continue it with his grace bread and royall dainties Napthali as wild as a Buck a Hinde let loose Joseph a fruitfull bough and Benjamin like a younger brother is design'd to ravine as a Wolf Plâ—to though deserving better for his learned pains for his supercilious deportment and lofty carriage Brus was by Antisthenes dub'd a Horse And Diogenes for his snarling humour not canonized but canonized and made a Dog by Patent The Prophet amazed at the cruelty and violence of the world compared men to the fishes in the sea where the great make a pastime of devouring the small Yea he likens the poor and helpless to silly fishes and the Mighty and rapacious partly to Anglers Hab. 1.14 and partly to men fishing with a drag-net thereby shewing that there is a Generation which will still be catching either by hook or crook by fraud or force and that all is fish that cometh into their net Such men as these the Psalmist frequently termeth Lyons and the Lamb of God who saith false prophets are wolves in sheeps clothing Mal. 7.15 Luk. 13.32 called Herod the tyrant a fox Thus Man who sometimes was in honour forfeiting his primitive innocent understanding is by serpentine craft become like unto the beasts that perish And now may we say with David Psal 8. Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him Lord what is man Lord what is he not He is any thing but what thou once madest him and what he should be He is the mirrour of frailty times pride and spoil fortunes laughing-stock the picture of inconstancy and the tennis-ball of envy and calamity A worme he is and no man Corruption is our father and the worm our mother Man is like a thing of nought his time passeth away like a shadow So Homer's heroick Iliads are brought within the compass of a nutshell the great world into the little world and the little world into nothing O then love not the world nor the things of the world The world is a riddle which destroyeth them who bend their minds to unfold it or their hearts to infold it It is too great and yet too small for a man's affections too great for his head and his hands too little for his heart more than enough to trouble a quiet soul but nothing sufficient to quiet a troubled spirit That man alone reapeth content within it who is content without it 1 Joh. 2.17 The world passeth away and the lusts thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Mores sequuntur humores Manners follow the Humours Phlegme I Have no quarrell with the work of God God forbid nor nor am I out of homour with the humours though alternis vicibus they often put me out of humour I look upon phlegme as an allay to choler and know that fire and water as well in the body naturall as in the body politick are very good servants though bad masters And as 〈◊〉 it is on all hands confessed that the blood is the chariot of life so it must be granted that a modicum of phlegme is instead of oyl to make the wheels run merrily But omne nimium vertitur in vitium too much is alwayes bad and the old world perished by a deluge Where phlegme prevaileth above all the rest there is good ground made fenn and bogs each thought is like a Pout or muddy Eel the recovery beyond the reach of Dutch devices and the improvement of such bottomless parts enough to break mean undertakers It is true Art will do much but the water will have the course And it is not worth the pains and cost to make sluces to the sea or to bray a fool in a mortar Prov. 27.22 This soft effeminate lazy humour is apt to invade men's spirits with insensible approaches and like the tide to environ them before they be aware And then over shooes over boots This humour may well take the gout and the dropsy for companions and it often doth so And though it deserveth not their patronage it hath need of great persons to uphold it otherwise it maketh them beggers Yet a little sleep Prov. 6.10 a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep So shall thy poverty come as one that that travelleth and thy want as an armed man Whoso is overcome with this disease is buried alive unprofitable to others uncomfortable to himself He is intomb'd in his house as the dead in their graves so that a man may epitaph over his door as the Philosopher did upon Vacia's Lazines Hic situs est c. Here lieth the body of such a person or he may write as in pestilentiall places Lord have mercy upon us Lord let not this waterflood of Sloth overwhelm us neither let the deep of negligence swallow us up Choler NEver was there so great a superfluity of water but there hath been or may be as great a drought As the world once for sin was drenched so once for all it shall be scorched In the mean time the little world of Man is frequently impaired by this domestick fire of choler which when it is too little doth not warme the house when too great it consumeth both the Inhabitant and hazard's the neighbours Igne quid utilius Ovid. Tris si quis tamèn urere tecta Caeperit audaces instruit igne manus What more usefull and yet what more dangerous than fire A drop of water cannot possibly do any considerable harm to any But one spark of fire neglected may do very much to many Choler and fire are like a false rumour and an evil report getting strength by every wind and laying hold upon all that is near it A cholerick breast is a tynderbox apt to catch any fire having a happy use when it stands right under the sparks of grace and is subservient to a holy indignation But is then unfortunate when it is inflamed with balls of wild fire cast in by the grand Spirit of discord or by the busy hands of Malecontented spirits He had need be vigilant against his undermining Enemy and against all adventitious Incendiaries who hath such a Magazin of Gunpowder within his own bosome Eph. 4.26 Be angry but sin not is a most divine lesson but a nice distinction for a man's practise to hit on And therefore the Authour having sometimes been a persecuter of the Church gave this rule that men should be zealously affected alwayes in a good thing Gal. 4.18 He is no good disputant who transferreth his quarrell from things to persons and leave 's the question to revile the opponent And choler will quickly do this and more That child deserveth to smart and bleed who spits in his fathers or mothers face because some of his brethren did him wrong And yet God help us nothing is at this day more common amongst us Witness those frequent petulant and pestilent oppositions against all Laws and injunctions of the King
SPICILEGIVM OR A Glean of Mixtling By JOHN WINTER Minister of East Dearham in Norfolke JOH 6.12 Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost Antoni cupis Deo placere ora dùm orare nòn poteris manibus laâ—ora sempèr aliquid facito Aug. ad Fratres in Eremo â—erm 17. Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae Celata virtus Hor. Car. l. 4. od 9. LONDON Printed by A. M. and are to be sold by Joseph Cranford at the Sign of the Gun in St Pauls Churchyard 1664. TO THE READER NEither in hope of reward nor expectation of thanks but in respect of my own duty I freely present these few papers to the pleasure of the casuall Reader craving his pardon lest haply for a moment I may divert his eyes from better employments or trouble his thoughts with less pertinent notions Poeticall license is on my side Scribimus indocti c. I will go no further with the verse because in those two words I am concluded I hold Socrates by his favour an Ethnick-haeretick for his criticall resolution not to write at all because he could not write so well as he would Socr. Schol. I rather comply with the Novatian Bishop Sisinnius but not in his haeresie who being asked why he bathed himself twice in a day answered because I cannot do it thrice And I have endeavoured this third time to do thus much because as yet I can do no more Whatsoever defects appear in the follong Discourse this I dare give under my hand that the Authour intended well to all parties to the King and subjects Church and State And I would to God that every tongue and pen at this day going within His Majesties Dominions the respective Excellencies of their parts only excepted were such as these of East Dearham Norff. Octob. 5. 1663. JOHN WINTER ORATIO FESTINATIO Prayer is good speed O Most glorious GOD and most gracious Father assist these my endeavours and compleat my labours For thy own sake crown thy own gifts for thy mercy sake pardon my offences I cannot do the good I would much less the good I should and the evill I would not that do I. But thou art a God who acceptest the will for the deed and grantest to thy servants both to will and to do of thy good pleasure O eternall Son and most blessed Saviour instruct and inable mee the least of thy Ministers and the greatest of sinners to do something relating to thy glory conducing to the good of thy Church and the discharge of my own duty For not onely my own heart by wofull experience but thy sacred Word telleth mee that without thee thy best servants can do nothing O blessed Spirit God of truth and comforter of thy Church strengthen mee in these my undertakings For thou art the same from all eternity and of old time holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity three Persons and one God prompt and guide mee Sanctifie mee through thy truth thy Word is truth Thou bast put it in my heart to be inditing of good matters and now let mee freely speak the things I have made unto my heavenly King As thy servant David's tongue was the pen of a ready Writer so make my pen the tongue of a divine Oratour that the meditations of my heart the words of my mouth and the works of my hands may be ever acceptable in thy sight O Lord my strength and my Redeemer Amen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man a little World THe Great GOD having made the Great World of other things was pleased to draw a Map of it in the dust And so he formed Adam and out of him Eve the work of the sixth day and a compendium of the labours of the other five And now behold a petty walking World the Coelestiall and Tertestriall Globes united in a little creature the line of whose life is but a span long Here is Heaven and Earth in a small volume soul and body constituâ—ing one individuall person the spirit being like a noble Guest in a homely Cottage a diamond immur'd in clay and a spark obscur'd in ashes In this divine creature shines this image of the Creator a trinity in unity understanding will and memory Praise thou the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Nor ought we to pass by the corporeall fabrick without wonder As we must not admire the scabberd and despise the blade so we ought not to under value the scabberd which conteyns the blade David made this reflection upon his bodily structure I am fearfully Psal 139.13 and wonderfully made Os homini sublime dedit c. The erected figure of Man's building gives him a praeeminence above the groveling brutes teaching him to look towards heaven and to walk uprightly Howbeit set him not insult too much upon his mother nor forget whence the visible part of him was taken and whither it must return The four wrangling Brother-Elements in this mortall body by a discording concord hold out the slender thrid of our life untill ambitious praedominancy which spoileth all bodies naturall and politick confoundeth doe proportion and by fatall distempers relapseth us into our ancient Chaos In the mean time though but for a short time Man is a new and old Exchange of things What do ye lack Here is in this little pack of Wares all that ye can ask or think of treasures pleasures wisdom prudence folly madness health sickness joy grief hope despair riches poverty honour shame glory and misery I need not speak of the outside ornaments pride and bravery for they shew themselves Thus the saying of the dying Emperour Severus Ael Spar. may now by many a person justly be taken up Omnia fui nihil mihi prodest I have been all things and nothing profits me And that Man is not called a little world in vain the world of severall and antipathetick dispositions of men declare One is aiery and pleasant as a Lark and hath learned to sing as well falling as rising another is as chollerick as a Dog a third as meek as a Lamb a fourth as fierce as a Tyger a fifth as idle as an Ape and a sixth as filthy and sluggish as a Swine Old Israel's Jury of sons make good this verdict in the variety of hierogly phicall liveries put upon them by their dying prophetick father Reuben is water for his incontinency Gen. 49. and instability Simeon and Levi fire and sword instruments of cruelty Judah a Lyon Zabulon a haven for ships Issachar the picture of an English man in the late times of war or in the present diversity of opinions a strong Ass couching between two burthens Dan a Judge and a Serpent God blesse us from serpentine Judges any more in High Courts of Justice Gad a troop to overcome and to be overcome And the Lord deliver us from seeing any more of that Asher God
no new thing under the Sun no not the Moon it self a pure picture of this mutable world of whose increase though we have every year new ones a full dozen yet all is but the old one over and over Things here below seem new to many and are so miscalled which in themselves are old and known so to sounder judgments Nothing pleases fools and children but the name and thought of Novelties The Devill and the world cry up their deluding trash for new as people do their Herrings whenas they stink for age and want of goodness Custome is a great matter Newmarket-heath untill the worlds end is like to be so called Thus cunning Brokers and crafty Botchers put an old trick upon an old Cloak they give it a sudden turn and a new facing and then it serves to cheat the Country Thus old cry'd down haeresies are become new cry'd up lights and the Common-Councel men of the Devil whatsoever they plot in Conventicles pretend to have all by speciall revelation Thus the issue of Traitours conspiracies are holden for Miracles and Providence is blasphemed by successfull wickedness the Generality not discerning how Gold passeth through an armed Guard and takes the City without opposition These Angels of men have slain more Christians than the Angell of God slew Infidels when he killed an hundred fourscore and five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians 2 Kin. 19.35 It is no new thing for men to violate their faith to betray their trust to sell their Countrey into the hands of their Enemies to preferre private ill gotten goods before publick good and true glory and yet to pretend piety All this is no new thing Divers hundreds of years since the Christian Governour of the Castle of Abydus was himself and Castle betrayed into the hands of the Turks by his own Daughter And an hundred and forty years before that Turk Histo long before the first Ottoman King Aleppo the strongest City of the Christians in those parts was betrayed to the Turk by the Governour And oh miserable the Patriarch of Antioch for gold sold into those Barbarian's hands that Castle and by consequence that City To hear of Kings deserted betrayed and murder'd a thing most horrible execrable and damnable is no new thing Ask Scotland and let that Nation repeat their own Chronicles And not to be partiall our English second Edward and Richard Henry the sixth and two Sons of Edward the fourth and long before these Prince Arthur will tell us a sad story The unlucky products of the severall Battels of the Barons with the cross swearings of successive Parliaments may sufficiently tell us that to swear and forswear and to play at fast and loose with the Crown is no new thing under the Sun I am â—â—th to look lower upon that which is and will be the lasting shame of the Nation although I can hardly overlook it or look upon it with dry eyes I shall onely say this of it at present that though it differs from former Regicides in the open perpetration yet it bears reference to one precedent even to that of the King of Kings who was forsaken betrayed and delivered up to death by his own people Rev. 13.8 And he is said truly and virtually to be slain from the foundation of the world It is no new thing for ignorant and impudent persons to pretend revelations and Enthusiasmes to despise instruction and usurp to themselves all mysterious knowledge This is but the Gnostici and Carpocratists brought again upon the stage Epiph. Aug. with their phanatick dreams and inchanted love-drinks And those also were but a few lousie shreds taken from Menander and Simon Magus Oh but to hear and see men act their Roguery in manner and form publishing it weekly to the people for their satisfaction to prevent forsooth misinformation telling them how many honest men they murder'd in such a battell what Noble person they beheaded in such a place and day how they rob'd Churches how they spoiled the widows and Orphans how they killed and took possâ—ssion how they took God's Name in vain rejoyced and gave thanks and praised the Lord as the Authour of all this Mischief Are not all these new things No. There was a sect of damnable haereticks calling themselves Caynites from cursed Cain who slew his brother who fully paralell these practises They honoured Cain Aug. the Sodomites Corah Dathan and Abiram and also Judas They called Cain their Father and Judas their Cousin And so might these They said Judas did well in betraying Christ because he saw it was good for the people And we know who went upon the same principles crying out Populi Salus suprema lex The peoples safety is the Highest Law And what need we wade farre in this stream The height and rigour of Anabaptisme is but Confusion and Levelling and Levellers are but the old Haereticks of Pisidia calling themselves Apostolici Apostolicall men who hated to see men have proper possessions False Christs and false Apostles are no new thing Manes had his whole dozen of Disciples his profession being like his name a very madness His end 〈◊〉 was according to his worke For having first poyson'd men's minds next he turn'd Physician as many such since have done and poison'd their bodies Socr. l. 1. cap. 17. But killing the King's son of Persia he was apprehended and flayed alive And his skin which before had nothing good in it was stuff'd full with chaffe and hang'd at the Gates of the City Impostors are no new thing Theudas the sorcere 〈◊〉 made himself a second Moses he led the people into rebellion making them believe that Jordan should be dried up before him But he caused his followers to be slain and ruind Jos Ant. l. 20. c. 4. and himself to be executed by Fadus Lieutenant of Judea And the blazing Comet Barchochebas who said he was a Star from Heaven led the Jews into rebellion so that there perished fifty thousand Persons And this Rebellion was the finall overthrow of the Jews at Jerusalem Dion Cass in Adrian And as it is no new thing to have false Prophets and seducers by means of whom Kingdomes have been spoiled and the way of Truth evill spoken off So for these false Apostles to lead silly Women captive in and unto their lust this is no new thing neither Simon Magus the father of Haereticks had for his holy sister Helen a Witch and a Harlot whom he called Just Mar. in Apol the principall understanding There was Incubus and Succubus two Devils incarnate Montanus who called himself the holy Ghost had two such she Angels Priscilla and Maximilla Euseb l. 5. cap. 14. And so dearly did they love that He and Madam Maximilla both hanged themselves How sweetly did these Saints agree both in manner of life and in manner of Death And what think ye of Jack of Leyden Surely he had abundance of the Spirit of Errour who had as many Wives as a Turk These be the Fruits of affected madness and of Knipperdolling revelations which serve for nothing but to lead Men into destruction and perdition both of body and soule Lastly For Men to be plainly and honestly showen their orrours and dangers and yet to despise their Admonishers for Men to be hated for their good will for the virtuous and painfull to be lightly regarded and the vicious and lazy to be respected for merits and good service to be starved in the poor for grand offences and high Crimes to be pardoned and dignified in the rich for those who seek God's glory and the Churche's prosperity to be slighted for such as seek their own glory profit and pleasure to be cryed up and magnified for flattering parasites and dissembling wretches to be heard attentively and for honest hearted men neither to be patiently heard nor at all believed All this is no new thing under the Sun This is but the lot of the Prophets Job 1. The Oxen labour and the Asses feed and the Sabeans make no distinction unless it be this that the Asses shall live when the Oxen have their throats cut for their labours Zedekiah lies flatters and dissembles 1 King last ch and he pleaseth poor Micaiah speaks truth and is smitten on the face for it put into Prison and macerated with the bread and water of affliction This was Isaiah's and Jeremiah's Case this was the Apostles and this was their and our Master's Thus are we set as a marke Men will not believe our report So it is the more pitty that the seamless Coat of Christ once spared by Infidels is now torne by Christians Haeresies and Schisms abound and therewith hatred and malice Truth is almost lost with strife Piety vanished and Charity banished Whilest Cassander's Labours have Cassandra's doome FINIS