but can afford them a full-handed harvest thereof They wander as the Apostle saith Heb. 11.27 in sheepskins and goatskins being in want straitned and afflicted wherein though the floods of affliction lift up their waves and are ready to overwhelm their souls and the windes of temptation as ready to overturn them yet if with St. Peter they can stretch forth the hands of their faith unto Christ he will pluck their feet out of the danger that gapeth for them and cover them with the wings of his protection as the Mercy-Seat covered the ark And as the Serpent if he have but a small part of his body joyned to his head he still lives So the afflictions of the children of God though they take from them all that this world hath added to them yea their bodyes from their souls if yet they keep their souls united unto Christ their head they still preserve their lives uncouquered when as the wicked whom every breath of disaster driveth away whom the satisfying of every sinfull desire shall force from that power of godlynesse which they ought in each action to expresse are dead while they live as the Apostle S. Jude saith Jude 12. twice dead and plucked up by the rootes If therefore the unstinted malice of the devill should leave us with Iob as naked as when wee came out of our mothers womb rob us of the instruments of our earthly eternity and our loves greatest inheritors our children deprive us of our lives sweetest companion our health and print our bodyes more full of boyles and sores than Dive's dogs could have licked and which doubles all these leave us nothing but a Wife whose weaknesse he corrupteth as he did in Paradise to become a fellow-tempter with himself and friends who in the depth of of this Misery shall rather make our griefs smart more with salt upbraydings than any way asswage them with the oyl of consolation and that all this sharp siege be laid against us to pluck us from our allegeance to Christ and to cut us off from being members of his body wee must willingly banish all the but cobweb comforts of this life to hold on the rock of comfort Christ Jesus with the disciples we must forsake our nets to follow him with the Patriarch Joseph leave our garments behind us and fly away rather than yeeld to any sinfull pleasure which should separate us from him yea devesting our selves of all our wealth fly away naked with the yong-man in the gospell rather than abandon our vertue which should apparrell our minds In which losse of outward things there is this advantage that it is a great allay unto the devills temptations for as a Serpent saith Pliny shuns a naked man but pursueth a clothed so the devill doth not so easily assayl a poor man with temptations who with the possession hath also laid aside the affection of temporall things but he hath a great advantage of prevayling over the rich as the Apostle saith They that will be rich 1. Tim. 6.9 fall into temptation and a snar of the devill and into many unprofitable and hurtfull lusts which drown men in ruin and destruction Wee must therefore part with the fruit of our bodyes to preserve us from the sin of our souls and rank our friends health wife yea life and all in the number of trifles knowing how infinitly they are over-ballanced by the proper worth of Christ as also by the benefit which reflects upon us from him Heb. 12.2 who is the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame and sitteth at the right hand of God Very many are the examples of heathen men who for some privat good unto themselves as the attainment of learning or some publique good unto their Country as the safety thereof have willingly surrendred up themselves to divers forms of outward calamity Democritus pulled out his own eyes Crates cast all his goods into the sea Pythagoras banished himself from his native soyl Anaxagoras neglected all publique honours all privat contentment that he might let his thoughts loose wholly to the studdy of Philosophy Ancurus the son of Midas sacrifised his life to the floods Curtius to the flames that they might fix their Countries in their former safety Codrus the king of Athens when both he and his enemies had enquired at the oracle of Apollo who should be conquerors and that it was answered They whose king should fall in the battell hence it being proclamed through both armies that no hands fury should direct it self against the king of the contrary side Codrus to delude the policy of his adversaries shrowded under the habit of a common souldier mingled himself in the battell and there with over-daring valour provoked death to seise upon him and so preserved as many by his valiant death as he had done by his just life And shall those heathen perform all these things for the gaining or keeping of some such thing as can but in the second file challenge a place in our affections and shall not wee doe and suffer more to hold Christ in our hearts by faith and love with whom the availes of the whole world being counterpoysed prove too light as he himself testifieth saying What doth it profit a man Math. 16.26 if he win the whole word and lose his own soul But above all matchlesse herein have been the examples of holy Martyrs and Saints in all ages of the Church whose unspeakable sufferings for the love of Christ and rather than they would beleeve or doe or so much as think a thought which was not warranted by his word were such that though they could not win pitty to their suffering or belief to their assertions yet by their patience and courage in suffering they taught the highest degree of admiration to the hardest conceipts Let then these great letters in the Christ-crosse-row make up a book for us which running wee may read and coppy out their actions for our lives imitation But alas how farr are most men in these dayes strayed from the Serpentine prudence of our forefathers in their care of preserving their head Christ Jesus unassayled or at least unhurt but rather like Judas who sold him for thirty pence many of us are ready to sell him thirty times for a penny The cruelty of the Iewes was piety compared to us that which the most of them did was as S. Paul confesseth of himself Heb. 6.6 ignorantly through unbeleef but wee professe wee know him professe wee beleeve in him and yet crucifie again to our selves the Son of God When thou contemnest or neglectest the Ordinances of God thou spittest in thy Saviours face when thou disobeyest the just commandements of thy superiours thou plattest a crown of thornes on his head when thy hands are hands of iniquity and thy feet are swift to shed blood thou nailest his hands and his
WISDOME AND INNOCENCE OR PRUDENCE And SIMPLICITY In the examples of The SERPENT And the DOVE Propounded to our imitation By Tho. Vane Doctor in Divinity and Physick LONDON Printed for J. Crook and J. Baker and are to be Sold at the sign of the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1652. To the Right Honourable MILDMAY Earl of Westmorland Baron Despencer and Burwash MY LORD YOu who have bin my Patron have most right to the Patronage of any thing that is mine Hence it is that I presume to present this unto your Lordship both to confess my obligation express my gratitude Which although it be in a small proportion yet seeing men doe not refuse their dues though never so little nor courteous men sleight gratitude although offered in never so small a service if it hold any proportion with the ability or opportunity of the offerer I hope that this under these considerations shall not be rejected by your Lordship being tendred by him who is Your Honours Most humble obliged and grateful Servant THO. VANE Of the Prudence of the Serpent and Simplicitie of the Dove CHAP. I. OUR Saviour Jesus Christ sending forth his Apostles to preach unto the world and knowing well what enmitie God put from the begining betwixt the Seed of the Woman and the Serpent and that from thence the children of this world should persecute the children of God like a wise Captain discovers unto them the strength and power of their Enemies and withall furnisheth them with armes fit for their defence He tells them in the 10. chapter of S. Matthews Gospell that he came not to send peace but the sword that they must not look like Samson to be lulled asleep in the lap of Dalila but like Jona to be cast into the sea to appease the storm to be swallowed up by the whales the tyrannous monsters of the earth to be arraigned before the seats of justice to be chased from citty to city yea to have those in whose names are included the greatest notes of friendship to be as farr from it in exercise as they are neer it in title and to have for a mans enemies those of his own howshold In sum to find nothing in the world but a world of wolf-turn'd men as it is in the 16. verse of the said chapter Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves whence followeth this instruction Be yee therefore prudent as serpents and simple as doves Christ also came as he saith to seek and to save that which was lost Luke 19.10 and that which was lost in Adam being the wisdome of the understanding and the innocence of the will he propounds unto us these two as patterns to renew them thereby no beast being so wise as the Serpent Gen. 3.1 as the scripture saith who was therefore in the brasen Serpent set up in the wilderness a type of Christ who is the wisdome of the father nor any so simple and innocent as the Dove which is therefore the Emblem of the Holy Ghost who is the fathers love Bee prudent to encounter with the policies of the world be simple and free from pursuing the pleasures of the world Be prudent as serpents to discover the worlds snares be simple as doves to cover their sins Be prudent as serpents to decline the worlds injuries be simple as doves in not revenging the injuries of the world Be not altogether as Doves left yee fall into others dangers be not altogether as Serpents left yee endanger others for as prudence joyned with malice is not more prudence than wickedness so simplicity joyned with ignorance is not so much simplicity as folly In simplicity therefore avoid folly in wisdome malice Prudence without simplicity is the mother of evill doing simplicity without prudence is the mother of evill suffering but prudence simplicity joyned together are like the two fires Castor Pollux whereof if one appear alone unto the sea-men it threatneth shipwrack but both together promise a safe harbour So prudence and simplicity joyned together doe cause all the actions for which we embarque our selves to arrive at the port of prosperous successe but parted asunder shipwrack our souls on the rocks of malice or the flats of folly Therefore as the Cherubims over the Ark had their faces towards each other and both toward the mercy seat so must prudence and simplicity be joyned together and both will tend unto blessedness Prudence is practicall wisdome and is in the generall of verie large extent consisting in the knowledge of what is best and fittest to be done in all emergent occasions and in working accordingly It hath also divers parts and divers kinds which I intend not to pursue my purpose only being to speak of it so farr forth and no further than it may be attributed to some particular actions of the Serpent wherein there is though not a realitie which is properly the habit of a reasonable soul yet a resemblance of spirituall wisdome by our Saviour thought worthie our imitation Which exhortation though directed immediatly to the Apostles only yet is applyable to every Christian And as our Sauiour said to his auditors concerning watching What I say unto you I say unto all watch Luke 13.37 So what he saith in this case to his Apostles he saith unto all Christians Bee prudent as serpents and simple as doves What therefore the cabinet of truth grave historie hath preserved for us concerning the wisdome-presenting qualities of the Serpent I will unlock and proportionate our imitating actions unto their just measure Now the Prudence of the Serpent whereon our imitation must attend doth emblazon it self in divers particulars which are these that follow CHAP. II. THE first is the renewing of his youth with the handmaids thereof the vigor of his senses and their operations which he effecteth on this manner When he feeleth the heavie plummets of age swiftly moving toward their end the wheeles of the clock of life he thus winds up again He fasteth certain dayes saith Aristotle whereby his body is dryed and his skin loosened then by the eating of a certain bitter herb he doth vomit up a virulent poysonous humour which was the cause of his infirmity at length that he may temper the roughnesse of his skin he bathes himself in water and seeking a narrow chink or hole in some rock or other place he wriggles himself in and forceably drawing himself through slips off his skin and lastly resting in some such place where the sun doth most favourably display his beams he recovers a new skin and hardens it fit for his use and with it investeth himself with new vigor adding thereby cleenesse to his eyesight strength to his bodyes motion increase to his stomacks appetite and digestion and by this meanes doth he renew the almost expired league between his bodie and his soul This also affirmeth both Avicen and Pliny To this line of the Serpents example must we
the Sea wherin they live and it may bee true which Solinus reports of the river Tigris in Armenia that it passeth many miles through the lake of Arethusa and yet mingles neither fishes nor waters with the lake but is quite of an other colour from the same yet Inficitur terrae sordibus unda fluens Clear running streams are infected with the neighbourhood of filthy soyls and pure men with the soul conversation of the wicked Swallows they say would not build in Thebes because the wals thereof were so often besieged nor let good men or those that desire to be such hasten to the company of those whose mind-infecting manners doe threaten their destruction Apoc. 18.4 Be not partakers of her sins that ye receive not of her plagues saith S. John The reason why our Saviour would not give the Disciple mentioned in the Gospell leave to goe back to bury his dead Father was say some Divines lest his unbelieving kinred should corrupt him again for bad men keep others from goodness as the dead carcasses did the raven from Noahs Ark. It was part of the vow of the Nazarites not to defile themselves with dead bodies no more should good men stain themselves with the dead conversation of the wicked Run we then from these as Moses did from his rod turned to a Serpent for if we joyn our selves to Beelphegor Psal 105.27 we will like the children of Israel eat the offerings of the dead And to decline the cruelty of some in the destruction of our bodies whose rage knoweth no mean let us wisely with the Serpent fly into the wilderness where we shall find Jesus the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the brasen Serpent which was there lifted up who will encounter for us with that roring Lion and subtil Serpent the devill with his viperous generation and either rescue us or revenge our evils And to avoid the contagious company of others whose motions although more silent yet not less deep or dangerous than the other yea much more for this like lightning which melts the sword but hurts not the scabbard passeth through our Bodies and empoysons our Souls with the insinuating venome of sin let us with the Serpent hide our selves in the holes of the rock in the wounds of the rock Christ Jesus whose blood is more Antidote than all the sins of the Universe can be Poison so shall we avoid both the bodily and spirituall dangers whereunto the cruelty of some and the contagion of other wicked men would expose us CHAP. V. ANother work of prudence in the actions of the Serpent by just title claming our imitation is this The Serpent if he be assaulted his chiefest care is directed to the preservation of his Head for which he exposeth his whole body to the danger knowing that therin is the castle of his life in so much that when he is in danger he winds himself round into many rings placing his head in the center and as Pliny saith if he have but two fingers length of his body left with his head his life will still remain in him in like manner should our endeavours bend themselves to hold our head Jesus Christ and that which doth knit and cyment us to Christ true faith and charity for the safeguard whereof we should expose all else to hazard and in comprison whereof we should neglect whatsoever of profit or delight the world can adde unto us and say with S. Paul Phil 3.8 I account all things as dung that I may gain Christ Natura est sui conservativa saith Philosophy it is inbred in the nature of each thing to endeavour its own preservation so is it in the nature of grace now when wee cannot keep our selves from the endomagement of all parts wee must learn from the wise Serpent that our care of preservation must chiefly be directed unto that whose well-being doth chiefly concern us The fountain of life in a Serpent is in the head and the life of a Christian is in Christ who is the head of his Church as S. Paul saith Colos 3.3 your life is hid with Christ in God If then our prosperity wealth honour liberty or ought else that wee enjoy cannot bee compatible with the preservation of our head Christ Jesus more than the ark of God in the temple of Dagon and that a dangerous suffering of evill must only free us from the danger of doing evill of evils the least must fall under our election and wee must choose rather with S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles to leave all and follow Christ than with Demas to forsake Christ and follow the world Skin for skin Job 2.4 and all that a man hath will he give for his life said the devill and truly of Job wealth honour liberty worldly peace wife children and friends which are but skins things slight triviall and superficiall in comparison must we part with to preserve the life of our souls by the true faith and love of Christ for he that doth not forsake all if need be for him is not worthy of him as he himself testifieth And what Cicero said of his Country which he held second to nothing in the merit of his respect we may more truly say of Christ and true religion Cari sunt parentes liberi propinqui amici at omnes omnium charitates patria una complexa est Our Parents are dear unto us so are our children our kindred and acquaintance but all the love of those doth Religion alone comprize If we did but justly poyse the poverty of the worlds great riches and the riches of a good Christian in his greatest poverty who holding Christ hath with him the treasures of wisdom and goodness who is the Magazine and Storehouse of them all wee would count it a piece of folly in that man who should abandon the one to abound in the other below the degree of Esau's who sold his birrh right for a mess of pottage or of Esop's dog who snapping at the shadow let goe the substance O how much better is it to sit on Iobs dunghill and with him to know that our Redeemer liveth than in Solomons throne with the Kings of the earth or in Moyses chair with the Scribes and Pharisees and to bandy our selves against Gods annointed with the one and to say well and not doe it with the other Most true it is that very many of the Children of God like the ark of the testament which was continually hurried from place to place untill it was setled in the glorious temple of Solomon so are they untill they be setled in the more glorious kingdome of heaven And like Noahs Dove which found no rest untill it returned to the ark so they have their bodyes worn with continuall afflictions untill they be layed up in the common wardrob of the grave They are exposed to almost as many miseries as they live minutes no place being so barren of trouble
apply our imitation renewing our lives by the works of Penance First by Fasting whereby wee shall dry up the flux of Intemperance then by taking down into our hearts a dose of the bitter herb of of Contrition whereby wee must vomit up of the poyson of sin at our mouths by Confession and washing our selves in our tears and in the river of the sanctuary the word of God passing through the straits of a firm resolution to serve God and forsake sin we must put off the old man with the lusts therof and by the heat of the sun the love of Christ drying up our facilitie and proness unto sin we must put on the new man Ephes. 4.24 which is created according unto God in justice and holiness of truth and so recovering new strength unto well-doeing wee shall more cleerly understand spirituall things more ardently affect God and our neighbour and more earnestly hunger and thirst after righteousnesse and thus shall wee renew again the life of grace in our decayed souls As abstemious John Baptist was the fore-runner of the birth of Christ so must abstinence usher the new birth of a Christian but the devill enters into the voluptuous as he did into the herd of swin or as into Judas when he had eaten the sop Prayer the weapon by which wee overcome even God himself is by nothing so much sharpened as by Fasting And therefore in the whole current of Scripture shall wee find these two in the examples of holy men linked together like the bells and pomegranates on the vestments of Aaron Prayer rendring a sweet sound Fasting a sweet smel which is therefore compared to cinamon and balsum which drying up the corruption of dead bodies keep them sweet Cúm S. Aug. caro arescit per abstinentiam ab humore luxuriae tunc reddit deo odorem continentiae when the humor of luxurie is dryed up in our flesh by abstinence then doe wee render unto God the sweet odor of continence Neh. 1.4 The Prophet Nehemia saith When I heard these words I sate down and wept and mourned many dayes I fasted and prayed before the face of the God of heaven Also the Prophet Daniel Dan. 9.3 I turned my face unto my Lord God to ask and beseech in fasting sackcloth and ashes And then did he receive an especiall revelation concerning the birth and death of Christ St. Peter when he was fasting saw the vision in the house of Simon the tanner Acts 10. Also Acts 13.2 As they ministred unto our Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said unto them separate Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have taken them Here wee see that fasting-prayer is most pleasing unto God even as emptie-bellied instruments are sweetest to the eares of men Facilius per jejunium oratio penetrat coelum saith S. Jsodore The darts of our prayers being headed with fasting doe more easily pierce the heavens And as fasting-spittle as Pliny saith kills a serpent so doth fasting-prayer put the devill to flight and with him the many troups of his temptations wherewith he assults our disarmed senses And therefore our Saviour buckling himself to grapple with the devill made this one peece of his armour as the Scripture saith He fasted forty dayes and forty nights S. August saith Fasting doth purge the mind it englightens the soul it subdues the flessh unto the spirit and moulds in a man an humble and contrite heart It purgeth the mind by consuming and drying up the humour of luxury even as the fire which came down from heaven licked up the water about the sacrifice of Elias It enlightens the soul by lightning of the bodie and freeing it from those clogs of flesh to which in not a few it is a prisoner for the bellies fullnesse is mother of the minds dullnesse and repletions of meat in the body breed obstructions of vice in the soul whence saith the Prophet David Psal 34.13 Their iniquitie hath proceeded as it were out of fatnesse then immediatly followes They have thought and spoken wickednesse It subdues the flesh unto the Spirit by striking the swelling sayls of pride and incontinence enabling us to say with S. Paul 1 Cor. 9.27 I chastise my body and bring it into servitude and like Abraham it casts out the bondwoman and her children the devill with his spawn of sin not suffering the handmaids of our affections to advance themselves against their mistresse reason And lastly it makes our souls humble and contrite as the Psalmist saith Psal 72.7 I did humble my soul with fasting And this is the second condition required in the renewing of our lease of life The Passeover was commanded to be eaten with bitter herbs Exod. 12.8 and they that will feed profitably upon Christ our Passeover must have their hearts embittered with compunction and sorrow for their sins Surgeons when a bone that hath been broken is set awry are forced that they may set it right to break it again so the rectitude of our souls being broken by our fall in Adam whereby we goe halting all our lives after that we may set our hearts aright which are thus wryed and crookeded by sin we must break them again by an humble sorrow for all our sins Which must not continue for one assault alone but wee must multiply our stroaks and breakings of our hard hearts untill our sorrow swim in our eys and furrow our faces with our tears even as Moses by striking the rock twice made a river of water to gush forth And we must be sorry that we can be no more sorry and with the men of Israel 1 Kings 30. weep till we can weep no more It is not enough to afflict our souls and bow down our heads for a day or to be like the marble which is moyst only against wet weather to weep only when the threatning storms of punishment hang over our heads remaining still inwardly as hard as the marble For as S. Gregory saith Hee that bewayleth his sins yet doth not forsake them makes himself lyable to so much the greater punishment by how much he contemns that pardon which hee might have attained by weeping But if like the Israelites wee pass through the red Sea of our tears of true Contrition we shall leave all the Egyptians our sins overwhelmed therein S. Aug. saith as Grief is the companion of repentance so Tears are the witnesses of grief into which if wee can melt our selves like Niobe through those dolefull images which sorrow imprints in our over-tender hearts for our outward losses of goods or friends or the like and cannot dischannell one rivolet from the fountains of our eys as a tribute due for the Ocean of sorrow which we owe unto the cause of those losses our sins surely we have either no sense of our sins which is bad or no fear of Gods judgements which is worse or no love unto his goodness which is worst of all For