us through the croud And that anger should stay in his owne home in the inferiour part of the soule and not breake in upon the minde and that in all the stirring Reason should have her principall motion For if passion be first she will blinde Reason and then draw her into her faction change opinion alter judgement worke strangely upon the apprehension turne the discourse and make another man And as anger so love desire joy feare griefe and the rest are all to be wisely tempered Rule 5. KNow that when any thing is well and piously said or done in your presence God speakes to you And that
thus many why stay I there many thousands were saved of whom we never heard And the like hapned saith Saint Austin in the Deluge For many being convinced in their judgements by seeing the Prophecie of the Floud to become History repented of their sinnes against God whom Noah had taught to be the Author of the Prophecie and beleeving imbraced their present destruction as a just punishment for their sins and having been justified by a lively faith were saved God did not take al into the number of his people because his people had not beene so properly his without an exclusion of others and because hee would more endeare himselfe to those whom hee tooke as likewise his love is more glorious in his elect And after the comming of Christ if there be or hath beene a Countrey which hath not sufficiently heard of Christ and his workes the people have not sufficiently performed their duties to which they were bound by the Law of Nature From those that correspond with the light of Nature the light of Grace is never with-held neither was Christ ever nor ever shall be conceal'd but either is told or was foretold CHAP. XI BUt now at length sinne being very forward and by occasion of the Law growing stubborne and striving against the Law and the world groaning aloud under the judgements of God and the waight of the old Law and the Prophets and servants little prevailing and all earnestly desiring a Messias a Saviour the Redeemer of Israell Christ himselfe the Lord and Master of the family God knew in all Eternity that it was in his power and liberty to make other creatures some above the degrees of Angels some in the distance betwixt Angels and men with divers endowments and perfections to whom he might liberally and with a full hand communicate himselfe yet rejecting in the long and various catalogue all the rest being a rich God hee chose poore man intimating a great correspondence betwixt a rich Creatour and a poore Creature the one being very full and most able to give the other very empty and lying open to receive And also he knew that amongst all the severall kinds of communications none was so fit and firme as the joyning of himselfe to some created nature in such a rich and exquisite manner that the Creature might be as it were married to the Divinity and make one onely Person with it and therefore he joyned himselfe to man by the mediation of the Hypostaticall Union if the Schooles say true the most perfect Creature that ever God made as comming more neere to him not in being but in touch in this most excellent kinde of conjunction And as the Sunne turn'd face and ran backe in the same steps it came tenne degrees in the dayes of Ezechias so he descended under the nine Quires of Angels even to humane nature the tenth last least and lowest degree of reasonable Creatures taking it to have and to hold for all Eternity S. Aug. de praedest c. 15. Vide ibi plura Quo altius carnem attolleret non habuit saith Saint Austin He not onely raised humane nature as high as it possibly could rise or omnipotencie lift it but also he brought downe his Divinity as low as it could come It was fitly sung by a good musitian and the straine was very sweete Hee bowed the Ps â—8 9. Heavens also and came downe and darknesse was under his feete For they being high and we lowe they were bow'd downe by a strong hand to us and our condition the hand of him who bringing light trod darknesse under his feete And it is pretty to observe how God hath laboured to unite himselfe with man The water being hindered in one passage seeketh another For as likenesse is that from which love is taken so likewise Union is that to which love is carried First man was no sooner man but God fastned himselfe to him by Grace Which Union though it was not the Union of God with man but of his Grace yet Grace did present the person of God and while shee kept her Court in man performed the strict will of her Lord her selfe and so governed that all the powers where she was did the same Adam not falling sinfully before his fall But God seeing that this Union was quickly dissolved in Adams fall and that being a very unsettled Union it was in danger to breake at every turne and foreseeing what we now see he made another more sure and sacred cord of Union in the Incarnation whereby humane nature is tied to the Divinity and makes up the same Person with the second Person in Trinity without any danger of a divorce or breach of friendship But because this Union is not the joyning of God to every man but to the nature of man and to no mans nature in particular but his owne he sleepes not here but comes home to every one without exception in the Sacrament marrying himselfe by grace to the soule applyed in the resemblance of bodily nourishment to make the Union of Grace more strong with a double knot as labouring if it were possible to turne into the soule and be the same thing with it as bread becomes not one of the two in carne una in one flesh but una caro one and the same flesh with the body But because we are not yet come to that which by the Grecians is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies both the end and perfection and because this Union also now is and now is not God hath ordained a settled state of Union by which the soule of man in Heaven is tyed with an eternall bond of peace to him humane understanding to the divine understanding the will of man to the will of God and by which all the powers of man are fixt in a firme and most neere connexion and subordination with and to him for ever How then ought we to stoope and comply if we sincerely desire a Union of all not onely with our selves for our owne ends but with the Primitive Church for Gods end CHAP. XII THe Apostles and Preachers of Christ following the tract and foot-steps of God and of their Master Christ who also conversed with Publicans and sinners though not in their sinnes and spake otherwise to his Apostles to whom it was given to know mysteries otherwise to the people were all things to all men Saint Paul to the Jewes under the Law though not a Jew under the Law became as a Jew under the Law To the Gentiles as one of them though not one of them To the weake though not weake as weake The great Interpreters of holy Scripture give three reasons why Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrewes doth not begin after his accustomed manner Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ The first was given by Theodoret because he was more answerably Apostoâ—â—s Doctor Gentium the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles as himselfe proveth The second by
is the great directour of the Church and enemie to the devill in his oppositions of it hee still had a blow at the Holy Ghost first in Theodoret who denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and now in the Grecians But we shall heare more of him anon CHAP. 7. VVHat mervaile now if greene in Age and shallow in experience I gave up my soule into the black hands of errour The causes of my closing with the Church of Rome were three First a consideration of the great sinnes of this Kingdome and especially of that open scandalous and horrible sinne of Drunkennesse which my soule hateth And I weakly argued from a blemish of manners in particular persons to a generall and over-spreading corruption of Faith My thoughts represented a drunkard to me sometimes in this manner What is a Drunkard but a beast like a man or something lower then a beast When he is in his fit no sense will performe his fit office Spectacles in all figures appeare to him hee thinks hee sees more shapes then God ever made A cloud settles in his eyes and the whole body being overflowne they seeme to float in the floud The earth seemes to him to nod and hee nods againe to it trees to walk in the fields houses to rise from their places and leape into the Aire as if they would tumble upon his head and crush him to a Cake and therefore he makes hast to avoid the danger The Sea seemes to rore in his cares and the Guns to goe off and he strives to rore as loud as they The Beere begins to work for he foames at the mouth Hee speaks as if the greater part of his tongue were under water His tongue labours upon his words and the same word often repeated is a sentence You may discover a foole in every part of his face Hee goes like like what nothing is vile enough to suit in comparison with him except I should say like himselfe or like another drunken man And at every slip he is faine to throw his wandring hand upon any thing to stay him with his body and face upwards as God made him Vmbras saepe S. Ambr. lib. de Elia jejunio cap. 16. transiliunt sicut foveas saith S. Ambrose Comming to a shadow of a post or other thing in his way hee leapes taking it for a ditch Canes si viderint leones arbitrantur Idem ibid. fugiunt sayes the same Father if he sees a dogge he thinks it to be a Lyon and runs with all possible hast till hee falls into a puddle where hee lyes wallowing and bathing his swinish body like a hogge in the mire And after all this being restored to himselfe he forgets because hee knew not perfectly what hee was and next day returnes againe to his vomit And thus he reeles from the Inn or Tavern to his house morning and evening night and day till after all his reeling not being able to goe hee is carried out of his House not into the Taverne alas hee cannot call for what hee wants but into his Grave Where being layd and his mouth stopt with dirt hee ceases to reele till at last hee shall reele body and soule into hell where notwithstanding all his former plenty variety of drinks hee shall never be so gracious as to obtaine a small drop of water to coole his tongue Then if it be true as it is very likely which many teach that the devils in hell shall mock the troubled imagination of the damned person with the counterfeit imitation of his sinnes the devils will reele in all formes before him to his eternall confusion In vain doth S. Paul cry out to this wretch Be not drunk with wine wherein is excesse but be filled with the spirit For the same vessell Eph. 5. 18. cannot be filled with wine and with the spirit at the same time In vaine doth hee tell him that wee should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Sobriè 2 Tit. 12. saith S. Bernard nobis justè proximis pie autem Deo Soberly in our selves righteously S. Bern. in Serm. sup Ecce nos reliquimus omnia or justly towards our neighbours and godly towards God alwayes remembring that we are in this present world and that it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the present point of Time and but one instant that we enjoy at once And somtimes in this manner my thoughts shewed me a drunken man Hee is a most deformed creature one that lookes like the picture of a devill one who stands knocking at hell-gate and yet it is not able to speak a plaine word and call for mercy one that could stand and goe but now lyes all along in his owne filthinesse one that is loathed by the Court and all the Citizens of Heaven one that for the time doth not beleeve that there is a God or that Christ died for the sinnes of the world one that may be lawfully thought a man of little wit and lesse grace one who is the Ow◠of all that see him and the scorne and abomination even of his drunken companions one who if he should then dye would certainly be a companion of devils in hell fit◠for ever one that is ready to commit adultery murder treason to stab or hang himselfe to pull God out of Heaven or doe any thing that is not good And if it be a firme ground that putting our selves into the occasions of such and such sins we are as guilty of them as if wee had committed them although we did not formally and explicitely intend them how many great sins hath one act of drunkennesse to answer for Drunkennesse is most hatefull to God because it putteth out the light of Reason by which man is distinguished from a beast and all better lights with it and throwes a man beneath Gods creation and therefore drunkennesse is more or lesse grievous as it more or lesse impeacheth the light and sight of Reason Natura paucis contenta Nature is contented with a little quam si superfluis urgere velis saith Boetius which if you shall urge and load with superfluous Boet. things you will destroy And one over-chargeth his stomack and vainely casteth away that for want of which or the like another daily crieth in the streets with a lamentable voyce Good Sir for Gods sake pitty these poore fatherlesse children ready to starve one is hungry and another is drunken And the great end of the 1 Cor. 11. 21. Creator was to supply necessity and the necessity of every creature And Sobriety and Temperance are faire vertues which even the Glutton and Drunkard doe praise and magnifie If wee turne aside into the Church-yard wee shall finde it a dry time there There are no merry meetings under ground no musick no dancing no songs no jesting company Every body sleepes there and therefore there is no noise at all Perhaps indeed as men passe
coul◠tell which way and not run from Chris◠all the sweetnesse of this world would be gall and extreame bitternesse to them they would relish nothing but Christ they would scarce endure to heare any man speak that did not speak of Christ his very name would give a sweet taste in their mouthes they would seeke him and they would be sick till they found him And having found him they would let goe all and hold him fast And then the remembrance of their labour in seeking him would be sweetnes it self to them Our Saviour before his passion ascended according to his custome to the mount of Olives and there drew himself even from his own Disciples For as St. Luke describeth it He was withdrawn frō them about a stones cast and kneeled downe and prayed About a stones cast for Luk. 22 41 the peace and privacie of his owne Recollection And but a stones cast for the safety and security of his Disciples And cursed be the Traytour that brought a vile rabble of seditious persons upon him to breake his mysticall sleepe and to cut the fine thred of his calme and quiet devotions Thus did my thoughts spread themselves imagining this could not any where be found but in a Monastery My last reason was because being carried away with a great streame the desire of knowledge it being the Philosophers Principle in the first grounds of his Metaphysicks Omnis homo naturâ scire desiderat Every man by nature Arist 1. Met cap. 1. desireth to know I plunged my selfe into the depth of profound Authors Bellarmine and others and was lost in the bottome And hurried with these motives I left with a free minde Kings Colledge and the University of Cambridge upon Christimasse Eeve that I might avoid the receiving of the Sacrament the next day for which I was in particular warned to prepare my selfe But the divine Providence went with mee and plainly shewed mee by my owne eyes and by my eares and by other knowing powers perfected with knowledge in some measure with which God hath endued me that my reasons were as weak as I was young CHAP. 9. I Shall now and I cannot help it lay open and uncover the faults of others But who am I that I should doe this Have I not great faults of my owne O I have Lord have have mercy upon me a miserable sinner and upon them and upon all the world I am one of those to whom God gave a faire preheminence over all other earthly creatures I was shaped by him in my mothers wombe and tooke up by him when I fell from her I was guided through all dangers by him in my weake infancie and ignorant childhood I was reserved by him for the law of grace and the faith of Christ I am furnished by him with all kindes of necessaries for the fit maintenance of life and have beene delivered by him from a thousand thousand mischiefes bending the bow both at soule and body I had lost my life the other day and beene carried hence with all my sinnes upon my back had not he stept in to help me I have beene moved every day to goodnesse by his holy calls and inspirations He puts bread and meat into my mouth every day having strangely brought it from many places by many wayes through many hands to me Hee covers my nakednesse every day He hath preserved and restored me from sicknesse and disposeth all my affaires with all gentlenesse And yet I have play'd as foule with him as any man Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did Psal 51. 5. my mother conceive mee I am thronged with unruly passions madd if let loose to wickednesse I goe and grow crookedly and stoope very low under a mighty burthen of sinne and am prone to all mischief and of my selfe ready for all attempts and wicked enterprises against God For if God should withdraw his preventing Grace I should quickly be guilty of any sinne that ever any man or woman committed It is granted that I am the void and empty Cave of ignorance the muddy fountaine of evill concupiscence dark in my understanding weake in my will and very forgetfull of good things and that left to my selfe I am not my selfe but a devill in my shape All this is true And yet I have beene the Captaine of an Army against him by whom only I can be set at liberty and freed from all these evills God is so perfectly knowing so compleatly wise that no sinne though lying hid in the dark thoughts and quiet privacie of the heart though covered with the mists of the morning or the darknesse of the night can escape his knowledge so throughly good that no sinne can please him so wonderfully powerfull that no sinner can flie from him though hee should have wings to help his feet He is the endlesse boundlesse bottomlesse heape of all perfections He is infinitely stored with all kindes of perfect worth and beauty and therefore most worthy of all true love and honour And this All of perfections is my all in all He is one and a great one that I make very angry with me every day and yet striking hee shakes his head pulls back his hand and is very loth to strike Hee would but will not Hee beares with mee from day to day and hopes well of mee breaths upon me blowes upon me with his holy spirit waters mee with his heavenly grace and benediction diggs about mee with lessons and instructions of all sorts and with good examples on every side expecting good fruit from mee And this good great God have I struck with many faults CHAP. 10. VErily I have deserved that because I have defiled all the Elements with my sins as I goe the earth at every step should sink under mee that it should open and swallow me with a wide throat into hell That water when I first come where it is should leape into my face and stifle mee that when I open my mouth to receive the sweet benefit of ayre nothing but mists and foggs and the plague should enter that fire should not onely cease and denie to warme me but also flie upon mee hang about me and burne me to ashes that heat and cold should meet together in the clouds and without much threatning break out upon me as having bin neither hot nor cold strike me dead with a clap of thunder that because all my zeal was but a flash a flash of lightning should burne mee to a coale and leave mee standing without life a blasted man all black and dried to scare others from sinne That because I playd the Beast in erring against the rules of reason beasts and unreasonable creatures of all kindes should lie every where in wait to destroy me that the Birds of the Aire should break into my House catch the bread out of my hand before it comes to my mouth and carrie away the very meat from my Table because they
deserve it better then I that Spiders should empty their poyson into my drink that because I stript my soule and rob'd her of her wedding garment no kind of garment should ever be able to hang upon my back I have deserved that because I have infected my Brethren by evill example the hearts and hands of all men should be turned against me that as I passe in the streets men and women should laugh at me in scorne and mock me as they doe fooles mad men and that because I have beene a stumbling-block to youth Boyes and Girles should run after me with a noise and that their Parents and people of all sorts should throw dirt in my face Indeed I have deserved that because I have sinned in the sight of the Angels the Angels of Heaven should arrest me in the Kings name whom I have offended take me and deliver mee to all the devils of Hell and that they should throw me with all their might into the bottome of Hell and follow after me with an out-cry that should make the foundations of the earth shake For having playd the notorious Rebel against the Creator of all things I have most justly deserved as often as I have sinned that all things all creatures should rise up in armes against me And with what heart or face shall I stretch out my hand against the faults of others But it is not my owne quarrell I speake in Gods behalfe CHAP. 11. I Was reconciled to the Church of Rome in London by an English Monk and by him recommended to a Jesuit who sent me to the English Colledge at S. Omers in Flanders And the better to passe at Dover I was put by an English Monk into a habit like an Italian and indeed like the Monk as he goeth in London and joyned in company with a young Gentleman an Italian Traveller who was now in his returne towards his Country Having passed for an Italian not only in clothes but in Country and being landed at Calice in France it hapned that I travelled from thence to St. Omers with a Jesuit and a young Scholler which he brought with him out of England and they had come in the Ship wherein I passed Hee was apparrelled like a secular Gentleman and wore a little Ponyard by his side And we three mingling discourse as we journeyed he told us that the Ponyard was given him by a Catholike a deare friend of his upon a condition that hee should kil a Pursuivant with it God knows I lie not By a Pursuivant hee meant one of the Kings Messengers which are imployed in the search and apprehension of Priests and Jesuits But O my Lord and my God can this be the veine and the spirit of the Primitive Church or doth it taste of the meeknesse and gentlenesse of Christ our sweet Saviour either in his life or doctrine With the first it cannot agree For St. Cyprian is plaine in the matter Nos laesos divina ultio defendet Inde est quòd nemo nostrum S. Cypr. ad Demetriad se adversus injustam violentiam quamvis nimius copiosus sit noster populus ulciscatur God wil revenge our wrongs And therefore not one of us doth lift up his hand against unjust violence although our people be many and our strength great Wee are patient not that we cannot resist the power of our persecutors but because we may not resist them having received power from God to which wee ought to submit our selves wheresoever we finde it With the second it may not hold in either of the two branches It sutes not with the doctrine of Christ who saith to Peter having smote off the eare of an inferiour servant though he had left his head behinde Put up againe thy sword into his place for all they that take Mat. 26 52 the sword shall perish with the sword It is not of the same colour with the life of Christ of whom Saint Paul testifieth that he humbled himselfe and became obedient unto death 2 Phil. 8. 9. even the death of the Crosse Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him Hee was first depressed and then exalted and hee was therfore exalted because hee had beene depressed and he was highly exalted because he had beene depressed as low as death and the death of theeves and murderers and he depressed himselfe but hee was exalted by God Well now It is not agreeable with this or with that Yet I well know with what it agreeth And you shall know as well as I. With the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome God turn the hearts of her children But I must turne to Christ againe Mee thinks it is a mervailous pleasant thing to looke upon him The obedience of his humility waded as farre as it could find bottome It is a witty difference which St. Gregory maketh betwixt obedience and sacrifice Obedientia victimis praeponitur quia per victimas aliena caro per obedientiam S. Greg. lib. 35. Moralium in Job cap. 12. verò voluntas propria mactatur Obedience is preferred before sacrifice because in sacrifice other things in obedience our owne wils are kill'd that is mortified and offered to God And therefore the night before our deare Saviour was made actually obedient unto death hee discovered two wills in one soule His humanity having a revelation of what he was to suffer and now sweating bloud in the serious contemplation of it his inferiour will cried out O my Father if it be possible let this Mat. 26. 39 cup passe from me But the superiour will soone ended the controversie neverthelesse not as I will but as thou wilt The inferiour will was it selfe in the reasonable part or it could not have beene capable of such a high kinde of willing A little more obedience to Christ and his law would not ill become those great Professors of obedience Christ alloweth us to runne in our own defence but not to resist if the power be lawfull that opposeth us and we subjected to it and if it commeth from God it would be lawfull though it should not doe lawfully what it doth lawfull in it selfe though not lawfull in the exercise of it selfe and it can not be resisted in the exercise but it must be resisted in it selfe for power is never seene in it selfe but altogether in the exercise of it selfe CHAP. 12. IT is the course of the Jesuits at St. Omers to send every yeare in the time of Harvest two missions of English Schollers into remote parts of the Christian world one to Rome in Italy And another to Valladolid or Sevil in Spaine and these places in Spaine receive their missions by turnes In all these places are English Colledges Whereof the Superiours or Governours are Jesuits the rest Schollers chalked out for secular Priests By secular Priests I understand not regular Priests neither Jesuits nor Monks nor Friars but Priests without any farther addition whose primarie charge in their
and for us all MEDITATION III. ANd the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his Gen. 2. 7. nostrhils the breath of life and man became a living soule For when the Angels enriched with such absolute gifts and dowries of nature by occasion of their shining and beautifull nature had lost and lost beyond recovery the fairest beauty under Heaven which is Grace God turning his Omnipotencie to the Creation of man made as if he feared the like inconvenience all that is visible in Him of Earth of base and foule earth Which lest it should continually provoke a loathing he hath changed into a more fine substance covered all over with a fair and fashionable skinne but with a condition of returning at a word and halfe a call from Heaven unto Earth and into Earth That although he might afterwards be lifted up in the scale of his soule hee might be depressed againe presently on the other side by the waight and heavinesse of his body and so might lay the deep and low foundation of humility requisite to the high and stately building of vertue If now God should turn a man busie in the commission of some haynous crime into his first earth that presently in steed of the man should appeare to us an Image of clay like the man and with the mans cloathes on standing in the posture in which the man stood when he was wholly tooke up in committing that high sinne against God Should we not all abominate so vile a man of clay lifting himselfe against the great God of Heaven and Earth And God breathed upon his face rather then upon any other part of his body because all the senses of man doe flourish in his face and because agreeably to his own ordinance in the face the operations of the soule should be most apparent as the signes of feare griefe joy and the like wherefore one calls the eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most exact and accurate images of the Damascenus in vita Isidori minde But stay I grant that God in the beginning first rais'd all things by a strange lift out of nothing And I confesse it is true not that which Pythagoras his Schollers had so often in their mouthes Ipse dixit and no farther but ipse dixit facta sunt as the Prophet David singeth God spake the word and all this gallant world rose presently out of nothing as if sencelesse nothing had heard his voyce and obeyed him And I am sufficiently convinced that God brought our first Father from cōmon earth that we cannot touch without defiling our fingers to earth of a finer making call'd flesh But how are we made by him wee come a naturall way into the world And it is not seene that God hath any extraordinary hand in the work Truly neither are the influences of the Sunne and Starres apparent to us in our composition yet are they necessary to it Sol homo generant hominem sayes Aristotle The Sunne and a Arist man betwixt them beget a child The reasonable soule is created by God in the body at the time when the little body now shapen is in a fit temper to entertaine it For the soule is so noble and excellent both in her substance and operations that shee cannot proceed originally from any inferiour cause nor be but by creation And if God should stay his hand when the body is fitly dressed and disposed for the soule the child would be borne but the meanest part of a man And doubtlesse God useth Parents like inferiour officers even in the framing of the Body For if the Parents were the true Authors and master builders of the body they should be endued naturally with a full and perfect knowledge of that which they make They should fully and perfectly know how all things are ordered and fitted in the building They should know in particular how many strings veins sinewes bones are dispensed through all the body in what secret Cabinet the braine is locked up in what posture the heart lyeth and what due motion it keepes what kinde of Cookery the stomack uses which way the rivers of the bloud turne and at what turning they meet what it is that gives to the eyes the principality of seeing to the eares of hearing to the nose of smelling to the mouth of censuring all that passes by the taste and to the skin and flesh the office of touching Nor is this all But also when the body is taken up and borded by a sicknesse or when a member withers or is cut off truly if the Parents were the only Authors of the body they might even by the same Art by which they first framed it restore it againe to it selfe As the maker of a clock or builder of a house if any parts be out of order can bring them home to their fit place and gather all againe to uniformity So that every man naturally should be so farre skill'd in Physick and Surgerie and have such an advantage of power that his Art should never faile him even in the extraordinary practice of either To this may be added that the joyning together of the soule and body which in a manner is the conjunction of Heaven and Earth of an Angell and a beast could not be compassed by any but a workman of an infinite power For by what limited art can a spirit be linked to flesh with so close a tye as to fill up one substance one person They are too much different things the one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks a ray of the S. Greg. Naz Divinity the other a vile thing extracted from a dunghill Nor is there any shew of semblance or proportion betwixt them And therfore to make these two ends meet is a work which requires the hand and the onely hand of the Master Workman The Divines give three speciall reasons why God joyned a body to a soule First moved by his infinite goodnesse because he desired to admit a body as well as a spirit to the participation of himselfe and all creatures being spirituall or corporall a body could never have beene partaker of blessednesse had it not beene joyned to a spirit Secondly for the more generall exercise of vertue in the service of God for a soule could not have acted many vertues without the aide of a body as the vertues of temperance and chastity For the Devils are not delighted with the sinnes contrary to these vertues but for our guilt Thirdly the perfection of the universe For as there are creatures only spirits as Angels and creatures onely bodily as beasts and trees so it was a great perfection that there should also be creatures both spirits and bodies By which it is evident that God placed man in a middle condition betwixt Angels and beasts to the end he might rise even in this life with Elias to the sublime and superiour state of
singing her owne obsequies but because her skinne the root of her feathers and her flesh and entrals the organs of her musick were black he rejected her as an uncleane creature not worthy to teach the world The Ostrich likewise was esteemed profane and never admitted into Gods holy Temple because notwithstanding all his great and glorious furniture of feathers he cannot lift his dull and drossie body above the ground The Moone shineth but because it doth not heat it is not suffered to shine by day It is the property of good to shrowd and cover it selfe God the chiefest good though he filleth heaven and earth with his glory yet he will not be seene Christ though he was perfect God and equall to his Father yet nothing was ordinarily seene in him but a poore homely man Who ever saw the soul of a man his onely jewell as he is a man Christ said to his Apostles Yee are the light of the world And againe Let your light so Math. 5. 4 Ver. 16. shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven It must be light and therefore a true light not a counterfeit and seeming light it must be your light every mans owne light it must be a light by which men may see not onely the good light it selfe but also our good works by the light and it must shine onely to the end that our heavenly Father may be glorified All light is commonly said to be derived from the Sun and the cause of all our shining must be alwayes referred and attributed to God And truly when a man for example giveth almes kindled onely with an intention that his neighbour seeing him may glorifie his Father which is in Heaven his intention is cleane and sufficiently good but he must be a man of proofe that giveth place to such intentions for he lieth wide open to the ticklings of vaine-glory and hypocrisie But I feele a scruple Good example is highly vertuous and in some sort worthy of reward especially in persons of eminent quality because good example is more seene more admired and goes with more credit and authority in them and therefore doth more edifie in respect of the high conceit wee have of their wisedome and knowledge Now the hypocrite teacheth as forcibly by example as the sound and throughly vertuous man For we learne in the great Theater of example by what wee outwardly see and the hypocrite is as outwardly faire as the sincere Christian It seemeth now that an hypocrite doth please God in playing the hypocrite Not so because his intention is crooked for he doth not intend to bring an encrease of good to others but of glory to himselfe If good by chance break in upon his action it falleth besides his intention and it belongeth to Gods providence as to it 's proper fountain which crusheth good out of evill As likewise the prodigall man when hee giveth prodigally to the poore doth not intend to fulfill the law of God but to satisfie his owne wilde lust of giving St. John Baptist was a lamp burning and shining Which moved St. Bernard to say Ardere parum lucere vanum lucere ardere perfectum It is S. Bern. in Serm. de nativ S. Io. Bapt. a small thing to burne only a vaine thing to shine onely a perfect thing to both shine and burne Nothing is more naturally proper to the fire then to burne and in the instant in which it first burns it gives light Which is the cause of those golden words in Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the nature Synes Contra Androm of God to do good as of the fire to heat or burne and of the light to give light CHAP. 17. ANd certainly if we search with a curious and piercing eye into the manners of men we shall quickly finde that false Prophets and Deceivers are commonly more queint more various and more polished in their tongues and publike behaviour then God's true and faithfull Messengers who conforme themselves to the simplicity of the Gospel And if we looke neere the matter God prefigured these deceitfull creatures in the creation for hee hath an admirable way of teaching even by every creature it being the property of a cruell beast called the Hyaena to faine the voyce of a man But when the silly Shepheard commeth to his call he ceases to be a man teares him presently and preys upon him Each Testament hath a most fit example Ioab said to Amasa the head of Absolons Army Art thou in health my Brother Could danger lurk under the faire name of 2 Sam. 20. 9. Brother or could death hide it selfe under health a perfection of life They could and did For Ioab making forward to kisse him killed him and robbed him both of health and life whom hee had even now saluted with Art thou in health my Brother Surely he did not think of Cain when hee call'd him Brother Judas came to Christ and saying God save thee Master kissed him Hee talks of God and of Salvation Math. 26. 49. God save thee Hee confesses Christ to be his Master Hee kisses too And yet in the same act gives him up into the busie hands of his most deadly enemies Wherefore St. Ambrose one that had a practicall knowledge of the great difference of Spirits which hee had seene in their actions disswading us from the company and conversation of these faith-Impostors saith Nec vos moveat quod formam praetendere videntur S. Ambr. humanam nam et si foris homo cernitur intus bestia fremit let it not move you that they beare outwardly the likenesse and similitude of men for without a man appeareth but within a beast rageth And that which St. Hierome saith of a quiet Sea is of the same colour with the conceit of St. Ambrose Intùs inclusum est periculum intùs est hostis the danger is shut up within within is the S. Hier. ep ad Heliodor Enemy like a rock watching under a calme water St. Cyprian adviseth us to betake our selves presently to our feet and fly from them Simus ab eis tam seperati quà m sunt illi de Ecclesia profugi Let us fly as farre S. Cypr. in ep 3. lib. 1. from them as they have flowne from the purity of the Church and that 's a great way St. Cyprian in the same place exhorteth us very seriously not to deale with them not to eat with them not to speake with them O the foule corruption of our Times O for some zealous power that may reforme the abuses mine eyes have seene It is one of the first endeavours of the Papists in England which they exercise towards the society of men to gaine the good wills of Ministers For if they purchase the Ministers good will and good word they clip the wings of the Law hold him fast that hath a great stroke in matters concerning them
much approved in the Councell of Chalcedon Conc. Chalc. As when the body of man suffereth the soule indeed knoweth that and what the body suffereth but in it self remayneth impassible So Christ suffering in whom the Godhead was the Godhead in him could not suffer with him If as in God there are three persons and one nature and three persons in one nature so in Christ we consider two natures in one person and lay them out to their proper acts all is easily perceived Excellently Cyril of Alexandria alleaged in the first generall Councell Cyr. Alex. in Conc. Ephes 1. of Ephesus Factus est homo remansit Deus servi formam accepit sed liber ut filius gloriam accepit gloriae Dominus in omnes accepit potestatem rex simul cum Deo rerum omnium He was made man but he continued God he took the forme of a servant but he remayned free as a sonne he received glory but was the Lord of glory hee received power over all but was King together with God of all things With what a ready finger the holy Evangelists touch every particular string in the dolorous discourse of our Saviours Passion They were not ordinary men drawn every way with carnall desires but extraordinary persons carried aloft upon the wings of a divine spirit For in the relation of those things which manifested the glory of Christ and pertained to the demonstration of his God-head they do not stay they give a naked declaration and passe to that which followeth But in the cloudy matters of his disgrace and especially in the Funerall Song of his Passion they are copious and full of matter Which if they had vainly affected the glory of the World they neither should nor would have done Thus evidently shewing they did not glory in any thing but with Saint Paul in the crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ Saint Luke opening the glory of Christs Nativitie openeth and shutteth all as it were with one action And suddenly Luk. 2. 13 14. there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men That strange comming of the Wisemen or Eastern Princes Saint Matthew comes as quickly over And fell down and worshipped him And Mat. 2. 11. when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him Gifts Gold Frankincense and Myrrhe In blazing the Transfiguration of Christ they put it off without any blazing figure without a transfiguration of words as willing onely to insinuate that Christ opened a chink of Heaven and gave a little glympse of his glory before his Passion to prepare and confirme his Disciples And forced at last upon his Ascension it fals from them in short Hee was received Mar 16. 19 up into Heaven All which they might have amplified by the help of their infused knowledge which virtually contained the inferiour art of speaking with glorious descriptions But in the dolefull Historie of his Passion wee have a large discourse of apprehending binding judging buffeting whipping scorning reviling condemning wounding killing and if any thing slip under the rehearsall it is to be a scarff over the face and to shew the griefe could not be expressed and moreover to stirre mens thoughts to expresse more in themselves to which wee may referre that of Saint Luke And many other things blasphemously spake they against him These blessed Evangelists Luk. 22 65 proved themselves to be the true Disciples of Christ For Saint Matthew saith From that time forth began Iesus to shew unto Mat. 16 21 his Disciples how that he must goe to Hierusalem and suffer many things of the Elders and chiefe Priests and Scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day The Resurrection had but a very little roome and it should have had no roome had it not fitly served to sweeten the relation of his sufferings Hee did not much stirre his head in his passion without a Record without a Chronicle Saint Iohn saith hee bowed his head And thus doth the flower when it John 19. 30 beginneth to wither Hee bowed his head and gave up the ghost He bowed his head Stay there it is too soone to give up the ghost Father of Heaven wilt thou suffer this O all yee creatures help help your Creatour But they stir not because he hath bowed his head the most high and most majesticall part of his body Did hee bow his head Hee the great God of Heaven and of the World betrayed by his owne Disciple crucified by his owne people led by him to the knowledge of him when all the World was given into their own hands and brought by a strange and a strong hand out of Egypt the house of bondage the black figure of this World into the Land of Canaan the Land which flowed with milk and honey the beautifull Embleme of Heaven Did hee bow his head no instruments but his own creatures being used to his destruction when the weighty sins of the whole world were laid upon his guiltlesse back and when he could in one quick instant have turned all the World to a vain and foolish nothing And shall one of us dirty creatures frowne and be troubled lift up the head speak rashly and kick against the thorn moved by every small and easie occasion Shall we murmure and trouble all with the smoake and fames of angry words As thus for the deceits of the Devill are wonderfull If that Miscreant that shape of a man had not put my honour upon the hooke I had not beene troubled Such another man is not extant me thinks hee has not the face of an honest man The carriage of his body is most ridiculous God forgive me if I think amisse my heart gives mee hee never says his prayers Pray God he believe in Christ This makes the Devil sport What are we How soone we take fire how quickly we give fire how long we keep fire In what mists or rather fogs wee lose our selves Why did God send some of us now living into the World and not rather create us in glory if he did not mean we should passe through a field of thornes into a garden of flowers through the Temple of Vertue into the Temple of Honour by pain to pleasure MEDIT. 3. HE gave up the ghost They say men that die give up the ghost Did Christ die It cannot be Yes and more He died willingly like a meeke Lambe sobbing out his life For hee gave up the ghost it was not taken from him And therefore a good man hath not feared to say that Christ held his life by mayn strength some little while beyond the date of nature that it might not seem to bee taken from him by force of armes Greater love hath no man then this that a man lay downe his life for his friends Joh. 15. 13. Life is the last of all our possessions in this
a man a silly man to be the daily subject of other mens laughter and scorne let him consider that the God of peace dwelleth not in a troubled discontented soul And let him now come hither the shedding of this bloud shal satisfie still his anger for the bloud of Christ will breake the Adamant of his heart and let out the passion hee hath crushed water out of a Rock For what Lion-hearted man can be angry when hee calleth to mind how this innocent Lambe heaven and earth being moved above and beneath him remained calme in the midst and died in the fulnesse of content and patience and let him say come O come great example of sweetnesse open thy armes wide wider yet yet wider that I may run into the Circle of thy sweet imbraces O my beloved Lord I am a spotted Leopard and yet I am not for I am all black and one drop of thy cleane bloud will transform all into perfect beauty O God how beautifull are thy Tabernacles I will prayse thee in Jerusalem the holy Citie of peace Is a man a back-biter or a talkative person Let him seriously think that he hath out-done the Basiliske and killed where and when hee hath not seene let it sinke into him that hee scattereth coles and is able to set on fire a whole Kingdome for if all were known to all persons that is done and said the dearest friends would bare of their love and there would be little if any friendship amongst men let him observe that words which have flown out of one mouth flie from one mouth to another and never leave flying let him now come hither look upon him that opened his mouth in speech but seven times in three long houres upon the Crosse when happily another would have roared in the extremity and have declamed against the ravenous greedinesse of the Jewish cruelty let him here admire in silence for hee will see that which if hee would speak he could not speak worthily let him heere contemplate him that knew the darke hearts and secret sinnes of all the world and yet did not reveal them to his tongue And let him say Deare Lord and Master I perceive now that I am not master of my brother's good name and that I ought not to break silence and speak every true thing and though my neighbour hath stained his credit in one place yet if it be not wholly prostituted by him if it be not a general publike and over-spreading stain I may not recount his weaknesse in places where his good name is firme and entire or at least not bruised in that part O my blessednesse I will make a covenant with my lips and a branch of the covenant shall be My lips shall praise thee Is a man a lover of pleasure Let it enter into his heart that as money profiteth onely when it goeth from us so pleasure delighteth only when it passeth and that it passeth as it commeth and that never any earthly pleasure did please when it was past let him keepe in his minde that whosoever is overcome with the vain ticklings of pleasure is more busied in the exercise of those faculties which he hath common with beasts then of those in which he is like to Angels and in the inference is a man-beast and let him believe for it is certainly true that the greatest pain grief and torment which Christ suffered on the Crosse and all the time of his life rose from a fore-sight in which hee beheld how many would doat upon the short and lightning flashes of the World and how few-would cleave to the great and ever-during benefit of his passion and let him now come hither and fix upon him whose whole life was a map of misery and a sad history of pain who as he hung upon the Crosse suffered most heavy pains in every small part of his body died in pain and left to his Church a large legacie of most painfull sufferings and let him say O thou true lover of souls I will henceforth pursue pain more then pleasure I will prove my selfe to be a naturall member and suffer with my head O goodnesse make me conformable to thee and though I weep and bleed and beare crosses and though I am born up my self from earth and all earthly pleasure on a Crosse I shall not repine at my condition because the servant is not more worthy then his Master Come all kinds of Sinners come on come neere the Crosse take a full view of this bloudy sacrifice offered once for all touch it lay your hands freely upon the wounds and bruises they belong to you Come let us fall down before him and tell him of what weake and glassie matter he hath made us how prone we are to slip what great enemies threaten our ruine that the quarrell is because wee beare his Image and that we are persecuted even to death only because wee are like to him and that in the matter it is his quarrell And then let us humbly dedicate our parts that have sinned to his service For doubtlesse hee that suffered Magdalene to wipe his feet with her hair so often kemb'd sweetned tied up in knots let downe in books and spread in Nets to catch the carelesse youth of Ierusalem and the Country will not reject you or mee or yours or mine Hee that hath feet which have beene swift to shed bloud and quicke in accomplishing the acts of sinne let him kisse these feet and beg part of the satisfaction which they have made for the sinnes of the feet hee that hath hands dipped in bloud and bathed in all the sinks of mischiefe let him kisse these hands and beg part of the satisfaction which they have made for the sins of the hands hee that hath set the casements of his curious eyes wide open to vanitie and never shut them against vaine and wanton fights let him kisse these eyes hee that hath eares blistred with slanders and blurred with foule discourses let him kisse these eares he that hath a mouth plenum amaritudine full of bitternesse delibutum mendaciis bedaub'd with lyes and besmear'd with oaths let him kisse this mouth and beg part of the satisfaction which this mouth hath made for the sins of the mouth he that hath a heart fraught with ill habits and alwayes at worke in hammering sinne let him kisse not with his lips but with his heart this wounded side and a mingled drop of bloud and water from this royall heart shall meet the lips of his heart while hee beggeth part of the satisfaction which this heart hath made for the sinnes of the heart Come all the dying man refuseth no living man you beggar with the crutch come forward no man woman or childe is excepted from the fruit of his passion Every one that is endued with a reasonable soule hath title to it It is only required that we believe in him and keep his Commandements for we ought
that talkes thus Another dwelling upon earth hath his dealing in Heaven amongst the Stars and teacheth for a truth that if we are born under such or such a constellation such and such strange things will certainely befall us we shall die suddenly by fire or by water or by a fall of a house or from a house or be the prey of a Lion And this profound man is certaine that if a Starre should loose hold and tumble downeward it would more then cover all the world and then sayes he where should we be And the plaine meaning people are amazed when they heare him say that the Sunne runnes some hundreds of miles in an houre But this heavenly man standeth above himselfe and above the sight of the creatures at hand which first offer themselves to his thoughts and knowes not what is here below Others cast themselves beneath themselves and their soules and are wondrously taken up in the curious inquisition of inferiour matters The wise Physitian is able to reveale the great mysteries of nature and the naturall uses of almost all naturall things but urge him upon a tryall and he cannot prescribe Physicke to his owne sick conscience Where is a Tradesman that doth not understand the secrets of his own Trade far better then the secret state of his own soule These wretched people have tooke a fall and are under themselves they faile in the first ground and foundation of all true learning A man may wisely aske the question Why in the blinde ages before Christ the Devill speaking from the mouths of Images gave to men many good and solid documents The maine hinge upon which the question turneth is The Devill not onely doth evill but also doth altogether intend evill what then hath hee to doe with good I will take the true answer The Devill well knew that the world was even then abundantly stored with grave and wise people who were also morally vertuous and that if he did not answer in some sort to their pious and reasonable expectation he would soone lose the reputation of a God And therefore amongst divers other sound instructions delivered by the Devill in oracles this also was given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know thy selfe In which the Devill more willingly dispensed with a shew of sanctity as knowing that his admonition would in the end prove uneffectuall because no man can truely know himselfe without the present assistance of Grace of which the poore Heathenish people were altogether destitute Our blessed Lord whose end was to dissolve the machinations of the Devill doth as strangely as excellently exhort us to the deepe and powerfull knowledge of our selves not in word but in worke in the working of a miracle It is written that he restored a man to sight blinde from his birth How did he restore him by his will onely No◠by his word onely nor so The manner of the cure is uncovered in these words He spat on the ground and made clay of the John 9. 6. spittle and he annointed the eyes of the blinde man with the clay But let me see is it clay touch not my eyes with clay it will rather put them out then cure them Now I understand it our omnipotent Lord here worketh by contraries that it may bee knowne not the thing applyed but the power of him that applyed it wrought the cure while he clearely teacheth us that the knowledge of our selves and of our meane foundation being as Job speaketh earthly with a requisite application to our selves is the onely instrument which openeth the eyes of a man blinde from his birth as we all are And why doth our good Saviour so pressingly stirre and invite us to the knowledge of our selves It is but one step to the reason Knowledge puffeth up saith S. 1 Cor. 8. 1. Paul All knowledge puffeth us up and swelleth us with pride but the knowledge of our selves When we spread our feathers of pride and ostentation if we but glaunce upon the knowledge of our selves our plumes fall and we begin to be humble Meditation 2. MAn considered in his body is a refined peece of dirt A strong one no. For make his image of stone or wood or almost of any vile thing and it will bee more strong more durable then he I will set aside holy Scripture and prove my selfe to have beene made of earth beyond all contradiction Every corruptible thing and I may go to a dead mans grave and finde that I am a corruptible thing when it naturally perisheth turneth into that of which it was made I perishing after a naturall manner turne into earth the conclusion will follow I cannot hold it therfore I was made of earth If I consider man in his birth and life it is the great blessing of God to his great praise be it spoken that he is not ante damnatus quam natus condemn'd before he is borne He is borne with the great paine of his poore mother that beares him and he cannot bee made more naked more poore then he was when he was borne If a man should looke upon him here and know nothing hee would little thinke that the little thing could ever be the wilde Author of so many foule stirres and tumults in the world A child being born is cast out a poore naked thing Plin. in prooem ad l. 7. natali die as Plinie sayes on his birth-day Hee makes his birth-day a day of mourning Procellas mundi quas ingeditur saith Saint Cyprian statim suo ploratu gemitu rudis anima testatur The new-borne S. Cypr. de patientia childe presently gives testimony to the storms of this world by his teares The Emperours children of Constantinople though borne in a chamber called the Purple because on every side adorned with purple through received from the mother so quickly into purple that they seemed to be born in little robes of purple and therefore stiled Porphyrozenites to hide the nakednesse and take away the scandall of nature yet notwithstanding all this shuffling and ruffling of purple they came into the world as other children all naked and with little teares in their eyes to shew they were then upon travelling from their maker Man that is borne of a woman saith Job is of few dayes and full of trouble Every man was borne of a woman but Adam and it was not Gods highest will that he should have been either of few dayes or full of trouble It is a great while before we can goe before we can speake before we can make it plaine that we differ in the maine point from beasts and are reasonable creatures before wee know any thing And then endeavouring to know we learn evill easily good with great paine And in our first lesson which the world giveth us we learne to sinne What is that to breake the Divine Law and forefeit our soules to eternall damnation And yet as it is in Job Man drinketh iniquity like water the
life still running upon the wheel which I dare not wilfully breake Nor yet are all creatures made for the necessary maintenance of life For although the foure Elements are requisite to the due continuance of it yet man may subsist and stay in being man without many creatures in them which God hath provided not to comply with necessity but to conforme with delight if embraced in a fit measure and if we deale in them as Bees traffick in honey diligently observing that our wings be not entangled and catched therewith our wings of prayer and contemplation by which we rise from earth to heaven from the creatures with a great flight to the Creatour And God made many things otherwise then we use them Gold and Jewels were hid in the earth from mans sight as if God had beene unwilling they should be found And therefore Boetius Boet. Metr S. lib. 2. complaines Heu primus quis fuit ille Auri qui pondera tecti Gemmasque latere volentes Pretiosa pericula fodit Alasse what unhappy man was that who first digged up covered Gold and shamefast Jewels that desired to lie hid being pretious dangers And all the shining colours of cloth that so mock our eyes from what a white simplicity are they fallen For to argue with Saint Cyprian Neque enim Deus coccinas aut purpureas oves fecit God made not Sheep S. Cypr. l. de disciplina habituvirginum from which we take our Wooll of a Purple or Scarlet colovr but plaine innocent white And almost all the bravery that wee see in the world was brought by idle Art into fashion But to returne from whence I set forth All things were made for us and our end and we may see though they goe severall wayes how justly they meete all in their end Wee are the onely visible creatures that swarve from the maine end which is God Consid 7 And all things as flames of fire point alwayes upwards and like heavenly signes besides the knowledge of themselves reade us lessons of Gods power And although God became a Creatour to divulge his power and that glory might bee given to him yet God is not proud For therefore we are proud because we exalt our selves above our selves and snatch that glory to us which is due to God and pertaining to him by way of royalty But God cannot lift himselfe above himselfe Nor take from any that is above him because he has the first place And in good sooth this Book of creatures if it may have a name may be entitled a large description of the Divine power Bring me to a Man or a Spirit under God that can create a bramble a small haire of a mans head or an ignorant worme Besides these creatures of God are so strange and admirable in themselves and such plaine emblems of Gods wisedome that although we who are bred up by little and little to them and see them first when we have not the exercise of reason to judge of them are by daily use and the ignorance of our child-hood brought up to a custome of not considering them and their Author as wee ought yet if God should create a man in the ripenesse of perfect age when reason hath gained the Scepter as he did Adam doubtlesse he would be transported with admiration of every thing hee saw so excellent and so perfect is every thing in its kinde He would first admire this light the first faire creature and the first thing that would come in his eyes Thence he would looke up to the Sunne Then quickly spread his dazling eyes upon the heavens and cry O wonderfull Thence fall againe to earth where hee would be exceedingly taken with the strange sight of Trees Birds Beasts Fishes to which a leafe feather haire scale is not wanting of fire and of its active flames which wonderfully beget one another of aire that we take into our bodies and yet see not of water that comes in drops and runs away in flouds of all things of every thing And most of all himselfe would wonder at himselfe His tongue would alwayes be striking the same stroke and he would still be saying Who made these things Where is he that made them I would faine speake with him and behold how excellent he is in his being being so excellent in his wisedome He would marvell how a plant or flower should grow and yet not be seene to grow but to have growne a beast goe pulling up and letting downe his legges in a strange order a bird move and make circles in the aire without falling a fish swim over-head in the water without being strangled how a man should speake and by a little noise from his mouth exactly know the minde of his companion And all things which we doe not admire because we have seene them being children before we could aske what God was this new-created man would not passelightly over as Alexanders foot-man over the sands without leaving the print of his foot-step but would constantly fix and dwell upon and would never stirre from them except in a journey to the Creatour and backe againe For infallibly in their degrees they are all perfect and good all worthy of admiration and had God beene ignorant and not knowne them before he made them he also had admired them but he admireth not himselfe because nothing is strange to him And moreover God made all creatures to demonstrate his perfection all the perfections that are distributed amongst creatures being united in God as the beames of the Sunne though spread upon all the world through Sea and Land yet meet all in the Sunne and never was a beame of the Sunne divided from the Sunne or held from returning to goe on its journey with the Sun And therefore as we for the weaknesse of our eyes can better take a sight of the Suns fairenesse and perfection by looking upon it at second hand on the earth and perceiving the comfortable effects it worketh both in aire water and Earth so likewise for the debility of our understanding wee can better study Divinity in the great volume of creatures then in God himselfe and in his owne originall brightnesse with which our understanding may not consort as it is For in himselfe hee is best knowne to us by not being able to be knowne of us of whom we can scarce say any thing but by way of negation as denying those imperfections to be in him which we finde in creatures at least in an imperfect manner and as they are in them O our Father which art in Heaven I have found thee even in the creatures here on earth Consideration 8. THe Prophet David beginneth one of his Psalmes it is the first stroke in the Musick The Heavens declare the glory of Ps 19. 1. God and the Firmament sheweth his handy worke And by this he declares unto us the Divine doctrine these noble creatures give us both of the Glory and Power of God
It followes The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule By which he shewes that Vers 7. the knowledge we gather from creatures is imperfect and blurred with spots because the perfections of earthly things are alwayes mingled with imperfections and are much imperfect compar'd with heavenly And therefore the knowledge of God by creatures did not convert the soules of the old Philosophers because they still wanting the sight of the perfections figured brought all to the rule of sense and would not give a necessary step from what they saw to the better things which could not be seene But the Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule It is the memorable saying of Saint Austin that Socrates a morall Philosopher long before Christ had some S. Just Apolog 1. respect to Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being in part knowne of him And doubtlesse he points at his knowledge of God in creatures but it was in part he knew him by halfes and therefore the knowledge of halfe God could not save all Socrates and if not all Socrates no part of Socrates It is my part so to contemplate the creature that I doe not stick in it nor stumble at the imperfection of it but ascend from the creature towards or to the Creatour Towards the Creatour as thus I behold a worme crawling upon the ground what sayes he I may say nothing He sayes as much as I can say He sayes I am a little long thing without any difference or beauty of parts I creep all the day long I eate dirt and that is all my cheere I beare no Image of God but only a small print of his foot-step and therefore I know I was not made for him but for men that follow him in his foot-steps and they looke another way and tread upon me and there I dye and cease to be Gods living creature O man use me as thou pleasest I am thine but let me I pray thee be an occasion to thee of doing God some little service Blesse him at least for my creation and for thy owne more perfect and thanke him heartily that he would give the little worme to creep Had I a tongue as thou hast let me tell thee I would blesse him both for thee and me Had I been made looking upwards how happy should I have beene both here and hereafter To God as thus when I looke upon the Sunne I will comment upon it after this manner The Sunne is one God is one The Sunne enlightens all the World God fils all the Word and all inward light is either of Nature Faith or Grace and this is a threefold excellencie comming onely from the blessed Trinity The Sunne warmes powerfully God comforts efficaciously The Sunne melts the Snow hardens the earth the one is pure the other uncleane God workes diversly upon the just and unjust melting the one and in a good sense hardning the other The Sunne shines equally upon all creatures but some creatures being more clear receive his beams more perfectly God excepts no creature from his protection and ordinary providence but some being apt and disposed to receive more beauties and helps from him The Sunne is not defaced by spreading his beames upon the mire God is not debased by stooping to his work in these inferiour things The Sun is hindered from shining upon us by mists and clouds which rise from the earth The clouds of our sinnes rising from our earthly corruptions keepe off the beames of Gods grace from us The Sunne sets but rises againe God hides himselfe a while but he will not be long absent Heavinesse Ps 30. 5. may endure for a night but joy commeth in the morning And would I require a more exact visible Image of God He that cannot reade can reade in Gods great booke of creatures if he has eyes where the hand is faire and every letter a great one Away with these brazen stony and woodden Images of God Be they silver ones away with them The Sunne is an Image of God of Gods owne making and a more compleat Image of God then the wit or Art of man can frame set in a high place over all the World and to be seene by all almost every day imitating God also in the spreading and distribution of his goodnesse and yet no kinde of law will give us leave to worship and adore the Sunne O but God never appeared in that likenesse Shall I worship a Dove or the Image of a Dove because the holy Ghost appeared in the likenesse of a Dove It exceedingly behoves me to looke about me above me under me before me behinde me on each side of me within me O that I could beate it into my heart Every where I shall finde the wonderfull workes of God wonderfull because not knowne not knowne either in themselves or in that they signifie It is proper to God to ordaine not onely that words may signifie things but also that one thing may signifie another a thing in the World a thing in Heaven or elsewhere a thing present a thing to come The best of us hath but one life to live and that being once ended he shall never see Gods creatures in this order and after this fashion againe Is this a World wherein to be idle and to complaine so often we know not how to spend our time I am amaz'd at my selfe at all people If God should say to me Goe to the end of the World till you can finde no more land or sea that you may be sav'd and goe bare foote and goe upon thornes would I not goe And yet I now stand idle when his creatures come home to me and are with me wheresoever I am Lord teach my hands and my heart to work Consideration 9. WE are sent hither by the way of Father and Mother being neither wholly intellectuall as Angels nor altogether sensible as beasts but a mixt and compounded thing under the name of reasonable creatures By Reason we perceive with a searching eye what we commonly see heare or otherwise conceive and in some hard things not plaine to the first view of reason we step from confuse to cleare a minus noto ad magis notum from a lesse perfect to a more exact knowledge by discourse The Angels have lesse occasion of discourse then we because their naturall knowledge is in it selfe so marvellously plaine and moreover is illustrated with such variety of supernaturall lights whereof some are constant to them some come when they are sent that it representeth many things to them in a faire character and in the lumpe which we are forced to bring together and home to our knowledge by discourse The beasts have no ground fuell or instrument of discourse For their knowledge is darke and besides that it is alone can passe no way but by the common doores of the senses And thus for the defect of sound knowledge not knowing the true depth of any thing
which cryeth to God onely for helpe which is throughly obedient for Gods sake to lawfull authority bee it amongst Heathens which doth not permit and countenance sinne by which onely God is dishonoured And she cannot be the cleane spouse of Christ which God and his Truth being infallible performeth the most high and most reverend Acts of religion upon uncertainties As prayeth absolutely for a soule turned out of the body without a certaine knowledge of her being a determinate friend or enemy of God And worshipeth that with the worship of God for God which if the Priest be deficient in his intention or defective in his orders is in her owne opinion a creature And she is not the faire spouse which hath lost her attractive beauty and which all Jewes and Infidels hate and abhorre justly moved at least with a notorious shew of Idolatry And therefore I beleeve that the Church of England is the Spouse of Christ as being free from these blemishes and conformable to Scripture And in the defence of this Faith I stand ready to give up my sweete life and dearest bloud And if I die suddenly to this Faith I commend the state of my eternity An Act of hope in God I doe hope in God because hee is infinitely full of goodnesse and is like a nurse which suffereth pain in her brests till she be eased of her milke because hee is most able and most willing to helpe me because he hath sealed his love with most unbreakable promises and because hee knoweth the manifold changes and chances of the world the particular houre of my death and the generall day of judgement in all which I hope greatly this good and great God will deliver me An Act of the love of God I such a one in perfect health and memory able yet to revell in the world to enjoy wealth and pleasure to scrifice my body and soule to sensuality doe contemne and lay under my feete all goe behinde me Satan sworne enemy of Mankinde and love God purely for himselfe For put the case he had not framed this world or beene the prime cause of any creature in it put the case hee had never beene the Author of any blessing to mee yet excellencie and perfection of themselves are worthy of love and duty and as the object of the understanding is truth so the object of the will is goodnesse and therefore my will shall cheerefully runne with a full career to the love of it Saint Austin S. Aug. hom 38. hath taught me Qui amicum propter commodum quodlibet amat non amicum convincitur amare sed commodum He that loves his friend for the profit he reapes by him is easily convinced not to love his friend but the profit Wherefore although I should see in the Propheticall booke of the divine Prescience my selfe not well using the divine helpes not rightly imploying the talents commended to my charge and to be damned for ever yet still I would love him away ill thoughts touch me not I would insomuch that if it were possible I would even compound and make to meet hands the love of God and damnation For although I were to be damned yet God could not be in the fault and though I should be exceedingly miserable by damnation he would yet remaine infinitely good and great by glory and though I did not partake so plentifully of his goodnesse yet many others would O Lord I love thee so truely that if I could possibly adde to thy perfection I freely would but because I cannot I am heartily glad and love thee againe because thou art so good and perfect that thou canst not be any way more perfect or good either to thy selfe or in thy self And I most humbly desire to enjoy thee that thy glory may shine in mee and that I may love thee for ever and ever It grieves me to thinke that if I should faile of thee in my death I should be deprived in Hell not onely of thee but also of the love of thee Note pray that other vertues either dispose us in a pious way towards our neighbour as justice or doe order the things which are ours and in us as many morall vertues or they looke upon those things which appertaine to God as Religion or they direct us to God himselfe but according onely to one Attribute or peculiar perfection As the vertue of Faith giveth us to beleeve the divine authority revealing to us Gods holy truth Hope to cast Anchor upon his helpe and promises But with charity or the love of God we fasten upon all God with respect to all his perfections we love his mercie justice power wisedome infinity immensity eternity And faith hope patience temperance and other vertues leaving us at the gate of Heaven charity enters with us and stayes in us for ever An Act of Humility O Lord if others had beene stored with the divers helpes the inspirations the good examples the good counsell the many loud cals from without and yet from thee which I have had they would have beene exceedingly more quicke more stirring in thy service Many Acts which I have thought vertues in me were onely deedes of my nature and complexion My nature is be spotted with many foolish humours I am unworthy dust and ashes and infinitely more unworthy then dust and ashes A Sinner I am not worthy to call thee Father or to depend in any kinde of thee to live or to be The foule Toade thy faire creature is farre more beautifull then I a Sinner-Toade Verily if men did know of me what thou knowest or what I know of my selfe I should be the rebuke and abomination of all the world An Act of resignation to the will of God Whither shall I flie but to thee O Lord the rich store-house of all true comfort The crosse which seemeth to me so bitter came from thy sweet will Can I be angry with thy good providence Is it not very good reason that thy royall will should be done in earth as it is in heaven And though perhaps it was not thy direct and resolute will that all my crosses should in this manner have rushed upon me yet the stroke of the crosse being given it is thy direct intention that I should beare it patiently I doe therefore with a most willing hand and heart take Gaule and Vineger delivered by thy sweete hands I doe kisse and embrace both the Giver and the gift And moreover give up my selfe and all that I have to the disposition of thy most sacred will health wealth that which I best love here and liberty and life and all are ready when thou callest Crosses are good signes For the more I suffer now the greater I hope shall be my glory And therefore to thee be the glory An Act of content I am fully and absolutely contented O Lord with thy glory And it is the head of all my comforts that thou art God and doest raign over us And
Priest came to me having in his company one habited like an English Minister and the maine point of his businesse broke out in these words See how God provides for his Church you have left us and here is one comming to us from that for the love of which you forsooke us And thus speaking he pointed to the Minister The Gentleman is now beneficed with us and therefore you shall not know his name though you are acquainted with his fault because God hath hid many of my faults from those that know my name Yet I like not that he so much savoureth of the Popish practise as to stigmatize me with the brand of insufficiencie in matter of learning wheresoever he commeth For if he were come quite home to us hee would be one heart and soule with me and draw the practise of his life more neare to his parts both of nature and learning in both which whatsoever I am he is not unable though both he and the Priest were of a most horrid life Let Men and Angels heare me If any member of the Church of Rome or England can make it plaine to the reason of competent and fit Judges that from the day wherein I first gave my necke into the yoke of the Papists to this houre I have committed any scandalous action scandalous in the judgement of the Church of England and moreover have not lived a wary sober and recluse life I will restore againe the little I have received from the Church of England and begge my bread all the dayes of my life Let them goe to my lodging-places in the City and to my Parish in the Countrey they are well knowne and when they come home againe convince me either of immodesty intemperancie idlenesse or other such crime and I will turne begger in the very day of my conviction And yet I know that the Church of Rome will set mee out and Reader remember my Prophecie in the forme of a foolish madde ignorant shallow and odiously wicked creature And I am all this but they know it not And even now I play the foole for in the defence of my selfe I commend my selfe But I trust my intention is rather to defend the honour of the Church from which I did once cut my selfe and to which God hath joyned mee againe I have heard it spoke in the corners of their Colledges that they presently write the lives of persons who revolt from them and put them and their actions in a strange habit I shall be joyfull to reade my life that I may weepe for my sinnes and blesse God for my deliverances but if it be not written truely he will write it that best knowes it If they come with falshoods I shall more and more detest them and their Religion and beleeve that all their good purposes in the service of God are but Velleities Wils and no Wils Wils which would but will not I desire peace if it may be granted with good conditions I was bound to satisfie good people and stop the mouths of the evill To many hath beene denied the use of a sword but no man ever was prohibited to use a buckler because a bucklar is ordained only for defence and in our defence we kill and yet are not thought to commit murder CHAP. III. GGD hath brought me home with a mighty hand Had I sailed from Rome one day sooner as my purpose was I had certainely beene carried away by the Turkish Gallyes which swept away all they met the day before I passed I was dangerously sicke in my journey towards England at Ligorne but God restored me The Ship in where I was ranne a whole night laid all a long upon one of her sides And another time began to sinke downright I fell into the hands of theeves by the Sea-shore that would have killed mee and all in my journey towards England And after all this and much more I am a convert to the Church of England in a time which needs a man of a bold heart and a good courage like my selfe to resist the craft encroaching and intrusion of Popery Let a great Papist remember his ordinary saying that he beleeved God would worke some great worke by me And I have great hope that the Church wil be pleased to look upon me and fixe me where I may best be seene and most be heard I am not of their minde that move and sue and labour in the atchievement of that which ought to bee cast upon them The Lord knowes that although the Church of Rome accuseth mee of ambitious thoughts a small being in a fit place is the top of all Con. Aqusgr can 134 The Councel of Aix my wishes A Councell said Meminisse oportet quia columba est in divinis Scripturis Ecclesia appellata quae non unguibus lacerat sed alis pie perculit We ought all to remember that the Church is stiled in holy Scripture an innocent Dove for her gentlenesse which chides rather then teares and having chid is friends again presently and receives with all gentlenesse Yet I am bold to say that it would be a noble worke to provide for the present reliefe and entertainment of Shollers who shall afterwards desert the Church of Rome and cleave to us The Church of Rome doth exceedingly bragge of her charity in that part when it is certaine their common aime if not their chiefe aime is the strength and benefit of their private body wherein they are all as one that they may stand the faster I owe my prayers and in a manner my selfe to many great personages The Lord pay them againe what I received of them in that money which goes in Heaven And persons of ordinary condition refreshed me above their condition Let him for whose sake they were so pious reward them I would the Levite had beene as earnest as the Samaritane CHAP. IIII. ANd being come to the Arke I desire not to settle onely upon the top of the Arke but to come into it and be pliable in all points If I have committed an errour in this booke I shall presently correct it after the least whisper of admonishment which may have beene easily committed because I have not used other books borne with a desire of haste but was contented with part of my owne papers and certaine extractions out of the Popish Libraries I beleeve as the Church of England beleeves knowing what shee beleeves The Greek and Latin editions have in the 8. chapter of Genesis The Crow went out and returned not But the English agreeing with the Hebrew hath And he sent forth a Raven which went forth to and fro untill the waters were dried up from off the earth For he went out and now and then returned to the top of the Arke flew to and fro as Birds are wont And though the Dove also went out of the Arke yet because she could not finde cleane footing shee returned and He put forth his hand and took her and
which she saw not and which humane eye never saw which shall afford her satisfaction though not perfect her blessednesse according to S. Austin He that sees thee O God and thy workes in thee non propter illa beatior sed propter te solum is not more happy for seeing them in thee but for seeing thee onely She shall see as much as God hath set apart for her blessednesse and though she differ from others in her extension of sight she shall not desire to share equally with them because it is one of her perfections and indeed part of her blessednesse to rest perfectly upon the will of God from whence flowes a blessed peace From this beatificall vision or sight of Gods face shall flame out a most ardent love of God Wee behold in the world but certaine emblems of Gods mercie justice power and the like which are out of God and in creatures and yet the reflection sets us on fire with the love of God How then shall we burne in love towards him when we shall see all we see in God though not all in God in whom all is God Verily this love will have a Property above all loves For the lover of God in Heaven cannot but love him For having once seene him he cannot but look upon him and looking upon him he cannot but love him Many objects in this meane world meane in respect of Heaven at the first sight stirre us to love Looking we love and loving we looke and the more we look the more we love and the more we love the more we looke and we cannot tell for the time whether we looke more or love more Call away the soule that lookes upon God offer her a thousand worlds for the present and ten thousand hereafter Bring all the cunning enticements that the Devill can thinke of or that God can give him leave to forge make here an assurance of all that God can give besides himselfe bring Gods owne hand to it Go to her againe speak aloud tell her of another Heaven where although God is not to be enjoyed yet there are Angels to be seene and delights without number to minister pleasures that cannot be numbred Speake words as faire as the soule you speake to And cry with the Devill All Matt. 4. 9. these things will I give thee not over one world O poore O barren temptation but over as many worlds as God can make if thou wilt turne aside from God but a little a very little or winke out but one moment She will not she cannot not that she will not because she cannot or that she cannot because she will not but shee neither will nor can Nothing but Gods holy will can move her to turn aside or wink and that shee knowes is constant to her Happinesse O the basenesse of this world O the beastlinesse of our lusts and carnall desires O the vilenesse of our pride and filthy bravery How foule how sorbid how beggerly they are set in comparison with the fight of God in Heaven What poore things are they to take in exchange for eternall blessednesse Go go presently and sell your part of Heaven your part in God for these base things O the vanities of earthly Courts and kingdomes Give us God him him only him and let all go For in God we shall have riches without care honour without feare beauty without fading joy without sorrow content without vexation all good things not one after one but altogether and without the defects annexed to them in this imperfect world The Husband that loves the Wife of his bosome the Mother that loves the child of her wombe the children that love their Parents whose living Images they are the friend that loves his friend for whom he would endanger his life though he hath but one they may frame a conceit of the tender love of God to the soule and of the soule to God but they cannot entirely and comprehensively conceive it For upon earth we may love one man or woman most yet we may love others though not as the persons we love most and our love of others may have no respect to the person we love most and so our love may bee divided We cannot love two most 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato speakes there is but one best in all kindes one best one best-beloved But in Heaven our love shall settle with all the force it can make upon God where onely one is to bee loved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint Justin for Gods most perfect unity requires the perfection of a Monarchy It is the most perfect government where is one supreme Governour and therefore one God And though in Heaven we love Saints and Angels yet that love is a naturall branch of the love of God We love them because we love God we love them in God wee love God in them we love God for himselfe and we love them altogether for God But where a Trinity of persons is the Giver in the highest gift of all and the end of all other gifts there must appeare a trinity of gifts the sight of God the love of God and a rejoycing in God According to the good we receive and the intimacie of its connexion with us so natur'd is our joy It must then be the greatest joy when we shall perfectly enjoy the greatest good But what if the greatest good be all good shall we have all joy yes I write it with great joy all joy the sight of all all love all joy not that can be given or that can bee received but that we can receive Quicquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur whatsoever is received is received according to the capacity of the receiver And though perhaps some one or some few shall receive all that can be given to such a creature for God now gives himselfe out most freely yet they shall not receive all because no finite can receive an infinite nor all that a more perfect creature could receive It will be no small part of the soules joy that Gods will is done in his Saints in his Angels in the saved in the damned The righteous Psal 58. 10 saith the Psalmist shall rejoyce when he seeth the vengeance There cannot bee a knowledge and possession of God without great joy And will it not afford matter of great comfort to the soule to see in God the dangers of this world both spirituall and temporall which strengthened with a hand from Heaven she fairely passed When she thinkes being now in full security With such a plot the Devill assaulted me at such a time had not God beene in the combate with me on my side I had beene lost Had I runne such a course that runne in my head at such an houre I had runne head-long to Hell Had God call'd for me and for an account at such a day by land by sea when the sea roard the winds blew the rocks watcht