list do so likewise And how general is if not the committance yet the contagion of Idolatry when as some practise it others plead for its freedom others argue for it as no Idolatry others connive at it and let it alone and others work underhand for its further impunity That which the Prophet utters by way of description and reproof of the impiety of the Heathen Nations Micah 4.5 All people will walk every one in the name of his God is now owned and voted for by many and they say Let all people or they should walk every one in the name of his god and further besides the gross or corporal sort of Idol-worship or adoring either Images the work of mens hands or Creatures the work of Gods hands there are two other kinds of Idolatry and they are both among us There is the Idolatry of the brain and the Idolatry of the heart The Idolatry of the brain to wit the entertaining of Antitheistical notions or conceits of God or the seting up of such figments in the understanding of God as are directly opposite to that divine Nature and Personality or distinction of subsistence as is revealed unto us in the Word of God to be the object of our faith and worship And the Idolatry of the heart that is Covetousness for this sin the Apostle brandeth for Idolatry * Col. 3 5. Ephes 5 5 Vide Drusius in Hos 12.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we Ephes 4.19 translate greediness Vide Bez. in loc presertim Dan. Heusii excercit lib 10 c 4 l. 13. c. 2 And Mr Leigh's Crit. Sacr. in vocab And we must understand the term is of a larger extent then our ordinary sence of the word Covetousness reacheth unto for it signifieth an over-greedy desire prosecution and use of any earthly thing and so may include in it ambition intemperance luxury or any other inordinacy as well as the love of mony or worldly wealth and particularly it signifies that satisfying or accomplishment of any corrupt lust which is brought about by violence treachery or breach of Covenant Now who will not confess that the Land is full of this Idolatry or can say that ever any Age or Country equalled or more abounded with this kind of Idolatry and Worship then this of ours Here is Covenant breaking and especially with or in the matters of God I think I may confidently say Never any Nation scarce Israel it self in Moses time or after hath so generally publâ—quely solemnly sacredly and reiteratedly bound themselves to or in the th ngs of God as hath this with our neighbor Nation and never did any so quickly so universally in regard of things so professedly so constantly with such self justifying and so hypocritically or under a pretence of acting from and for God violate their bonds unto him as multitudes have done among us Did ever any people lift up their hands so high unto God in swearing performance of all religious and humane Duties and defence and advancement of all sacred and civil Rights and presently let down their hands so low when it came to execution yea and lifted them up so high against the very things which they swore for as many in England have done We have multiplyed Oaths and studied for the most solemn express and strict forms of declaring and binding our selves as if we would constrain both God and all the world to beleeve and build upon our word most surely and as if we would make it unimaginable and impossible that we should break but after all this there are men found that have gone to work in the matters of the Oaths and Covenants as if the direct contrary to what was the subject of their Oaths had been the things they had undertaken and tyed themselves unto and as if all that they did in entering into those Obligations and in their proceedings afterward had been out of a study to make themselves and the Land as deeply guilty as they could both against God and man of Oath and Covenant-violation Who so shall but look back if a remembrance thereof now may be offenceless upon the Vow and Protestation of the year 1641. and the League and Covenant of the year 1642. and therein take notice to let all other things pass of what was vowed protested covenanted and sworn by the generality of this Nation in one or other or both of those bonds in relation to God What maintenance and defence of the true reformed Protestant Religion against all Popery and Popish Innovations and what endeavor of the punishment of all the Actors to the contrary what endeavor for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland and for the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdom of England and Ireland and that in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government in respect both to that Church and to these Kingdoms and for the Conjunction and Vniformity of the Churches of God in all the three Kingdoms in Religion c. and for the extirpation of Popery Prelacy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness c. He I say that shall but think thereof and then cast his eye upon the universal indisposition and backwardness of the whole Nation to the making good of these things their lothness to expose or imploy any life power or estate for the same the late committance to otter oblivion and deep silence of all these Obligations their total desistance from and constant refusal of all these performances in whose hands it is publiquely to manage the same and their disenabling letting and discouraging them that would stir therein the declarings endeavors and exploits of many directly contrary to these clauses both to the downfall of what was to have been preserved restored or effected and to the reviving and flouâ—ishing of what was to have been extirpated and lastly the favour and help that hath been lent to the known Enemies of the Religion professed and covenanted for in all the said branches thereof and in their enmity against the same He I say again that shall revolve these things if he have any sense either of the things obliged to or the nature of the Obligation cannot chuse but sit down with some part of Ezra's astonishment and heaviness conceived upon the sin of some of his people in the point of anti-federal marriages And as to the purpose in hand in stead of wondering what is become of all the prayers that have been put up for England he may admire what shall become of England and of them that have made it and themselves so guilty in this matter For this our heart is faint for these things our eyes are dim Lam 5.17 Here is Religion abused unto carnal ends and that very commonly plainly and grosly Religion hath been for a long time universally embraced and pretended to in England There have of late been many proceed ngs taken in hand about it yea it hath been one thing which men have held forth and made
which he doth them These are the enquiries which are always and presently raised by the Patients upon them and they are no less commonly raised then difficulty determined or cleared O Lord saith Joshua what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their Enemies Josh 7.8 That disaster quite amazed Heroick Joshua he was at his wits end he was so puzzled at it that he knew not what to think what to say of it Nay sometimes the perplexed Soul goes further in its questions and demands concerning God Where is he doth he see or regard is he mindful of his promise where are his former loving-kindnesses and the like Such clouds are spread upon the face of Gods ways in this particular and such vapors do arise out of mens musing minds to increase the obscurity that here he that feareth the Lord walketh in darkness Isai 50.10 59.10 and gropeth for the wall like the blind he gropeth as if he had no eyes And hence doth the Faithfuls distemper of heart take its rise this darkness worketh upon their corruption or rather their corruption upon it Unto the weight of that evil that lies upon the outward man the heart creates it self and super-addeth a burden of doubtful solicitous and vexing thoughts about the Lords doing in it and thus that condition is turned into a temptation or occasion for sinful infirmities to make head and boil forth 2. Another Cause may be the hard Construction which is made of the adverse events of the faithful the heavy censures and perverse judgments that are passed upon them The Prophet David that had much experience both of this demeanor of men towards him and of the working of it upon him by causing a heart-rising or stirring of corruption within him he beginneth one of his Psalms penned on such an occasion with these words Blessed is he that considereth the poor Psal 41. or as some render the place Blessed is he that is understanding upon or towards him that is low or Ar. Mout Muscul Foord in loc Blessed is he that carrieth himself wisely towards the afflicted To carry wisely or prudently to look upon him that is cast down or brought low is seriously to mind and ponder the Lords meaning in that his hand upon him and out of a quick sense of his and our own community of condition both in regard of desert of and subjectness to such calamities to forbear all harsh judgings of him and in stead thereof to minister wholesom advice and seasonable comforts to him And the benediction that he pronounceth upon such deporters of themselves intimateth the singularity or rareness of this carriage The more ordinary intreaty that persons in that estate meet with from others is a load of rash uncharitable and scornful censures Men presently condemn them as impious conclude them to be grand offenders and disgorge upon them the blackest of their conceits they think no brand foul enough for them As David being in this case saith They cast iniquity upon me Psal 55.3 as people are wont to cast dirt or any filthy stuff at an infamous lewd person that is exposed to publique shame Or as Job Job 30.10 in the like case They spare not to spit in my face as they were accustomed to do to an odious malefactor The Prophet David in the progress of the forementioned Psalm complaineth of this in those that were his haters Ps 55.7 8 They whispered together against him thus An evil disease say they cleaveth fast unto him and now that he lieth Verbum Belial Ar. Mont. Res Belial Foord he shall rise up no more The Margin with others readeth the first words A thing of Belial cleaveth fast unto him A thing of Belial that is a horrible crime a wicked fact a devilish deed such as is so execrable as it is unfit to be named he being now struck with sickness with some dangerous disease in body they surmised him to be tained with some horrid offence for which he was now so smitten of God Upright Job being made a woful spectacle in most afflâ—cting losses diseases and temptations his three friends will needs despoil him of his integrity and give sentence against him to be that which Satan had traduced him before God to be viz. a Hypocrite His innocency was all he had left him Iob. 4 6 7.22 5 6. and he retained that still because the Devil and his Instruments could not bereave him of it by all his afflictions And now because he is in that condition these his friends will make those very afflictions which the Lord gave him over to for the tryal and evidence of his Uprightness to be an argument of his unsincerity and rottenness Thus was our blessed Saviour himself dealt withall when his Enemies had gotten him condemned and fastened to the Cross then they open their mouths upon him they rail at him as an Impostor they then conclude him to be a counterfeit in his Miracles Mat. 27.40 41. and in his claim to be the King of Israel and the Son of God and why because of his so suffering because he saved not himself camâ— not down from the Cross and because God did not then deliver him they had prosecuted him to death though they could find no fault in him at all and now they will needs have him guilty because he so dyed See Clarks Martyrol p 31 34 37. 41. 56. In like manner fared the primitive Christians under the ten Persecutions their Persecutors were not content to slaughter them with the inhumanâ—st and exquiâ—â—test torments they could invent but for some colour thereof they accused them as the common Pests as the Procurers of all the Calamities that came upon the Empire by War Famine Pestilence and Earth-quakes as addicted to the foulest vices that ever were found among men and as seditious and rebellious against the Civil State And after that when Christian Religion had been embraced See the Argument prefixed to S. â—ug de civit dei and publiquely authorized by the Roman Empire and the Goths and Vandals had brought the Empire low and had taken and sacked Rome the Enemies of Christianity accused it as the cause of those mischiefs which occasioned St Augustine to write that his work de Civitate Dei as an Apology for Religion and a Refutation of that Obloquy I might go on to parallel this way of mens aggravating the sufferings of the Church by slanders and such smitings and woundings with the tongue in the Papists like handling of the Waldenses and latter reformed Professors and in more modern recent sufferings by professedly Antipapistical but really Popish hands but I forbear upon the Evidence of the Fact Now this is no small tryall of Christians Equanimity It can hardly be escaped but that it will somewhat stir the stomack and move the patience of the afflicted when their adversities are made their crime and that which is one of their best
sometimes in such Visions as the bare representations thereof and foresight thereby of the Calamities of the Church of God under the Grecian Seleucian and Roman Powers drove him much out of heart and brought him into deep distemper both of mind and body O my Lord saith he by the Vision my sorrows are turned upon me and I have retained no strength Dan. 10.16 7.28 8 27. And at another time As for me Daniel my cogitations troubled me and my countenance changed in me And at a third time And I Daniel fainted and was sick certain days and I was astonished at the Vision And if that foreknowledg of the Events of the Church whereabout his prayers were employed were such an amazement and burden to his spirit what think we would the sight and sense of them be to those praying Saints that should live to see them acted and endured The Apostle Paul knowing what an advantage to Christianity in the Protection and Propagation of it it would be to have the Civil Magistrate Christian he giveth Christians a Precept in their private and publique Supplications in special to pray for Kings 1 Tim. 2.1 2. and for all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty And no doubt the primitive Christians in and after the Apostles time were mindful and constant in the practise hereof besides the Authority of the Command their own conveniency would lead them to it That woman in St Johns Vision in the Revelations that appeared clothed with the Sun Rev. 12.12 treading under her feet the Moon and crowned with twelve Stars Divines take to be a figure of the Christian primitive Church And whereas it is said She being with child cryed travelling in birth and pained to be delivered they understand that to intend the said Churches crying unto God by dayly prayers to obtain a Christian Emperor that would cease their Persecutions and establish their Religion in Peace and Freedom yet was it near three hundred years ere she could bring forth that her Man-child Constantine the Great the first Emperor that set up the Christian Profession So long was the Church put to travel in prayer together with hot and painful persecutions ere they received therein their Answer The Church indeed brought forth a Christian Emperor before viz. Anno 245. Julius Philippus Euseb l. 6. c 31. Chron. Carian p. 245. Speed lib. 6. c. 31. but him she brought forth for Heaven and not for her Militant state here he lived not to establish Christianity in the Empire but was soon cut off by Decius the Author of the seventh Persecution who slew him and his son and Caesar a Christian also odio Christiani nominis of hatred to the Christian name So that in him the Churches pregnancy and travel in prayer proved abortive she continued travelling still until she brought forth Constantine We see though the Churches striving together in prayer be compared to the pains of a laboring woman yet it is so resembled in respect of Vehemency not of Duration a womans labour is but for a few hours the Churches travel may be for a multitude of years and some ages ere she bring forth Being thus passed out of Scripture into Ecclesiastical History I will add out of it a few Examples more of the overclouding or suspense put upon the prayers of the people of God Who hath not read or heard of the thundering Legion that Legion of Christian Souldiers which by their prayers relieved the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his Army who in an Expedition against the Quadi and others being ready to perish having an Army of Enemies against them of nine hundred seventy five thousand and being withall destitute of water for five days together this Legion of Christians then in the Emperors Leaguer drew apart and falling prostrate upon the Earth in ardent prayer they prevailed with God so that they had plentious showres of Rain to satisfie the Armies thirst and Thunder and Lightening to disperse and destroy their Enemies and upon this that Legion was named by the Emperor though a Heathen the Thundering Legion These Christians and the rest of those times that were so earnest with God in the behalf of a Papan Emperor and Civil Cause were as much or rather more serious and fervent no doubt in dayly prayer for the Churches Rest and Enlargement then under bloody Persecution they must needs be granted to bear a part in the travelling womans pains and cry afore spoken of as also in that cry unto God of the Souls under the Altar at the opening of the fifth Seal which before also I insisted on But though they did and were so mighty in prayer and exercised those Arms of prayers and tears which were the Arms which the primitive Christians only owned as allowable wherewith to resist the Tyranny of their lawful Superiors they being then but of a private and plebeian capacity as diligently as they did their secular Arms for defence of the Emperor yet they could not thereby obtain a present period of those fiery Persecutions See Mr. Clarks Martyrolog p. 44 45 Mr Fox vol. 1. p. 67 c. which then had so long lasted but they went on by times for above a hundred years longer and although Aurelius upon the aforesaid Wonders decreed the stay of the fourth Persecution then on foot yet was it carried on still by the Judges and by his son Commodus After that the Roman Emperors were become Christian Gratian one of the most pious Mr Medeâ— Comment in Apoc. part 1. p 58. And Rosses Hist Book 3. c. 3. An. Chr. 379. zealous and orthodox Emperors we find in Story he was the first Christian Emperor as Mr Mede noteth that refused the Title and Pontifical Robe of the High priest-hood anciently annexed to the Imperial Majesty and a branch of the old Heathenish Idolatry He commanded a general Embracement of the Nicene Creed He suppressed Hereticks and restored the Orthodox banished by his Predecessor Valens an Arian This godly Emperor in his Expeditions of War was generally and affectionately prayed for by the Christian Churches A Historian saith of him At non Ambrosius duntaxat pro Gratiani victoriâ solicitus juges obtulit Deo preces sed fidelium omnium vota publica nuncupata sunt Schulting Thesaur Tom. 4. cap. 321. frequensque tunc pro eo piorum ad basilicas concursus prospera illi assidus postulantium But not only Ambrose offered up dayly prayers to God being solicitous for Gratians victory but the publique supplications of all the faithful were made for him and there was a great flocking together of the godly to the Cathedrals Chron. Caâ—ion l. 3. p. 293 Speed hist book 6. c. 51. p. 178. Rosses Hist B. 3. c. 3. to pray dayly for his prosperity Yet this good young Emperor was first overthrown in Battel and quickly after trayterously slain by Maximus the Usurper In this
of perseverance i Acts 1.14.2.42.6.4.12.5 Rom. 22.12 Eph. 6.18 Col. 4.2 so often by the Holy Ghost annexed to prayer Interpreters observe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haec duo involuit vehementem quandam animi intentionem quasi pugnum dum versatur in actu orandi assiduam frequentationem orationis Epis Davenant in Colos 4.2 Vide Cr. Sacra in voc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie to persevere with strength or force or to hold on with importunity Some apprehend in these terms a Metaphor taken from hunting-dogs that pursue the game with a full cry and with all the might in them and give not over till they have gotten it and though they be sometimes at a loss yet they retrive or cast about till they get again the sight or scent of their prey and so prosecute it unto seizure l Mr Leigh his Crit. Sacr. and Mr Trap on Cant. 5.6 1. There must be a continuance in respect of time and frequency of acts The Lord foretelling the recovery of his people from their Babylonian ruines and captivity or that deliverance of the same people yet to come from the Roman desolations and dispersions he saith They shall come with weeping Jer. 31.19 and with supplication will I lead them And again in another place The children of Israel shall come they and the children of Judah together going and weeping Jer. 50.4 they shall go and seek the Lord their God In both these places the peoples advance and progress towards their Country and former state is to be accompanyed and carryed on with a constant tract or course of prayer they must travel to home in a posture and march of prayer that they may arrive there they must be always advancing in it as well as in their way and in this course of prayer the Lord doth lead or train them on by slow and successive paces with supplications will I lead them Here methinks God is resembled unto a Father that hires his young child to go with some alluring reward in his hand so as whilest the child comes on towards him he goes backward still until he hath drawn his little one on as far as he thinks fit and then he delivers him the reward Thus the Lord by delays tilleth on his people to trace out their full course of prayer ere he give them a return and whilest they are thus prosecuting the mercies they desire going and weeping they go and seek the Lord that is all along as they go they weep and pray their journey and their prayers are pursued with equal steps their acts of weeping and praying they reiterate as often as they do their paces or the stages of their journey Again Prayer is compared to a Husbandmans sowing Psa 126.5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy He that will sow that he may have a harvest and an answerable crop he must not think that to go into the field and there cast down his seed all at once on a heap will serve for a seeding but he must be content as it is in the next words to bear his precious seed or as the words are interpreted to bear draw-seed * See Divines Annot in loc Edit 1. that is seed drawn forth out of the basket by handfuls he must carry his seed over all the field and every land or butt step by step scattering it orderly and by little and little as he goeth Suitably thereto must prayers be sown as it were with a diligent hand and a successive pouring forth in number and weight unto a due proportion Again Prayer is likened unto a womans going with child as in that of the Revelation Rev. 12.1 There appeared a woman clothed with the Sun c. and she being with child cryed travelling in birth and pained to be delivered This is understood of the Churches laboring in prayer to obtain of God a Christian Emperor which might cease their persecutions and establish the Christian Religion Now in Nature a woman that brings forth a child doth not only conceive it but ripen it certain moneths in her womb and when she hath gone her full time she must undergo sharp labour and bitter birth-pains ere she embrace her child In like manner that our prayers may bring forth the man-child begged there must be not only a first conception but a dayly forming and an increasing of them and a prosecuting them to the full time and a sustaining the burden and sorrows of their maturation and bringing forth Again The prayers of the Saints are represented by golden viols full of odours Rev. 5.8 They must not only be for their quality odours or incense that is pure fragrant and delightsom unto God but for the quantity they must be viols full as we read elsewhere of a bottle for the tears of Gods servants so here we have viols for their prayers and they must be content to stay for the return of their prayers and to renew them until they have filled up these viols with them when these are full then the Lamb openeth the seven seals then doth God manifest himself in his Providences answerable to them Mr Trap on Gen. 25.21 I will but add this Prayer is resembled to those arrows which Elisha lying sick on his death-bed ordered King Joash to take and with them to smite upon the ground As the blows given with them so the use of prayer must be often reiterated that the mercy may be throughly obtained we must repeat and renew it and that often enough if we do it not to the full count we may impe our selves in the benefit sought of God 2. In prayer we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is we must not only continue our prayers and multiply them in number but reinforce them we must renew and intend our instancy and vigor in them For this purpose prayer is called an agony strife or combate The Apostle Paul desires the Romans to strive together with him in their prayers to God for him Ro. 15.30 Now they that undertook those exercises in the Grecian games to which the phrase alludeth it did not suffice them to hold out the time and keep up the action but they were to put to their utmost strength and follow it with might and main that they might overcome and get the Crown So the Lord would have us to do in prayer This is the meaning of that Parable of one friends coming to another at midnight to borrow of him three leaves Luk. 11.5 c. which motion the friend requested at first excusing himself from as having his doors shut and being in bed with his children and indisposed then to rise but being further pressed with importunity he cannot but grant it The reddition hereof is the near relation and dear affection which a servant of God standeth in with
one that would pretend to be a head and vindicator to them of that nature and by means of that conceit and those distempers arising from it they never rested until they brought the Roman Emperor upon them unto their utter ruine †See Tho. Goodwins Serm. on Psa 105.14 and Dr Jackson in Serm. p. 32 It is a sad presage now to us to see both the like aestuations and stirs among us and withall the Roman Beast hovering over us to set up himself and his abomination that maketh desolate again in the midst of us And what sets all these Hurlyburlies on foot and creates this omen but the impetuous minding of an earthly felicity a worldly Christ What makes men so grosly and diversly misapply both Scripture and Providences The plain sence of Scripture is wrested and the clear Authority of it is obscured and it is from hence Mens consulting their worldly interest blinds the mind and corrupts the judgment and silenceth if not seareth the Conscience The world is a pearl in the eye it makes the eye evil double and dark Mat. 6.22 23 so that it seeth nothing though never so evident but what agreeth with it He that is set upon his gain and commodity he dissents from wholesom words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Doctrine which is according to Godliness 1 Tim 6.3 5 He becomes of a corrupt mind and destitute of the Truth Divine Providences are misconceived also how comes it about Gain is become Godliness Gold is made a God and Prosperity is put in stead of Piety and men of this mind will upon all occurrencies construe Gods approving or disapproving Will to be as things temporal succeed well or prove improsperous An unhappy rule it is to go by What 's the cause of Persecution where or whensoever ye see it in the world Self-interest is the most ordinary cause Come say the Husbandmen in the Parable of the Vineyard this is the heir Luk. 20.14 come let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours A Kingdom made Hazael an inhumane 2 Kin. 8.12 dogged Persecutor notwithstanding his former abhorrency of it This was the principal ground of the persecution of Christ and his Apostles and Church by the High Priests and Elders of the Jews Joh. 11.49 50. 19.12 13. Mat. 2.3 16. Act. 16.19 17 6 7 8. 12.25 24 5. by Herod by Pilate and others Men do nowadays condemn and oppose principles ways and persons hand over head in respect of any conscientious warrant that is not for that they find them sinful or stand to examine that but because they meet with them in an opposite party and posture to their earthly interest and concernment What 's the reason of that delusion above touched of a temporal felicity earthly promotion enrichment and power by Religion or Christianity Men are wont to dream of what their mind is most upon those therefore whose hearts are bent upon the world do easily dream of such a matter That phantastical conceit that State embroiling and subverting doctrine is the hatching of a sordid earthly spirit What 's the reason of the many scrued and conscience-relucting compliances that men make now adays Some men can say swear subscribe act oppose any thing as the times turn their private interest is the oyl that supples them the shooinghorn that draws on what would otherwise pinch We may observe some carnal and self-interested Christians in the primitive Church devised ways of accommodating their Religion with the strain of the times and people where they lived and this was for their beloved worldly concernments sake So did the Galatians Gal. 6.12 or some of them endeavor to comply with the Jews in point of Circumcision and Ceremonies to avoyd persecution for the Cross of Christ For that end did the Corinthians 1 Cor. 8.1 c. as it seemeth labour to temporize with the Gentiles in communion with them in Idolothytes In like manner did some of the Christian Souldiers under Julian the Apostate to receive their pay Mr Clarks Martyrol 1 p. 84. they cast incense into the fire of the Idolatrous Altars which Julian set for that purpose to be a train to draw them to a denyal of their Religion If men did not immoderately favour the world they would never do that which proves after a sting to their conscience a blur to their profession and a dishonor to their name Their tenderness and indulgence to their estate-concernments makes them harsh and violent to their inward principles and conscience Two things I fear when I consider the course of things and the shifts and turns of men in them and I will here express them 1. That those evasions and compliances will not serve they must be thundered frighted out of those their Zoars greater tryals must sift them out of those holes 2. That men will hardly stop at their present shifts but that those will dispose them to admit of greater wider compliances And what will they do in the end thereof It may come to that again whether you will carry a Taper and bear a fagot to the fire in renunciation of Protestantism Lastly To take in all at once the many enormous crimes the indirect courses the violent practises the irreligious unrighteous and perfidious contrivements and atchievements that have been acted in these times have sprung from hence men have absolutely and unmeasurably addicted themselves to the affection and service of their own earthly interest this they are peremptorily resolved on that they will maintain and enlarge all they can their fortune as they call it in the world be it by right or wrong They lay down to themselves for a principle that of the Satyrist Juvenal Satyr 14. Vnde habeas quaerit nemo sed oportet habere The Apostle Paul foretelling to Timothy that perillous times shall be or as the word may be rendered hurtful troublesom cruel times in these last days he reckoneth up nineteen several vices or sorts of depraved persons as the causes of those bad times and in the head of them all as the leaders or common parents of the rest he placeth the lovers of their own selves and the covetous Inde fere scelerum causa nec plura venena miscuit aut ferro grassatur saepiu◠ullum Humanae mentis vitium quam saeva cupido Indomiti census nam dives qui fieri vult cito vult fieri sed quae reverentia legum Quis metus aut pudor est unquam properantis avari Ad scelus atque nefas quodcunque est purpura ducit Juvenal Satyr 14. That which he then said shall be now we do see The whole band of those vicious persons are broken in upon us or risen up out of us and their chief or the king of them is this Apollyon the self-lover and next unto him as his second is the covetous 3. It is a sin which the Lord doth specially appear