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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80530	Experience, historie, and divinitie Divided into five books. Written by Richard Carpenter, vicar of Poling, a small and obscure village by the sea-side, neere to Arundel in Sussex. Who being, first a scholar of Eaton Colledge, and afterwards, a student in Cambridge, forsooke the Vniversity, and immediatly travelled, in his raw, green, and ignorant yeares, beyond the seas; ... and is now at last, by the speciall favour of God, reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England? Printed by order from the House of Commons.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1641 (1641)	Wing C620B; ESTC R229510	263,238	607

thus many why stay I there many thousands were saved of whom we never heard And the like hapned saith Saint Austin in the Deluge For many being convinced in their judgements by seeing the Prophecie of the Floud to become History repented of their sinnes against God whom Noah had taught to be the Author of the Prophecie and beleeving imbraced their present destruction as a just punishment for their sins and having been justified by a lively faith were saved God did not take al into the number of his people because his people had not beene so properly his without an exclusion of others and because hee would more endeare himselfe to those whom hee tooke as likewise his love is more glorious in his elect And after the comming of Christ if there be or hath beene a Countrey which hath not sufficiently heard of Christ and his workes the people have not sufficiently performed their duties to which they were bound by the Law of Nature From those that correspond with the light of Nature the light of Grace is never with-held neither was Christ ever nor ever shall be conceal'd but either is told or was foretold CHAP. XI BUt now at length sinne being very forward and by occasion of the Law growing stubborne and striving against the Law and the world groaning aloud under the judgements of God and the waight of the old Law and the Prophets and servants little prevailing and all earnestly desiring a Messias a Saviour the Redeemer of Israell Christ himselfe the Lord and Master of the family God knew in all Eternity that it was in his power and liberty to make other creatures some above the degrees of Angels some in the distance betwixt Angels and men with divers endowments and perfections to whom he might liberally and with a full hand communicate himselfe yet rejecting in the long and various catalogue all the rest being a rich God hee chose poore man intimating a great correspondence betwixt a rich Creatour and a poore Creature the one being very full and most able to give the other very empty and lying open to receive And also he knew that amongst all the severall kinds of communications none was so fit and firme as the joyning of himselfe to some created nature in such a rich and exquisite manner that the Creature might be as it were married to the Divinity and make one onely Person with it and therefore he joyned himselfe to man by the mediation of the Hypostaticall Union if the Schooles say true the most perfect Creature that ever God made as comming more neere to him not in being but in touch in this most excellent kinde of conjunction And as the Sunne turn'd face and ran backe in the same steps it came tenne degrees in the dayes of Ezechias so he descended under the nine Quires of Angels even to humane nature the tenth last least and lowest degree of reasonable Creatures taking it to have and to hold for all Eternity S. Aug. de praedest c. 15. Vide ibi plura Quo altius carnem attolleret non habuit saith Saint Austin He not onely raised humane nature as high as it possibly could rise or omnipotencie lift it but also he brought downe his Divinity as low as it could come It was fitly sung by a good musitian and the straine was very sweete Hee bowed the Ps ●8 9. Heavens also and came downe and darknesse was under his feete For they being high and we lowe they were bow'd downe by a strong hand to us and our condition the hand of him who bringing light trod darknesse under his feete And it is pretty to observe how God hath laboured to unite himselfe with man The water being hindered in one passage seeketh another For as likenesse is that from which love is taken so likewise Union is that to which love is carried First man was no sooner man but God fastned himselfe to him by Grace Which Union though it was not the Union of God with man but of his Grace yet Grace did present the person of God and while shee kept her Court in man performed the strict will of her Lord her selfe and so governed that all the powers where she was did the same Adam not falling sinfully before his fall But God seeing that this Union was quickly dissolved in Adams fall and that being a very unsettled Union it was in danger to breake at every turne and foreseeing what we now see he made another more sure and sacred cord of Union in the Incarnation whereby humane nature is tied to the Divinity and makes up the same Person with the second Person in Trinity without any danger of a divorce or breach of friendship But because this Union is not the joyning of God to every man but to the nature of man and to no mans nature in particular but his owne he sleepes not here but comes home to every one without exception in the Sacrament marrying himselfe by grace to the soule applyed in the resemblance of bodily nourishment to make the Union of Grace more strong with a double knot as labouring if it were possible to turne into the soule and be the same thing with it as bread becomes not one of the two in carne una in one flesh but una caro one and the same flesh with the body But because we are not yet come to that which by the Grecians is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies both the end and perfection and because this Union also now is and now is not God hath ordained a settled state of Union by which the soule of man in Heaven is tyed with an eternall bond of peace to him humane understanding to the divine understanding the will of man to the will of God and by which all the powers of man are fixt in a firme and most neere connexion and subordination with and to him for ever How then ought we to stoope and comply if we sincerely desire a Union of all not onely with our selves for our owne ends but with the Primitive Church for Gods end CHAP. XII THe Apostles and Preachers of Christ following the tract and foot-steps of God and of their Master Christ who also conversed with Publicans and sinners though not in their sinnes and spake otherwise to his Apostles to whom it was given to know mysteries otherwise to the people were all things to all men Saint Paul to the Jewes under the Law though not a Jew under the Law became as a Jew under the Law To the Gentiles as one of them though not one of them To the weake though not weake as weake The great Interpreters of holy Scripture give three reasons why Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrewes doth not begin after his accustomed manner Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ The first was given by Theodoret because he was more answerably Aposto●●s Doctor Gentium the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles as himselfe proveth The second by

much approved in the Councell of Chalcedon Conc. Chalc. As when the body of man suffereth the soule indeed knoweth that and what the body suffereth but in it self remayneth impassible So Christ suffering in whom the Godhead was the Godhead in him could not suffer with him If as in God there are three persons and one nature and three persons in one nature so in Christ we consider two natures in one person and lay them out to their proper acts all is easily perceived Excellently Cyril of Alexandria alleaged in the first generall Councell Cyr. Alex. in Conc. Ephes 1. of Ephesus Factus est homo remansit Deus servi formam accepit sed liber ut filius gloriam accepit gloriae Dominus in omnes accepit potestatem rex simul cum Deo rerum omnium He was made man but he continued God he took the forme of a servant but he remayned free as a sonne he received glory but was the Lord of glory hee received power over all but was King together with God of all things With what a ready finger the holy Evangelists touch every particular string in the dolorous discourse of our Saviours Passion They were not ordinary men drawn every way with carnall desires but extraordinary persons carried aloft upon the wings of a divine spirit For in the relation of those things which manifested the glory of Christ and pertained to the demonstration of his God-head they do not stay they give a naked declaration and passe to that which followeth But in the cloudy matters of his disgrace and especially in the Funerall Song of his Passion they are copious and full of matter Which if they had vainly affected the glory of the World they neither should nor would have done Thus evidently shewing they did not glory in any thing but with Saint Paul in the crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ Saint Luke opening the glory of Christs Nativitie openeth and shutteth all as it were with one action And suddenly Luk. 2. 13 14. there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men That strange comming of the Wisemen or Eastern Princes Saint Matthew comes as quickly over And fell down and worshipped him And Mat. 2. 11. when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him Gifts Gold Frankincense and Myrrhe In blazing the Transfiguration of Christ they put it off without any blazing figure without a transfiguration of words as willing onely to insinuate that Christ opened a chink of Heaven and gave a little glympse of his glory before his Passion to prepare and confirme his Disciples And forced at last upon his Ascension it fals from them in short Hee was received Mar 16. 19 up into Heaven All which they might have amplified by the help of their infused knowledge which virtually contained the inferiour art of speaking with glorious descriptions But in the dolefull Historie of his Passion wee have a large discourse of apprehending binding judging buffeting whipping scorning reviling condemning wounding killing and if any thing slip under the rehearsall it is to be a scarff over the face and to shew the griefe could not be expressed and moreover to stirre mens thoughts to expresse more in themselves to which wee may referre that of Saint Luke And many other things blasphemously spake they against him These blessed Evangelists Luk. 22 65 proved themselves to be the true Disciples of Christ For Saint Matthew saith From that time forth began Iesus to shew unto Mat. 16 21 his Disciples how that he must goe to Hierusalem and suffer many things of the Elders and chiefe Priests and Scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day The Resurrection had but a very little roome and it should have had no roome had it not fitly served to sweeten the relation of his sufferings Hee did not much stirre his head in his passion without a Record without a Chronicle Saint Iohn saith hee bowed his head And thus doth the flower when it John 19. 30 beginneth to wither Hee bowed his head and gave up the ghost He bowed his head Stay there it is too soone to give up the ghost Father of Heaven wilt thou suffer this O all yee creatures help help your Creatour But they stir not because he hath bowed his head the most high and most majesticall part of his body Did hee bow his head Hee the great God of Heaven and of the World betrayed by his owne Disciple crucified by his owne people led by him to the knowledge of him when all the World was given into their own hands and brought by a strange and a strong hand out of Egypt the house of bondage the black figure of this World into the Land of Canaan the Land which flowed with milk and honey the beautifull Embleme of Heaven Did hee bow his head no instruments but his own creatures being used to his destruction when the weighty sins of the whole world were laid upon his guiltlesse back and when he could in one quick instant have turned all the World to a vain and foolish nothing And shall one of us dirty creatures frowne and be troubled lift up the head speak rashly and kick against the thorn moved by every small and easie occasion Shall we murmure and trouble all with the smoake and fames of angry words As thus for the deceits of the Devill are wonderfull If that Miscreant that shape of a man had not put my honour upon the hooke I had not beene troubled Such another man is not extant me thinks hee has not the face of an honest man The carriage of his body is most ridiculous God forgive me if I think amisse my heart gives mee hee never says his prayers Pray God he believe in Christ This makes the Devil sport What are we How soone we take fire how quickly we give fire how long we keep fire In what mists or rather fogs wee lose our selves Why did God send some of us now living into the World and not rather create us in glory if he did not mean we should passe through a field of thornes into a garden of flowers through the Temple of Vertue into the Temple of Honour by pain to pleasure MEDIT. 3. HE gave up the ghost They say men that die give up the ghost Did Christ die It cannot be Yes and more He died willingly like a meeke Lambe sobbing out his life For hee gave up the ghost it was not taken from him And therefore a good man hath not feared to say that Christ held his life by mayn strength some little while beyond the date of nature that it might not seem to bee taken from him by force of armes Greater love hath no man then this that a man lay downe his life for his friends Joh. 15. 13. Life is the last of all our possessions in this

him if it be of high things he cannot endure it he cannot taste aright bitter is sweet and sweet bitter to his infected palate hee hath litle stomach to his meate hee loathes it and when hee eates it will not stay with him or if it does he cannot digest it perfectly hee cannot stand without leaning hee cannot goe without a staffe he cannot runne without one And why all this Because he is sicke because he is a very weake man O Adam what hast thou done but in vaine Had the best of us beene Adam he would have eaten had there beene a Serpent and a woman perhaps had there beene a Serpent and no woman perhaps had there been a woman and no Serpent perhaps had there beene neitheir woman nor Serpent For God being absent with his efficacie he might have beene both woman and Serpent to himselfe But let him passe It is beleeved that God hath forgiven Adam and his wife who first brought sinne into the world and we may have great hope he will be a tender-hearted father also towards us that never saw the blessed houres of innocencie Nothing can harden his tendernesse but our sinnes And there are onely two deformities in our sinnes conceivable to be most odious and urging to revenge the greatnesse of them the multitude of them O! but the Prophet David a knowing man prescribes a speciall remedy Have mercie upon Psal 51. 1. me O God according to thy loving kindnesse The Latine translation gives it Secundum magnam misericordiam tuam according to thy great mercie great sinnes great mercie a present remedy What comes after according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions a multitude of grievous sinnes a multitude of tender mercies an approved remedy There wants only a lively faith and a vertuous life like two hands to make the application to bring them together and 't is done Consideration 2. THe light of the Understanding which properly belongs to the Understanding is onely naturall and that lesse cleare then it was And a naturall light leads onely to the knowledge of naturall things or of things as naturall for nothing can worke beyond the vertue received from its causes But man is ordained for God as for an end which goes beyond the graspe and comprehension of nature according to Saint Pauls Divinity borrowed from the Prophet Esay Eye hath not seene 1 Cor. 2. 9 nor eare heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him And the end ought alwayes to be foreseene and foreknowne by them who are engaged to direct and turne the face of all their intentions and actions to the end Therefore another light is necessary a light above the knowledge and reach of nature of which the Understanding by nature is altogether destitute Here is a wondrous defect Who can shew mee such another We naturally see there is a God Farther we naturally see that all things were made for us and we for God howsoever the Stoicks thought one man was borne for another And yet by the proper strength of nature we cannot goe to him whom we see to be whom we see to be our end and for whom we see we were made nor yet towards him Saint Austin one of the most searching spirits that ever was both a spirit and a body solves this hard knot of difficulty in a discourse of another linage Consultissime homini praecipitur ut rectis passibus ambulet ut cum se non S. Aug. de perfect Iust cap. 7. posse perspexerit medicinam requirat c. The lame unable man is fitly commanded to go that perceiving his defect of being unable he may seeke a cure and be able But the cure what is it The grace of God and as Conc. Senonense a learned Councell speaketh gratia semper est in promptu the grace of God is alwayes in a readinesse I am not commanded to travell for it wheresoever I am it is there also I may lift up my hands and take it if I open my heart wide it will drop into it And as it was the nature of Originall sinne to weaken the naturall and to darken the supernaturall light of the soule so likewise it is the nature of actuall sinne to wound nature and to kill grace grace only being directly opposite to sinne And thence it comes that still as we sin still we are more darkened and that still the more we sinne still the more we are deceived in our judgements and still erre the more in the sight and knowledge of truth For why doe wicked men ingulft in wickednesse apprehend most horrible sinnes as triviall matters because their Candle is out the light by which they saw is darkened with sinne Why doe weake Christians change their opinions from good to evill from evill to more evill Why doe they grow more strong and obstinate in evill opinions Whither soever I goe I must come hither for an answer Because some private or publike sins have removed their Candle-sticke out of his place and they are in darknesse God blesse my heart from the darknesse of Egypt It is a pretty observation that although the Israelites and the Egyptians were mingled together yet the plague of darknesse which was a continuall night wheresoever it found an Egyptian was neither plague nor darknesse to an Israelite no verily though hand in hand with an Egyptian O Lord I learne here that I am blinde and darke and I know that I am weake and therefore without thee my contemplation will be darke and weake as I am Consideration 3. VVE see God in this world not in himselfe but per speculum creaturarum through the glasse of creatures It is Rom. 1. 20. worthily said by Saint Paul The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearely seene being understood by the things that are made Clearely seene to be but not clearely seene what they are in themselves For if so the things which are seene should be as exactly perfect as the things which are not seene as representing them perfectly It is a direct passage by corporall things up to spirituall For God applyes himselfe accordingly to the nature of every thing in which he workes The Angles are Spirits and therefore their directions even before their union with God were altogether spirituall But wee being partly corporall and outwarly furnished with senses are most commonly taught by things which offer and present themselvs to sense And because the seeing faculty is the most quick and apprehensive the sense of seeing hath more instructions And seeing most like to understanding what is seene may best be understood In all Gods creatures as being the creatures of one God there is a strange kind of consent combination and harmony In earthly things heavenly things are strangely set out and proposed to us For if the way had not some springlings of resemblance with the Country we

nature fals under himselfe and workes with every creature or second cause in a manner and measure agrreable to their naturall and ordinary way of working So likewise being the Author of Grace and having never yet for some great reasons best knowne to himselfe made two men with a perfect agreement either of face or nature sendeth Apostles and Preachers who have in their commands a speciall injunction of being 1 Cor. 9. 22 like to him who saith I am made all things to all men that I might by all meanes save some And God himselfe not onely in executing the generall Acts and Decrees of his Providence over his creatures but also and more especially in the more notable praxis and speciall exercise of his providence over his Church from the beginning of the world was all things to all men CHAP. VII GOD hath full power and absolute dominion over all his Creatures because he call'd yea catched them out of nothing and because to speake in the Apostles dialect in him they live move and have their being And therefore hee may lawfully give Lawes to them to the due and strict observation of which they are strongly bound under paine of his high displeasure seconded with most heavie punishment Wherefore giving a Law to the Jewes by the mediation of Moses he beginneth with an argument of his authority and dominion over them I am the Exod 20. 2. Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Aegypt out of the house of bondage This laid for the corner-stone I thus proceed in the building In the infancie and childhood of the world when sinne was not as yet so active so quicke so cunning but dull and clownish and to foreshow the backwardnesse of nature in matters pertaining to Heaven yes to naturall knowledge and even humane society and also that it might fully and plentifully appeare to after-ages how nature is wrought and polished as in materiall things by Art so in spirituall matters by Grace The Law by which God for the most part guided man was onely borne with him was young as he was young and grew as he grew non scripta sed nata lex as the Orator saith being a Law not written and sent in a letter to us from Lycurgus Solon or Moses but borne with us or if written written onely in the soule of man where it continually remaineth in the shape of a light discovering to the view of the Soule the beauty of good and the deformity of evill For Good is faire and amiable and the cleare eye of reason beholdeth in it at the first sight a singular convenience with the will of man and a sympathy with Heaven And therefore they who were bound onely with the looser ties of the Law of nature and who now in strange Countries and in wilde and uncouth places dispense their actions by the light of reason beare a Preacher in their hearts Ill is blacke and deformed and reason in the first glance seeth a loathsomenesse a Toad in it and heareth presently as it were a jarring and disagreement with God and Heaven And therefore the drunkard the lascivious person and others of the same torne and ragged coate loath in deed not by any pious act of Christian vertue but by a deed of nature their owne beastlinesse and can by no meanes endure to be call'd what they are For as the Beast runneth the Bird flieth from danger as the one prepareth his den the other his nest as they looke abroad for daily nourishment provide carefully for their young know what will satisfie their cold of hunger what coole their heate of thirst what complyeth with their different appetites follow the leading of their admirable properties and by a secret instinct cheerefully performe the severall acts of their nature So man since he dealt with the Tree of Knowledge naturally knoweth good as opposed to evill as he naturally distinguisheth light from darknesse Againe some things are good in themselves and not good onely because God commands them to be loved and imbraced and these in the first place the light of nature sheweth to be good And some things are evill in themselves and not evill onely because markt and branded with a prohibition and these chiefely the light of nature showeth to be evill For if the light or law of nature in its owne nature did not make it cleare to Caine that he ought not to have killed his good brother Abel how did he sinne or what branch of law did he breake in killing him sinne being the violation of a law But certainly he trespassed upon that first principle of nature in morality Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri ne feceris what you would that men should not doe unto you doe not you unto them And hither Saint Paul pointeth For when the Gentiles which have not the law doe by nature the things Rom. 2. 14. contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves One step more and we are in the bottome Although the the Sage Aegyptians in Damascius cried out three times in every performance of their heathenish mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unknowne darknesse yet by the plaine and easie search of humane power the old Philosophers found that there was a God and that he was but one in Essence that he was every where that he was omnipotent and the like though verily their knowledge both of God and his workes was rather opinion then knowledge it did so hang waver For the Philosopher opening his minde occasionally concerning the birth of the world sometimes he was and sometimes againe he was not Aristotle In one Arist l. 1. de coelo 1. Top. c. 9. booke hee judgeth absolutely that the world stood in the same state in which now it is in all eternity In another he stops like a man come unawares to a place where the way is divided and doubts which path leads to the truth In a third booke discussing the generation of living things Lib. 3. de generatione animalium c. 11. he sayes a man shall not beleeve amisse who shall take it for certaine that the first man and beast upon supposition that they came of the earth were either produced out of a Worme or an Egge and at length breaking the Egge in long handling concludes it is the most consentaneous to reason that they both drew their first parentage from a Worme And thus hee sought creepingly amongst the Wormes for what hee could not finde though very neere him In like manner he played with the Immortality of the soule It pleased him and it displeased him He tooke it and he threw it off againe And he was more willing in the end to disclaime it then owne it And the flowings and ebbings of his owne braine had he studied inward might have urged him to a greater confusion of thoughts and more trouble of minde then Euripus in which Saint Gregorie Nazienzen teacheth

he Greg. Naz. orat 3. in Julian drowned himselfe And this weake light or dawning of the day was truely most sutable and more then most agreeable with beginners CHAP. VIII SInne being now more strong more witty and more various and Nature being sufficiently informed of her owne weaknesse God sent the world letters from Heaven De illa civitate unde peregrinamur S. Aug. con 2. in Psal 90. saith Saint Austin hae literae nobis venerunt these letters came from the great Imperiall City from which we travell And Moses the Messenger that brought these letters of so great importance frō God to the world delivered his message with caution and with respect to the Jewes hardnesse as it is cleerely gathered out of the words in which Christ arguing with the Pharisees concerning the permissive Law of Divorcement saith Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you to put away your Mat. 19. 8. wives but from the beginning it was not so And so he corrected the Law in conformity to a more perfect condition And therefore the Greeke Church with us doth onely breake Matrimony in the case of Adultery in which point Eugenius the fourth laboured to reconcile her with the Church of Rome at Florence but he could not And even in the old dayes of the old Law God altered the phrase of his proceedings with correspondence to the person with whom he dealt and with whom he was to deale For the old Law being a Law of feare a Law of bondage and a maine difference betwixt the old Law and Aug. l. c●toginta trium quaest tom 4. the new being as Saint Austin giveth it Timor Amor Feare and Love conversing now with the Synagogue a servant a bond-woman he stiles himselfe God the Lord Jehovah Mighty Terrible Yet meditating upon the new Law being a Law of Grace and liberty and turning to the sweete Spouse in the Canticles to which Law she did indeed most properly belong he doth as it were cover his greatnesse hide his beames and draw a great vaile over his Majesty For he cals himselfe a Bridegroome a friend a lover And in the whole book of Canticles we cannot finde with both our eyes one proper name of God not one of the tenne great names of God which are so easie to be found in the old Testament and which Saint Hierome doth briefely explicate in his learned Epistle to Marcella God will not be knowne to S. Hier. Ep. ad Marcel his bashfull and tender Spouse by the names which move terrour and affrightment For he would not as a man may say for all the world trouble or fright his pretty maiden Spouse And uses onely the titles which kindle and cherish love CHAP. IX ALl this while there occurred as well in the booke of Creatures as in the love-letters from the Creatour many faire and solid emblems of a Divine providence goodnesse wisedome mercie justice and so forth And before this man might already learne sufficiently that there was one God even in the Manuscript of Creatures by turning before his lesson from cause to cause till he came to the first cause from motion to motion till he came to the first Mover But the capacity of the childish young world was yet too meane too shallow to receive in plaine language the mysterious doctrine of a Trinity the heart of man being as it were not yet altogether unfolded not perfectly open'd into a Triangle Nor did ever any spirituall Traveller to this day meete with the perfect likenesse of the blessed Trinity in Creatures For there is no principle in naturall knowledge no foot-step of God in Creatures by the direction of which any created understanding either Humane or Angelicall may reasonably close with the assent or opinion or even suspition of the blessed Trinity or which can give us any true notice that it is possible For although the Understanding Will and Memory of man in which as in the most during part Gods image consisteth are three faculties and one soule yet they fall under being one and three after the manner as God is three and one nor is there such a difference in the faculties as distinction in the Persons And if you distinguish the faculties really with the Thomists the Persons will not be so really distinguished and yet they will be truely distinguished one from another besides that every one will be the same in Essence and the whole Essence If the learned urge that the soundest part of the heathen writers speake honourably of the blessed Trinity as Mercurius therefore called though some thinke otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orpheus and that Plato speaks high things of the word divine love and other Platonists out of whose books S. Austin reporteth that he gathered these jewels this golden chaine of holy Scripture In principio erat verbum verbum S. Aug. l. 7 confess c. 9. Io. 1. ● erat apud Deum Deus erat verbum In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God As if the Eagle had not taken it in a high flight from the holy Ghost but stooped to them for it I answer these Philosophers sucked the sweets of knowledge they had in this kind out of the Scripture And Clemens Alexandrinus Clem. Alex l. 1 Stromatum maketh mention of a certaine old Greeke edition of the old Testament before that of the Septuagint which came to the hands of Plato and of other Philosophers And also these Philosophers as it is abundantly manifest in Saint Justine S. Just paraenesi sive cohort ad Gracos travelled all into Egypt to better their knowledge where the Jewes in their servitude had left many visible footsteps of heavenly learning Yet where they speake of the word and so plainely of the blessed Trinity they received their knowledge in the same strange manner as the Sibyls and they spoke as Plato said of the Sibyls many brave matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Plat. apud Just ●n paraenesi reaching to the deepe and genuine sense of any word they said and the spirit failing not being able to recover the least representation of what they had said And truely Theodor. lib. 2. apud Graecos Theodoret gives a most exquisite reason why God was not willing to deliver the knowledge of the blessed Trinity in a plaine letter to the Jewes but in characters in a close and covered manner because they first came from Egypt where a multitude of Gods was adored and were afterwards seated in Canaan where the like adoration was performed And if God had talked to them in a familiar way in a worne and beaten phrase of three Persons they moreover being an idolatrous generation their corrupt natures might have easily corrupted the Text and beleeved as many Gods as Persons especially when they were of themselves such waxen creatures so prone and pliant to Idolatry that the onely

discomforted they would not be angry that I desired to subsist and to preach the good Gospell of Christ But I will not preach this doctrine till I am call'd CHAP. V. ANd now I thanke the Papists for my unconquerable resolution growing from the grossenesse of their scandals Josephs Brethren were very malicious against him they sold him to slavery the Scene beganne to bee tragicall God came to act his part turned the wheele and made all this malice and misery end in the great benefit not onely of the malicious and undeserving Brethren but of Joseph himselfe his old Father and the whole Kingdome of Egypt Judas sold his Master his Master and the Master of all things for thirty pence the money would goe but a little way he had an ill bargaine When his part was done God entred upon the Stage and by the execrable perfidiousnesse of the Traitour Judas brought about the redemption of mankinde the salvation of the whole world and in effect all the shining that is and ever shall be made by glorious soules and bodies in Heaven I doe not except the soule and body of our Mediatour and Advocate Christ Jesus who though he did not redeeme himselfe because he was not in captivity yet came to be betraied and to redeeme his Betrayer if he would have bin redeemed By this law a prudent Mr. of a family turnes the rough nature of an angry Dog to the benefit and peace of himselfe and his family and a wise Physitian the eager thirst of a bloud-thirsty horseleach to the health of a sick person although indeed these unreasonable creatures of themselves aime at nothing but to satiate their owne wilde natures Saint Austin speaking of evill men saith Ne igitur putes gratis malos esse in hoc mundo nihil boni ex illis metere Deum quia omnis malus aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus exerceatur Doe not therefore thinke that evill men are suffered to be evill in this world for no good purpose and that God reapes no benefit by them For every evill man either therefore lives that in time he may decline from evill and incline to good or therefore lives that the good man may be exercised and farthered in the practise of goodnesse by him otherwise he should no live There is a course of things within the generall course of this world pertaining to the order to which God brings all straggling chances in the last act of the play which if we did examine as they come and beget experience we should enlighten and enrich the understanding with heavenly matters exceedingly We behold how admirably at this day moved by the sinfull occasion of Heresie and Superstition the Church doth watch and pray and we know that a multitude of soules now crowned in Heaven hath learned to avoid sinne by observing others punished for sinne which could not in justice have beene punished if it had not beene committed and how murderes doe open the gate of Heaven for Martyrs and that the bloud of Martyrs hath beene the seed of the Church for if they had not died bodily many had not lived spiritually And to goe as high as may be Good comes to God by the worst of evils the good of glory by sinne For to speake with Cassiodore Materia est gloriae principalis delinquentis reatus quia nisi culparum Cassio Var. 3. 46. occasiones emergerent locum pietas non haberet The guilt of a Delinquent person is a principall matter that nourisheth glory For if there were no sinne there would be no place for the exercise of mercie which supposeth misery which misery supposeth sinne And though I gather good from the evill of the Church of Rome yet the evill of the Church is to me a sound argument against the Church That rule of Mat 7. 16. Christ Yee shall know them by their fruits is as true a marke as a signe from Heaven For as the Church of Rome was first known by her workes so now likewise shee is knowne by her workes and the workes of her age not being of the same birth and education with the workes of her youth shew her to bee different from her selfe when workes doe alwayes answer in some proportion to Faith and the Tree cannot be good if the fruit be generally evill And as Saint Justine writeth to the Grecians S. Justin Cohort ad Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the solid fruit of pious workes gives testimony to the true Religion I came from the last Popish Colledge of which I was a member as I did from all others fairely and respectfully on both sides Their testimony of me is yet in my hands made strong and authenticall with their owne Seale I will give it here word for word Thomas Fitzherbertus societatis Jesu Collegii Anglorum de urbe Rector OMnibus in quorum manus praesentes venerint salutem in Domino sempiternam Fidem facimus atque his literis attestamur latorem praesentium Reverendum Patrem Franciscum Dakerum for this was the last name by which I was knowne amongst them Anglum Sacerdotem esse nec ullo impedimento Canonico prohiberi quo minus sacrosanctum Missae Sacrificium ubique celebrare possit Cum vero etiam in hoc nostro Collegio sedis Apostolicae Alumnus fuerit modo absolutis studiis in Angliam ad lucrandas Deo animas proficiscatur nos quo illum affectu nobiscum morantem complexi sumus eodem discedentem paterne prosequimur omnibus ad quos in itinere devenerit quantum valemus in Domino commendamus In quorum fidem caet Romae ex Collegio Anglorum die 9. Septemb. 1635. Thomas Fitzherbertus manu propria Those with whose understandings this will suite are able to understand it without a translation The Faculties annexed by the Pope to the exercise of my Priestly function were these I have them under their owne hands Ordinariae Facultates Alumnorum Collegii Anglicani 1. FAcultas absolvendi ab omnibus casibus Censuris in Bulla Caenae Domini reservatis in Regnis Angliae Scotiae Hiberniae 2. Vt possint illis quos reconciliaverint dare Apostolicam benedictionem cum plenaria Indulgentia prima vice Catholicis vero congregatis ad Concionem vel ad sacrum in Festis solennioribus Apostolicam benedictionem sine plenaria Indulgentia 3. Vt possint dispensare cum illis qui contraxerint cum tertio vel quarto gradu in foro conscientiae tantum 4. Vt possint commutare vota simplicia exceptis votis Castitatis Religionis in aliud opus pium cum causa 5. Vt possint benedicere vestes alia omnia quae pertinent ad Sacrificium praeter ea quae requirunt Chrisma 6 Vt possint restituere jus petendi debitum conjugale quando ex aliqua causa omissum est 7 Vt possint dare facultatem Catholicis legendi libros controversiarum a Catholicis

we are deprived The evils of punishment come from God flow naturally from him as from their true source cause Go aske the Prophet Amos he will say as much Amos 3. 6 Shall there be evill in a City and the Lord hath not done it God hath nothing to doe with sinne but foure wayes in all which he stands off and comes not neere it In the hindrance in the sufferance in turning it to good ends and in appointing the punishment And all the evils of punishment which God ever heaped upon man on earth and in Hell or is able to heape are not fit punishment my drift is not equall to the mischiefe of one sinne though the Papists thinke otherwise of their veniall sinnes God alwayes punishing under the desert of sinne as he alwayes rewards above vertue as being more prone to the acts of mercie then of justice And neither all Gods Creatures nor God himselfe be it spoken with due reverence and respect to his omnipotencie can shower downe so great evils upon man as he daily pulleth upon himselfe For they can onely sting his body with the evils of punishment he staineth his owne soule with the evill of sin And therefore Saint Chrysostomes Paradox out of which he hath dreined a most learned Homily is not a Paradox Nemo laeditur nisi a seipso No man is hurt but by himselfe For it is plaine that matters of punishment may be turned to vertue which doth not hurt but alwayes from sinne comes dammage and hurt because more is lost then gain'd though all the world bee gain'd it being sure that by sinne God is lost and cannot be gain'd Sinne to speak gently is the sleepe of the soule For as he that sleepeth feares oftentimes what is not to be feared As to be drowned in deepe waters to fall from the top of a high rock into the Sea to be devoured by a Beare or a Lion or some such vaine thing of which he dreames but the Thiefe who comes now in earnest to cut his throat he feares not So the sinner feares some few shadowes of danger but not the sinne that kils him O foolish Horse that starts at the shadow of a tree and when the Drums and Trumpets sound runs gladly among the Pikes thrusting himselfe upon true danger And as he that sleepeth beleeves oftentimes that he is in full possession of that which hee hath not He dreames of gold and of a Palace and in the act the cobwebs of his poore Cottage drop upon his face and wake him The sinner being in danger dreames of safety and wakes environed with danger And lastly as he that sleepeth performes oftentimes the worke of a waking man but imperfectly He speakes but brokenly and with little sense He rises and walkes but seldome without a fall So the habits of vertues being destroyed in a sinner have left a warmth and facility behinde them which seeme vertuous when they are not and therefore delude exceedingly both the person and all the witnesses of his carriage And such a person is more dangerously sicke then the Hypocrite who knoweth his errour or may be soone convinced of it by the light of nature Phoenix in Homer under whose government Achilles was brought up to that great height and perfection of knowledge was directed by the rules of naturall prudence to be two Masters to him For the Poet describes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a director not onely of his words but of his deeds also But he that is warmed with such a heate when the fire is gone beleeves that he is hot rejoyceth in it and little thinkes what kinde of warmth it is wherewith he is heated From these premises I gather what I had lost I had lost the princely robe of justice the rich garment of needle-worke wherewith the Kings daughter was adorned after the losse of which my soule was not the Kings daughter I had lost the name dignity and credit of Gods good childe the speciall providence and protection with which he shrouds as a Hen her Chickens covers and spreads himselfe over the just O t is warme being under his wings and all the more speciall helpes which imparting to them he denies to sinners I had lost I had lost faith and except hope all infused vertues which are the strength veines and sinewes of the soule by which she is enabled to doe well and orderly in order to salvation and which are as it were the faire pearles with which she is beautified I had lost O I had lost the most unvaluable benefit of Christs merits Christ could not say then to his Father of me Father give him me I have bought him I had lost God and therefore was robbed of all good He that is every where was gone from me He was out of my reach out of my call and hee would not heare me but called by earnest repentance a hard taske and not possibly to bee compassed without his powerfull assistance that was farre from me And which is the top of admiration I had lost my selfe and could by no meanes learne whither I was gone Had I gone out into the streets and asked all passengers if any good man or woman could tell where I was Had I said neighbour pray have you found me I am lost Whatsoever my neighbours had said all sound Christians would have answered that I was lost and so lost that I could never be found but by an infinite power and that for their parts they knew not where I was Indeed I neither know nor shall ever know fully what I had lost Go now all Merchants and Tradesmen henceforth hold your peace speak no more of your losses by Sea or Land I had lost more then Land and Sea themselves And having lost all good I staid not there but also was over-whelmed with all evill It is a great evill of disgrace to be the childe of a wicked man or willing to serve him Sin had made me the childe of the Devill and more subject then a childe a slave to him and sinne And therefore Christ said to sinners Yee are of your Father the Devill He said likewise Verily verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sinne is the servant of sinne Sin then being all over evill and all the evill that is and I having committed sinne and so being the willing servant of sinne what a strange kinde of evill was I that served so great an evill when we all know the servant is not higher then his Master but much under him Here is a secret It is an evill chance to a house when it fals into the most hard hands of a cruell murderer or bloody traitor But sin had changed me into the most unhappy dwelling of the Devill And I that once feared to see the Devill and who if I had seene him would have runne much more feared to come neare him or to dwell with him in the same house or chamber had then tooke both him and Hell-fire that