our consciences approve for good If thy enemie be of that strange temper above described and one that would scorn to be beholden to thee steal thy good in upon him and do him good so as that he shall not know from whom it came Thou art bound to minister comfort to him as a compassionate and cunning Physician doth Physick to a melancholick or distempered patient But thou wilt say so I shall lose all my thanks for all my pains and cost I answer by asking Thee is the honour or thanks that cometh from God alone of no value The Heathen could say to his friend We are each to other Theatrum satis amplum a Theater sufficiently large for matter of content and contemplation By doing So thou shalt be sure to gain The Testimonie of a good Conscience And herein thou maist justly triumph over thine enemie in that thou art better aminded towards him then thou couldst expect that he would be towards thee These are the best terms of comparison that thou canst stand upon with thine enemy if thou canst truly say That thou art A better man then he and if the mind be the man then he is truly and properly said to be The better man that is better aminded towards all men in as much as they are men This is the perfection and goodness of men as they are Civil and natural men and this is that Law of nature which St. Paul saith Rom. 2. 14. 15. was written in the Gentiles hearts For when the Gentiles which have not the law that is not the written Law of God do by nature the things of the law or contained in the Law these having not the Law are a law unto themselves which shew the effects of the Law written in their hearts their consciences alwayes bearing witness and their thoughts accusing one another or else excusing 13. But however the Heathen had this Fundamental Law of nature This Root of Righteousness as without offence I hope I may term it because it was a Relique of Gods image in them with many branches of it ingrafted in their hearts yet as their consciences might acquit them for performing many particular duties which it injoyned so might they accuse them for negligence in more For neither did they practise so much as they knew to be good nor did they know all that to be good which This Rule might have taught them to be such And albeit the better sort of them will rise up in Judgement against us and may condemn even the best sort of Christians as the world counts them now living Yet most of them we may suppose especially in later times were as negligent hearers of natures Lore as we are of the Doctrine of Grace God as the Apostle saith Rom. 1. had given some of them over to a Reprobate sense That seeing they would not practise what they knew for good they should not know Good from Bad. And as the learned observe when mankind had like Retchless unthrifts corrupted their wayes and like ungratefull Tenants to their Landlord Or undutiful subjects to their Prince had cancelled the Original instruments of their inheritance Or copie of that Law by which they were to be tried dayly defacing and blotting it by their foul transgressions and stain of sins it pleased The Lord in mercie to renew it once again in visible and material Characters ingraven in stone adding to it the commentaries of Prophets and other Holy men that so his people might once again copie out that Covenant whose Original they had lost the written law being but as the sampler or drawn work which was to have been wrought out by the law of nature and imprint it again in their harts by meditation and practise Yet once again the people of the Jewes unto whom this written Law was committed did by their false interpretations and Hypocritical glosses corrupt the true sence and meaning of Gods Law as the nations before had defaced the Law of nature by their foolish imaginations and conceited self-love Nevertheless as sin did abound in man so did Gods grace and favour superabound For when hoth the Law of nature was almost wholly lost among the Gentiles drown'd in Gentilisme as the Latin tongue is in the Italian and the Jews who should have allured others by their good example and continual prosperitic had they continued faithful in observing it to observe the written Law of God had quite corrupted it God sent his Only Son in the nature of man and Form of a Servant by infusion of Grace into mens hearts to revive the dead Root of Natures Law when it was almost perished and also to purifie and cleanse Gods written Law from the false interpretations of the Scribes and Pharisees which he performs in this seventh Chapter and in the two precedent So our Saviour saith Chap. 5. v. 17. Think not that I am come to destroy or dissolve the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy them but to fulfil them But how did Christ come to fulfil the Law Only by his own Righteousness and example No not so only but by proposing unto us the true sense and meaning of the moral Law which all that were to be his followers were to fulfil in a more spiritual and better manner then either the best of the Heathens or the most strict Sect of the Jews of that time did For they had abrogated the force and sense of sundry Commandements and stood more upon the letter then the meaning of the Law Wherefore he adds verse 20. I say unto you except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It is evident then from our Saviours words that both the righteousnesse commanded in the moral Law and in the Prophets must be fulfilled in better measure by Christians then it was either by the Scribes or the Pharisees and that the best and most easie way of fulfilling both the Law and the Prophets is the practising of this Rule Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye so unto them For this is the Law and the Prophets 14. Let us see then what we have more from His Doctrine then from Nature for the Right Practise of this Royallest Rule By Christs Doctrine we have both the Grounds of the former Precept which Nature afforded us better fortified and confirmed unto us And also have Motives or inducements which may sway Reason against Passion to the practise of the same Rule more certain and infinitely greater then the Heathen or meer natural man had any I must request you to call to mind what was said before That the Ground of this Precept was The Equalitie of all men by nature The Heathen knew this full well That all men were of one kind all mortal all capable of Reason and consequently of right and wrong And from this knowledge even such among them as held no Creation
any good Christian that will but raise his thoughts above the earth by this or the like Experiment of nature Albeit this bodily Sun which we dayly see were much further distant from the earth then now it is yet could we easily conceive it to be of force and efficacie enough to enlighten the earth whereon we dwell and those coelestial Spheres which are or might be as farre above it as it is above the Center And in the greatest distance we can imagin it is or might be distant from the earth it would give life and vigour to things vegetable or capable of vital heat It were a silly Argument to infer that because the hottest fire on earth cannot impart his heat to bodies 10 miles distant from it therefore the Sun cannot communicate vital heat and Comfort to vegetables more then ten-hundred-thousand miles distant from it This Inference notwithstanding is not so foolish in Philosophie as This following is in Divinitie The Sun cannot quicken trees or herbs which have lost their root and sap Ergo the Sun of righteousnes or Christs Humane Nature in which the Godhead dwelleth Bodily cannot quicken the dead or raise up our mortal bodies to immortalitie The only sure Anchor of all our hopes for a joyfull Resurrection unto the life of Glorie is the Mystical Union which must be wrought here on earth betwixt Christs Humane Nature glorified and our mortal or dissoluble nature The Divine Nature indeed is the Prime Fountain of Life to all but though inexhaustible in it self yet a fountain whereof we cannot drink save as it is derived unto us through the Humane Nature of Christ 11. Although it be most true which Tertullian in the 17 Chapter of his Apologie hath observed That even those Heathens which adored Jupiter Capitolinus and multiplied their Gods according to the number of the places wherein they worshiped them when they were throughly stung with any grievous affliction or calamitie were wont to lift up their eyes and hands not to the Roman Capitol but to heaven it self as knowing that by instinct of nature to be the seat or throne of Divine Majestie And the Hill from whence came their help Yet notwithstanding the truth of this Observation and the profitable use which that Father there makes of it it was an extraordinary Favour of God unto the Israelites that they were permitted and instructed to worship God in his Sanctuarie and to present their devotions towards the Ark of the Covenant or the Mercy-seat before which they might adore him in such manner and sort as they might not in any other place or before any other creature They knew much better then the heathen that Gods Throne of Majestie was in heaven and yet were to tender their devotions unto him as extraordinarily present in his Temple or Sanctuarie here on earth For as our bodily sight doth scatter or dazle without some sensible Object to gather and terminate it So our cogitations though of heaven and heavenly things do float or vanish without some determinate and comprehensible Object whereon to fasten them Now albeit the Temple of Jerusalem wherein Gods People only were to worship were long since demolished yet the Sanctuarie wherein they were to worship God is rather translated or advanced from earth to heaven then destroyed For it was Gods Presence that made the Temple and That is more extraordinary in Christs Body which the Jewes destroyed but which he raised again in three dayes then ever it had been in Solomons Temple in the Glorie of whose goodly structure and manifestation of Gods Glorie in it the true Israelites did much rejoyce and the later Iewes too much boast and glorie But this Prerogative we have in respect of the ancientest and truest Israelites that since the vail of the Temple was rent we may at all times reflecting upon that modell the Scripture hath imprinted in our mindes look within the vail and behold the Ark or Mercy-seat and use the most holy Sanctuarie or inner place made with hands as a Perspective Glasse or instrument for surveying the heavenly Sanctuarie which God hath pitched and not man This hope have we saith S t Paul Heb. 6. 19. as an anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast and which entreth into that within the vail whither the fore-runner is for us entred even Jesus made an high Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek He is gone before us into the Sanctuarie to make perpetual intercession who before had made an everlasting attonement for us here on earth He is now become to us the Temple of God the Ark of the Covenant the Propitiatorie or Mercie-seat the fulfilling of all things and unto him now placed in his Sanctuarie at the Right-hand of God we are not only to direct our Cogitations or devotions but to transmit our affections to the Divine Nature by him The Son of God after he had suffered in Our flesh and made a full sufficient satisfaction for all our sins did in our nature rise again did in our nature ascend into heaven and in our nature sitteth at the Right-hand of God not only to gather our scatered contemplations and broken notions of the Godhead but withall to draw and unite our affections unto him which otherwise would flagg droop or miscarry if we should direct them to heaven at large or to the incomprehensible Majestie of the Godhead without a known Advocate or Intercessor to present them and to return their effects or issues Hence saith our Apostle Colos 3. 1. If ye be risen with Christ that is if you sted fastly believe that Christ who was the Son of God and as incomprehensible for his Divine Nature as God the Father to whom he was equal did dye in your flesh and comprehensible nature and in the same nature did rise againe from the dead then seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the Right-hand of God Set or settle or fasten your affections on things above not on things on the earth And as we are to settle our dearest affections on him so are we to direct our prayers unto him in his heavenly Sanctuarie 12. That we may direct our prayers unto the Blessed Trinitie according to the Rule of Faith which is the first Degree of praying in Faith take for the present these short Directions The First and Fundamental Object of Belief as Christian is the acknowledgement of the Blessed Trinitie And by this Belief we acknowledge such a Distinction of Persons or Parties between God the Father God the Son and God the Holy-Ghost that God the Father doth Personally and in proprietie of Person exact Satisfaction for all the offences committed against the God-head or Blessed Trinitie and that the Son of God doth by like Personal Proprietie undertake to make Satisfaction and Reconciliation for us He it is that doth avert the wrath of God from us and inhibit the proceedings of Divine Justice against us We are then in the First
blood he himselfe here saith it He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him and for this reason his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed the onely meat and the onely drink which men should hunger and thirst after Other meates and drinks should be sought for yea life bodily it self should be desired onely to this End that by the prolonging of it wee might be partakers in greater measure of this meat and drink which preserves the Bodie and soul unto everlasting life 5. The Questions then to be discussed are Two First What it is to eat Christs flesh and drink his Blood Secondly What it is for Christ to Dwell or abide in us and us to dwell or abide in Him All agree that there is A Twofold eating of Christs Bodie and A Twofold drinking of his Blood One meerly Sacramental and another Spiritual Which agreement notwithstanding There ariseth A Third Question viz. What manner of eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Blood is in this place either onely or principally meant For the Resolution of this Question we are breifly to explicate each member of this Division viz. 1. What it is to eat Christs Bodie and drink his Blood Sacramentally onely 2. What it is to eat his Bodie and Drink his Blood Spiritually First then All that are partakers of this Sacrament eat Christs Bodie and Drink his Blood sacramentally that is they eat that Bread which Sacramentally is his Bodie and drink that Cup which Sacramentally is his Blood whether they eat or drink faithfully or unfaithfully For All the Israelites 1 Cor. 10. Drank of the same Spiritual Rock which was Christ Sacramentally All of them were partakers of his presence when Moses smote the Rock Yet with many of them God was not well pleased because they did not faithfully either Drink or participate of his presence And more displeased he is with such as eat Christs Bodie and Drink his blood unworthily though they eat and drink them Sacramentally For eating and drinking so onely that is without faith or due respect they eat and drink to their own Condemnation because they do not Discern or rightly esteem Christs Bodie or presence in the H. Sacrament May we say then that Christ is Really present in the Sacrament as well to the unworthy as to the faithful receivers Yes this we must grant yet must we add withal that he is really present with them in a quite contrary manner really present he is because virtually present to both because the operation or efficacie of his Bodie and blood is not metaphorical but real in both Thus the bodily Sun though locally distant for its substance is really present by its heat and light as well to sore eyes as to clear sights but really present to both by a contrarie real operation and by the like contrary operation it is really present to clay and to wax it really hardneth the one and really softeneth the other So doth Christs Bodie and Blood by its invisible but real influence mollifie the hearts of such as come to the Sacrament with due preparation but harden such as unworthily receive the consecrated Elements If he that will hear the word must take heed how he hears much more must he which means to receive the Sacrament of Christs bodie and blood be careful how he receives He that will present himself at this great Marriage Feast of the Lamb without a wedding garment had better be absent It was alwayes safer not to approach the presence of God manifested or exhibited in extraordinarie manner as in his Sanctuarie or in the Ark then to make appearance before it in an unhallowed manner or without due preparation Now when we say that Christ is really present in the Sacrament our meaning is that as God he is present in an extraordinarie manner after such a manner as he was present before his incarnation in his Sanctuarie in the Ark of his Covenant and by the Power of his God-head thus extraordinarilie present he diffuseth the vertue or operation of his Humane Nature either to the vivification or hardning of their hearts who receive the Sacramental Pledges So then a man by eating Christs bodie meerly Sacramentally may be hardned may be excluded from his gracious presence But no man hath Christ dwelling in him by this manner of eating his flesh and drinking his blood unlesse withal he eate the one and drink the other Spiritually The Eating then of Christs bodie and drinking his blood meerly Sacramentally is not the eating and drinking here meant 6. They are said to eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood Spiritually which rightly apprehend his Death and Passion which by Faith meditate and ruminate upon them making application to themselves aswel of the great danger which may ensue upon the neglect of such great benefits as he hath purchased for them as of the inestimable good which alwayes accompanies the right esteeme or contemplation of his Bodie which was given for them and of his Blood which was shed for them He which thus eateth Christs Flesh and drinketh his Blood by Faith although he do not for the time present eat his Bodie or drink his blood Sacramentally hath a true interest in this promise He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him so he do not neglect to eat his Bodie and drink his Blood Sacramentally when occasion requires and opportunitie serves So that Spiritual eating and drinking Christ by Faith is the true preparative for the worthy receiving of his bodie and blood Sacramentally He that doth not so prepare himself for the receiving of his body and blood doth receive him unworthily whilest he receives him Sacramentally The main Question is Whether Christs words be to be understood at all of Sacramental eating and drinking or of Spiritual eating and drinking onely 7. Many there were and yet are in Reformed Churches which deny this place to be meant of Sacramental Eating But as Beza amongst others well observes they which deny this place to be meant at all of Sacramental eating err no lesse then they do which restrain it only to Sacramental eating Their error which deny it to be meant at all of Sacramental eating is so much the worse because it gave advantage to our Adversaries of the Romish Church which want no wit to work upon all advantages given To omit others Jansenius and Dr. Hessels two of the most exquisite expositors of Scriptures and most Judicious Divines which the Romish Church had after the Reformation was begun by Luther and Zuinglius and prosecuted by Calvin expressely deny our Saviours dispute in this Chapter with the Jews to be meant at all of Sacramental eating or drinking The Reason which enforced these two great Divines to slight the authoritie of most writers in their own Church and to wave the authoritie of most ancient Fathers which it is evident do understand this
hearing the word Life The life of man is short And The Text of the Law wherein the precepts are contained is long The Commentaries of the Prophets and sacred Histories necessarie for the Exposition thereof are voluminous and large The true sence or meaning of either in some points not easie to be found out unless we be well instructed how to seek it so as what the Jesuite saith absolutely but falsly of all Scripture is Comparatively true of This advice of Solomons It is a plain and easie way a light of mans life after it be once well learned but it is hard to Learn without a good Guide to directs us Wherefore behold a greater then Solomon Christ Jesus himself directs us in One and that a very short Line unto that Point whereunto the large discourses both of The Law and the Prophets do as it were by the Circumference Lead us Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets that is The Summe of the Law and the Prophets is contained in this short Rule 3. Because our Saviour gives it we may believe it that this is the best Epitome that ever was given of any so large a Work Or rather not an Epitome of the Law and the Prophets but the whole Substance or Essence of the Law and the Prophets Herein all their particular Admonitions are contained as Branches in their Root Out of the practise of this Principle or Precept all the Righteousness which the Law and the Prophets do teach will sooner spring and flourish much better then if we should turn over all the Learned Comments that have been written upon them without the practise of this Compendious Rule This Abridgement is a Document of His Art that could draw a Camel through the eye of a Needle that spake as never man spake Sure then if any place of Scripture besides those which contain the very Foundation of Christian Faith as Christs Incarnation Passion or Resurrection be more necessary to be learned then other then is this most necessary and most worthy the Practise Seeing all Doctrines of good Life of honest and upright Conversation are derived hence as particular Conclusions in Arts and Sciences from their Causes and Principles 4. For any Coherence of these words with any precedent or consequent we need not be sollicitous It sufficeth to know They are a principal part of our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount in which He delivered the true meaning of the Fundamental Parts of the Law purging the Text from the corrupt Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees Every Sentence therein is a Maxim of Life and as it were an intire compleat Body of it self not a limb or member of any other particular Discourse Every full Sentence of it This Main Rule especially may be anatomized by it self without unripping any other adjoyning For which Reason some Learned have thought that St. Matthew was not curious to relate every sentence in that Rank and Order as it came from our Saviours Mouth but set them down as any one would do all the memorable good sentences he could call to mind of a good Discourse read or heard placing that perhaps first which was spoke last or that last which was spoke in the middest Yet if as in Description of Shires men usually annex some parts of the Bordering Countries any desire to have the Particular words or Speeches of our Saviour whereunto this Illative Therefore is to be referred he must look back unto the fifth Chapter of this Gospel verse 42. Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow turn thou not away For so St. Luke who is more observant of our Saviours method in this Sermon then St. Matthew in the sixth Chapter of his Gospel verse 30 31. Couples these two Sentences together which St. Matthew had set so farre asunder And immediately after the words of the Text he inferres by Arguments that Duty of loving our Enemies which he had set down the precept for before verse the 27. though St. Matthew place both Duty and Arguments immediately after the Sentence before cited viz. Give to him that asketh c. So that this Precept Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you c. as is most probable came in between the matter of that 42 and 43 verse of that fifth Chapter And yet it might be repeated again in the latter end of that Sermon by our Saviour At least for some special Use or Reason placed there by St. Matthew because being the Foundation or Principle whence all other Duties of Good Life are derived it seems the Evangelist would intimate thus much unto us That of all our Saviours Sermon which contained the very Quintessence of the Law this was the sum And for this Reason he adds that Testimonie concerning the Excellencie of this Rule which St. Luke omits namely That in it is contained the Law and the Prophets 5. The Method which I purpose by Gods Assistance to observe is This. First To set down the Truth and Equitie of the Rule it self Whatsoever ye would that men c. with the Grounds or Motives to the practise thereof Secondly To shew in what sense or how farre the Observation of it is The Fulfilling of the Law and the Prophets Doctrine with such Exceptions as may be brought against it Thirdly Of the meanes and method of putting this Rule in practise It was A Saying of the Father of Physiicans Natura est Medica let Physicians do what they can Nature must effect the Cure The Physician may either strengthen Nature when it is Feeble or ease it from the oppression of Humors But Nature must work the Cure This is in proportion true for matters of Moralitie or Good Life Natura est optima Magistra All that the best Teachers can perform in natural or moral Knowledge is but to help or cherish those natural Notions or Seeds of Truth and Goodness which are ingrafted in our Souls Art doth not infuse or pour in but rather ripen and draw out that which lay hid before And it is the skill of every instructor to apply himself to every mans nature and to begin with such Truths as every one can easily assent unto as soon as he hears them albeit without help of a Teacher he could not have found them out himself And yet the more easily we assent to any Truth the lesse we perceive how we were moved thereto and the lesse we perceive it the more ready we are to imagin that we did more then half move our selves or that we could have found out that by our selves which we have learned of others Whereas in truth there is nothing more hard then to speak to the purpose and yet so in matters of Morality and Good Life as every man of ordinary capacitie shall think upon the hearing of it that he could have invented or said the like Ut sibi
ferratusque sones Ego divitis Aurum Harmoniae dotale geram It was a dishonour in her esteem to be disclaimed by an Imprecation for a Princes Daughter to adorn her head and neck with costly Jewels like a Bride whilest her Husband was clad in steel and yet so clad every hour in peril of life During the time of this his danger abroad she desires no greater train at home then would suffice to expel Melancholick fear And that artire doth please her best which best suted with her pensive heart most likely to move her Gods to Commiseration of her widdowhood For such costly ornaments as were now profferd she thought a fitter time would be to wear them when her Husband returned in peace with such rich spoiles from the enemies Court And in this Resolution well fitting her present estate she leaves them to the proud upstart insolent baggage whose longing desires after those unseasonable fooleries had inchanted the poor Prophet her husband to Countenance an Ominous unfortunate war the issue whereof was this that after most of the Noble Argives sent thither by the enemies sword the Prophet himself went quick down to hell This Conclusion you will say is false in the litteral sense or rather fained but I would to God the Fiction were not too true an Emblem of the most State-Prophets in later Ages Such as are here represented and no better are the usual fruits of untimely desires or discording appetites of parties united in strict bond of common dutie especially in men consecrated to publick ministerie Alwayes they are displeasing to God in nature preposterous hateful as death to civil and ingenuous minds 10. But herein the Poet as the Philosopher well observes exceeds the Historian for moral instructions He may paint men and women as they should be not as they are whereas the Historian must express them as he finds them Most Women indeed are not for their affections like this Poetical Picture of Argia Yet the Carriage of Portia as the ingenious Historian hath exprest it did farre exceed it When her Husband Brutus had disclosed that inward grief and perplexitie by his ill rest by night which he had purposely concealed from her in his waking thoughts she takes his Concealment as a disparagement to her birth and education and as a tacit impeachment of her honestie Brutus saith she I had Cato to my Father and was matched into thy family not as a whore to be thy Companion only at bed and bord but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be as true a Consort of thy miseries as of thy welfare I had never cause to complain of thy usage no occasion to suspect thy loving affection towards me but what assurance canst thou have of my love to thee If I may not be permitted to sympathize with thee in thy secret greif nor bear a part in those anxieties whose communication might ease thy mind and much set forth my fidelitie I know well the imbecillity of our Sex we need no rack to wrest a secret from us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But know O Brutus that there is a secret vertue in good parentage ingenuous breeding and conversation for setling and strengthening the frame of our affections even where they are by nature brickle and unconstant And this is my portion in these Pre-eminences A woman I am by sex but Cato his Daughter and Brutus his Wife To give him a sure experiment answerable to these Protestations how ready she could be in all misfortunes to take grief and sorrow at as low a Note as for his life he could She had cast her self into a burning Feaver by a grievous wound of her own making before she vented the former complaint which she uttered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the extremity of her Fit or pangs I may truly here apply that verse of old Ennius as the late extinguished Lamp of this University once out of this Lantern in another Case did Vos Juvenes shall I say nay verily Nos viri Patres Fratres animos gerimus muliebres Illaque Virgo viri Was this praeeminency that she was Cato's daughter and Brutus's wife of power sufficient to arm her female heart with man-like resolution and true heroical constancy to bear the yoke of all misfortunes with her Conjugal Mate and is it no Praerogative in Christian men before a Heathen woman that they have God for their father and holy Church for their mother Christ Jesus supream Governour of the world the Lord of life and Conquerour of Death and Hell for their Brother Is Baptisme into his death but a naked name that our professed unitie therein cannot unite our hearts in like affections Is the effusion of Gods spirit but as the sprinkling of Court Holy-water are our dayly Sermons but as so many Bevers of wind whose efficacy vanisheth with the breath that uttereth them or hath the frequent participation of Christ precious body blood no better operation on our harts then the exhalation of sweet odours upon our brains Be they no longer comfortable then whilst they be in taking Are all those glorious similitudes of one head and many members of one Vine and many branches but Hyperbolical Metaphors Is our mystical union only a meer Mathematical imagination are those or the like Praerogatives of our calling but like the Soloecisms of the Romish Church matters of meer title or ceremony without realitie Beloved in Christ if either we actually were or heartily desired or truly meant to be true branches of that Coelestial Vine were it possible the strongest boughes thereof should be so often shaken with dangerous blasts of temptations and we no whit therewith moved could so many flourishing Boughes dayly fade and we hope that our Luxuriant branches should always flourish should their goodly leaves hourly fall and we live still as if we never looked for any winter or should God so often threaten to pluck up the vineyard which his own right hand hath planted and yet the dressers of it still seek after great things for themselves as if they never dreamt of dispossession would the most of us either seek to raise our selves as high as the highest room in the Lords house or make it a chief part of our care how to forecast mispense of time in merriment gameing or other worldly pleasures or contentments whilst sundry of our poor brethren and fellow Prophets perhaps in worth our betters die of discontent whilst others younger run mad after riot abroad least they should be attached by sorrow and grief at home whilst other begin to expect a change and entertain a liking of Romish Proffers Others which have ever hated Rome more then death begin to loath their lives and set their longing on the Grave desirous to give their bodies to be devoured by that earth which hath not ministered necessary sustenance to them as being overcharged with maintaining the unnecessary desires and superfluous pleasures of worse deservers Or would so many were they