Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A23772
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The vanity of the creature by the author of The whole duty of man, &c. ; together with a letter prefix'd, sent to the bookseller, relating to the author.
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Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing A1168; ESTC R19327
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37,491
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120
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Alterations upon them For it is not a bare sinning in a Nation from which there is none that could ever plead exemption but a sinning in some high measure that is an in-let to Changes in the highest kind Which made David say Psal. 107.34 That a fruitful land is turn'd into barrenness for the wickedness of those that dwell therein which the vulgar Latine reads Propter malitiam i. e. for the malicious wickedness of those that dwell therein which notes a sin of a high nature viz. such a one as is persisted in both against Knowledge and Conscience And therefore it is a good observation which Musculus hath upon the words These strange Alterations says he of Nations and Kingdoms are not for the sinning of them from which no Nation can be free but for their malicious sinning And this you may see farther in Jerusalem Ezek. 21. where we read of a very great Judgment that should befal her from the Babylonian viz. Utter Destruction expressed by the threefold Overturn wherewith God threatens her v. 27. And v. 24. he laies down the Impulsive cause that mov'd him to it and this is an impudent and shameless sinning against God for they did not commit their sin in a corner as those that were asham'd of it but brazen-faced Wretches as they were they declar'd their sin as Sodom and discover'd it openly in the face of the Sun and this they did too not only in one or two particular acts but generally says the Text in all their doings Now there is some hope of a modest and bashful but none at all of a shameless and obdurate sinner Thus the Father when his Son hath done amiss yet is he well perswaded of his amendment if he but see him blush upon his reproving of him But when like Judah he hath once a Whores forehead and refuses to be ashamed then doth he give him over as a lost Child and not to be recover'd So that from hence we see that in what place soever we find such a Turn such an Eversion as this where all is turn'd upside down there hath been without question some great Aversio a Creatore ad Creaturam some great sinning against God as the Schoolmen call it Which was the reason that when the English were now upon their quitting of France in Henry the Sixth's days demanded of the French by way of derision when they would make their return thither it was feelingly answered by one of our Nation thus When your sins are greater than ours It is sin then that ruines particular persons that subverts Families that periods Kingdoms that wheels about Governments that overturns States that disjoynts Common-weals and says unto them as to the proud waves Thus far ye shall go and no farther And so I have done with the Impulsive Cause and come next to the Instrumental causes or means which God uses in effecting his Changes here and they are two The first is the Motion and Influences of the Celestial Bodies And this will the better appear if we consider their forcible workings upon the Mind of man For though they cannot work immediately upon it because it is immaterail yet may they and do work mediately upon it as by the Body which is the Instrument of the Soul to work by and the Case wherein it is put up here for a time and so make it either well or ill affected according to the Bodies present temper By which means it comes to pass many times that not only the dispositions of particular men but also of whole multitudes collected together in a Politick Body are much alter'd and chang'd either to labour or Sloth to Peace or Disquiet to good or evil actings according as they are inclin'd by the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies And that these Celestial Bodies have their energy upon all Sublunary things is plain First by Scripture as Job 38.33 where the Lord speaks thus to Job Know'st thou the Ordinances of Heaven and canst thou set the dominion thereof in the Earth which implies 1. That the Heavens have power and dominion in the Earth 2. That this power of theirs is set them from Gods ordinance and appointment Secondly by the constant Observation and Experience of all Ages Bodinus the French Lawyer speaks well to this point Many erre says he greatly who think the influence of the Celestial Spheres to be nothing when as their strength hath ever been most effectual as in Sacred Writ is to be seen and he cites the 38. chap. of Job before-mentioned to prove the same Adding further That many ancient Writers have noted the great Changes in Cities and Kingdoms upon the conjunction of the Superior Planets but to them only where they have been deputed of God to that end and purpose And that they have been instrumental towards the working of such effects he shews by an induction of some particular instances As that before the translation of the Roman Soveraignty unto Caesar there was a great Conjunction of the Superior Planets met together in Scorpio which fell out again seven hundred years after when the Arabian Legions received the Law of Mahomet rebell'd against the Greek Emperours and subdued the Eastern Asia from the Christians The same also came about again Anno Christi 1464. after which Ladamachus King of the Tartars was by his Subjects thrust out of the Chair of Soveraignty and Frederick the Third driven out of Hungary by Matthias Corvinus who from a Prisoner stept up to the Royal Throne c. And Alstedius tells us that the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in February 1642. did foretell and portend the revolution of some new Empire and Government to fall out after it in Europe The effect whereof in part it's like we have seen in this Nation already and may live if God so dispose of us to see further of it yet in time to come But to pass this and to come to that daily and usual course of Gods proceedings with us in the world Here methinks there should be few though of ordinary capacities among us but if we be a little observing may see this truth made good by the eye of our own experience which tells us that the Earth is either Fruitful or Barren and the Air either Wholsome or Infectious sutably to that measure and manner of influence they receive from them And therefore when God will at any time bring about some great change in the world it is then easie to see how usually he fits his inferiour means according to their several natures for the orderly transacting of it in those stations wherein he hath set them As when he will turn a fruitful Land into barrenness and again a barren Land into fruitfulness which he promis'd his own people Hos. 2.21 there he tells them in what order he will work it I will hear says he the Heavens and they shall hear the Earth and they shall hear Jezreel For this is a sure rule That the Supreme Cause
London Printed for Iohn Kidgell at ye. Golden Ball 〈…〉 Gate in â—â—rn THE VANITY OF THE CREATURE By the AUTHOR OF THE Whole Duty of Man c. Together with a LETTER Prefix'd sent to the Bookseller relating to the AUTHOR ECCLES 1.2 Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity LONDON Printed for John Kidgell at the Golden-Ball near Grays-Inn-Gate in Holborn 1684. TO THE Bookseller Mr. Kidgell YOu having Printed that most Excellent piece Entituled The Whole Duty of Man Part II. Wherein the Author of that Book hath discovered much Iudgment together with a composure of Elegancy of Style and Expression I having a good opinion of your Conversation by a little acquaintance with you at the request of my Kinsman Mr. G. L. I. send you an account of the little Tract you are Printing called The Vanity of the Creature which was if my word may pass for it written by the first Author of The Whole Duty of Man That he was a person of great Learning and Piety I think no man will gain-say which if he did he would be sufficiently confuted by that his most Excellent and Divine Treatise He was also of that Christian-like temper of meekness and modesty rarely to be found in the best of men of these flagitious times that out of a perfect enmity and aversion to vain-glory he purposely concealed his name which hath been the occasion of as many conjectures almost to know who he was as there have been scrutinies to find out the head-spring and original source of the River Nile For my part I shall not though I could break the rules of Decency and good Manners to satisfie the itching desire of the over-curious in divulging that which the Author himself was so careful to conceal Cum vides velatam quid inquiris in rem absconditam This is certain and I will adventure at the boldness to say that all those several Discourses which have appeared abroad in the World under our Authors name were not written by him but whoever were the Authors it cannot be denyed but that they have written them with the greatest Iudgment Learning and Piety imaginable and that they are only worthy of imitating so great a Divine as our Author Yours in all Civil Offices J. L. THE Vanity of the Creature THE Creatures Vanity and Mutability is so great that it should be the greatest incentive to us to look to the Supream good as the only Center of our Happiness and Felicity Since the Summum bonum of Man lies in something more sublime and excellent than any Created Being it 's not in vain for him in order to attaining the true object of his real Happiness to take a Contemplative view of the Creatures vanity which is most perspicuously demonstrable even in Monarchies which Bodin tells us are more durable than Popular States because less subject to be divided Unity being the great Preserver of all things and yet have these had as the Moon not only their increase and full light but also their wain and changes and this sometimes in a moment That as in Musick you shall hear sometimes a string tun'd up to its ultimum potentiae as high as it will bear and presently depressed again to the lowest Key and another elevated yet both of them breathing but light Airs and of short continuance So may you see a Monarchy now wound up to the highest pitch of Happiness and by and by let down again into the lowest depths of misery This is Gods doing and it is marvellous in our eyes And here I shall begin with those Empires and Monarchies that were most famous among the rest For how soon was the Assyrian or Babylonian Monarchy swallow'd up by the Persian the Persian by the Greek or Macedonian Empire and the Greek by the Roman which the Prophet Daniel presents unto us by the Gold Silver Brass and Iron whereof Nebuchadnezzars Image consisted Dan. 2.32 The dissolution of one as in natural things so here being still the generation of another and again the erection of the later being the destruction of the former And as for the Roman Monarchy their own Historian can tell us of that how it had both its Infancy Youth Manhood and Old age as it were by turns As its Infancy under Kings its Youth under Consuls its Manhood from the first Punick War unto the time of Augustus Caesar and from that time its Old age under the succeeding Emperours until at length that solid Body was torn asunder by the struglings of her own Children into the Eastern and Western Empires whereof the former was soon eaten out by the Turks and Saracens and the later also fell away much after a little revolution of time by the falling off of divers Nations from her each of which after they had pluck'd off their own feathers from the Roman Eagle left her almost naked As the Franks and Burgundians in France the Goths in Spain the Normans and Lombards in Italy together with the English and Scots in Britain until at the last cast the Roman Monarchy began a little to recal her self into Germany where she hath held up since little more than the bare name of the Empire So that Vicissitude you see is the great Empress of the world unto whose unstay'd Dominion all earthly Powers and Principalities must be subject even those that are of the first Magnitude much more others that move in a lower Orb. And of these I shall single out only three which I conceive most eminent to be instanced in for this point The first is Judea whose Government was Monarchically setled by God himself yet how oft did she change her Lords and Masters yielding her self as it were successively first to the Babylonian and after that to the Roman Persian Saracen Christian Aegyptian and now to the Turkish power That as the Poet spake of Troy Fuit Ilium so may we of Jerusalem her Metropolis Fuit Hierosolyma that Jerusalem was She was great among the Nations or Domina Gentium the Lady of the Nations but now Non sic ut olim it hath not been with her for these many Generations past as in former days to use Job's words in his twenty ninth Chapter second and third verses when God preserved her when his Candle shined upon her head and when by that light she walked through darkness but Servants have ruled over her and there was none to deliver her out of their hands Which is a good Lecture of Mutability to other Kingdoms and their Mother-cities For Jerusalem was once a holy and happy City and had been happy still and she but continued holy but that failing How is her Gold become dim how is her fine Gold chang'd into Dross as she complains her self The second Example I produce here is Naples which we many well call the Ball of Providence And indeed so it was being bandied from one Lord to another ten several times before it came to lie as now it doth at the foot of Spain