occasioneth a number of young hypocrites who else had neuer knowne any such sinne as dissimulation and had beene more knowne to the Common-wealth It is only ridiculous dull Preachers who leape out of a Library of Catechismes into the loftiest pulpits that haue reuiued this scornefull Sect of Atheists What Kings embassage would be made account of if it should be deliuered by a meacock and an ignorant Or if percase he send variety of Embassadors and not two of them agree in one tale but be deuided amongst themselues who will harken to them Such is the deuision of Gods Embassadors here amongst vs so many cow-baby-bawlers and heauy-gated luâ—…berers into the Ministry are stumbled vnder this Colledge or that Halls commendation that a great number had rather heare a iarring blacke-sant then one of their balde Sermons They boldly will vsurpe Moses chaire without anie studie or preparation They would haue their mouthes reuerenced as the mouthes of the Sybils who spoke nothing but was registred Yet nothing comes from their mouthes but grosse full-stomackt tautologie They sweat they blunder they bounce and plunge in the Pulpit but all is voyce but no substance they deafe mens eares but not edifie Scripture peradventure they come off thicke and three-folde with but it is so vgly daubed plaistred and patcht on so peeuishly speckt and applied as if a Botcher with a number of Satten Veluet shreds should clout and mend leather doublets and Clothbreeches Gette you some witte in your great heades my hottespurd Deuines discredit not the Gospel if you haue none damme vp the Ouen of your vtterance make not such a bigge sound with your empty vessells At least loue men of witte and not hate them so as you doe for they haue what you want By louing them and accompanying with them you shall both doe them good and your selues good They of you shall learne sobriety and good life you of them shall learne to vtter your learning and speak moouingly If you count it prophane to arte-enamel your speech to empeirce and make a conscience to sweeten your tunes to catch soules Religion through you shall reap infamy Men are men and with those thinges must be mooued that men wont to be mooued They must haue a little Sugar mixt with their soure Pills of reproofe the hookes must be pleasantly baited that they bite at Those that hang forth their hookes and no bayte may well enough entangle them in the weedes enwrap themselues in contentions but neuer winne one soule Turne ouer the auncient Fathers and mark how sweet and honisome they are in the mouth and how musicall and melodious in the eare No Orator was euer more pleasingly perswâ—…siue then humble Saint Augustine These Athists with whom you are to encounter are speciall men of witte The Romish Seminaries haue not allured vnto them so mâ—…ny good wittes as Athisâ—… It is the superaboundance of witte that makes Atheists will you then hope to beat them downe with fusâ—…y brown-bread dorbellisme No no either you must straine your wits an Ela aboue theirs and so entice them to your preachings and ouer-turne them or else with disordered hayleshotte of Scriptures shall you neuer scarre them Skirmishing with Atheists you must behaue your selues as you were conuerting the Gentiles All antique histories you must haue at your fingers-end No Phylosophers confession or opinion of God that you are to be ignorant in Ethnicks with their owne Ethnick weapons you must assayle Infinite laborinths of bookes he must runne thorough that wil be a compleat Champion in Christs Church Let not sloth-fauoring innouation abuse you Christ when hee sayd you must forsake all and follow him meant not you should forsake all artes and follow him Luke was a Phisitian and followed him Phisitians are the only vpholders of humane Artes. Paul was a Pharisie and brought vp in all the knowledge of the Gentiles and yet he was an Apostle of Iesus Christ. Though it pleased our louing crucified Lord during his residence heere vppon earth miraculously to inspire poore Fishermen and disgregate his gifts from the ordinary meanes yet since his ascention into heauen meanlesse miracles are ceased Certaine meanes he hath assigned vs which he hath promised to blesse but without meanes no blessing hath he warantized When the deuill would haue had him of stones to make bread he would in no kind consent no more will he consent of blocks and stones in these dayes to make distributers of the bread of life What are Asses that will take vpon them to preach without giftes but bread made of stones Euen as God sayd vnto Adam Hee should gette or earne his bread with the sweat of his browes so they that will haue heauenly bread enough to feed themselues and a family which is a congregation or flocke must earne it and get it with the sweat of their browes with long labour study and industry toyle and search after it No one Art is there that hath not some dependance vppon another or to whose top or perfection we may climbe without steppes or degrees of the other Humaine artes are the steppes and degrees Christ hath prescribed and assigned vs to climbe vp to heauen of Artes by which is Diuinity Hee can neuer climbe to the toppe of it which refuseth to climbe by these steppes No knowledge but is of God Vnworthy are wee of heauenly knowledge if we keepe from her any one of her hand-maydes Logique Rhethorique History Philosophy Musicke Poetry all are the handmaydes of Diuinity She can neuer be curiously drest or exquisitely accomplisht if any one of these be wanting God delighteth to be magnified in all his Creatures especially in al the excellentest of his creatures Artes are the excellentest of his creatures not one of them but descended from his Throne What saith Dauid Praise the Lord Sunne Moone praise him ye bright starrs praise him heauen of heauens waters that be aboue the heauens That is praise the Lord Metaphusicall Philosophy which art conuersant in all these matters Into the maiesty and glory of the Sunne and Moone thou seest the bright Starres predominance and moouing thou knowest the heauen of heauens and waters that be aboue the heauens in part though not at large thou comprehendest therefore praise him in all these Take occasion preachers in your sermons from the wonders and secrets these to include to extoll his magnificent name and by humaine artes abstracts to glorifie him Prayse yee the Lord thus Dauid proceeds yee Dragons and all deepes Fyre Hayle Snow and vapours stormy winds and tempests execute his word Mountaines hilles fruitfull trees and all Cedars Beasts and Cattell creeping thinges and fethered foules Princes and Iudges of the world young men and Maidens old men and Children prayse yee the name of the Lord. So that it is lawfull to execute his word that is in preaching of his word by similitudes and comparisons drawne from the nature property of all these to laud and amplifie the
such as fitteth farre-spent languorment manifest as it were in a dead-march her vntimely interment Forty yeares were expired after our Lords lifting vp into Heauen when the Temple-boasting Iewes elate in their owne strength began to pretend a wearines of the Romane regiment and coueted to raigne entire Lords ouer the Lords that raign'd ouer them Eleazer the Sonne of Anani the High-priest was the first that seminariz'd this hope of signiorizing and freedome amongst them Proudly he controlled Agrippa all the other Lieftenants droue them from their dignities to Rome to seeke succour and rescue and swayed ouer the multitude as the King and Father of their liues In the meane-while the Element was ouer-hung with prodigies GOD thought it not enough to haue threatned them by his Son but he emblazond the aire with the tokens of his terror No Starre that appeared but seemd to sparkle fire The Sun did shine all day as it is wont at his Euening going downe The Moone had her pale-siluer face iron spotted with freckle-imitating bloud-sprinklings and for her dim frosty circle a blacke inky-hood embayling her bright-head Ouer the Temple at the solemne feast of the Passeouer was seene a Commet most coruscant streamed tayled forth with glistering naked swords which in his mouth as a man in his hand all at once he made semblance as if hee shaked and vambrasht Seauen daies it continued all which time the Temple was as cleare light in the night as it had beene noone-day In the Sanctum sanctorum was heard clashing and hewing of Armour Whole flockes of Rauens with a fearefull croking cry beate fluttred and clasht against the windowes A hideous dismall Owle exceeding all her kind in deformity and quantity in the Temple-porch built her nest From vnder the Altar there issued penetrating plangorus-howlings and gastly dead-mens grones A goodly young Heyfer hal'd thither for a burnt offering being knockt downe and ready to be drest miraculously calued a Lambe The sacrificing kniues that diu'd into her entrailes wold afterwards by no meanes be cleansed but from her bloud as from mans bloud tooke vnto them an vnremoueable rust In the feast of Weekes in the inner receite of the Temple was heard one stately stalking vp and downe and exclaiming with a terrible base hollow voice Migremus hinc Migremus hinc è Templo emigremus Let vs go hence Let vs go hence out of this Temple let vs hie vs. What should I ouer-blacke mine Inke perplex pale Paper rumatize my Readers eyes with the sad tedious recitall of all the prognosticating signes of their ruine Stories haue lost and tyred themselues in this Story Should I but make an Index to any one Writer of them it would aske a Booke alone Some few abreuiated alleagements I will content my selfe with and so passe on-ward to more necessary matter Aboue and besides the Propheticall apparitions in ouer about the Temple in the Citty there happened no lesse note-worthy praedictions The East gate thereof which was all yron and neuer wont to be opened vnder twenty men together the dry rusty creeking of whose hookes and gymmes as it was in the opening might be heard a mile off now of the owne accord burst wide ope and being ope was twise more hard then before to be shut A base mechanicall fellow there was sprung out of the mud of the Communalty who for foure yeares together before the warres begunne went crying vp and downe Woe to Ierusalem and the Sanctuary thereof Woe to euery liuing thing that breatheth therein The wars once entred he got him on the wals and often re-iterating his stale-worne note adde thereunto Woe and thrice woe to my selfe and with that start a stone out of an Engine in the Campe and stopt his throate Many monstrous birthes at this instant were brought foorth in diuers places of the Citty sprung vp founts of bloud The Element euery night was embattailed with Armed men skirmishing and conflicting amongst themselues the Emperiall Eagles of Rome were plainly there displayed to all mens sight A burning sword also was set forth visibly bent against the Citty The strangest and horriblest tempests of thunder and lightning had they that euer was heard of The Earth left to be so friutfull as it wont No season but it exceeded his stinted temperature Euery thing rebelled against kind as thinking scorne to accommodate themselues to their vses that had so rebelled against the Lord. For all this there was no man that would gather himselfe no man that would depart from the ill worke he had in hand Ambulabant vt caeci quia Domino peccauerunt Their eies were ouer-filmed or blinded because they obeyed not their Maker NOw is the time that all Riuers must runne into the Sea that whatsoeuer I haue in wit or eloquence must be drayned to the delineament of wretchednesse The Romanes like a droue of Wild bores roote vp and forrage fruitfull Palestine That which was called the Holy Land is now vnhallowed with their Heathen swords Wherefore you Pilgrims that spend the one halfe of your daies in visiting the Land of Promise and weare the plants of your feete to the likenesse of withered rootes by bare-legd processioning from a farre to the Sepulchre vngainefully you consume good houres for no longer was Iudea a Land of Promise then her Temple stood Vespasians inuasion hath prophaned it a Mount of dead bodies ouer that Sepulchre is raised which you perigrinate to adore that Sepulchre you see is but a thing built vp by Saracens to get mony with and beguile votiue Christians They delude your superstition and make it their tributary slaue No Hog-sty is now so pollutionate as the earth of Palestine and Ierusalem Our Sauiours steps are quite vnsanctified in them and trodden out of sent by the irruptiue ouer-trampling of the Romanes A new story of flesh-manured earth haue they cast vpon it and made it no more the walke of Saints and Prophets but a poysonous nurcery of Beasts of pray and Serpents O God enlarge mine inuention and my memory sincerely and feelingly to rehearse the disornamenting of this mother of Citties Vnderstand that before the arriuall of Vespasian there were in Ierusalem three factions Eleazers which was the fundamentiue and first Iehochanans next and Schimeons the last Eleazer and Iehochanan the vngodliest that euer God made Schimeon except and hee might well haue beene Schoole-maister to Cain or Iudas hee was such a grand Keysar of cut-throtes From the noblest of the Iewes discended but his Nobility ere he came to it by his degenerate conditions he forfeited A man hee was that made a mockery of all Lawes and Religion and any thing which Authority forbad most greedily would embrace thinking as the best Pastures are hedged in the best Orchards wald about the best Mettals hutcht vp so there was nothing excellent but was forbidden and whatsoeuer was forbidden was excellent For malice or hatred he would not stab or murder men so much as against
they rid Miriam a Matron of great port and of high lynage discended hauing her receipt of digestion almost closed vp with fasting after she had sustained her life a large space by scraping in chaffe and muck-hils for beasts dung and that meanes forsaking her she had no other refuge of fosterment she was constrained for her liues supportance hauing but one onely sonne to kill him and roast him Mothers of London each one of you to your selues doe but imagine that you were Miriam with what heart suppose you could ye go about the cooquery of your owne children Not hate but hunger taught Miriam to forget mother-hood To this purport conceit her discoursing with herselfe It is better to make a Sepulchre for him in mine owne body then leaue him to be lickt vp by ouer-goers feete in the streete The wrath of GOD is kindled in euery corner of the Citty Famine hath sworne to leaue no breathing thing in her Wals without the Wals the Sword more vsurpeth then Famine Our enemies are mercilesse for we haue no eies to see our owne misery Not they alone besiedge vs but our sinnes also Fire and Famine afflict vs. We haue where-with-all to feed Fire and Famine but not where-with to feede our selues and our children My sonne my sonne I cannot relieue thee I haue Gold and Siluer to giue thee but not a pairing of any repast to preserue thee My son my son why should I not kill famine by killing thee ere Famine in excruciating thee kill mee O my deere Babe had I in euery limbe of mee a seuerall life so many liues as I haue limbes to Death would I resigne to saue thine one life Saue thee I may not though I should giue my soule for thee The greatest debt I haue bound thee to mee with is by bearing thee in my wombe I le binde thee to mee againe in my womb I le beare thee againe and there bury thee ere Famine shall confound thee I will vnswathe thy breast with my sharpe knife and breake ope the bone-walled prison where thy poore heart is lockt vp to be pined Those Chaines and Manacles of corruptiue bowels where-with thy soule is now fetterd will I free it from I will lend Death a false key to enter into the closet of thy breast Euen as amongst the Indians there is a certaine people that when any of their Kins-folkes are sicke saue charges of Physicke and rather resolue vnnaturally to eate them vp then day-diuersifying Agues or bloudboyling surfets should fit meale feede on them so do I resolue rather to eate thee vp my sonne and feed on thy flesh royally then inward emperishing Famine should too vntimely inage thee Would God as the men of Ephraim were not able distinctly to pronounce Shibboleth so I could not distinctly pronoune this sweet name of My sonne it is too sweet a name to come in slaughters mouth Though Dauid sung of mercy and iudgement together yet cannot I sing of cruelty and compassion together remember I am a Mother and play the murdresse both at once O therefore in my words do I striue to be tyrannous that I may be the better able to enact with my hands Sildome or neuer is there any that doth ill but speakes ill first The tongue is the encouraging Captaine that with danger-glorifying perswasion animates all the other corporeall parts to be ventrous Hee is the Iudge that doomes and determines the rest of our faculties powers are but the secular executioners of his sentence Be prest mine hands as Iaile-garding officers to see executed whatsoeuer your superior tongue-slaying Iudge shall decree Embrawne your soft-skin'd enclosure with Adamantine dust that it may draw nothing but steele vnto it Arme your selues against my son not as my son but my bed-intercepting Bastard begotten of some strumpet My heart shall receiue an iniunction imaginarily to disinherite him No relenting thought of mine shall retaine you with repentant affectionate humors I will bloud-shot mine eies that all may seeme sanguine they looke on Some dead man that is already slaine I le anatomize embowell the more to flesh my fiagers in butchering Ratifide it is bad-fated Saturnine boy that thou must be Anthropophagiz'd by thine owne mother Thou wert once the chiefe pillar of my posterity and the whole reliance of my name Well I hoped thou shouldst haue reuiued and new grafted thy fathers fame I expected Ierusalem should haue had a strong prop of thee And if at any time it were war-threatned thy right arme should haue re-tranquiliz'd and reioyc't it that the yong-men in their merry-running Madrigals and sportiue Base-bidding Roundelayes for thee should haue honoured mee That the Virgins on their loud tinternelling Timbrils and Ballad-singing daunces should haue descanted on my praises Mine age of thee expected all life-expedient necessaries My sight put not on yeares-dimnesse so soone as it would haue done onely trusting thou shouldst seale it vp when Death had dusked it My beauty-creasing cares and frowne-imitating wrinkles were wholy buried in the monumentall graue which I misdeeming deemed thy sword might dig me All these my airy-bodied expectations Famine hath dispersed I must enter thee thou canst not entombe me Thy little soule to Heauen must be sent to intelligence the calamity of Ierusalem God will haue pitty of thee and perhaps pitty Ierusalem for thee He surely will melt in remorse and wither vp the hand of his wrath when in his eares it shall be clamoured how the desolation he hath laid on Ierusalem hath compelled a tender-starued mother to kill and eate her onely sonne And yet his owne onely Childe Christ Iesus as deere to him as thou to me my sonne hee sent into the world to be crucified O sorrow conceiuing Mothers looke to haue all your children crucified to haue none of them remitted since our Husbands haue bene so hardy to lay harmfull hands on the Lord of Life Can GOD be more griefe-yeelding with the losse and life-famishing of our innocent children then hee was at the giuing vp of his owne onely Son That one deadly deed hath obdurated him and made him a hard God to all Mothers Famine the Lord hath sent thee to heape a second curse vpon Mothers Neuer shall it be said thou tookst from me my Sonne his Fathers Faulchion shall send him to sleepe with his Fathers Neither shall his death be recorded as my crime in Heauens Iudgement-booke when I but onely rid him that is as good as dead already out of the tedious paine of dying I haue no meate my son to bring thee vp with I haue no eares to giue idle passage to the plaints of thy pyning The enemies without and within shall diuide thy blouds-guilt betwixt them Amongst the rablement shalt thou not miscarry I le beare thee in my bosome to Paradice Thy tombe shall be my stomack with thy flesh will I feast mee This shall be all the childs tribute I will require of thee for the sixe yeares life
but they are no Sheep but Sheep-byters their wooll or their wealth they make no othervse of but to snarle and enwrap men with The law which was instituted to redresse wrongs and oppressions they wrest contrarily to oppresse and to wrong with And yet that 's not so much wonder for Law Logique and the Swizers may be hir'd to fight for any body and so may an Vsurer for a halfepeny gaine bee hyred to bite any body For as the Beare cannot drinke but he must byte the water so cannot hee coole his auaritious thirst but hee must plucke and bite out his Neighbours throate Bursa Auaâ—…os est diaboli the Vsurers purse is Hell mouth Hee hath Hydropem conscientiam as Augustine sayth a dropsie conscience that euer drinkes and euer is dry Like the Foxe he vseth his witte and his teeth together he neuer smyles but he seazeth he neuer talkes but he takes aduantage He cryes with the ill Husbandman to whom the Vineyard was put out in the Gospell This is the heyre come let vs kil him and we shal haue his inheritance Other men are sayd to goe to Hell hee shall ryde to Hell on the deuills backe as it is in the old Morrall and if hee did not ryde hee would swim thether in innocents blood whom hee hath circumuented No men so much as Vsurers coueteth the deuill to bee great with He is called Mammon the God or Prince of this World that is The God and Prince of Vsurers and Penny-fathers Nay more euery Vsurer of himselfe is a deuill since this word Daemon signifieth nought but Sypiens a subtile worldly Wise-man When a Legion of deuils in the Land of the Gargisens were cast forth of two men that came out of graues they desired they might goe into hogs or swine which are Vsurers many of those Hogges or Swine they tumbled into the Sea many of our hoggish Vsurers the deuill tumbles for gaine into the Sea Vsurers with the draffe of this world so feede and fatten the deuils that now they almost passe not of possessing any man else The Iewes were all Hogges that is Vsurers and therefore if there had beene no diuine restraint for it yet nature it selfe would haue dissawded them from eating Swines-flesh that is from feeding on one another The Prodigall-childe in the Gospell is reported to haue fed Hogges that is Vsurers by letting them beguile him of his substance As the Hogge is still grunting digging wrooting in the mucke so is the Vsurer still turning tossing digging and wrooting in the muck of this world like the Hog he carries his snoute euer-more down-ward and nere looks vp to Heauen Christ sayd It was not meete the childrens bread should be taken from them and giuen vnto dogges no more is it meete that the childrens lyuing and substance should be taken from them and giuen vnto Hogges Paul sayth We must not doe euill that good may come of it there is no euill which a hoggish Vsurer will not doe so that goods or profit may come of it They will bee sure to verifie our Sauiours words The poore haue you alwaies with you for they will make all poore that they deale with Suchvnnaturall dealing they vse towards their poore bretheren as though they came not naturally into the world but like those that were called Caesares quasi caesi ex matris vtero they were also cutte out of their Mothers wombe when they came into the world For this O London if like Zaccheus thou repentest not and restorst ten fold Thy house shall be left desolate vnto thee The cryes of the fatherlesse and widdowe shall breake of the Angels Hosannas and Alleuiahs and plucke the sterne of the world out of Gods hand till he hath acquited them Oppression is the price of bloud into your Treasuries you put the price of blood which the Iewes that kild Christ feared to doe You hauing many flockes of sheepe of your owne and your poore Neighbour but one sely Lambe which he nurst in his owne bosome that Lambe haue you taken away from him and spared farre better Fatlings of your owne By your swearing and forswearing in bargayning you haue confiscated your soules long agoe There is no religion in you but loue of mony Any doctrine is welcome to you but that which beates on good workes The charity and duty that GOD exacts of you you thinke discharged if in speech you neither meddle nor make with him the charity to your Neighbour you coniecture onely consisteth in bidding good-euen and goodmorrowe Beguile not your selues for as there is no Prince but will haue his Lawes as well not broken as not spoken against so will God reuenge himselfe as well against the breakers of his Lawes as against those that speake against them It is not your abrupt Graces God bee praysed Much good doe it you or saying we are naught God amend vs Sir I drinke to you that shall stop Gods mouth but he will come and not hold his peace He will seatter your treasure and your store and leaue you nothing of that you haue layd vp saue the Kingdome of heauen the righteousnes therfore Rich Vsurers be counsailed betimes surcease to inritch your selues with other mens losse Hold it not enough to fall downe and worship Christ except with the Wise-men of the East you open your treasures and present him with Golde Mirhe and Frankinsence Bring forth some fruits of good workes in this life that we may not altogether dispaire of you as barrayne Trees good for nothing but to be hewne downe and cast into Hell-fire Palce fame morientem quisquis pascendo seruare poteris si non paun is fame accidisti Feede him that dies for hunger Whatsoeuer thou art that canst perserue and dost not thou art guilty of famishing him Christ at the latter day in his behalfe shall vp bray de thee When I was hungry thou gauest me no meate when I was thirsty thou deniedst mee drinke Depart from me thou accursed Erogando pecuniam auges iustitsam by laying out thy money thou increasest thy righteousnesse Againe Nil diues habet de diuitiis nisi quod ab illo postulat pauper A ritch man treasures vp no more of his ritches then he giueth in almes My Maisters I will not disswade but giue you counsaile to be Vsurers Put out your money to vsury to the poore heere on Earth that you may haue it a hundred fold repayd you in Heauen As it is in the Psalmes A good man is mercifull and leandeth he giueth he disperseth he distributeth to the poore and his righteousnes remaineth for euer So that wee see by that which wee giue we gaine and not loose and yet what doe wee giue but that wee cannot keepe For giuing but backe againe what was first giuen vs and which if wee should not giue Death would take from vs wee shall purchase an immortall inheritance that can neere be pluckt from vs. With halfe the paines