Therein is not only an Intension but an Extension of the mind the Imaginations are not only set on but drawn out doubling them over and over Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar as touching his Dreame As for thee O King thoughts came into thy mind upon thy Bed what should come to pass hereafter Thoughts in the plurall Theodoret expounding the place addes Thou didst think whether thou shouldst alwaies live thou dist think whether thou shouldst soon die thy thoughts therof did beat about this way and that Thus in a Dreame thoughts as they have their Representation so their Expatiation as a manifestation to so a multiplication of the Thoughts Thoughts many in one Dreame I have suffered saies Pilats Wife many things in a Dreame Many things that is many thoughts have pressed in and oppressed my mind Her Dreame was about one and the same Person but therein she had many thoughts about that Man and Matter We see then Dreams are the thought-works of the waking mind in the sleeping-man 2. See the sorts of Dreames that be especially these two Some Naturall and Some Supernaturall 1. Naturall Dreames are such thoughts in sleep as the mind emits or sends out by its own intrinsecall power the proper Product of mans own head and heart To a mans personall case and condition they are so suitable that we may be certain they proceed from the same principle 2. Supernaturall Dreames are such thoughts in sleep as are immitted or sent into the mind through some extrinsecall principle And though they come primarily from a principle without yet the mind concurres with what is occasionally cast in and becomes conformably active thereupon Now these Dreames ab extra they are of a double Kind as comming from a double and deeply differing Cause Diabolicall and Theologicall Bad Dreames wherein the Devil works and Good Dreames wherein God speaks The Manichees and Marcionits took up an opinion as reputed out of Plato that there were two co-eternall Principles the one Good and the other Evil saying that all good workings towards men were from the good Principle And all evill workings men ward were from the evill Principle As they managed the Matter they were in a gross errour as Austin and others evidence However this is a Truth there are two supream Principles One Good namely God and Another Evil to wit the Devil From God are all good works towards men and from the Divel are all evill workings men-ward both awake and asleep And the Truth of both which may appear in point of Dreames that be both good and evill Works Good Dreames are Gods good workings in mens sleepings And bad Dreames be the evill workings of the Divel in sleeping men And thus is finished the words of the Text in their Explicatory part wherein men have been unfolded as referring to Dreames and Dreames have been unfolded as referring to men We were like to men that Dreame I pass to the Applicatory part wherein will be endeavours to promote Man in his Dignity and The Duty of Man 1. This may set up man in his Dignity and exalt his Soul in its surpassing Excellency Above the Body in himself and Above the Spirit of Beasts 1. Above mans body The Body of man is very beautifull as in its Being so it may be admirable in its Workings to wit while man is awak but when asleep then mens Bodies are like Davids Idols Psal 115. 5 6 7. They have mouthes but they speak not eyes have they but they see not they have ears but they hear not Noses have they but they smell not hands have they but they handle not feet have they but they walk not A sleeping Man suppose his body rises out of his bed yet 't is like Lazarus rising out of his grave John 11. 44. And he came forth bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths and his face bound about with a Napkin All parts of the body are bound by sleep from their ordinary orderly acts But still the soul is at liberty no fetters of sleep be found upon any of its faculties but 't is free apt and able to act and transact severall things in considerable Dreames When the body is most still and lying at rest in the bed the soul is most stirring and laborious in business and this it s ever waking activity is its admirable excellency honour and dignity 2. Above the spirit of Bruits Bruits if in sleep they do dreame yet 't is in a way low and like themselves Men in Dreames transcend being above Bruits in these acts most admirable Among men there is no such marvellous Miracle as Man himself sayes Austin The very Body of Man is a Miracle marvellous but much more his Soul I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy workâ— and that my soul knows right well sayes David Psal 139. 14. He that is such a work of wonder may well be a wonder-worker Take him not only when awake but even in his sleep his night-works are wonderfull His very Dreames are filled with marvels even they are such as render Man rare and may with admiration raise him into the highest rank of visible creatures 'T is true this redounds to his blemish this reflects upon man with the greater shame when herein he sinnes as will hereafter be seen However this is his honour Man in Dreames is able to manage that good no other creatures can The Philosopher who grants that as Men so Bruits may dreame yet determins that Men in Dreamings as they are more frequent so more excellent to such acts more prompt and therein more acute The Soul of Man excels as concering Dreames in a double Act Direct and Reflect 1. Direct The Soul of man in Dreames can move forward and mount upward beyond the abilities of any beast Who knows the spirit of a man that goes upward and the spirit of a beast that goes downward to the earth Eccles 3. 21. True 't is of the Soul of Man not onely in the time of death and separation from the Body but in the time of sleep and its operation in the Body it runs out rises up and reaches to imagin matters not within the compass of other creatures 2. Reflect The Soul of Man in Dreams can turn backward and look over its own motions and imaginations so as to think what it does think One illustrates this At Tennis there must be two hands one to smite the Ball forward and another to beat it backward or the play ceaseth but the Soul of man can do both these with its own Hands it can send out thoughts from it self and cast thoughts back again upon it self and that in the time of mans sleep this other sleeping creatures cannot A School Doctor sayes well That God hath communicated to creatures such capacities as their kind will carry c. The condition and case of other creatures is not able to bear such abilities activities
Intelligent and Rationall he may surely be said who even in his sleep hath a ready Use of Reason The Sleeping Man hath indeed some Dreames wherein Reason acts irregularly intricately inconsistently fluctuating and roving up and down that things hang as we say like ropes of sand yet certain in such blurr'd Books some Reason may be read and some foot-steps thereof found But in divers Dreames 't is more discernable Reason acts more regularly and manages matters more methodically so that sometimes Men may finde as effectuall use of Reason in their sleep as when wide awake Whence this may remain a Maxime among us That Man as an Animal creature in Dreaming sleepes And man as a Rational creature in sleeping Dreames Dreames are applicable to Man as Man and so to every Man Though the the Philosopher affirms that some men meet with no such motions of their mindes in sleepe but sleepe without any Dreames of any way or kinde But common experience may much confute True some men may not animadvert discerne or retaine in their memories such movings of their mindes yet that does not evidence that they are not Many a Dreame may possibly pass from a person that he perceives not through a two-fold cause Its Swiftness and His Slowness 1. The Dreame is swift and goes away with a quick foot or as upon the wing rather The wicked shall fly away as a Dreame Job 20. 8. The Ancients hence phancied that a Dreame had wings like a Bird of the aire It may be so considered because of it's celerity and sudden passage through which it is not perceived 2. The Man is slow dull and heavy about reflect acts Often even in a mans waking-time the minde works yet it 's work is not minded A man does not think what he thinks no marvell then if in sleeping-time the minde looks little back upon its own business but much overlooks its own work so that much is done that is not seen much in Dreames transacted that is not observed However man remains the subject of Dreames 2. Man in the condition of this life is likewise considerable as of Dreames the most sutable subject The season we know of Dreames is during the time of sleep now the time of sleep is in the time of this life after this terme of life there is no true sleep Either to Soul Or Body 1. The Soul sleeps not though so some Hereticks have asserted viz. That seperated Souls are cast into a dead sleep not to be awakened till the time the generall Resurrection but such heterodoxe Doctrine hath long since been beaten down by standing Truth plain Scriptures determining two dwelling places The Paradise of Heaven and The Prison of Hell Into one of which all Souls sayes Austin as soon as severed from their Bodies are carried by Angels or Devils to dwell in everlasting weale or woe and indeed the very Scriptures themselves say so much See Dan. 12. 2. Matth. 25. 46. Joh. 5. 29. Luk. 23. 43. Luk. 16. 21 22. 2 Cor. 5. 1 2. 1 Pet. 3. 19. Rev. 20. 13 c. 2. The Body sleeps not in any Physicall or Philosophicall sense The Body bereaved of the Soul and lying dead in the Grave is said to be as asleep in the bed Hence burying places have been called sleeping places but this is onely Sleep in a Tropicall and Metaphoricall sense There be no Dreames in this sleep neither do these men thus asleep ever dreame Dreaming is during the time that the reasonable Soul resides and abides in the living Body The Body of man in sleep as a Heathen observes it lies as if it were fallen down by death but the Soul is so active therein as evidences the life thereof And Dreaming 't is one of those life-evidencing acts Though sleep be a plain Image of death yet Dreames in sleep are a clear Index of life Men while alive are the Centers of Dreames and Dreames are the signes of men alive There is no remembrance of thee in death saies David to God Psal 6. 5. That is A man indeed dead hath no commemorative thoughts of God or any other object to wit in that way or after that manner like to men alive in the world as Mollerus well interprets 'T is living men who do commemorate meditate excogitate matters in their minds both awake and asleep Even sleeping their minds are in motion which we call Dreames This casts me upon the next thing to be noted viz. Secondly The Actings or Dreames actually considered in themselves what they are found to be are discernable by Their generall Descriptions and Their generall Divisions 1. Dreames in a more generall way and according to their common Nature considered may be thus described Dreames are the agitations the egressions or Sallyings out of the Soul in thoughts of the mind while the Body lyeth bound by sleep in the bed A Dreame indefinitely and at large is the transacting of the reasonable Soul in the sleeping Body through the coassisting help of those admirable Faculties The Phantasie and The Memory Both which Faculties are found most active in the season of sleep For in sleep the outward Senses as Hearing Seeing c. being bound from their organicall and extrinsecall exercises and ordinary conveyances The inward Senses and Powers of the Soul as the Phantasie and Memory are at the more liberty and freedome from such externall attendances and so being at better leisure they within themselves fall to reflectings to new forming and erecting new frames of things that are vented in Dreames The Phantasie and the Memory are the Souls working Shops wherein strange things be wrought when the Soul as I may say goes not abroad but stayes at home and works within it self strange things it does w ch be drawn out in dreames So we see how Dreames be in generall described Secondly In generall Dreames may be variously divided As into their Parts And into their Sorts 1. The Parts that commonly constitute a Dreame whereof it is compounded and of which it is compacted or made up are mainly these two things An Apparition to the Thoughts And a Dilation of the Thoughts 1. In a Dreame there is somewhat appeares to the thoughts A dreaming Man sayes Austin he thinks he sees the Sun though the Sun he sees not As there may appeare some things to our eyes as Armies in the air fighting-men and flying-Horses which are no realities only apparitions So to a man in a Dream such things persons appear but they are no realities only fictions in his fancy Philo observes that some awake are like to men asleep while they think they perceive such things do but deceive themselves taking the signs of things for the natures of things meer Shadows for Substance In a Dream are thoughts of things not the things thought Secondly In a Dreame the thoughts dilate expand or spread themselves upon things that so appear
deserve and must sustain except Gods purging and pardoning grace prevents Amen Thus much for disswasions now for Directions These guid us to divers duties about such Dreames and they are Either Antecedent Or Consequent Duties antecedent are such as serve to prevent these Dreames And they Either look outward upon others Or they look inward upon our selves Duties which we are to discharge towards others are Expectation of Satan Supplication to God 1. The Devil is to be expected to do his endeavours to draw in such Dreames Because he is ever malicious Because he is ever treacherous The Devils malice is such as makes him to do what mischief he may against both good and bad both day and night History writes of a River that passes through some parts of America that not being fed by any spring but caused by snow which the Sunne melts down the mountains it runs strong in the day but hath no streame in the night 'T is not so with Satan such springs of malice and mischief remains in him that the streams of his temptations run strong by night as well as by day he hath his night-works and his night-walks for our perpetuall prejudice 2. Satans treachery is such as we can never be secure He may be as it were bound up in the day and break loose in the night History makes mention of one Cleomenes a Lacedemonian King who making warre against the Argives he took truce with them for seaven days and in the third night while they lay secure and asleep in their tents he broke in upon them and slew them with the edg of the sword saying His truce was for days and not for nights Of such treacherous dealings the Devil is full a truce with him is not to be trusted if he be quiet in the day he may be coming in the night He being a fiend of darkness as they are deeds of darkness he is most busie about so they are times of darkness he is most busie in times both of spirituall and naturall darkness that best suit his designs so that he may soonest be suspected by night Now because he loves to come unlookt for provision may be a good prevention 2. God is to be entreated Prayer to God is a principall means to keep off the Devil in such Dreames because It engages the presence of God with us It accomplishes the promise of God to us Upon Prayer God affords his presence with us this sets the Devil at a distance from us The Wolfe says Austin comes to the sheep-fold by night purposing to prey upon the poor Lambs when they lie asleep but he findes the sheephard awake and walking about the fold which forces him back without shedding blood Thus the Devil he designs to assault by night but God being about our beds he is beaten back He begins to suggest but cannot go on God being by Esth 7. 8. Haman being fallen upon the bed where Esther was the King said Will he force the Queen also before me in the house When Satan falls as it were upon the bed God says Will he force my servant before my face then he flies Upon Prayer God fulfills his promise to us Isa 27. 1. we finde the Devil compared to a piercing and crooked Serpent creeping into Gods vineyard to do it harm Ai but says God of his vineyard I the Lord do keep it lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day In the night the Devil comes but he cannot catch because God keeps nor harm because God helps God hath promised his Angels to defend his Saints to encamp about them which may principally imply night-protection Psal 34. 7. In the day we are more upon our march in the night then we lie still and then the Angel of the Lord encamps round about A guard of Angels can keep off a legion of Devils In this respect we may say of the bed of Gods servants as Cant. 3. 7. 8. Behold his bed which is Solomons threescore valiant men are about it all holding swords such night-safeguards Prayer procures Prayer says One as in the day time 't is the travellers trustiest guide the souldiers safest shield so in the night time 't is the saylers surest safety and the sleepers best keeper Prayer as it ought to be the key of the morning so the lock of the night as in the morning we should not open into the world without Prayer so in the evening we should by prayer shut up our selves in God that the Devil in bad Dreames may not come near us by night As the roaring of the Lion says Chrisostome makes the evening wolves to runne so the prayer of faithfull men makes night-Devils to slee Duties which we are to discharge towards our selves are Sinne-mortification Serious consideration 1. We must be much in mortifying of sinne that Satan may have less suitable matter to make sinfull Dreames out of Sinne It encourages the Devil for to come It accompanies the Devil when he is come 1. Satan would never so boldly come about such works but that he knows he shall finde fuell sâ—â— for his fire Hence he does usually make hâ—â— suggestions to match our corruptions As Nature draws out common Dreames according to the constitution of the body so does the Devil unclean Dreams according to the corruption of the heart 2. Satan could never so freely go on in his work but that he finds somewhat in us that does befriend his filthy designs He meets with that in our hearts that gives him the hand for his help Though he be a spirit yet by the lusts of the flesh he can exceedingly set forward such ways of defilements and thereby fulfill his infernall contrivements The way to disinable Satan is to subdue sinne and the best way to beat him back is to beat that down by a perpetuall battell Lycurgus made a Law among the Lacedemonians that they should never fight with one enemy oft but sinne is an enemy we must oft encounter or never conquer now Satan in the night will get victory over us if we when awake get not victory over sinne Sinne is destroyed By deep humiliations By close applications 1. Deep humblings will destroy sinne Repentance is a Plow which if it cuts deep will rend up sinne by the roots A ready way to put sinne to death is to drown it in the deep waters of godly sorrow as Pharaohs host in the red sea 2. Such close applying as is by faith causes sins death To apply the Word of God and the blood of Christ breaks the strength and draws out the life of sinne with Scripture-nails driven home by the hand of faith to make fast the body of this flesh to the Cross of Christ that it move not hand nor foot in word work or thought but dies by the power of Christs death 2. To resist such sinfull Dreames we must be much in considering seriously The Excellency of Soul and
Body The certainty of Death and Judgment 1. A setled considering how excellent man is in soul Hence Bernard thus breaks out O my soul created after the Image of God redeemed with the blood of Christ adorned with the graces of the Spirit capable of the happiness of Heaven c. what hast thou to do with the flesh what hast thou to do night or day with the Devil yea the body of man is a brave and beautifull piece if we observe The Composition of it The Comparisons frâ—m it How God hath made it How God doth use it The beauty of the body as it comes out of the hand of God we may gather from Eccles 12. 3 4 5. And as it falls into the hand of God again it abounds in beauty God makes it to be A Temple A Sample 1 Cor. 6. 19. Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost And 't is as a sample or pattern the Church of God the most glorious thing in the world is resembled by the body of man yea God borrowes similitudes from mans body to express Himself ascribing to Himself an Eye a Mouth a Hand c. God thus hath honoured the body This pondered may prove a means to preserve our souls and bodies from sinne-defilements 2. A setled considering how sure yea near death and judgment-day draws meditate much of deaths approach Thoughts of sinne may bring on death but thoughts of death will keep off sinne both asleep and awake thus die daily Let us also fix in our mindes the meditation of the day when the Lord shall come in the clouds to judgment We have heard of that saying of St. Jerom Whether I eat or drink whether I wake or sleep me thinks I hear that voice Arise ye dead and come to judgment Hence he had no room for a bad Dreame Bernard on the other side sadly of himself complains Alas what do I mean I eat I drink I play I sleep as if I had gone beyond death and passed over the day of judgment We are in danger to be sadly sinning when we are securely sleeping Such considerations will well setled prevent secure sleep and so arm against evil Dreames these will set the soul upon its watch-tower and while its vigilant it will not be peccant Thus much may suffice for antecedent duties The duties subsequent concern such sinfull Dreames in a double case In case we are not free from them In case from them we are free If by such Dreames we have been defiled our duty is Both to bewail the sinne that hath been with us in the night And to beware we no way encrease the sinne in the day 1. We must take to heart such night miscarriages Augustine in his confessions hereof makes sad complaints and so have others of Gods dear Saints Lament we must That the sinne hath been in us That we have been in the sinne That such a defiling sinne hath fallen upon us must be our grief that while we slept the enemy in our field hath sown such tares As that Mother comes with her complaint to Solomon 1 King 3. 20. While thine handmaid slept this woman came and laid her dead childe in my bosome So let a man make his moan to God O Lord while thy servant slept Satan came and laid this wicked Dreame in my minde But then that we have fallen in with such a sinne is matter of more mourning our corruptions have clapt in with Satans temptations our mindes have been complying our wills consenting fleshly desires raised carnall delights pleased O that that is most bitterly to be bewailed 2. We must take heed we do not in the day make the sinne much worse By mentall recalling of it By actual committing of it 1. Pleasingly to recall it in our minds will augment the sinne 'T is abominable for a man to communicate what communion he hath had with the Devil in the night as a Christian remembers what sweet communion his soul hath had with God in the night Psal 77. 6. says that holy man I call to remembrance my songs in the night That 's very good but for a carnal man to call to remembrance his sins in the night and to solace himself when awake with the renewed thoughts of what he had in his sleep is a sinne exceeding sinfull 2. Actually to fulfill it in deeds is very dangerous 'T is that the Devil indeed drives at to draw us to do when we are awake what we dreamt in our sleep For good things Satan is satisfied we should rest in the apparition and shew thereof and some slight imaginations thereupon to have no more but Dreames of grace and holiness Dreames of glory and happiness but he is not content that men should take up with imaginary supposals of sinne and some bare thoughts thereupon but he would have them to bring forth the further fruits thereof To have more then Dreames of sinne and wickedness of lasciviousness and wantonness more then Dreames of adultery fâ—rnication and uncleanness That which men think when they are asleep the Devil would have them act when they are awake If by such filthy Dreames we have not been defiled our duty is To be thankfull that God kept us in the night To be carefull in keeping to God in the day In giving thanks to God we have been so kept We must be Early thankfull Gladly thankfull 1. We must not delay our thankfullness Before the body be out of the bed let the heart be up with God yea let body and soul rise and render the Lord praise As Noah as soon as he was come safe out of the Ark Gen. 8. built an Altar and offered burnt offerings to God And the Lord smelled a sweet savour c. So as soon as ever we get safe off our beds offer upon the Altar Christ burnt-offerings of fervent praises unto God the Lord. 2. We must with joy enlarge our thankfullness In the morning when we apprehend what hazards our houses have escaped from fire or thieves in the night with great rejoycing we give glory to God when our selves have been delivered from the danger of these night-pollutions to God with great joy what glory ought we to give 'T is God that hath kept Satan and our sinfull souls asunder The Devil is like the Harlot that goes abroad in the dark and black night soliciting to bed-abominations Prov. 7. 9 10. And how oft would he prevail did not God prevent When the Egyptians pursued the Israelites God by a cloud and a pillar of fire was about his peoples camp that Pharaohs host could not come neer them all the night Exod. 14. 20. Thus God is about our beds and keeps Satan he cannot come neer us all the night O with what gladness of heart ought we to glorifie Gods holy Name 2. Care is required that we all the day keep close to God least we be worse
dreading of the Dreames through God and his grace Where the grace of God is not sinfull Dreames are pleasing not perplexing and might Satan have his mind such Dreames should please good men with delight and not possess them with fear from God it is that sinne as defiling is affrighting 'T is from the nature of man to fear death that corrupts the body but 't is from the grace of God to fear sinne that pollutes the soul 2. Suffering evils or evils more purely poenall and painfull and these evil things most properly proceed from God and with such evil Dreames God did most probably afflict Job Job God might dismay in his Dreames with representations of sinne not to sinne Sinnes past God might make to appear What he had done awake God might cause him to see in his sleep with soulamazements But respects to sinne laid aside the Lord in sleep might arrest Job as a Judg. Though towards evils of sinne 't is not fit for God to act any thing he being the purest essence in Heaven yet 't is meet for God to act about matters of pain he being the supream Judg of the earth God is so good that he is not the least actor of sinne but God is so great as he is the chief inflicter of pain and though pain be inflicted of God who is good yet in it self it is evil and though pain to be sure is a less evil than sinne yet still it is evil Sinne is an evil that disturbs Gods quiet in Heaven and pain is an evil that opposes mans peace and rest upon earth How was Job interrupted in his rest and broken in his peace through painfull and dolorous Dreames the dread of which evidences them evil in their nature 2. In their Number considered it seems they were many not Dreame but Dreames in the plurall manifold Dreames and Dreames about manifold matters that might amaze him divers and differing Dreames for degrees and kindes wherewith Job was skared Dreames of fear that like flames of fire flashed fast in his face Dreames of terrors that like troops of Souldiers upon him thrusting thick in his sleep Dreames of horror that like billows of water broke into his chamber and overflowed his bed that he lay as drowned therein enduring many dolorous thoughts Many things may a man suffer from one single Dreame but how many things be suffered when sad Dreames be multiplied this was Jobs case being skared with Dreames 3. The Person from or by whom Job was skared was God himself Thou skarest me Had these Dreames been barely the Devils-darts or as burning brands flung into his bed onely by Satans hellish-hand his heart would not have been so shaked with fear but finding God to have his hand therein and to be the cause thereof this this encreased his skare Thou skarest me As if he had said O Lord thou who in the day of my prosperity wast to me a Paradise of pleasure causing thy joy to shine as a bright Sunne into my soul thou didst comfort ravish me and refresh me oft yet now thou makst me all agast Thou who in the night of my adversity I hoped wouldst have sent into my heart soul-sweet helps from Heaven wouldst have set up cleer candles of comfort about my bed Thou not onely leavest me in the dark but skarest me with Dreames For skares and fears to be from the Devil or this wicked world were no wonder but for a good man to be frighted of God that God will not let him sleep without skaring this is strange and astonishing For fire to come out of the bramble is no such marvell but for fire to come out of the Vine for the brazen Serpent to become a stinging Serpent and for him to wound that should heal to skare that should comfort for the Lord who uses to be to his servants as a Lamb to be like a Lion and to roar upon them in their sleep this is strange indeed Luther hath some such saying If all the men in the world were mustered as Souldiers and all the Devils in Hell gathered as their Commanders and were upon their march against a good man this would not so much dismay him as one God against him Nothing so perplexes a pious man as the appearance of Gods displeasure suppose with Dreames of this God-skaring Job Thou skarest me with Dreames 4. Observe the season when with Dreames was Job thus skared to wit When he found no comfort awake When he looked for comfort in sleep 1. When awake he had no comfort but such painfull dolour as not onely deeply distressed him all the day but wherewith he was wearied whole nights having no sleep Wearisome nights are appointed to me When I lie down I say when shall I arise and the night be gone I am full of tossings to and fro to the dawning of the day ver 3 4. 2. Asleep he could have no quiet Though sometimes after days of dismall distress he looked at night for peaceable repose but even then were his hopes disappointed Skaring Dreames came into his minde when he expected comfortable sleep in his bed When I said my bed shall comfort me my couch shall ease my complaint Then thou skarest me with Dreames c. Commonly good men then finde it worst from God when they expect most from the creature and from the creature finde least when they look for most Scaliger tells of a tree from which when a man departs ramos pandit it spreads the boughs but when a man comes to it ramos constringit it shrinks up the leaves This is the usuall carriage of the creature when men are from it it seems to spread it self into wide promises but when they approach neer it it shrinks up it self from any good performances Thus Jobs bed served him when his expectations towards it were most raised in the day then his perturbations upon it most encreased in the night his bed was so filled with thorns he could lie at no ease even then when he looked for the largest and sweetest rest When I sai dmy bed shall comfort me then thou skarest me with Dreames The further discourse of these skaring Dreames will consist of a double part Explicatory Applicatory In the Explicatory part I shall unfold as referring to Dreames that affright four things 1. The Matter they may be of 2. The Movers they may be from 3. The Persons they may be to 4. The Reasons they may be for First The Matters about which Dreames may be made amazing are of two sorts Matters of Gods Majesty Matters of Mans Misery 1. The Majesty abiding in God may be so represented in sleep as to make Dreames terrible Gen. 15. 12. And when the Sunne was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abraham and loe an horror of great darkness was upon him Diodat observes that such a Majesty of Gods presence did appear to Abraham as set horror upon
the body does because it is not subject so much as to the similitude or shadow of death viz. sleep as the body is Now if not the soul of a man much less does the soul of a Saint sleep If the rationall soul be waking working much more does the regenerate soul wake and worke when the body is bound by sleep And as the soul of a sinnefull Man is by bad Dreames set a worke in an abominable and wicked way so the sanctifyed soul is in good Dreames set a work after an admirable and worthy way we may say of the soul sanctifyed as 't is said of the good house-wife Prov. 31. 18. She perceives her merchandise is good and her candle goes not out by Night she seeks wooll and flax and works willingly with her hands she is like the Merchants ships she bringeth her food from afarre she riseth also while it is Night and makes ready meat for her houshold and prepares a portion for her Maidens c. As while the drowzie Disciples were fast asleep our dear Saviour himself was hard at holy Prayer fixed upon his Fathers will and work so a Saint of God whilst his body lies asleep on bed his soul in a sweet Dreame is bent about blessed business as if in prayer ardent in hearing diligent in Christian conference earnest as if at the Lords Table instant where he thinks he sees Gods Minister giving precious people receiving yea it seemes as if he saw the Lord Christ thereat sitting and thereupon the Spikenard smelling Cant. 1. 12. Oh the rare workings of the soul at such a time how admirably and acceptably did the soul of Solomon work in the time of a Dreame what an excellent prayer did he in the thoughts of his heart make 1 King 3. 6 7 8 9. 2. The Improvement of mens time in such Dreames is rare and precious 'T is a blessed thing for men to make the best of time especially to raise that time towards their eternall good which others idly sleep away We know a very vast part of our time runnes out by night and is spent in sleep of which we must give an account because not onely the day but the night is Gods The day saies David to God is thine the night also is thine Psal 74. 16. Luther hath some such like saying Whether the time be night or day it is of God and ought to be to God He that waketh must wake to God and he that sleepeth must sleep to God Now to God he surely sleeps that thus surely Dreames And as these meet times for man had never been So time would not continue in its order but day and night would be confounded were it not for God As God in the Creation did ordain day and night to be separate one from another and successive one after another Gen. 1. 5 6. So God by a Covenant keeps them asunder to come in their season Jer. 33. 20. 'T is Gods mercy day and night does not mingle together as to marre their order As God is worthy of praise that preserves the night time so it 's praise-worthy in man to improve the time of the night Yea that part of the night wherein he sleeps so as when his body is at rest his soule is at worke when his body lies still his soul is ascending Jacobs ladder This is a marvellous mystery to the most of men 2. Such Dreames are unto good men comodious Thereby the grace of God is evidently discerned Thereby the God of grace is comfortably enjoyed 1. Through these a cleare discovery is made of the grace of God Physicians find out the principall and most predominant humours in the body by Dreames Divines determine the master most prevailing and best beloved sinne in a man by his Dreames And so it may be surely seen and safely said such and such graces are present and potent in man by the spirituall motions of his minde in Dreames God by Dreames hath unloosed the doubts and enlightned the darknesse of divers brought them to the knowledge of what they did not understand One hearing the praise of Basil desired much to know what kinde of man he was whereupon a pillar of fire was presented in a Dreame saies my Author with this motto Talis est Basilius such a one is Basil a burning flame for God Some of Gods Saints desirous to know the beauties of holinesse and to behold the lustre of grace the Spirit of the Lord hath given that light in Dreames that they have learned how illustrious and lovely grace and holinesse in their hearts hath been Augustin tells of one Eulogius a Rhetorician in Carthage who meeting with an obscure place in Cicero's Rhetoricks which he was next day to read to his Scholats being at night troubled he could not understand it fell asleep and by a Dream before morning the dark place was made plaine How God hath cleared intricate Scriptures this way to some I shall forbeare to mention And as obscure places in books so obscure graces in hearts have been admirably opened unto men in their Dreams when they have been troubled with knotty objections they have thus received resolutions what was cloudy in the day hath been cleared in the night Graces in the heart like starres in the heavens have shined in the night that were not seen in the day One writing of the twelve stones in Aarons garment saies of the Rubic that it is a precious stone soonest seen and best found out in the night by a sparkling light it self therein casteth Thus in the night may a man have experience of grace and the spirituall workings thereof that did not so appeare in the day 2. In Dreames a close communion may be held with God a man may have refreshing fellowship with Father Son and Holy Ghost Many a good man as in Dreames he hath had close combatings with Satan his bed hath been as a field wherein many a brave battle hath been fought and victory got gallantly hath his soul beat off the Devill when his body lay bound by sleep So in Dreames he hath had close conversings with God his Bed hath been as a Bethel a place wherein God hath been present and a place wherein he hath made neer approaches to God and God to him Gen. 38. 16 17. And Jacob awaked out of sleep saying surely the Lord is in this place This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven Why the place was the open field where he had lien amongst the stones ai but he had had such a Dreame as put him into the very gate of Heaven and placed him as in the house of God Hence a Saint may not onely say to God as David Psal 139. 18. Lord when I awake I am still with thee but Lord when I sleep I am still with thee There may be somewhat more in that place of the Apostle then we
are aware of at present 1 Thes 5. 10. Christ died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him If it relates to sleep before mentioned the Apostle speaks of a double viz. A sleep of the Soul in security Let not us sleep as do others ver 6. A sleep of the body for necessity They that sleep sleep in the night ver 7. Now that in the 10. ver cannot be meant of the Soul sleeping in sinfull security For therein is no living with Christ if intended of the body in it's naturall and necessary sleeping then through holy Dreames a man lives with Christ A godly man whether he wakes in the day or sleeps in the night by the thoughts of his mind he meets Christ remaines with Christ Christ and he hath sweet intercourse together O what sweet converse hath the Soule with it's Saviour in the solitudes of the night If thou wouldst solace thy self saies Bernard with thy Saviour mind much the most solitary times oâ—â—â—tirements Oh chast and lovely Soul be thou alone thy Heavenly husband who will not croud into thee in the day through the throng of worldly company and earthly imployments may yet give thee gracious visits in the night when the curtaines are drawn the doore lockt and all the world shut out then may he come and finding thee alone there give thee his loves Cant. 7. 11 12. All men saies an obscure Writer while they are awake are together in one common world but when they sleep each man goes into a single world by himself A Saint of God in his sleep goes into a glorious world where he finds comfortable company converses with Angels Apostles Martyrs and holy men Thus God makes good that promise Prov. 3. 24. When thou liest down thou shalt not be afraid That 's not all Yea thou shalt lye down and thy sleep shall be sweet in sleep not onely free from what affrights but filled with what refreshes Thus the Prophet when he had Dreamt of the Churches happy estate Upon this saies he I awaked and beheld and my sleep was sweet unto 〈…〉 Jerem. 31. 26. O how have the â—â—â—forts of God and the God of comforts in time of sleep been sweetly received A Persian Monarch Dreaming that Themistoles the Athenian a man of rare parts was revolted from the Grecians and come in to him being transported with joy he broke out with a loud voice in his sleep I have got Themistocles the Athenian He is mine He is mine wherewith he awaked and so it was Thus a poor Christian who having been for divers dayes in doubts and deep distresse for want of Christ in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg the Lord at length hath come in a Dreame by night which â—â—th made his soul to sing leap saying Christ my Redeemer is come is come I have him I have him which proves more then a Dream Credibly have I heard it reported of a Christian man that lived in Dublin in Ireland who Dreaming he heard the last trumpet sound and that the world was at an end with joy leaped out of his bed and runne out inthe streets saying My Christ is come my Christ is come This I can report of a precious Minister a little before his death slumbering upon his bed in the night and falling into Meditations of the Resurrection at the last day when both body and soul should abide for ever in blisse started up and was ready to rise out of bed being askt what he meant answered Let me go to the pulpit and impart to the people the sweet comforts I have had in my soul this night O that these things might quicken and cause us to seek such Dreames from God From God that such Dreames may be procured preparation for them is to be made First in the day Secondly in the Night Whilest the day lasteth if we woulâ— prepare for good Dreames we must endevour To do much good To do all good well 1. Much good work we must endeavour in the day to do A dreame comes through the multitude of businesse saies Solomon Eccles 5. 3. He that goes through a multitude of worldly businesse in the day is apt to Dreame of worldly things in the night and in the night he is apt to Dreame of things holy and good who is busie about abundance of good in the day Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the worke of the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. 2. All good work we must endeavour to do well if thereby we would make way for good Dreames to follow We must set our selves in holy and religious duties To do them With strong desires With great delights To do them With hearts fired With hearts fixed We ought to stirre up and put out our selves about holy service so as to take pains thereat and pleasure therein with minds wholly bent thereupon to make the managments of holy matters our meat My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work John 4. 39. yea to esteem the work of God as Job did the word of God more then our appointed food chap. 23. 12. These day-duties to good Dreames are very dispositive and when night is then towards such Dreames there be duties preparative Both at the entrance of the night And in the progresse of the night 1. When Night is begun and we are to lye down in our beds our businesse as introducting to Dreames divine is Prayer to God Prayer as it beats off the Devill that he cannot assault us with Dreames that are bad So it brings on God graciously to visit us with Dreams that are good As we must pray for good sleep in the night So we must pray for good Dreames in our sleep reading the Scripture Hierom exhorted some godly women to whom he wrote to take the Bible to bed and to hold it reading in their hands till they bowed down their heads with sleep so as their lips and the leaves met 'T is to good Dreames a great help Instructing our families and speaking to them about us of the great works and good word of God which we are to relate when we lye down Deut. 11. 18 19. And the same Prov. 6. 21 22. All such means much conduce to Dreames that are good 2. When night goes on and in our beds we are laid to lift up our hearts unto God in holy meditations Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still Psal 4. 4. The bed is not barely for body-sleeping but for heart-communing and soul-searching Psal 77. 6. In the night saies David I communed with my own heart and my spirit made diligent search David took advantage of the night to looke more narrowly into his own heart to sweep his house In the night likewise to look up in a holy remembrance of God I have remembred
stood up stoutly in the day God hath tumbled and overturned with terrours in the night Job 34. Chap. 25. Ver. On the other side some of Gods Saints who have been down in the deeps of sorrows all day the Lord hath lifted them up by heart-gladding-comforts in the night And God spake to Israel in a Dreame by night saying Jacob Jacob I am God the God of thy father Feare not to goe down into Egypt I will go with thee and I will bring thee up again Gen. 46. 2 3. Much to this purpose see that great Apostle There stood by me this night the Angell of God whose I am and whom I serve saying feare not Paul be of good cheere God hath given thee all that saile with thee Acts 27. 26. O the heart-ravishing cups of comfort that God sometimes brings down for his Saints to drink in in the dark yea O how sometimes by soul-solacing Dreames are their hearts drawn up into Heaven Luther speaking of the Soul of a Saint separated from the body by death saies That it sleeps not but is ever awake walks in Heaven heares the language of Angels sees the visions of God c. The same in some measure may be said of such a Soul while united to the body in this life It sleeps not but being ever awake it even in the night-season ascends up into Heaven and sees the face of God and sings the praises of Christ So that we may say of a Saints sleep in this case as Austin once said of Stevens sleep martyred among the stones O sleep of peace how pleasant and full of delight Quest May not the Devils deluding Dreames have many delighting joys Answ Suppose so yet the joys of Divine Dreames are farre differing and may be discerned by Antecedent preparations Consequent inclinations 1. Before a Christian is penitentially prepared by afflictings of Soul and affrightings for sinne deep humblings and day-tremblings under sense of Gods wrath c. then by night God may represent to the mind his marvellous mercies in the Covenant of grace his favour upon the account of Christ pardon of sinne to the singular joy of the Soul 2. After a Christian is graciously enclined his spirit disposed to the advancing of God the abasing himself the opposing of sin the pursuing holiness of life and the like Such joys in Dreames are more then Dreames of joy One well observeth That all the Devils pleasing power it 's placed in deluding lies He delights to delude and he deludes in his delights He rejoyces to deceive men and he deceives men in their rejoycings Their joys in Dreams be but Dreames of joy They seem to solace but they do not solace as they seem Be such delusive joys examined by things before or after they may be found very vain as in the causes so in their essects whereas the virtuous vigour of true joys that are in and through Dreames Divine we may soon discern as by their good causes so by their excellent effects viz. They engage to truth They enlarge our strength 1. To truth our hearts are hereby engaged obliged more bent and bound to truth-embracements Such a Byas set upon our souls as may carry us the more strait on in obedience to the strictâ—st truths contained in holy Scriptures Yea we are taught not only to retain the truth but to rejoyce in the truth through the truth of joy Whereas false joys that proceed in and through delusive Dreames leave mens minds loose for the letting in most lamentable errors So that the saving truths of God in the Gospel are the sooner very sadly deserted 2. In strength our hearts are hereby enlarged encreased Nehem. 8. 10. The joy of the Lord is our strength Such joys as God sends in sleeping or wakeing they strengthen with much spirial might our inward man making us the more apt and able to the holiest duties and for the heaviest difficulties that may severall waies be set before us Whereas false joys from Dreames delusive do rather debilitate enfeeble and weaken mans soul as to hard service or suffering Thus rightly to discriminate these is a lesson very well worth our learning Yea and let us learn likewise not only how to perceive and discern but how to reeive and maintain not only Dreames reall and truly right for delights but also the most rare and ravishing Dreams that can come from Heaven upon our hearts For the more constant compassing of such high night-comforts we ought through our whole daily walkings To beware To be wise 1. Beware of walking from the setled counsels of God Take heed of turning aside to seek uncertain waies to look for new Revelations and so forsake the antient Tracts and leave the long beaten paths of Bible-truths least we not only prevent from our selves such caelestial sweets but on the contrary procure to our selves the sowrest draughts that our minds can drink day or night May not we concurre with Cassian and confidently conclude That those Christians who during the clear day do deviate from Gods wonted waies from Christs the Kings known rode in his Word paved with Propheticall flints and Apostolicall stones and made plain by the footsteps of all the foregoing Saints yea and the Lord himself to seek out unknown waies and to wander into briery and bushy paths may look to lie down at night with legs all scratched garments torn with souls full of sores such wounds and wofull stings as will not well suffer them to sleep Excuse me good Christians if again and again I give this Caution lest men make a wrong Use of this requisite Subject in our monstrously mistaking season 2. Be wise to walk in the most certain comforts of God We may find that this is without doubt our daily duty not only to walk in the fear of the Lord but likewise to walk in the comforts of the Holy Ghost Acts 9. 31. This for pious persons is possible though indeed so difficult that with Bernard the best may say Such soul-solacing daies and houres are very rare and sweet though very seldome and short Yet without question good care might carry us in and keep us to farre more continued waies of comfort than in which commonly Christians are found Were we so exact as we ought might not we make even our extraordinary comforts our much more ordinary Walks Sure we are not only to take some steps into spiritual comforts but we are to take up our daily walks in the comforts of the Spirit And if we thus walk into these comforts while awake what walks may such comforts have into us when asleep If we in our more constant course could converse with God by the most rejoycing thoughts in the day would not God have a more frequent converse with us by most refreshing Dreames from Heaven in the night Did but we afore-hand accustom our selves to be with rejoycings of soul in the service of the Lord how afterward
THE MYSTERY OF DREAMES Historically Discoursed OR A TREATISE Wherein is clearly Discovered The secret yet certain Good or Evil the inconsidered and yet assured Truth or Falsity Virtue or Vanity Misery or Mercy of mens differing DREAMES Their Distinguishing Characters The divers Cases Causes Concomitants Consequences Concerning mens inmost Thoughts while ASLEEP With severall considerable Questions Objections and Answers contained therein And other profitable TRVTHS appertaining thereunto Are from pertinent TEXTS plainly and fully unfolded By Philip Goodwin Preacher of the Gospel at Watford in Hartfordshire Justum abinjusto non Somno sed Somnio discerni Aristot Ethic. lib. 2. c. LONDON Printed by A. M. for Francis Tyton at the Three Daggers near S t Dustans Church in Fleet-street 165â— Imprimatur Decemb. 8. 1657. Edmund Calamy THE AUTHORS APOLOGY As To the present Matter OR An Epistle Declaratory Acquainting the Christian Reader with the Usefull things intended in the TREATISE Courteous Reader I Crave thy favour or at least to forbear thy censure as concerning the Subject-Matter of this Book which discoursing the HISTORY and MYSTERY of DREAMES some men may imagine useless judging both mine and other mens Study of this present Point to be paines to no purpose c. But be not discouraged dear Christian from a diligent endeavour to get a due understanding in the state of Dreames for As this hath been very Commendable So this may be still very profitable 1. Commendable it hath been in antient times to attain knowledg in Dreames as may plainly and plentifully appear From Sacred Scriptures From other Authors 1. The Holy Scriptures do much commend two worthy Men for their wise discernings in Dreames As Joseph a Patriarch And Daniel a Prophet 1. The Patriarch Joseph who not Ironically but Deservedly might be called a Captain-Dreamer for he had not only an admirable Transact in imagining Dreames but a marvellous insight for the interpreting of Dreames Some to diminish the due praise of this precious Man in this Matter have said that his skill in interpreting Phaarohs Dream Genes 4. was meerly out of his observation of the River Nâ—lus c. But by some of late the most Learned in Divinity and Philosophy hath this been fully confured Paraeus and other approved Expositors keeping up his praise conclude he had not only an humane and low but a more sublime and Divine knowledg in Dreames 2. The Prophet Daniel who lived in the time of the Babilonian captivity and about the seventh year thereof was raised for his rare Dilucidation of Dreames And among other things herein that the Scripture reports to his praise That express passage is much to be pondered Chap. 1. Vers 17. As for these four Children God gave them knowledg and skill in all Learning and Wisdom and Daniel had understanding in all Dreames and Visions Out of which saying we consider concerning Daniel What is asserted of him with the rest What is ascribed to him above the rest 1. 'T is said of Daniel and his Associates Hananiah Michael and Azariah three captive Children of the Jews They all had knowledg and skill in all learning and wisdom And as Theodoret upon the place well observeth 't is said God gave them this knowledg For as God instructs the Husbandman in the wise disposing of his Seed and Soyl Esa 18. 26. So God much more does assist the Scholar in his Studies of humane Arts and Sciences by whose benediction knowledg herein is attained This was the common gift of God to Daniel and his other captive-Companions 2. Daniel above his fellowes is preferred in that he had a special understanding in all Dreames and Visions For the compassing of which no question as he was a learned man he had much help from humane wisdom with which God had greatly endowed Daniel So as a most Godly man he had more used other religious meanes as Meditation and Prayer and a more diligent Study of Divine Matters in which God had raised and increased his knowledg beyond others in all Dreames and Visions And as this was the praise of Daniel so the same would make for the commendation of any other men as Junius upon the place in divers Documents laies down 2. See besides Scriptures other Authors who do much commend two sorts of men in former times for their usefull knowledg of Dreames As Philosophers And Physicians 1. The antient Philosophers as Aristotle Cicero and severall others of the greatest repute this is reported to their praise they saw so much as enabled them to write largely and learnedly of the Nature of Dreames So Zanchy presents them praise worthy 2. Those famous Physicians as Galen Hypocrates they to their high praise proved and improved their excellent knowledg in Dreames thereby discerning the Symptomes of severall diseases and so perceived what proper Meanes to propose to their Patients for their more quick recovery Aquinas and others give out evident Instances of such admirable advantages by which was raised the â—ame of Physicians in former times And if it were laudable in them to look into Dreames to learn out the state of mens bodies may it not be commendable in others thereby to discover the case of mens souls 2. Profitable this may plainly be proved by what Hath been proposed May be produced 1. Proposed much hath been by godly and learned men in latter times though little in our English Language lies extant yet in Latin both Polemicall and Practicall Discourses much of use in this case is Discovered For Writings Polemicall read Luther who hath large and learned Disputations and Dilucidations of Dreames discussing how they may be discriminated and what to them may be appropriated For Practicall Writings read Polanus and others Such like who in their learned Systemes of Divinity have laid down divers usefull Divisions and Determinations as referring to Dreameâ— besides what other Eminent Men have excellently done as occasioned upon their Commentaries of Scripture all which might well have been forborn had not knowledg herein been a benefit to men yea usefull to the best of Saints 2. Produced much may be for the fruitfull profit of all such persons by plain perception and due discerning of Dreames Both to assist necessary Knowledg And to incite necessary practice And let me here take notice of Dreames in a double sense As large and extended As strict and limited 1. Dreames largely taken for all of all sorts to endeavour their due understanding is needfull that such knowledg may be promoted and such practice incited as is to be sure exceeding necessary 1. Knowledg necessary both herein and hereby may be much for our benefit 1. Knowledg in Dreames we have need and may be much for our good Observe Our Activity in them The Obscurity of them 1. We Active They are such motions as wherein we actually concurre Now as Christ said to his Disciples of Christian duties If
Divine Dreames have been into Men immitted p. 262 6. How farre Divine Dreames in this latter Age of the world may yet be expected p. 268 7. How God in discovery of his mind by Dreames hath used divers waies and Meanes p. 271 8. How Sanctified Men are the most usuall Subjects into which God sends good Dreames p. 275 9. How into the mindes of sinfull Men such Dreames are sometimes sent of God p. 277 10. Reasons why into wicked mens minds good Dreames have been from God formerly transmitted p. 279 11. Reasons why into the minds of sanctified men good Dreames from God have been frequently conveyed p. 281 12. The Causes why good Dreames from God should be by all earnestly desired p. 285 13. The Meanes how from God good Dreames may to men be comfortably procured p. 294 14. The Reasons why Dreames from God in good men are now found so few plainly declared p. 311 15. How the least workings from God in a way of good Dreames ought not to be despised p. 313 16. What of some Dreames we are not to regard and yet wherein good Dreames are to be observed p. 321 17. How farre before good Dreames the Light and Guidance of the Gospel is to be prefered p. 324 18. How false Visions and Revelations from good Dreames are to be discovered p. 326 19. What heavenly Joys in holy Dreames may certainly be obtained p. 328 20. How true Joys in Divine Dreames from false joys in delusive Dreames may be discerned p. 330 21. Divers Objections against this Discourse of Divine Dreames fully answered p. 306 JErem 23. 32. Behold I am against the Prophets that prophesie false Dreames saith the Lord and do tell them causing my people to erre by their lies c. Judg. 7. 15. And it was so when Gidèon heard the telling of the Dream and the interpretation thereof that he worshipped and said to the host of Israel Arise for the Lord is with us c. Gen. 41. 15 16. And Pharaoh said to Joseph I have dreamed a Dream and there is none that can interpret it I have heard say that thou caust understand a Dream to interpret it And Joseph answered Pharaoh it is not in me God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace c. Dan. 7. 1. In the first year of Beltashazar King of Babylon Daniel had a Dream and Visions of his head upon his bed Then he wrote down the Dream and told the summe of the matter Psal 4. 4. Stand in awe and sinne not commune with your own hearts upon your beds and be still Psal 63 7. I remember thee upon my bed and meditate upon thee in the night watches c. GOOD READER FOr the rectifying of the Errata's in the main Body of the Book I referre thee to the end thereof entreating thy curtesie In other additional parts some other accidental faults thou maiest find which when thou meetest correct with a patient Pen. VIZ. In the Postscript For the Gospel of Gods great Name Read The Glory of his great Name In the Epistle for sinnes certain Excellency Read its certain Existency Besides some other smaller mistakes all which thou art desired with Christian patience to pardon By P. G. Jan. 20. 1657. THE MYSTERY OF DREAMES Historically Discoursed 1. Of Mens DREAMES more Generall PSAL. 126. 1. We were like to men that Dream I Amblicus a Learned Philosopher writing a Book De Mysteriis hath excellently Discoursed of Dreames as one kind of those occult things wherein lieth much of a Mystery Mysterium in Latin as by Illyricús Polanus and other good Authors is observed may be fitly derived from a Greek word which well signifies a closed Secret Mysteries or Secrets are certainly considerable in Dreames Daniel discoursing to King Nebuchadnezzer about the Dream he had from God upon his Bed saies to him He that revealeth secrets c. or Mysteries as the Septuagint there rendreth it These Mysticall and covered secrets Austin Zanchy and some others considering have concluded they cannot be well understood but by Gods Spirit speaking in the Word I shall therefore make use of Gods Word as a meet Meanes to a manifest discovery of Dreames-Mystery And for a due Introduction this expression of Gods people in the Prophet is prompt and proper We were like to men that Dream As touching the people of God in the present place we may propose Their Condition Their Comparison 1. Their Condition or their comfortable case they were brought out of captivity by the Lords own hand When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion 2. Their Comparison They compare or resemble themselves to Dreaming Men We were like to men that Dreame That is in our Delivery there was such a Miracle and Mystery of Mercy as Mollerus interprets we knew not what to make of it but it made us admire it came upon us so secret and so sudden that we were at a loss and knew not which way to look We were like to men that Dreame Here is in this Likeness or Similitude observable The Persons and The Action 1. The Persons they liken themselves to are Men We were like Men. 2. The Action the Men they were like are considered in is their Dreaming We were like to Men that Dreame Men we see are most certainly such Persons as Dreaming does concern and Dreamings we see are such Actions as most singularly concern Men We were like Men that Dreame The full Discourse from the Text intended will consist of two considerable parts Explicatory and Applicatory In the Explicatory part what will be unfolded may referre To Men as the Subjects of Dreames and To Dreames as the Actings of Men. Men who are the Sensible Subjects in which manifold Dreames are most usually found we may fitly unfold In their Rationall part and In their Vitall estate 1. In their part Rationall and Intellectuall To compound the person of every Man like Gideons Souldier he hath his Body as his Earthen Pitcher and his Soul as his Lamp therein His Body may be sleeping when yet his Soul as his Lamp is burning Yea as there is the Soul in a man so there is Reason in the Soul of which we may say as 't is said of the vertuous Woman Her candle goes not out by night In the dark night into divers Dreames man is led by the light of this candle 't is the Soul of man endowed with Reason and 't is Reason in man as the endowment of the Soul in and by which such Dreams are drawn out Reason is rendrable in a double respect For the Rise and Principle of it For the Use and Practise of it By Mans having the Principle of Reason he becomes capable of and is Disposeable to Dreaming But 't is Mans having the Use of Reason by which he actually Dreames And indeed 't is Reason in the Use thereof as the Ancients conclude that causes a Man to be accounted Rationall Intelligent c.
when they are best awake as man may when he is asleep so that we may well conclude That Man is the most excellent creature while he is a Man and as a Man manages the motions of his own mind Yea that which yet further raises mans Soul in its Rational part is that even in Dreames it can imagin those matters that upon the sensitive part never made impressions Does not the Philosopher seem to contradict himself that sayes Homo est maxime intellectus and yet Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu How can the intellect or understanding transcend if it can proceed no further than as set forward by sense But sure even in sleep the intellectual part can conceive of things that never were in the Senses which sets out its singular excellency and surpassing dignity 2. This may set man upon his duty diligently to see and consider himself as concerning Dreames For their good carriage in him And his good knowledg of them 1. The right carriage of Dreames that by Dreames-miscarriage he may not disparage and dishonour himself 'T was a high saying of a Heathen That no man does keep up the honour and dignity of his Soul as is due but he that drawes in Righteousness and drives away Vice Indeed he that in the night-time leaves his Soul to the neglects of God and prostitutes the same to the service of the Devil in vain and vitious Dreames does debase it deeply and he that ascends in Soul by Heavenly Dreames does advance it highly 2. The true knowledge of Dreames to endeavour is mans duty Indeed this might be fit to go before for to a right carriage a good knowledg is requisite And touching this two things observe 1. Who are to seek the knowledg hereof and 2. Why the knowledg hereof is to be sought 1. See the Persons who are to seek the knowledg of Dreames They are All generally And Some specially 1. It concerns all to seek such knowledg for ignorance herein may soon be a sinne The Schools observe That though simple nescience is no sinne to wit The bare want of the knowledg of what we be not bound to know but yet ignorance of what we ought to know is ever a sinne Now every man ought to know both God and himself not only in their Beings but in their Workings God and man may have great works in Dreames and therefore these ought by all to be known All may be operant in them and therefore none should he ignorant of them What man is there that may not be drawn to work in this way of Dreames The Philosopher affirms that some men through a long space of their lives lie down and dream not and then in the process of their age some dreame happens that presages death sickness or some sad event which yet few need to dread because with the most men Dreames are a common case and therefore their knowledg is of generall use 2. It concerns some especially to seek of Dreames a due knowledg viz. such whose Dreames be More Usitate More Passionate and More Intricate 1. Those men with whom Dreames are more Usitate and accustomed some men do almost as ordinarily dreame as sleep and should not such know Dreames they who are most frequent in them should be most intelligent of them 2. Such men whose Dreames are Passionate they fall upon them with an oppressive power as Pilates wife who in her Dreame sorely suffered Matth. 27. 19. Chrysostome concludes Though Pilate was stupid about the state of Christ yet his wife had such a Dreame as made impressions and moved compassions in Christs innocent case Thus with some sometimes it comes to pass by Dreames they are much wounded warmed awakened affected afflicted inflamed inforced suâ—e such are to seek into a serious knowledg of Dreames 3. Those men whose Dreames are more Intricate and obscurate Some Man while his Body is asleep a dark veil seems to cover the face of his Soul so that it cannot see it self nor what it transacts Things seem to be ponderous yet are ambiguous they seem to inâ—inuate light yet be accompanied with darkness in them are such depths as occasion doubts and many demurres in the minde such men have more cause to inquire into the cleere knowledg of Dreames 2. See some Reasons that may incite all sorts of men to seek this knowledg and principally to press some men to prosecute this knowledg Ponder therefore 1. The Difficulty of it 2. The Possibility to it 3. The Equity for it 4. The Excellency in it And 5. The Commodity by it 1. Difficulty Hard it is to attain the knowledg of Dreames because The Soul is secret that conceives them Satan is subtill to conceal them 1. The Soul herein hath secret works and indeed works in the Soul are secret I am patient though I cannot understand sayes Cyprian severall of Gods works in the world for my own Soul hath such works whereof I am ignorant How canst thou comprehend the excellencie of God above thee thy own Soul within thee hath faculties and footsteps thou hardly findest out sayes Cyril 2. Satan to conceale these Soul-works is subtill he would not have men discern the good of such Dreams as are from God nor the evil of such Dreames as from himself proceed 2. Possibility Men may attain true knowledg in these Soul-secrets having those lights that lead thereunto As The light of Nature The light of Scripture 1. Nature-light led many learned Philosophers to write much of Dreames to find out all the faculties and abilities of the Soul they sought out much as Tertullian relates and why may not we who have 2. Scripture-light that 's better We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a more sure word as a light that shineth in a dark place What is done in the dark this brings to light layes open and makes known 3. Equity 'T is fit men should know things done in them such things as they are not only receptive of but operative in as in the case of Dreames In such things doth not God observe us Thou knowest my down-lying and up-rising and understandest my thoughts afar off Thou compassest my bed and art acquainted with all my wayes The darkness hideth not from thee 4. Excellency The rarity of this knowledg 't is found in few To understand Dreames how exceedingly did Pharaoh Nebuchadnezzar seek the same how were helpers herein honoured as Joseph and Daniel for their interpreting and making Dreams known 5. Commodity Hereby a man may know much of God of Satan and of himself hereby a man may know much of the vanity of the world the venome and villany of Sinne the excellency and activity of Grace which probably hath most prevalency in him and principall power over him c. I shall therefore endeavour to set forth the severall sorts of Dreames whether they come from God or from the Devil Dreams
have been sinfully set through the deceit of Dreames Likewise these delusive Dreames so some reade that of the Apostle Jude 8. despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities This hath been the sequele and sad effect of some men misled by deluding Dreames to cry down Magistracy yea to rise up against Magistrates opposing and gainsaying all good manners of Governments and Governours whereby they fight against God blemishing what God hath beautified and abolishing what God hath ratified Yea and as Calvin in the case further observes Hereby men waxing bold and wresting the Sword out of the Magistrates hand they have taken the readiest way to ruine States Empires and Kingdomes and at this door to introduce all licentious liberties of the most egregious impieties that can possibly appear against God 2. God himself in his most immediate concernments hath been hereby boldly assaulted and highly affronted such deceitfull Dreamers Covering their Lies with the Truths of God Fathering their Lies upon the God of Truth 1. False Dreamers have covered their naked brats with Bible-leaves interpreting sound Scriptures for the introducting of rotten errors and perverting Gods solid sayings for the supporting of Satans subtill designes setting their wits awork when awake to make good their sinfull conceits in sleep 2. Such Dreamers have fathered their loud lies upon the Lord himself Jer. 23. I have heard saith the Lord what the Prophets said that prophecie lies in my Name saying I have dreamed I have dreamed ver 25. To prophesie lies is bad but to prophesie lies in Gods Name is worse Behold saith the Lord they use their tongues and say He saith ver 31. Calvin gives the various interpretations of the Hebrew word They used their tongues That is they smooth'd their tongues or they sweetned their tongues with sugred expressions and honey words They lift up their tongues and speak high with loud and lofty words boasting of Gods minde made manifest to them in admiring Dreames Against God such monstrous evils in other ages have been evident yea found frequent as fruits of false Dreames 2. Against their Neigbours through such Dreames of Deceit have severall sadly sinned to wit Against their Souls Against their Bodies 1. Against the Souls of their Neighbours endeavouring to draw them to dreadfull evils As to forsake the Wayes of God Yea to forget the Name of God 1. The wayes and prescribed pathes of God such have sought to make others like themselves forsake seeking not onely by subtill means to turn but by boisterous and violent means to thrust men from the good wayes of God And that Prophet or dreamer of Dreames who hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God and to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God hath commanded c. Deut. 13. 6. 2. The Name of the Great God they have sought to make good men forget Indeed to bring Gods people utterly to forget Gods Name they never could according as they did think They think to cause my people to forget my Name by their Dreames which they tell every man to his neighbour Jer. 23. 27. Yet such men by such means have sometimes so far prevailed as to make Gods professing people to fall into foul errors They prophecie false Dreames and cause my people to erre by their lies ver 33. To erre The Septuagint expresses it by a word that signifies to wander as the Planets Those false dreaming Prophets caused the people of the Lord to be like wandring Starres running into irregular wayes from the strait way of truth and holiness 2. Against their Neighbours Bodies and temporall being have some been sinfully drawn through the deceit of Dreames so bitterly bent as that those whom they could not deceive by their falsities they would destroy by their cruelties Hence hath been butcheries and bloodsheds of blessed Saints And here I cannot but make fresh mention of Muncer the Anabaptist and his transported party in Germany of whom Sleiden and others beforenamed report They were led into such slaying deeds by their lying Dreames They gave out who were the chief among them that God declared himself and the secrets of his heart to them in their sleep and that his will was that all wicked Princes and people should be slain that so the Saints alone might live and rule the world c. This poisonous principle being suc'kt in and received they first fell to secret murders and cruell massacres and afterwards to open warres and bloody battels in which many good Protestants lost their precious lives to accomplish their hellish lies and please their pernicious lusts Be it considered how such sinnes have been the sad sequels of deceiving Dreames Secondly Let us consider deceiving Dreames in their sad punishments False Dreames as their poenall effects have been frequently found Not to produce what they did propose What they did not propose to produce 1. They may not produce what they seem to present they may not attain whereto they pretend Tertullian treating of Dreames in generall sayes thus Behold therein a Fencer but without weapons behold fighting but never a blow given many motions but nothing done among many things seemingly presented nothing really effected c. This is most certain in such Dreames as we are now dealing with not onely at the time of present appearance there is no positive performance but there may be no following effects when men are awake that sute to such conceptions in sleep We read of certain Witches to whom in the night time the Devil did bring to their thinking good pieces of gold but in the day-time when they went to make use thereof all proved but withered leaves Thus witnesseth Remigius in his book De Daemonalatria who was a Judg in Lorreighne under whom divers of those seduced creatures suffered So may Satan set golden matters before the mindes of Dreaming men which yet afterward in waking-time may wither and prove no such matter So that of such Dreames a man is made ashamed when he sees his raised expectations sink Disappointment is a very great punishment Quest May not the Devil in Dreams foretell such things as may in time come to pass Answ To satisfie in this matter some things may be said By way of Concession By way of Negation First Concession We grant 't is possible that Satan may fore-see some things in such cases which in Dreames as well as other wayes he may communicate to the mindes of men They who have read any thing of the Oracles of old have found how the Devil in dayes past did assist presages of strange things to come Plutarch reports in the life of Alexander how that great Conquerour was from such causes â—â—couraged in his encounters Particularly the Historian tells how before Alexander made warre with Darius King of Persia he was thus by the Oracle assured of his success Go on Alexander thou shalt be a conquerour Upon this
to hear them and the best way to hinder deceits is not to hearken to deceivers Deceivers are the Devils Brokers that trim up his old rotten raggs and sell them off for new cloathes They make fine their falshoods as the phrase is using many brave words to put off their bad wares But do not hearken 1. Observe what we must do towards freedom from false Dreams viz. Love the Truth of God Fear the God of Truth 1. Love to the truth of God is a good defence against all false ways false Doctrines false Dreames O let us love Truth all Truth not onely shining Truth but burning Truth Some says Austin they love Truth that beams Light but not Truth which brings heat c. Truth that is most warning is best arming and best defends from all falshoods The want of this love to Truth lays men naked to beleeve lies They received not the Truth in the love thereof For this cause God gave them up to strong delusions to beleeve a lye 2 Thes 2. 11. 2. Fear towards the God of Truth this is a good Antidote against Satans poison preventing the vanities of deluding Dreames In the multitude of Dreames there be divers vanities but fear thou God Eccl. 5. 7. Tertullian tells of some unsound heads who that they might the better introduce their seducing Doctrines they denied that God was to be feared Which wicked Errour that Worthy Writer does fully confute concluding That where God is not feared there is no Truth well fenced But men laying all open to erroneous conceits and deceits their hearts as houses are soon filled with falshoods when the true fear of God is gone from the door Such a fear of God as brings forth obedience to all Gods commands is an excellent means against all Dreamedeceits and deceivers as is manifest by that of Moses in Deut. 13. If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of Dreames Ye shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep all his Commandements c. Men who so fear God as with all care to keep to all the Commandements of God become most safe from the deceivings of Satan But as those who are wholly fearless casting off all care towards all Gods Commandements so those who fear God but in part having a care only toward some Commandements of God but in others remain remiss all such Satan may soon deceive God appointed Adam in Paradise says Ambrose to keep his Commandements but perhaps not expressing his exactness in keeping all he thought he might swerve from some and so by the Serpent was soon deceived So that the safest course to secure our souls from Satans Deceits in delusive Dreames is to fear God and with the utmost care we can to keep unto Gods whole commanding-word for the want of which divers have been deceived by Satan in deluding Dreames and how soon may we in the same case miscarry and through Satans subtilties in our sleep mistake As in the night-time Laban deluded Jacob bringing to his bed blear-eyed Leah for beautifull Rachel so in the night the Devil hath deceived divers bringing to them in sleep ugly lies for lovely Truths And let us not think the Devil is grown idle or simple but is as subtill and sedulous night and day industrious in all delusive ways that thereby he may Hold up the falling Seat of the Beast Hold down the Rising Throne of Christ False Dreames driven on by the Devil to this double end are of two sorts Some in sleeping Men Some in Men awake These latter many fall under that are yet free from the former and the former those are in danger of who are misled by the latter False Dreames found in many waking men are manifest As wrong opinions in themselves And high presumptions of themselves 1. Men within themselves have many opinions that be but meer false Dreames viz. That God sees no sinne in his servants That Christ having satisfied Gods Justice sinne shall never be punished Christ having wrought mans Righteousness good works are needless to be done If God hath appointed men to life they need use no means Men may do evil that good may come thereby Impulses of Spirit and successes of Providence are more to be minded than Rules of Scripture c. These are False Dreames 2. Some of themselves have such presumptions as are assuredly but deceiving Dreames and these do either concern Sinne or Grace 1. Concerning Sinne We may see severall sorts presuming Some that they are free from it Others that they shall do well in it 1. Many imagin themselves to be free from sin which is a Soul-deceiving Dreame If we say we have no sinne we deceive our selves and there is no truth in us 1 Joh. 1. 8. yet so severall say that they have no sinne Originall or Actuall Originall sinne they be born without That sinne is a blow never given to their nature a blot that never fell on their faces a moth that never took their garments As for the sinne of Adam the sinne of Parents remote or immediate they say as the High-Priests touching the Treason of Judas What is that to us 2. Actuall sinne they live without Their tongues can speak apace and not stammer their feet can run swift and not stumble they can act body and soul without sinne their lives are as strait lines without bending their works be as Books that have no Errataes they are set into such an estate wherein not onely they do not sinne but wherein they cannot sinne These are false Dreames 2. Severall there be who persist in sinne yet conceive they shall do well Either they do divers good things and they shall satisfie for the bad their good works shall recompence and answer for their evil deeds or otherwise they have power and purpose to repent of sinne hereafter or else they plead God is mercifull and Christ died for sinners Or they think because God in his greatness is so high that he takes no particular notice of mans miscarriages here below Or they conceive because God is silent he is such a one as themselves or they have seen severall proceed in sinne whom God hath prospered and favoured and so they expect the same or they have excuses evasions distinctions through which they pass with men and doubt not but to do with God the same with severall such like conceits These are false Dreames 2. As concerning Grace severall unsanctified men imagin They are encreased in it They shall be Crowned for it 1. In Grace they think they have large encreasings Men who are miserably empty of what ever is savingly good yet confidently conclude that in respect of spirituall good things they have not only the reality thereof but be rich therein I am rich and encreased in goods and lack nothing said the Laodicean Church as she lay in a deluding Dreame upon mistake of her spirituall estate Rev. 3.
them Likewise these filthy Dreamers defile the flesh But the aspect of the similitude may be upon the act defiling rather then upon the object defiled Or if the object be considered in a generall sense flesh on all sides was surely defiled These defiled the flesh and so did the Sodomites the Sodomites defiled the flesh and so did these But that these Dreamers did defile carnem alteram seu alienam I conceive is a meer mistake Clemens Alexandrinus excellently and confidently besides the greatest part of others the best Expositors interpret these filthy Dreamers to be Mentall sinners men sinfull by imaginations and thoughts the evil of which do not directly reach to the wronging and defiling of others We may be harmed by mens outward words and deeds but yet receive no reall prejudice by their inward thoughts ' T is sure says Austin thou may be a murderer yet the man alive thou may be an adulterer yet the woman chast c. because while these things are onely in thoughts a mans neighbour is never the worse Mens mischievous and adulterous thoughts when awake work no immediate ill to others much less such thoughts in men asleep Flesh as referring to others is not defiled by filthy dreamers 2. Reflecting on themselves flesh defiled is two ways taken Either as more limited Or as more enlarged 1. Limited and more strictly the flesh they defile is their own bodies so runs the most Orthodox Commentators in a united current carnem maculant i. e. corpus suum polluunt they pollute their own bodies The flesh may more immediatly mean the body the body being most properly the fleshie part And in filthy Dreames the bodies of men may be actually concerned and so certainly defiled 2. Enlarged and more fully the flesh they defile is the whole man both body and soul Defilement in Dreames does not fasten upon the body barely but setles upon the soul also And this adds much to the mischief of such filthy Dreames that the soul or minde mans most precious part is by this means polluted And undoubtedly if these Dreames do defile mens bodies their hearts and mindes pass not free from defilement for sinne which defiles one does defile both body and soul must needs receive the same defilement From their close connexion From sinnes strong contagion 1. Their connexion union and mutuall dependance in being and working does assure their reciprocall sympathy in each others harms and joint partaking of each others sufferings 2. Sinnes contagion is such as concludes this The poisonous power the venomous and vitious quality of sinne is such as cause the same Sinne is such a Gangrene as seizing upon one part soon corrupts the whole As the sinnes of the soul bubble up and break out in the body so the sinnes of the body soak and sink down into the soul so that in filthy Dreames both body and soul are defiled Quest If the whole man be defiled why then is onely flesh named Answ In this matter most fitly may flesh bear the name for From the flesh all this comes Through this all becomes flesh 1. From the flesh it comes that men have such filthy Dreames as does defile them Flesh is the fountain the causa sine quanon The Devil could never fasten filthy defiling thoughts upon men asleep or awake were it not for flesh he findes in them Hence all Satans temptations towards Christ were onely by proposing things outward not impressing any inward evil The Prince of this world comes says Christ of the Devil and finds nothing in me Nothing says Ambrose O Lord in thee are treasures of wisdom in thee is the holy Ghost above measure in thee is the fullness of the Godhead bodily c. Ai but the Devil could finde nothing to fit his work no flesh in him out of which he could cause one bad motion in his minde sleeping or waking neither by night or day The Devil indeed when he comes to men findes flesh in them All men are not in the flesh but in them all have flesh out of which the Devil setches filthy thoughts and draws forth defiling Dreames The flesh is the first root and chief spring out of which proceeds these puddlestreames c. 2. By such filthy Dreams the whole man is made flesh hereby he is even as nothing but flesh flesh Isa 31. 3. 't is said of the Aegyptians Their horses are flesh and not spirit So of such men may it be said Their hearts are flesh and not spirit To have a heart of flesh may be a mighty mercy but to have a fleshly heart or a heart that is but flesh is a manifest misery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the minde of the flesh is the Apostles phrase Col. 2 18. Mans minde by fleshly defilings as it becomes filthy so it becomes fleshly As the Devil is in himself of a spirituall nature yet says Austin he does the deeds of the flesh c. so mans minde that is of a spirituall being yet in filthy Dreaming it hath a fleshly working and as it were works it self into flesh being comprised in that flesh which is defiled These filthy Dreamers defile the flesh 2. What this flesh-defiling meanes is manifest by marking What it Supposeth What it Compriseth This defiling supposeth concerning such Dreames That within they are sinnes That they are sinnes from within 1. Sinnes they are as within themselves considered in that they certainly defile for as there is no sinne but defiles so there is no defilement but by sinne As whatever is sinne defiles so whatever defiles is sinne Poverty imprisonment punishments and the most fearfull afflictions that can befall a man do not defile a man onely sinne 2. Sinnes they are from within for such sinnes do most immediately and monstrously defile as we finde Matth. 15. 19. Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts adulteries fornications these are the things that defile a man There be men that imagin no sinne in any thoughts but that thoughts and imaginations are free whereas freedom for imaginations is but an imaginary freedom Sure there is no freedom for sinne evil thoughts whether in men awake or asleep are sinnes as is proved by their defiling property There be men who may grant some thoughts to be sinnes as thoughts of Atheisme Blasphemy and the like when men are awake but thoughts of adultery fornication when men are asleep and in their Dreames are no sinnes with them whereas sinnes surely they are as their defiling implies 2. This defiling of the flesh is found to comprize The parts of Sinne The effects of Sinne. The parts of sinne are comprised in the defiling of these Dreames As an aversion from God And a conversion to Satan 1. God herein men turn from who is reall goodness and raised excellence rare in Majesty and rich in mercy now man becomes unclean when he thus declines When ever says Austin the
heart goes a whoring from God how can it be clean As departure causes defiling so defiling implies departure 2. Satan men herein turn to betaking themselves to his enticing forgeries and hugging his shadowes and bowing down to his Images embracing the representations he tenders Satan makes a sinfull mans bed his nest in which he lays most loathsome eggs which yet the sinner sits over adding his own warmth to brood and bring them forth this his defiling act infolds 2. The effects of sinne are found infolded herein As somewhat privative And somewhat positive 1. Privative or a further depriving themselves of primitive amability and beauty Thus man is made more remote from his first purity glory excellency and immaculate innocency 2. Positive or a further imprinting of deeper deformity and greater impurity through the pollution of Dreames The Schoolmen discoursing of sinne do still â—…eat of two things macula reatus filth and guilt The former is the blackness of sinne that takes away mans lustre the latter is the bondage of sinne that takes away mans liberty hereby he is bound over to death and Hell both follows upon filthy Dreames for whatever casts under filth brings under guilt Every sinne as it stains a man and leaves him under blots so it stabs a man and leaves him in his blood Filthy Dreames that defile though these effects are secret and unseen yet that makes them never the less but the worse The outward sins of waking men lay blots and blows upon them in the eye of the world but these inward sins of sleeping men lay blows and blots upon them in the sight of God who sees in secret Sinfull Dreames leave black blots they be as deep stamps and dirty steps of the Devils foul feet Which foul defilings are further helped forward by filthy Dreamers themselves These filthy Dreamers also defile the flesh And now having walked through these words in their Explication I come to some Application from the words in a double way To wit Of Instruction Of Admonition 1. Instruction These filthy defiling Dreames considered severall lessons many men may learn that do certainly concern Themselves within Others without 1. Men as within themselves reflecting may finde much of their spirituall misery from these fleshly Dreames of which they may be Both Receptive And Productive 1. Of such Dreames to be receptive is sad For a man to be as a noisome sink into which gathers all such filthy mud to be as the Devils center in which he makes his black lines to meet For a mans bed and head to be Satans stage upon which he brings strange disguised persons to play their parts whereupon follows such effects as do defile both head and bed Lev. 15. 26. Deut. 23. 10 11. For a mans head and heart to be the Devils dung-cart into which both day and night he throws his dirt and filth the case of no creature is herein like mans beasts swine and poisonous Toads are not receptacles of such stinking dreggs as filthy Dreames 2. Of such Dreames to be productive is yet much worse when of such sinfull thoughts in sleep Satan may be an assistant but mans own evil heart herein the chief agent and hereof the author Gen. 6. 5. God saw that the whole imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart were onely evil continually 'T is not the imaginations thoughts in mans heart quasi ex alio but the imaginations and thoughts of mans heart quasi ex seipso were onely evil continually col-haiom the whole day which being taken in a naturall sense does comprise the night as a part thereof Day and night mans whole time continually the imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart are some way evil It may be they do not always amount to such monstrous wickedness as the text intends but when hitherto they proceed such sinfull Dreames are the products of mans own evil heart which is always evil but may be worst in the night In the day by reading hearing seeing by means of others company counsell examples exercises others good words and works a wicked man may have many good thoughts moving in his mind but in the sleeping time of the night when he hath no such helps his thoughts may be most notoriously naught Plutarch reports of a River that runs bright and sweet in the morning and so remains the day but it begins to run black and bitter in the evening and so all night with men many times that wickedness which breaks out in the day was formed and framed in the night The Prophet reports of some whose hearts be like a Bakers oven that is heated and made ready in the night and in the morning burns as a flaming fire Hos 7. 6. But suppose it proceeds no further then filthy Dreams in the night yet therein a man may see his heart miserably naught when a man hath not onely a filthy Dream but is a Dreamer in this filthiness found not onely actuall but usuall it manifests much misery such self-pollution being a sad condition And sadly may such a one say of his sinne as David did of his sorrow My sore ranne in the night and ceased not Psal 77. 2. 2. As concerning Satan hereby a man may discern His Knowledg His Diligence 1. The Devils knowledg by this appears to be great and that he is intimately acquainted with mans case Both for Body And for Soul 1. The state of mans body he much understands how that is disposed the parts thereof inclined through its naturall constitution accidentall occasions assiduall transactions contracted imperfections what propensities lubricities imbecillities have seized upon man and under which he suffers He knows which way nature even in corporeal parts is prone to put out it self and so in flinging the bowl he observes the biass beating man upon his own ground and bringing him to much misery 2. Satan sees much into the state of mans soul Though the soul as concerning its immanent and immediate acts of the principall powers is so lockt up as the Devil by a direct intuition cannot look therein or have knowledg thereof yet he can gather much in an arguitive way he can make such animadversions of matters without as to discover much within Mans understanding makes its parelii or likenesses and resemblances and these the fancy being neer hand takes in observes and imitates and while this is at work the Devil may get the key of this shop go in and view the Images that are framed there to set forward his sinfull design though the Devil cannot create or frame in the fancy any new corporeall species yet he can discern such similitudes and shadows of things as are there already framed he can call them up and accordingly conform himself and so fetch forth a suteable draught of Dreames Unto filthy apprehensions he can cause filthy apparitions and pitifully puddle a man in polluting Dreames 2. The Devils diligence is discernable therein
evade them Thus the Devil when he would fain so fish as to catch these choice peeces the precious Saints of God he subtilly sets upon them in the night as his fittest time wherein to tempt and take them 2. The Devil is a coward In the day he dares not oftentimes so assault Gods Saints when he sees them up in their armour and so waits till night As there be wild beasts in the night they range abroad for their prey who are afraid to creep out of their dens in the day time Psal 104. 20. There be Theeves that venture not upon men that meet them in the day but are bold to break houses in the night and bind them they finde asleep in their beds Job 24. 15 16. Such a one is Satan The Saints of God when they are awake are more ready to the battell and then the Devil as a base beaten enemy is not so forward to fight them but he sets upon these souldiers of Christ when they are asleep in their quarters These things premised 't is manifest that as carnal men are the subjects of so Christian men are subject to these sinfull Dreames and therefore men of all sorts are concerned in the ensuing discourse 2. The matter whereof this monitory discourse will further consist touching such Dreames is 1. Some Perswasions against them 2. Some Directions about them Perswasions moving against them are from the prejudices of them in respect of things both Good Evil. First For the prejudice these Dreams do us toward things good 'T is in regard both of the Good they draw us from of the Good they draw from us 1. Such Dreames or sinfull thoughts in sleep they take our minds off from those good watchings and workings as sute to our sleeping times In the time of sleep though a mans outward senses are bound and as servants they cease their ordinary business abroad yet the inward powers of phantasie and memory are then most free and best at liberty for their proper imployments now the soul being of God furnished with such faculties and abilities 't is sad when the Devil seduces them and by sinfull dreamings diverts and pollutes them As God hath created the soul at all times fit for good work so God hath appointed good work for the soul at all times to wit meditation upon his Law day and night Josh 1. 8. Now sinfull Dreames draw us off from this duty 2. Such Dreames they do not onely take our mindes off from good but take good out of our mindes We have not the benefit and comfort of the Word of God and Spirit of God at such times to our thoughts they are as it were taken from us in respect of the stops hereby to their present exercise As when Saul was asleep in the trench David took from his very bolster his spear and a cruse of water 1 Sam. 26. 12. Thus Satan in the night when we are asleep in our beds by bad Dreames gets away our spear and our water the Word of God that should defend us and the Spirit of God that should refresh us Thus of good things are we lamentably left 2. The prejudice these Dreames do us toward things evil This in regard of The evil of Sinne they draw us unto also The evil of Punishment they draw upon us The sinne of such Dreames is against The Commands of God The Mercies of God 1. There be Commands which hereby we transgress God requires that not onely the soul but the body be set free from all ways of defilement Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit 2 Cor. 7. 1. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in holiness and honour 1 Thes 4. 4. Not onely the soul which is in the vessel of the body but the body which is the vessel of the soul must be kept clean from soile We must hate that whereby the garment of the flesh is spotted as we must hate the garment spotted of the flesh Jude 23. therefore not defile the flesh with Dreames 2. There be Mercies which hereby we abuse To have beds to sleep on and to have sleep upon our beds is a double mercy Let us mark that expression of our Saviour Matth. 8. 20. The Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air nests but the Sonne of Man hath not where to lay his head It may seem Christ had not here any setled bed to sleep upon 'T is evident Job had his bed but thereon he could not sleep Weary some nights are appointed to me when I lie down I say when shall I arise and the night be gone I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day Job 7. 3 4. Now to have with our beds to sleep on sleep upon our beds are benefits too big to be abused by the interpose of such prejudiciall Dreames The punishment for such Dreames is Present Future The punishments present in this world are Debility of Body Perplexity of Soul 1. Hereby the body is weakened nature wasted corporeall parts as defiled so enfeebled These Dreames do to the sinner as Dalilah to Sampson they bereave him of his strength and leave him in a languishing estate If life be prolonged pains are enlarged aches with age encreased especially if such filthy Dreames be frequent Beside the evil that may run and reach unto posterity 2. Hereby the Soul is wounded The Devil hereupon makes great advantage in life and death to dismay the mind Of such offences he does accuse in a double Court The Court of Heaven the Court of Conscience We read Rev. 12. 10. The accuser of our brethren is cast down who accuseth them before God day and night As the Devil does accuse in the day and night seasons so he does accuse of the day and-night sinnes He accuses in the night for sinfull deeds in the day and he accuses in the day of sinfull Dreames in the night 'T is sad when Satan keeps assizes in our souls and actually arraignes endites and condemns for such dealings as he hath had with us in a way of wicked Dreames 2. The punishment future in the world to come without the prevention of divine mercy is everlasting misery Such Dreames draw to ruine That which hath a defiling power is of a destroying nature And if such Dreames be sinne The wages of every sinne is death Rom. 6. 23. History reports of Nero that monster of men that among the many wayes he sought his Mother Agrippinas death one was in the night when she lay asleep in her bed to kill her with the fall of a heavy beam which was therefore made loose in the roof of the room 'T is our death and utter undoing the Devil our deadly adversary aims at when he lets fall these filthy Dreames while we lie by night asleep in our beds And as 't is that which he desires so 't is that which we
awake then when we were asleep shall we not stick to that God in the day who stuck to us in the night Let our day-care appear to be great By an exact shunning of every sinne By an exact doing of every service First We must be very vigilant to avoid day-sinnes that the Lord may not leave us the night coming who the night past preserved us Let not sinfull thoughts come in and carry us away when awake least after we sinne in our sleep who before slept without sinne An Antient Writer upon the ten Commandements says That Idolatrous Images first crept into the Church when the Pastors thereof were asleep being idle and carelesly secure not foreseeing the evil Thus when we fall into careless security bodies awake but souls asleep at noon-day defiling imaginations and wicked thoughts wind into our hearts that may work us much ill the next night In the day-time let us see we turn not aside by sinfull thoughts Thoughts according as they commonly runne out in the day so they break forth in the night O let us look to these heart-sleeps and walk as evenly all day in thoughts as ever we can Let not us by evil thoughts make halts in our hearts least we go lame all our lives and day and night from God go awry Let a holy fear keep us watching against heart-wickedness and to fly back from all secret sinnes which Gods best Saints do most fear and whereof every day we are in the deepest danger The Devil we may be sure hath not a deeper design then to set us incessantly upon soul-sinfullness for thereby he can the sooner soil us and foul us with fleshly-lusts seducing from sinfull thoughts in the day to filthy acts in the night from imaginations of evil awake to evil imaginations in sleep Secondly We must be sedulous in the service of God Night-mercies engage to day-duties God who caus'd our deliverance when we were asleep calls for our obedience when we are awake Let us never be negligent towards him who hath been vigilant over us Let us do Gods work before we sleep that we may not do the Devils work when we sleep In the morning as soon as we awake let us up and be doing something for God and resolve again to serve God before we sleep and resolve not to sleep till God be served Surely I will not come into the Tabernacle of my house nor go up into my bed I will not give sleep to my eyes nor slumber to my eye-lids untill I find out a place for the Lord an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob Psal 132. 3 4 5. Every day a double care becometh Christians in this case of keeping clean from the filth of Dreames To get farre from the Devil To draw neer to God 1. Farre from the Devil Prov. 6. 4 5. Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eye-lids Till thou deliver thy self as a Roe from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the snare of the fouler He that is snared in the day gets not loose in the night 2. Neer to God in the day and God will be neer us in the night so neer as that nothing do come in between God and our souls except Christ alone which will be our best course to keep all cleer in this case that with filthy Dreames we do not defile our selves Amen Amen IV. Of Idle and Vain DREAMES ECCLES 5. 7. In the multitude of Dreames are divers vanities but fear thou God BEing about bad Dreames wherein mans sinne and Satan have their subtill work Some be more bad and less usuall Others be less bad and more common And having finished the former to wit Dreames notoriously false filthy and vile I come to discourse the latter to wit Dreames ridiculously foolish idle and vain of which we finde a multitude In the multitude of Dreames there be divers vanities but fear thou God This whole Book of Ecclesiastes being as an excellent Sermon preached by repenting Solomon concerning the worlds vanity an Author eminent among the Schoolmen from thence draws a double inference as referring To this man in speciall To each man in generall 1. Towards this man to wit Solomon in that he saw all the world vanity he sure was above the vanities of the world He was says he a man and yet he did exceed a man for all those things that commonly men admire as the onely excellencies seemed to his view but very vanities 2. Towards each man this conclusion is made that he is a maker of vanity and that the motions of his hand head or heart are but meer vanities For says he if in some respect such things are vanities as were formed and fashioned by the hands of God sure such things then are very vanities as are fained and fancied in the hearts of men No marvell if mens head and heart-actings are but idle Ideas no wonder if the whole frame and Figment all the imaginations and thoughts of mens mindes are meer vanities considered Whether awake Or asleep What myriads and multitudes of most vain vanities are imagined and made in the mindes of men in times of sleep the Text present plainly and positively reports In the multitude of Dreames are divers vanities but fear thou God This single sentence of Solomons consists of two considerable parts A Proposall An Imposall 1. That which the Preacher proposeth is man in his sleeping fancies that are not fit Philo observeth that man was made of God such a reall rationall creature as what he imagins should be solid and substantiall but man by sinne hath made himself such a fained fiction that what things he imagins are but fictions fained empty shews and fleeing shadows his vain and vanishing shadows day and night are great But as 't is well observed of the Sunne that it causeth the longest shadows when evening comes and it's going down so when man is in his night-time and laid down to sleep then he draws shadows long and great then his thoughts move most idlely then are his Dreames variously vaine In the multitude of Dreames are divers vanities 2. That which the Preacher imposeth is that ever-awaking fear of God which is fit for man For man this fear is so fit as without the same he hath nothing solid but is full of vanity framing vanities fancying and conceiting such things in sleep as are but the shadows of the night yea man does not onely make night-shadows in his sleep but whether asleep or awake without this divine fear he is but a shadow Yea the want of this fear does not onely make man to be shadow-like but even God himself is made like a shadow without this fear Men in whose hearts this fear is not found in them Deity falls and vanity prevails But this fear so rowses man yea it so raises and realizes God as it advances Deity and prevents vanity In the
being always awake may be the readier for any good work Transgressions There is in them a swerving from Gods express precept and the proper practice of a pious man to meditate in the Law of the Lord both day and night Psal 1. 3. As God hath given man a meet Organ his inward mind night and day to be thinking with so God hath given a man a meet Object his holy Law day and night to be thinking on But now vain Dreames take the minde off from Gods Law and in the retired time of the night turn it aside c. This is evil The Lord does not allow mans minde the least time to be idle and vain therefore when it is vain and idle that is evil Are vain thoughts evil and are not vain Dreames Are vain words and works evil and are not vain Dreames In vain Dreamings there be vain thinkings and in vain thinkings there be vain actings and the vain speakings of the retired soul with it self Deut. 15. 9. Beware there be not a thought in thy evil heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Septuagint read it Beware that there be not a secret word within thy heart the evil whereof is hid In Dreames of vanities there may be much evil hidden evil secret yet certain The soul by thinking speaks vanity secretly to it self though no man besides sees or hears In vain Dreaming there is foolish thinking Now the thought of foolishness is sinne Prov. 24. 9. In vain Dreaming there is the souls idle talking Now of every idle word a man must give an account Matth. 12. 12. To conclude this If Dreames of vanity were not an evil disease what need this prescribed remedy viz. The fear of God By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil Prov. 16. 6. There is an evil with certainty in Dreames of vanity Secondly That these Dreames are such evils to which each man is subject and with which any man may be much assaulted These Dreames whose vanities are divers be common to men from a twofold cause The temptation of Satan The corruption of Reason 1. Satan hereto tempts As some entice away children in the day by bringing them idle bables and toys to play with so Satan subtilly draws away mens mindes in the night by sending in foolish fancies and vain Dreames to please them As Aaron made Israel naked stripped them of their ornaments set up before them a golden Calf which they were so pleased with that they played about it so Satan makes men vain by bereaving them of their right mindes and rich endowments by representing such forms and foolish fictions as about which their hearts dance their thoughts take delight Satan himself is knowing but would have men ignorant himself is doing but would have men idle himself is subtill and serious in considering men Job 2. 3. but he would have men to be foolish slight and vain wild wanton and dallying with ridiculous deeds and Dreames not considering any thing serious 2. Reason herein is corrupt Men do not discern between truth and falsity virtue and vanity but take trees for men an Image for God a shadow for the substance and so are soon misled lost and wildered in the night Naturall reason like Abrahams Ramme is so entangled in the briars of sinne that 't is soon taken and sacrificed to vanity Reason in mans soul is like a dimme candle in a dark lanthorn no marvell if in the night-time the steps of the minde stumble and the fancy falls into Dreames of divers vanities Yea reason is so erroneous ignorant and corrupt that for these foolish Dreames man is frequently found with a minde Ready to receive them Prone to produce them 1. To receive them ready Melting wax is not more apt to take the stamp of the Seal than mans minde is inclineable to the impressions of vanity 2. To produce them prone 'T is observed that soon after Adam was vitiated with sin he had vanity for his Sonne viz. Abel whose Name so noteth Abel or vanity is the proper progeny of sinfull man Now no way so soon may sinfull mans vanity vent it self as in absurd Dreames or by idle imaginations in sleep c. Thirdly That against the evil of vain Dreames men by good means may finde much defence For a freeing escape avoidance and prevention of vanities in Dreames God can do enough Man may do much 1. God can and does keep off divers By nature all men in their mindes are equally corrupt 'T is an epidemicall disease to all alike incident what the Apostle asserts of some They become vain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their imaginations By nature says One all are of the same colour and were it not for Gods discolouring grace it would in all so appear Vanity would be alike visible and vigorous as in all sorts of persons so at all sorts of seasons viz. day and night And as in all times so in all ways would vanity vent it self No Dreames so vain but would be in all equall did not God evidently difference men by his preventing mercies which are many yea say some in number the most Such are the sufficiencies of mercies to prevent vain Dreames what Dreames so vain but mercy to prevent is sufficient 2. Man may do a great deal against such Dreames consider Both wherein And whereby 1. Wherein Man by the use of means may much hinder vain Dreames In their frequency In their permanency 1. Dreames may not be so frequent and abounding in their diversity and multitude through means that men may use they may much prevent these foolish fancies that like Ignes fatui do in the night-time much mislead the minde 2. Such Dreames may not be so permanent constant and abiding not so long and lasting so throughly and durably drawn out as in many persons for the most part they be Secondly Whereby or by what course may Christians keep off the vanities of Dreames that if they enter the door they may not dwell in the house Of this more fully hereafter yet something for present we may ponder proving Dreames to be hinderable viz. By diligence in the day By vigilance in the night 1. Day-diligence Dreames that cannot be kept off when they do come may yet before they come By a present opposing the visits of vain thoughts when awake we may much hinder them in sleep As breeding-birds where they sit at night they commonly build their nests in the day In the day did we break the nests of these flying birds they would not so readily roost with us at night 2. Night-vigilance That is when the body is asleep let the soul not only be waking but watching so as not to let them in or at least not to allow them a common lodging In the receit of such Dreames even the soul is in some sense asleep or if it be awake it does not watch The keeping up a good
In praises we are to elevate and congratulate God that we have had no more vain Dreames and that our Dreames have been no more vain 2. Towards our selves Let us see unto those two things To use Reason in ways most sober To think on matters most serious 1. In sober ways to use our Reason And that reason may be of the better use it must be principled with Grace enlightened with the Spirit of sanctifying knowledg One well compareth Reason in man to the Sunne in the Heavens which if it hath not light enough to rule well in the day no marvell if it mislead the mind in the night and lets worldly vanitie as the Moon bear sway 2. On serious matters to set our thoughts most seriously Some mens minds are trifling in things serious and serious in trifles 'T is one of the highest points of prudence and the praise of a man to sute his mind to the matters and to let his thoughts be like to the things that he thinks upon On hatefull things to have hating thoughts on lovely things to have loving thoughts on transitory things to have transient thoughts on durable things to have enduring thoughts c. Let a man learn to delight his thoughts on the most delightfull things and to let the best things have the best of his thoughts Let us thus accustome the thoughts of our mindes while awake and they will not work so vainly in sleep Now the true fear of God is incentive to yea comprehensive of all this good which makes for the prevention of vain Dreames Quest Have not men fearing God and doing good Dreames of divers vanities Answ Vain and foolish Dreames may be found in a man fearing God and minding good but yet of such it may be said He is not so actuall in them They are not so usuall in him 1. Such Dreames he is not so actuall in as others his heart does not so delight therein or dilate thereon his mind does not so mount up to meet vanity in these night-visits 'T is set down as the singular character of a godly man He hath not lift up his soul to vanity Psal 24. 4. Vanity may fall upon his soul but his soul does not lift up it self to vanity 2. Such Dreames are not so usuall in him as in others Others the Dreames they have most common and more constant are idle and vain Vain are not only the ordinary but the exquisite thoughts of naturall men that are excellent in gifts The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain 1 Cor. 3. 20. If in their wakeing-time their thoughts are vain how vain then sure in their sleep Men fearing God vain Dreames may befall them but they be not so frequent they do not so multiply Indeed Dreames vain might in good men be found fewer did they draw out and act up the fear of God as is fit David a man much in the fear of the Lord in stead of vain and foolish fancies and to arm against idle and ridiculous Dreames I have remembred thy Name O Lord in the night Psal 119. 55. The Apostles counsell to Christians is exceeding observable Let us not sleep as do others 1 Thes 5. 6. Good Christians ought as in other things to differ from others so in their sleep Others so sleep as therein they have a multitude of Dreames of divers vanities but let our bodies sleep the fear of God possessing our souls In the multitude of Dreames are divers vanities but fear thou God V. Of Troublesome and Affrighting DREAMES JOB 7. 14. Then thou skarest me with Dreames HAving done discourse upon Dreames wherein the Devil without doubt hath the most immediate hand I come now to discover such Dreames whereof God without question is the most considerable cause and these we may observe of two sorts Dismaying Admonishing Affrighting Instructing Dreames of dismaying fears Job affirms he found from God Then thou skarest me with Dreames Job in this sentence sets forth his sad condition concerning things that did sore afflict his soul and much move his fear His fear is found to be great as referring to four severall heads 1. The Manner it was in 2. The Matter it was with 3. The Person it was from 4. The Season it was at 1. The Manner after which his fear is set forth to be great we find expressed by his being skared Skaring does intimate not onely a reall fear but a raised fear or fear extream extended and terrible dejecting and prostrating fear fear which flung Jobs mind as flat as his body bowing that also down upon his bed as some give the signification of the word The Hebrew word we may English in a differing way according as it is in Latin translated variously as such may see who consult Expositors Thou skarest me Take it as laid forth in a fourfold phrase 1. Contristas me Thou makest me exceeding sorry thou causest seas of sorrows to gather within my soul severall soul-sadding objects thou representest to my mind at once 2. Consternas me Thou doest astonish me Thou makest many fearfull things together and together thou settest them as about my bed to look me stern in the face 3. Conturbas me Thou troublest me Thou makest many amazing thoughts to meet within my mind at midnight Perturbing thoughts thrust into my soul like waves in the troubled sea 4. Conteris me Thou splittest me asunder and cut'st me in shivers I am not barely broken but beaten in pieces and as corn in a mill ground to powder He was as it were put into convulsion fits and the powers of his soul pulled awry he was wracked upon his bed distorted distracted torn and tormented in mind yea a terrible trembling took hold on his whole man This for the Manner 2. The Matter with which Jobs fear was greatned are said to be Dreames Thou skarest me with Dreams The Dreames wherewith this godly man was skared are considerable In their Nature In their Number 1. The Nature of these Dreames are evil evil being the proper object of fear Hence the Schoolmen determin That fear is not like love a Theologicall vertue because God is not the principall object thereof but evil A two-fold evil they also evidence Sinfull Poenall Or evils of Sinning And evils of Suffering 1. Sinfull evils or evils of sinne which are of all evils the worst and by the best men most feared Sinfull Dreames Jobs soul might possibly be assaulted with If in his sleep were any such sinfull proposals they sure soon made him to shrink and shake with fear having in his heart as hatred against them so horrour about them such Dreames did undoubtedly skare if they came Object If these skaring Dreames should be sinfull How then could God be their causer Answ Suppose the Devil was the cause of the Dreames yet God the cause of the fear The Dreames dreaded from the Devil yet the
another forme The whole tide of Interpreters both Protestant and Popish upon that place so runne as to report Dreames to be a frequent forme or mannner of Gods speaking in the text intended Thus God spake In times past to the Fathers that is To David Moses Abraham after the flood To Noah Enoch Adam before the flood as Paraeus expounds it Even to the beginning of the world this was one of Gods wayes Thus God spake by the Prophets that is the Prophets gave out when awake what they received from God in their sleep In sleep God revealed Divine truths to them which they taught to others in their wakeing times and seasons 2. Observe seasons and times more immediate and neerer to us As in the Apostles times And since the times of the Apostles 1. We find in the Apostles times were Heavenly Dreames May we not say that sometimes in Dreames God spake to the Apostles when to them 't is plain God appeared in visions As the Apostle Peter when God would have him go and preach the Gospell to the Gentiles for their conversion to the Christian Faith he fell into a trance and saw Heaven opened and a certain vessell descending c. Acts 10. 10 11 c. And when God would have the Apostle Paul to goe preach the Gospel to the Macedonian people a vision appeared to Paul in the night There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying come over to Macedonia and help us Acts 16. 9. We may imagine 't was a Dreame in his sleep it being a vision in the night Though visions in the day were when men were awake yet visions in the night were ordinary in sleep Thus Eliphaz In thoughts from the visions of the night when deep sleep falleth on men Job 4. 13. so Dan. 2. 19. To the same may suit that place of the Apostle 2 Cor. 12. 1 2. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord Whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth His soul was so set awork in sublime converses with God his body was as it were laid by it might lye asleep having little to do His visions were not to the ocular part of his body but to the intellectuall part of his mind His bodily eyes might be shut the eye of his understanding was open Yea to his visions he adds revelations which Theophylact and others distinguish The result of all may be this That as he saw by his understanding so he did understand what he saw his intellect was so acting though his bodily senses were bound So that Apostle in Patmos when he received those celestiall revelations the vision he had as a learned writer observes was Interna Imaginaria Intellectualis His mind was in motion his body lay as asleep he is said to be in the spirit Not supposing as if he were wholly out of the body but because by his body he saw nothing heard nothing felt nothing in such a sence no deep sleep could make him more Bodyless then now he was yet to his mind great mysteries were manifest yea to his Heart was Heaven open 2. Since the Apostles God sometimes sent in Dreames of deep concernment as various and very good Authors evidence Jerome affirmes that Philo Judaeus a famous man that flourished in the Emperour Caligulas time some 40 years since Christ that he wrote five Books of Dreames immitted of God And Cyprian who lived under the Emperour Valerian about 260 yeares since Christ reports that in his time severall things were made known by Dreames redounding much to the glory of God and the good of his Church So Augustine who was found famous in Africa between 4 and 500 yeares since Christ wrote much relating to Dreames Divine and so it might be easily drawn down Visions that use to be co-temporary with Dreames have been in these latter times Inlarge I might easily out of Ecclesiasticall History take only one instance At a time there was in Antioch such a terrible earthquake as many houses fell flat the people possessed with fear forsook the City and with-drawing from their dwellings one had a vision that he saw a man coming to him who bade him write upon every house Christ is with us stay here which accordingly upon houses standing was written and so were preserved Object God we grant in former times spoke by visions and Dreames but in these last dayes he speaks by his Sonne Heb. 1. Answ As in former times when God spoke by Dreames and Visions God then spoke also by his Sonne though not so apparently so in these last dayes when God speaks by his Sonne he may also speak by visions and Dreams though not so frequently By the preaching of the Gospel is Gods usuall speech and ordinary course requiring mens chiefest care yet from God may come Dreames in the latter times 'T is a promise first reported by the Prophet Joel 2. 28. and after repeated in the Acts of the Apostles Chap. 2. ver 17. That in the last dayes young men should see visions and old men should dreame Dreames A sound Expositor upon the place observes That to young men who may be more quick and cleare in their apprehensions 't is attributed they shall see visions yet though they are named others are not denyed And to old men who may be more calm and clean in their affections 't is appropriate They shall dream Dreames Yet though they are expressed other men are not excluded Great Articles of Faith concerning Christ incarnate have been signified by Dreames To Joseph Mat. 1. 20 21. was Christ in the truth of his two Natures by a Dreame clearly declared The Lord appeared to him in a Dreame saying Joseph thou sonne of David fear not to take to thee Mary thy wife for shee shall bring forth a Sonne that opened his humane Nature Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his People from their sinnes that evidenced Christs divine Nature for he that saveth from sin must be God as well as Man Let this suffice for the times whereat God hath given out Dreames Secondly See we the Wayes of God in these secret works of sacred Dreames Dreames God hath sent into mens minds Some as with a vision Some as with a voyce 1. With visions representing somethings under similitudes as to the eye In this way was Pharaohs Dreames wherein God admonished him of seven yeares famine in Egypt And Pharaoh said to Joseph I saw in a Dreame and behold seven ears came up in one stalk full and good And behold seven ears I saw come up after them withered and blasted and these devoured the seven good eares And I saw in a Dreame seven kine fat and well favoured And I saw seven other kine poore and leane that did eat up the fat Gen. 41. 17 18 19 20 verses 2. With a voice God not representing any thing as visible to
the eye but onely speaking so as somewhat seems audible to the eare This was Gods way in Abimelechs Dreames about the businesse of Sarah God came to Abimelech in a Dreame by night and said unto him behold thou art a dead man Gen. 20. 3. And God said unto him in a Dreame yea I know thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart ver 6. God did not herein use any similitudes Again God in the way of Dreames hath gone with steps More swift or More slow The making of Dreames lyeth in the moving of thoughts Now thoughts their motions are with expeditions Luther when he would set out the Agility of the bodies of Saints after the resurrection saies They shall move as swift in the Heavens as thoughts in the heart Yet the hearts and minds of some men in these notions are more flow dull and heavy then others And so Gods workings upon all are not with the same celerity because they follow not fully the activity of the Agent but according as is the capacity and receptibility of the Subject God in works of mercy nescit tarda molimina He would passe with all speed but mens hearts move heavy and hence thoughts in some both awake and asleep are more slow In all Dreames God does not keep the same space nor does he passe so sudden with some as with others but much varieth his goings so that some herein have found him easier to follow and others harder to trace Again God in this way and work of holy Dreames Hath made use of Instruments Or hath done all himself 1. Instruments God hath sometimes made use of transmitting Dreames into mens minds by the ministery of Angels When Herod was dead behold an Angell of the Lord appeared in a Dreame to Joseph in Egypt saying arise Mat. 2. 20. God sends Angels from Heaven in the night and sets them about mens Beds when asleep as to prevent Satan in Dreames that be bad so to convey himself in Dreames very good By bad Dreames would Devils break in but are beat off by Angels An Hystorian tells that when Gainas sent a great multitude in the night to burn the Emperours Palace at Constantinople a multitude of Angels met them in the forme of armed men which forced them with feare to flye back When Satan by night with a sinfull fire brought from Hell would set mens souls on a flame Angels bring a blessed fire from Heaven that burns and heats mens hearts in holy Dreames As God hath sent Angels to watch over some asleep for their protection so to work in some asleep for their instruction God hath appointed his Angels to carry his mind down to some on earth while their bodies have been asleep in their beds as he hath imployed his Angels to carry the soules of some up into Heaven when their bodies have fallen asleep by death 2. Somtimes God hath thus wrought himself alone no Angell administring Austin observes upon that Parable of our Saviour Luk. 11. Which of you shall go to his friend when it 's midnight saying send me three loaves He from within shall answer Trouble me not the doore is shut my Children in bed I cannot rise Yet because of his importunity he will arise and give him Here we see saith he how when the whole family was asleep yet the master of the house was awake and at midnight gave out bread to his friend c. Thus when to men-ward Angels are as if they were asleep yet towards them God is awake and in the night-times gives out good Dreames as severall Scriptures beside the text testifie Thirdly The persons unto whom good Dreames God hath given viz Both Sanctified And Sinfull 1. Into men sanctified God hath sent such Dreames as to Samuel when but a child about the businesse of Eli 1 Sam. 3. So to Solomon about the concernments of his Kingdome 1 Kin. 3. O what a comfortable conference passed betwixt God and him in a Dreame The Lord appeared to Solomon in a Dreame by night saying aske what I shall give thee and Solomon said give thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people and to discern betwixt good and bad And the speech pleased the Lord and God said to Solomon behold I have given thee a wise and understanding heart And Solomon awoke and behold it was a Dreame ver 6 7 8 9 10 c. And indeed holy and good men are for such Dreames most meet Having fit matter for them Being free movers in them 1. Matter fit for such Dreames God finds in holy hearts the habits of Heavenly graces such supernaturall principles disposing them to receive further impressions from God We may see in our selves when our hearts are well inclined how quickly do we close with any good motion how readily do we receive sleeping or waking any gracious suggestion When a good fire is found in our wood the breath of the blessed spirit soon blows up such flames even by night in good Dreames A gracious heart is a fit stock for such graftings God takes pleasure to put in such Ciences with his own hand from Heaven A good soul is a fit soyle for such seed 2. The minds of sanctified men move freely so as actually to concurre with what comes from God In sleep their bodily senses are bound but their graces are free so farre as they are found flesh they are sleepie but so farre as they are spirit they are vigilant and wakefull The spirit is willing but the flesh is weake Mat. 26. 41. I sleep but my heart waketh saies the Church Cant. 5. 2. Her Heart being awake she soone heard his knock Mat. 25. We find while the Bridegroome stayed the virgins slumbered and slept the wise slumbered and the foolish slept say some but concede they all slept yet the wise were in part awake whence they quickly heard the cry at midnight Behold the Bridegroome cometh Then they being ready went in with him ver 10. Let the Lord come at midnight good men are ready to meet his motions 2. Bad men have had Dreames from God as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar named are notable instances yet such Dreames God hath more rarely immitted They have more hardly admitted 1. Good Dreames into bad men brought seldome Amongst good men such matters have been found more frequent Joseph Jacobs sonne had so many Dreames sent in of God above his brethren-that they scoffingly called him the captain Dreamer Gen. 37. 19. Sinfull men they do so oft resist good motions when they are awake that God seldome visits them when they are asleep They are so much against God in the day that God is but little with them in the night 2. Dreames good men bad do hardly embrace sinfull souls have been afflicted when such were injected therein no way active but passive as appears in Pilates wives Dreame which Dreame was not of the Devill to hinder Christs
death as some have asserted considering himself should be thereby destroyed but the Dreame was Divine to withdraw Pilate from his sentence or to aggravate his sin O saies shee Have thou nothing to do against that just man for I have suffered many things in a Dream because of him In such Dreames sinfull men are meerly passive when others are active Dreams that have entered into gratious hearts with pleasure and delight have come into carnall hearts with trouble and pain they have taken such impressions as oppressions Now lastly The reasons for which good Dreames have been given in of God Why to naturall and sinfull men Why to regenerate and sanctified men First Into the minds of sinfull men God hath sent in such Dreames In relation unto others In relation unto themselves 1. 'T is certain God hath sometimes come unto bad men by Dreames for others sakes To restrain them from doing evill against others To encline them towards others to do them good When Laban pursued Jacob and purposed at least to plunder him of all he had Gen. 31. 24. God came to Laban the Syrian by night in a Dreame saying Take heed thou speak not to Jacob either good or evill This so bound up Laban that when he overtook Jacob he did him no hurt but shewed kindnesse to him made a covenant of peace with him and departed from him blessing him and his ver 55. 'T is written of Alexander the Jewes having denied him some help he was so enraged against them that he resolved to ruine them and accordingly with his conquering Army going against Jerusalem Jaddus the High Priest hearing thereof put on his Priestly attire met him in the way whom when Alexander saw he fell off his Horse and offered him peace telling his Nobles that God in a Dreame had shewe'd him the same Man so attired the Night before and so he departed with some expressions of bravery and bounty in obedience to that vision 2. 'T is sure God hath also come to Men bad by Dreames for their own sakes To prevent their sinnesull evil To promote their saving good When Abimelech King of Gerar had sent and took Sarah who was reported to him to be Abrahams sister into his house God admonished him by Night in a Dreame to forbear to take her to wife and to restore her unto Abraham whose wife she was Gen. 20. 2 3 6 7. Thus did the King escape that sad sinne of Adultery And thus hath God sought the salvation of the soules of some That Dream which Pilate's wife had the intent of it was not to deliver Christ from the death of the Cross for that was according to the determinate Counsell of God but as Theophlyact conceives it was to save the womans soul from everlasting death not so much for the clearing of Christ while he was at the barre as for the converting of the woman whose case was bad Secondly Into the minds of sanctified Men God hath sent in Dreames In reference unto others In reference unto themselves God into good Men hath given Dreames for others advantage thereby As to admonish others of evil where of they were in danger So to establish others in good wherein they did waver God hath caused Dreames in the mindes of his Sants that they might warn others of danger 'T is reported of Beza that in the Night having dreamt that Geneva was sadly surprized he pressed the Governours in the morning immediately to search whereupon a desperate plot against the place was discovered the perill prevented and the people preserved Yea and also 1. God hath brought Dreames into the mindes of his Saints that they might help others in doubts Mr Philpot the Martyr having over night received a Letter from his fellow-Prisoner wherein he desires his Judgement concerning the baptisme of Infants made this return Before says he in his Letter back I shew you what for it I have learned from Gods holy Word and the practice of the purest Churches I cannot but declare how the same Night musing upon your Letter I fell asleep and had such a Vision and Dreame which he relates and concludes This Dreame I take to be the working of Gods Spirit that I might the better content your request as he wrought in Peter to satisfie Cornelius Acts 5. 10. 2. God hath made good Men to receive such Dreames for their own advantage As to prepare them for evil which they were to sustain So to assure them of Good which they were to obtain 1. God by Dreames hath signified to his Saints what afflictions they should suffer that so they might the better prepare History reports of Policarpus who in Smyrna suffered martyrdome under Antonius the Emperour about a hundred seventy yeares after Christ that three dayes before he fell into his enemies hands sleeping upon his bed he dreamt that the bolster whereon his head lay was all on a flame and the other bed-cloaths burning about him whereupon when he awoke he told his friends God had declared that he must be burnt quick for Christ for which he much fitted himself and so it soon fell out 2. God by Dreames hath signified to his Saints what mercies they should receive that so he might strengthen their faith and also quicken their obedience Thus Jacob in his journey lying down upon a stone to sleep Gen. 28. 11 12 13. He Dreamed and behold a ladder set upon the earth and the top reached up to Heaven and behold the Angells of God ascending and descending on it And behold the Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord God of Abraham thy Father and the God of Isaac the land whereon thou lyest to thee will I give it and to thy seed And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed Behold I am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest and will bring thee again to this land and will not leave thee till I have done what I have said The Application to our selves concerning such Dreames now follow This referres to a two-fold case In case we have them not In case we have them Be we without these Dreams then let us observe The grounds why we should desire them The meanes how we may procure them Such Dreames from God are to be desired Because of the excellency that is in them Because of the commodity that is by them These Dreames are in themselves excellent because through them The Soule in sleeping-time is highly Imployed Sleeping-time by the soul is rarely Improved 1. The imployment of Mens soules in such Dreames is high and holy Mans soul we must observe it sleeps not as the body does for as it lives when the body dyes so it wakes when the body sleeps 'T is an Argument some bring to prove the Immortality of the soul that it does not die as
they be not frequent with men 2. Men good may have more of these in their minds then they manifest This amongst men is a remarkable difference Some have not that good in them they speak of and others have much more good in them then whereof they speak Some Pharisee-like they boast of the good that is in them but the evil that is in them they hide Others like the Publican they confesse their evill but much good there is in them they conceal God upon the spirits and souls of his saints both awake and asleep hath severall sweet workings the world knows not off Even in holy Dreames God may bring Heaven down into their hearts or carry their hearts up into heaven when others are not acquainted therewith but utterly ignorant thereof As the sick paulsie man Mat. 9. while he lay in his bed his body by some friends was let down to Jesus in the house for his cure So the souls of some of Gods Saints lying in their beds have been by blessed Dreames lifted up into Heaven and come before Christ to their comforts 3. The rarenesse of such soul-refreshing Dreames should draw Christians upon the learning a double lesson viz. The cause why they are so few The course how they may be more 1. We should enquire into the cause why good Dreames be so scarce and come so seldom from God God may so seldome send in such suggestions while we are asleep because of our ill carriage to good motions when we are awake As our intermissions therein And our opposition thereto 1. We so much intermit and interrupt good motions from God And touching good meditations on God we make such wide pauses and long intervalls and doe so little stay our minds on good matters in the day that no marvell we meet with no more immissions from God in the night He is a Christian saies Luther who standing and going lying down and rising up sleeping and waking keeps his heart warm with beleeving applications and enlivening meditations of the mercies of God the merits of Christ c. But alas we are herein so loose so little so short so slight and put so many broken stops to the best thoughts that night and day in this secret manner God may meet us the seldomer 2. We which is worse so much oppose and resist God in his gracious approaches and intimate accesses to our souls We strike down what we should stirre up 2 Tim. 1. 6. and what we should kindle we quench 1 Thes 5. 19. Zanchius upon the place observeth that men quench or put out Gods holy fire that falls from Heaven upon their hearts as by not adding of words so by powring on water When instead of making an addition of good matter we make a sinfull opposition to matter that is good God may withdraw his motions and seldome visit our minds either by night or by day 2. We should seek out and set upon such a positive course as may procure Gods frequent converse with our souls that he may in night-seasons send in such motions in larger measures and greater numbers And for that purpose to ponder things of two sorts Sound articles of faith Good examples of life 1. Sound Articles of faith in our souls we should settle and seriously consider In my heart saies Luther I let this article reign of firm faith in Christ out of whom by and about whom all my thoughts both day and night do flow and re-flow Plenty of such principles implanted in us and improved by us may profit us much to the multiplying as of good meditations in the day so of good conceptions in the night 2. Good examples of holy life dayly laid before our eyes may be a means to encrease good Dreames viewed examples and visible objects have not onely an attractive but an assimilative power to produce and forme Phantasms and such imaginations as suite thereunto O how the mind is ready to rise and runne thereupon To look upon the lives of good men to view their vertuous actions and behold their holy conversations is excellent The more of those good visions we have in the day the more we may have of these good Dreames in the night 4. Have we found good Dreames but few in times that are past this should put us on the more for present and future by desires prayers and endeavours every night that comes to cause our hearts to keep wakefull that they may be the more vigilant and observant of God God may often make overtures to us herein and we take no notice thereof God saies Elihu Job 33. speaks once yea twice in a Dreame by night and men perceive him not When our bodies are asleep in our beds grace may be asleep in our hearts and our hearts asleep as to grace and as unto God so that we then regard him not Many words by night God speaks and many motions he makes and we minde him not Did but we seek to set our hearts into such an ever watchfull frame as is fit we might in this manner finde more of God and by night heare more of his minde then ever we did Wicked men can keep their bodies awake and in the night to watch for their prey and work with the Devill and shall not we keep our minds alwaies awake for our profit to watch for and waite upon God to meet him coming to see his first step into our souls and heare the first word he speaks to our hearts As oft as we laydown our bodies to sleep we should call up our hearts and minds to awake and attend Gods work Awake Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake right early Though our hearts be abroad in the day yet let them lodge with Christ at night M r Bradford that blessed martyr saies in a certain letter that as a wife though in the day time she may eat and drink sit talk and walk with her neighbours yet when night comes she keeps her bed for her husband alone So the Soule of a Christian that during the day goes out to meet and mind necessary matters of the world yet at night preserves the bed for intimate converse with Christ Christs sweetnesse We should so study mind and meditate by day as to resolve our hearts and He shall lye neere all night My beloved is to me as a bundle of myrrh he shall lye all night betwixt my breasts Cant. 1. 13. 5. If yet for future we find good Dreames but few and meet with little of Christ in our sleep it must the more prompt and provoke us to walk the more with Christ and work the more for God in the day by the more plentifull practice of all pious duties Did we know how pretious time is and did but we remember how much pretious time goes out in our sleep and did but we consider how little of God is enjoyed all that time it might much move us the
might we meet with that of God which now to the most of men remains a mystery Jerome reports that after some most affectionate and fervent performance of some holy duties as Meditation and Prayer he had sometimes seemed to himself as if he had been caught up into Heaven and had been triumphing with Troops of Angels c. Thus may a good man even after a comfortable intercourse with God in religious exercises be by night in a Dreame as if drawn up into Heaven as if he heard those Hallelujahs and sweet singings of Angels as if he saw the bright and beautifull Body of his blessed Saviour sitting at the right hand of God c. To come out of such a Dream is to come out of Heaven O how happy would it be herein to abide O how blessed and comfortable is the case of that Christian who from personall experiance can hereof make report To such a purpose some Antient Authors do excellently open Jacob's Dream Gen. 28. Let us chiefly marke what the Scripture speaks Jacob dreamed and behold a Ladder lifted up and the top of it reached to Heaven and behold upon it the Angels of God ascending and descending And above he saw the Lord himself standing and heard him speaking such sweet words and in such a way as so well warmed his heart that awaking he break out Surely the Lord was in this place this is none other than the House of God this is the Gate of Heaven Some of our more Modern Writers do also much admire this Dream in the season and subject of it for the expressions and impressions of it That Jacob lying now obnoxious to all the injuries of Earth and Heaven God did graciously relieve him in a Dream that left such legible letters of love and visible Characters of Divine care as in sleep to receive them was exceeding sweet and awake to review them was very comfortable Neither let us think in these latter Times the Lord to be lesser in his love and lower in his care over afflicted Christians but rather let us believe that as the Devill in these latter daies hath not only the same but hath subtiller projects and soarer conflicts to assault Gods Saints So God certainly hath now not only the same but hath stronger supports sweeter and greater comforts for the sensible asistance of his Saints oppressed The policy and power of the Devill as they more decrease in time so they more encrease in their measure The Devill when his time is most short his temptations will be most sharp And when the temptations of the Devill be the sharpest then the Consolations of God shall be the sweetest for the sutable and seasonable solacing the Souls of his Saints whether their Bodies be awake or asleepe FINIS A POSTSCRIPT TO THE READER OR The Authors EPILOG In Some concluding Requests Christian Reader I Crave yet once more and do the praeceeding Treatise considered from my whole soul most seriously beseech the actual concurrence of Thy Piety Thy Charity 1. Thy Piety in most earnest Prayer to Almighty God as graciously to pardon in the precious Blood of Christ those many humane frailties which therein both God and Man may easily find and I confess So successfully to prosper by his abundant blessing my true endeavours therein for the Gospel of his great Name and the reall good of souls 2. Thy Charity in a candid interpreting and right understanding both of the Author and Matter notwithstanding the accidentall errors of the Press The Printer in his Composings and passings through the main Body of the Book hath left great Faults but Few yet too many lesser in literall and syllabicall mistakes with many misplaced Commas c. All which as by thy due Observings thou maist soon find them So by thy right Correctings thou art desired friendly to mend them VIZ. Page 55. line 26. for Dreames read Dreamers p. 71. l. 20. for Suedland r. Sâ—abland p 77. l. 6. for waring r. warming p. 69. l. 19. for strange r. strong p. 113. l. 15. for at r. in p. 135. l. 13. for provision r. praevision p. 163. l. 9. for new r. Mens p. 152. l. 12. for as condition r. his condition p. 242. l. 21. for Chamber r. Chair p 271. l. 21. for Nations r. Motions p. 286. l. 28. for surely r. sweetly p. 296. l. 12. at sleep make a full stop p. 303. l. 13. for Saints r. same p. 304. l. 18. for as r. so In the same line for accept in r. accept us in p. 34. l. 16. for words r. wood With others such like In the Margin all Quotations may be manifest mistakes in the mis-naming of some Authors and the mis-noting of some Numbers of their Pages in their mentioned Writings besides severall other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Errata's especially in the Greek and Latin All which the Learned Reader is likewise earnestly entreated as kindly to excuse and courteously to correct So notwithstanding rightly to receive and to accept c. VIZ. Pagina 34. pro target lege torquet p. 56. pro lit iam l. licentiam p. 34. pro ineo r. imo c. p. 38. pro ineam l. etiam p. 27. pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 50. pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 121. pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. p. 232. pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 150. pro decen l. decem p. 284. pro uqae l. quae nec p. 334. pro aptis parentibus l. apparentibus p. 343. pro dooet l. doeet p. 312. pro pretium l. Aretium Et similia And now good Reader that good hand of our most gracious and all-glorious God rectifie and fully reform farre worse Errors or those broader and blacker Blemishe found in the most lamentably mis-carried leaves of our lives And our infinitely good Lord with the indeleble Characters of his heavenly Grace ingrave and imprint the most precious and permanent Truths upon the Tables of our hearts unto his own deserved Honour and to our Eternal Happiness Amen Thine in the Lord P. G. 1657. AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE OR A DIRECTORY BY The Order of Letters Leading To Some Chief Things found In The foregoing Treatise A A Bell what the name noteth p. 171 Actings of man of two sorts p. 166 Adam what God appointed him for to do in Paradise p. 78 Adam considered in a double estate p. 362 Adiaphora or middle matters how far to be granted p. 263 Afflictions how made easie p. 196 Ages of the world how many p. 262 Angels their Ministry what p. 272 Angels their chief help when p. 320 Anabaptists whence their first original p. 32 Anabaptists how dangerous in their principles and practises p. 33 Anabaptists the chief opposers of Magestracy and Ministry p. 36 Anabaptists in Germany their reign and their ruine p. 38