Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A64160
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Christmas in & out, or, Our Lord & Saviour Christs birth-day to the reader ... / [by] John Taylor.
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Taylor, John, 1580-1653.
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1652
(1652)
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Wing T439; ESTC R37876
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10,046
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18
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was that he sent He sent first to us that should in all humility have been Petitioners to him we were enemies to God to us he had sent often by his Messengers but this Day he sent his Son who was and is himselfe Therefore let our deserved misery and Gods undeserved mercy love and compassion be thankfully remembred this day and every day in all places times ages and generations This Day Mercy and Truth are met together and Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other Truth shall flourish out of the Earth and Righteousnesse hath looked downe from heaven Psal. 85. Here was a gracious and happy meeting here the Lord Chiefe Justice of Heaven and Earth brings justice truth and righteousnesse to judge and mercy and compassion to save here mercy shewed her selfe a good Mistris to misery This Day he came in clouts that will come in Clouds And without controversie great is the Mystery of godliness which is God is manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angells preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up in Glory 1 Tim. 3. This was a great Mâ—stery indeed this was the summe and substance of all Tropes Types Figures Shadowes Sacrifices Ceremonies and the one and onely absolute fulfilling and accomplishment of all Prophesies And in the first Chapter to the Hebrewes verse 1 2 3. the Apostle saith And at sundry times and in divers places God spake in the old time to our Fathers by the Prophets in these last dayes he hath spoken to us by his Son Thus my Master who had no beginning did begin this day to come and dwell amongst sinfull men the Son of God the King of Glory came this Day and this Day was the first Day of Christianity to all Christians and as many as have true faith in Christ This was he to whom God the Father said Psal. 2. Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee And this was he that in the same Psalme was prophesied to say Lord I will preach thy Law and declare thy Will The Evangelist S. Luke saith Chap. 2. Ver. 12 13. And this shall be a sign unto you you shall finde the Babe swadled and laid in a Cratch some read it in a Manger Here is to be noted the great humility of my Master that though he were Lord and maker of all the first joyfull tydings of his birth was not brought to Princes and Potentates or to Scribes Pharisees Lawyers or Doctors but he was gratiously pleased to be first declared to poore and humble Shepheards and not to be borne in any magnificent or stately Palace or in the best room in the Inne No the Inkeeper had his Chambers filled with Guests more welcome and gainfull then Christ There was no room for him in the Inne therefore the Redeemer of mankind had entertainment in a Stable amongst Beasts swadled and laid in a Cratch Neither would he be borne in any great or glorious City Jerusalem had not the honour to be graced with the Birth and first presence of the Son of God in great Cities there hath ever been more misery than mercy and more persecution than pity therefore great Jerusalem was the place of his bitter death and passion and little Bethlehem was honoured with his birth as it was prophecied many years before by the Prophet Micah Chap. 5. in these words And thou Bethlehem Ephrathah are little to be among the thousands of Judah yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that shall be the Ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from the beginning and from everlasting And Heb. 2. 16. For he in no wise took the Angells but the seed of Abraham he took He took our nature in the seed of Abraham upon him the nature of Angells he took not He came this day to help us who had most need of a Saviour he gave to us not onely a dignity which he gave not to Angells but also he gave himselfe for us and sure we cannot take 〈◊〉 safer or wiser course than thankfully with all humility 〈◊〉 give our selves to him that gave himself for us My Master gave power to his Church to celebrate and to ordain and command the annuall celebration of his blessed Nativity I have twelve dayes to attend me and twelve moneths I do absent my selfe before I come again the kinde or course entertainment the courteous or churlish usage to me doth not or cannot increase or diminish my Masters glory or adde to me or take from me one minute of time if men could be as faithfull and charitable as Abraham as humble as David as milde and meek as Moses as zealous as Elias as patient as Job as solicitous as Martha and as devout as the blessed Virgin Mary those gracious gifts have been are and will be a happinesse unspeakable to such as are by supernall grace endowed with them but the profit of them is onely theirs that have them for he that is rich in mercy cannot be inriched by the piety-vertue or merits of men so that every Christian may truly say Lord the great love thou bear'st to me is thine But all the profit of it 's only mine So likewise if poore old Christmas day be made welcome I am not the richer or fatter if I be ill entertain'd I will neither be poorer or leaner Let them make me a feasting or fasting day all my joy or grief is not of long continuance I am but a short day and not far from the shortest day and therefore their loves are but short to my Master that will not rejoyce and be glad at the comming of his anniversary Birth day The old yeare was before Christ when misbelieving Iewes and Gentiles lived in the darknesse of ignorant Idolatry under the Law or without the Law but the New yeare came when the Father of Lights sent my Master the Light of the world who by the glorious light of his Gospell expelled and dispersed the black clouds and mists of Egyptian blindnesse and devillish Idolatry Therefore with the old year let is shake off our old faults the deeds of darkness and with the new yeare let us be renewed in our minds and follow the true light and amend our maners let our hearts be fill'd with praises thanksgivings before our bellies be overfill'd with meat There were lately some over curious hot zealous Brethren who with a superbian predominance did doe what they could to keep Christmas day out of England they did in divers places Preach Me for dead in Funerall Sermons and labour'd tooth and nail to bury me alive in the grave of oblivion they were of opinions that from the 24. of December at night till the 7. of January following that Plumb-Pottage was meer Popery that a Coller of Brawn was an obhomination that Roast Beef was Antichristian that Mince Pies were Reliques of the Whore of Babylon and a Goose a Turkey or a Capon were marks of the Beast
good meals meat besides thou art attended and waited on by a cursed crew of Gamesters Cheaters Swearers Roarers and whimwham Gambolls me thinkes one of thy age should have left off thy Coltish tricks and prodigall expences Dost thou see any one that hath a care to live and thrive in the world to be so mad as to minde thee and thy Bables we are grown somewhat wiser in twelve yeares than our Fathers were in twice eight hundred There dwells my worshipfull good neighbour Sir Achitophel Pinchgut and M. Nabal an ancient Justice of the Quorum it is neither they or my selfe that had ever come to have any estates if we had entertained thee or relieved Beggers I tell thee if we and a great many more had been as lavishly minded as thou wouldst have us to be we had then been as poore as thou or any of the rest of the vaggabond beggerly Varlets that are thy hangers on and so let them hang still or starve all 's one to me therefore without any more adoe avoid my house I have nothing for thee neither am I in the giving humour at this time I could have answered him with divine Commandments and Precepts with many humane Histories and Examples concerning good house-keeping and charitable Hospitality but every vertue in this Age of Vice is between two extremes as my Master was betwixt two Thieves as liberallity is in the middle but prodigality and covetousnesse are on each side of her alwayes ready to spoil and devour her All true Christians do know that what reliefe soever is given to the poore is lent unto my Lord and Master Christ and he hath is and will be bound to see it paid with Heavenly interest but he is a surety that few Usurers will accept of At my departure from this old Father Penny-wise his Sonne M. Pound foolish desired his crabbed Sire to bid me stay and dine with him at which the miserable Curmudgeon was even half mad with anger calling his Son spend-thrift and prodigall Jack-an-Apes saying that if he bad me to dinner that I with my followers would take the boldnesse to sup with him and lodge in his house till Twelftide was past and that I would draw more Guests to his house then he had a mind to bid welcome more Beggers to his gate then he had a mind to relieve Thus was poor Christmas used which made me and my men look blank upon the matter and without bidding him farewell I took a going welcome from him and wandring into the Countrey up and downe from house to house I found little or small comfort in any some would only smile upon me and because I should not pisse at their doors they would give me a cup of single slender lean small Beer or Ale which had the vertue to cause a man to make an Alphabet of faces for it would have warmed a mans heart like pangs of death in a frosty morning And as thinking or remembring former prosperities doe make adversities seem the more heavy So I call to minde the vigorous spirit of the Buttry Nappy Nut-browne Berry-browne Ale Abelendo whose infusion and inspiration was wont to have such Aleaborate operation to elevate exhillerate the vitals to put alementall Raptures and Enthusiasms in the most capitall Perricranion in such plenitude that the meanest and most illiterate Plow jogger could speedily play the Rhetorician and speak alequently as if he were mounted up into the Aletitude This merry memory or sad remembrance of Ale caused me to ask the reason of this alteration to which question an honest Smith made this answer Alas Father Christmas quoth he our high and mighty Ale that would formerly knock down Hercules and trip up the heels of a Gyant is lately stâ—ook into a deep Consumption the strength of it being quite gone with a blow which it received from Westminster and there is a Tetter and Ringworme called Excise doth make it look thinner then it would otherwise do before these times every Brewer did keep two strong fellows to carry the Mault and one weake boy to pump the Water but now they have shifted or changed hands unluckily for the poore boy carries the Mault and the two strong knaves carry the Water Indeed to speake truth my best and freest welcome with some kind of Countrey Farmers I will describe one for all the rest in Devonshire and Cornwall where though both the Armies had been with them and given them severall visits insomuch that if the Cavaliers had taken their Horses thee other Party made bold with their Oxen if the one had their Sheep the other plaid sweep-stake so that according to the Countrey phrase great Crock and little Chock all was I go yet as soon as they spied me they saluted me with much love and reverend curtesie The Good-man with the Dame of the house and all the rest of the men were exceeding glad to see me and with all Countrey curtesie and solemnity I was had into the Parlour there I was placed at the upper end of the Table and my company about me we had good chear and free welcome and we were merry without Musick A ha quoth I this piece of the world is well mended our Dinner is better then our Breakfast this was as Christmas would have it here is neither too much cost nor too little meat here is no surfeit on the one side or hunger on the other they are alwaies the best Feasts where the poor are reliev'd for the rich can help themselves After Dinner we arose from the Boord and sate by the fire where the Harth was imbrodered all over with roasted Apples piping hot expecting a bole of Ale for a cooler which presently was transformed into warm Lambs-wooll within an houre after we went to Church where a good old Minister spoke very Reverendly of my Master Christ and also he uttered many good speeches concerning Me exciting and exhorting the people to love and unity one with another and to extend their charities to the needy and distressed After Prayers we returned home where we discoursed merrily wiâ—hout either prophaneness or obscenity supper being ended we went to Cards some sung Carrols and merry Songs suitable to the times then the poor laâ—ouring Hinds and the maid servants with the Plowâ—oyes went nimbly to dancing the poore toyling wretches being all glad of my company because they had little or no sport at all till I came amongst them and therefore 〈◊〉 leaped and skipped for joy singing a catch to the Tune of hey Let 's dance and sing and make good Cheare For Christmas comes but once a yeare Thus at active Games and Gambols of Hotcockles 〈◊〉 the Wild Mare and the like harmless sports some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the tedious night was spent and early in the morning we took our leaves of them thankfully and though we had been thirteen dayes well entertained yet the poor people were very unwilling to let me goe so I left them 〈◊〉 out of hope to have my company againe for a Twelve-months space that if I were not banished in my absence they should have my presence again the next 25. of December 1653. Glory be to God in the Highest Peace on Earth and to Men Good-will FINIS