Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A42135
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Essayes and characters written by L.G.
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Griffin, Lewis.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing G1982A; ESTC R40526
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25,748
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100
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him more fit to be set upon a Farmers Hovel to scare Crows then to serve the King in his Royal pallace they are blots in a Princes Train who have nothing to set them forth but gay cloaths and impudent behaviour For they carrie the stalls of pedlers about their knees and of Tinkers in their foreheads Indeed rich Garments are fit for honourable persons but servants ought to imitate the vertues of their Masters and not the fashion of their cloaths That which becomes a King or Noble Man is not decent for a Peasant or base fellow the Lyons skin would not fit the Asse In wearing Apparel we must observe three Concords the first is when a mans apparel agrees with his birth the second when it agrees with his purse the third when it agrees with his parts or breeding He that wears apparel above his birth forgets his parents he that wears apparel above his purse undoes his children he that weares apparel above his breeding is guilty of a false concordance in the rules of morality and is a very incongruous gentleman It is a vulgar report perhaps a vulgar error concerning his excellency the Duk of Albermarle that he once wore a wooden sword in a velvet scabbard It would be a safer point of faith for the Country-men to believe that in there are wooden Courtiers in velvet Coats It was ingeniously observed by the Fabulist of the flye that though she boasteth of her nobility yet she lives only in summer a true Hieroglyphick of a Courtier that flourishes only in the summer of prosperity and in the Sun-shine of his Princes favour We read that flies were a plague to King Pharaoh and so have Parasitical Courtiers been to other Princes If Domitian had rightly understood this he would have purged his Court from the one as well as his chamber from the other In briefe a prophane Sycophant in a royal Court is a flie He was at first but a maggot generated in the Carcase of some decayd family But now friends intrest have given him wings that which he most desires is a silver hook and that which he best deserves is a hempen line and having these two he is a fit bait to fish for the Devill An Vniversity Bedle. CAnnot be defin'd like Qui Church for the word Est comprehends both his genus and difference He hath got just so much Latine as to call a congregation in which worke his mouth is often opened to very little purpose and never stopt without great cost There is nothing so much staggers his faith as our Saviours miracle of feeding the multitude with five loaves and two fishes and nothing so much stumbles his obedience as a day of publick fasting and humiliation had he been of the Kings counsel we should not have observed Lent He accounts no plague so terrible as famine no vertue so difficult as temperance and no Treason comparable to the conspiracie of the members against the belly He sits down at a feast as a moderator in that great dispute betwixt Os Ossis and Os Oris but he never sayes to the Respondent Abunde satisfecisti The hungry Sizers wish their knives as deep in his panch as his in the beef for he is like to leave them poore reversions his guts and Gown sleeves are like Scylla and Charybdis for that which misses the one falls into the other In the temples of the Heathens there were two Idols Bell and the Dragon In the Churches of the Christians there are two Hieroglyphicks Time and Death Amongst the Heathens the Bedle might have served for Bell because he is a great devourer and amongst the Christians he may be an emblem of time for he is Edax Rerum Yet in the Vniversity he is not Idolized but made a laughing-stocke He is a Jack a Lent to the merry Sophisters and a mark at which the Tripos and his bretheren shoot their fooles bolts The cock is not so much throwen at on Shrove-Tuesday as he on Ash-wednesday Yet he is a man whose conversation is void of offence for he never does wrong to any but his Breeches His practice is contrary to that of the Pharises for he makes clean the inside of cups and platters He is a great example of patience in suffering all those Iokes Ieeres Quirks tricks and abuses that are put upon him He makes use of them as sower sauce to make his sweet gains have the better relish In a word though he bear the outside of an Achademian he is a man better fed then taught having a fat paunch and a lean pate a full purse and an empty brain he employes his tongue to find his teeth work and his life is like that of a Swine he is alwaies either crying or eating A Phanatick IS a new name for an old Heresie one of the Dragons Angels who being cast out of Heaven is now come to make war upon earth He would have you believe that he fights for the Gospel although the Gospel forbids fighting he calls his Captain Jesus a Saviour when in truth he is Apollyon a Destroyer When he pretends to worship God he intends to Massacre his neighbours and like Pilate mingles blood with his sacrifices Thus he abuses our Gracious Kings Mercy by committing murder in the Streets for when Justice is dormant in the Court cruelty is rampant in the Citie Peace and Truth are the Jachim and Boaz both of Church and State The Phanaticke doth really pull down the one whilest he professes to build up the other He scatters his blasphemous Libels in the Streets and high wayes as they that are infected with the Pestilence doe their Caps Gloves and Hand-kerchiefs but amongst all the plagues of Aegypt there is none like his When Oliver Cromwell tolerated liberty of erroneous Opinions it was as when Epimetheus opened Pandoras box for the one let out as many Diseases upon the soul as the other upon the body The Opinions and judgements of men are like their faces Amongst all those Millions and multitudes in the world there is not any two so like but they may be known one from the other Yet a thousand several faces though by some small token they may be known asunder may every one of them have the Image of man and a thousand several souls though they differ in some slight notions and circumstantial points of judgement may all of them have the Image of God But the Phanaticks and all that prodigious off-spring of the Rumps Reformation are Monsters in Religion having not the right make and shape of Christians but either adding to or diminishing from the holy Scriptures Though they are Giants in Rebellion yet they are but Pigmies in Pietie Antipodes in Faith Deficients in what they ought to doe and believe and Redundants in what they ought not and mere Heteroclites in Divinity Religion that should be a matter of practice they have made a business of Controversie the Itch of disputing is grown to such a scab in the
Essayes AND CHARACTERS Written by L. G. LONDON Printed in the year 1661. TO THE READER READER I Suppose thou art now come into the Stationers Shop and inquirest of him if he have any thing that is new were Solomon at thy elbow he would tel thee there is nothing new under the Sun But it is common with Men as wel as children to long for a new nothing And therefore to satisfie thy humour he wil shew thee this Book perhaps for his own advantage he wil say it is a pretty piece if he does I will assure thee he is not of my opinion for whether it will be for his profit and thy pleasure or not I cannot tell I am sure it will not be for my credit It hath been the usuall Apologie of those who appeare in print that it was against their own wils and through the importunate desire of friends forsooth because the World should think them modest but our fault admits of no such lying excuse for it was meerly my own folly and rashnesse that hath thus thrust me upon the Stage of the World where I feare I shall be hiss'd rather then deserve a plaudite I confesse I would willingly have called in my Book when it were but half printed for it appeared unto me to savour more of Drollery then Divinity which my second thoughts or reflections did clearly apprehend I saw that there were but few pages and yet in those few more Errata's both of the Author and Printer then in some great Volumes a true Looking-glasse to represent my life and actions for my yeares have not much exceeded six and twenty and yet perhaps in this small span or little Epitome of age you may read more errors and miscarriages then in his whose years are written in folio and hath outlived fourscore but I hope Gods mercy will forgive the one and thy ingenuity pardon the other However I have now ventured to send it forth into the World and where it shall find entertainment I know not perhaps it may light into some Ladies lap and have so much honour as to possesse the place of her little Dog but let her beware how she handles it for if she be not vertuous It will bite her Yet I have not in any of these following discourses reflected upon any particular Person save only in the Character of a Scandalous Minister where I took for my Copy one whom I had some cause to know in the Country and who I think having an intent that I should draw his picture came to me at London to give me a second view of his Drunkennesse and swearing I had indeed limned him a little more to the life but that I thought it a sin to foul too much paper with so base a subject I have been too guilty of that already for alas whilest I was writing my mind was like a troubled Sea and therefore wonder not if my pen cast up mire and dirt To be too tart and satyrical hath been alwayes my infirmity I was once complained of to the Justices for going about to pistoll a blind Priest with an Ink-horn nor was it strange for might I have had the benefit of the Press no pistoll could have more wounded his body then my Inkhorn would have done his reputation Printing and Guns are two modern inventions the one as well as the other hath made the leaden Mine as distructive to mankind as the golden Men may be said to shoot from the Press as well as from the Artillery some like Jehu to wound others like Jonathan to warn that is either by writing of railing invectives or sober exhortations Polemicall discourses are like shooting at a mark which mark ought to be truth schismatical Pamphlets are Granado's Playes and Romances are squibs crackers which though they wound not with their bullets yet they blind with their powder Reader amongst which of these fire-men thou wilt rank me I know not only I beseech thee put on charity for thy spectacles and read on VALE A Table of the several Subjects of this Book VIZ. ☞ of Man in generall A religious Prince A reverend Divine A vertuous Woman A rigid Presbyterian A debauch'd Courtier An Vniversity Bedle. A Phanatick A Whore A happy Rustick A beastly Drunkard An ignorant old Man A Player A mechanick Magistrate A scandalous Minister A loyal Subject A Male-content A noble Spirit A bad Wife The Rump-Parliament Essayes and Characters Of man in general THis visible world is a great Book written by the hand of God for his own glory and mans use Every Creature is a leaf or page of this Volume but man is the picture of the Author set in the Frontispice He that abuses the Creature makes a base Comment upon a glorious Text but he that abuses himself goes about to deface and blot out the effigies of his Creator Man consists of a soul and a body which are never separated until death and meet not again till the resurrection It was the morning salutation of the page to King Philip Remember that you are a man that is that you have soule and body let the sloathfull man remember that he hath a soule that must be saved and let the proud man remember he hath a body that must die and then the one will not live like a beast neither will the other think himselfe to be an Angel The body is but the tent or cottage of the soul or rather that mantle which when the spirit like Elias ascends into heaven is cast down and left behind upon the earth and as it is said concerning celestial and terrestrial bodies so of these two The glory of the body is one and the glory of the souls is another What is it in which the body or flesh can glory 't is not strength beauty or age for in strength the beasts and fishes in beauty the plants and flowers in age the very Rocks and Stones doe far excel men In breife the body of man is but a brittle earthen vessel the center of diseases a daughter to corruption a sister to the wormes a tenant to the grave a little dust carried by the wind of his vital breath which when the wind ceases falls to the ground and rests in the bosome of the earth from whence it was Taken Thus the outward or carnal man is not an object of admiration but pitty He lies like Lazarus upon the dunghil of the earth his sins are his sores his righteousness his rags his friends that flatter him and his enemies that reproach him are all but dogs some bark some bite some fawn some lick his sores He came naked into the world and whatsoever he hath he beg'd it of Got and borrowed it of his fellow creatures His Pilgrimage is from Jerusalem to Jericho from the womb to the tomb his constant companions are vanity and vexation the one attends him in health and Wealth the other in sickness and poverty the one would draw him to