the servant of the Father and of the Son Bern. in Convers Pauli Sermone 1. because they make the Holy Ghost to become their servant as Terasius saith to Pope Adrian Yet S. Bernard that saw much but not all saith Sacri gradus dati sunt in occasionem turpis lucri quaestum aestimant pietatem Holy Orders are now become the occasion of filthy lucre and gain is counted godliness And this Simonie is Sacriledge indeed and not only Musculus citeth these Verses that were made of Pope Alexander Musculus in cap. 6. Johan Vendit Alexander claves altaria Christum Vendere jure potest emerat ille prius but Durandus also saith That Simonie doth so reign in the Church of Rome Durand de modo celebrandi Concilii Extra de officio judicis delegati ex parte N. in Glossâ as if it were no sin at all And their Canonists as Bartolus Felinus Theodoricus and some others of the Pope's parasites are so impudent as to averr that the selling of these things and taking monie for Ecclesiastical promotions can be neither Sacriledge nor Simonie in the Pope because he is the Lord of them all and accounteth them all his own But since we have bidden Adieu to him and his corruptions his Simonie and his Sacriledge blessed be God for it doth not so much prejudice us and therefore letting him to do what he will with his own and either to stand or fall to his own Master I will address my self to shew the manifold evils and wickednesse of our own Sacrilegious and Simonaical Patrons that sell those Benefices which they should freely bestow And I say 1. The selling of Ecclesiastical-Livings against all Laws 1. Of Moses Gen. 47.22 That this buying and selling of Church-goods for both these acts are relatives and to be put in the same predicament when as nothing is sold that is not bought è contra is a thing contrary to all Laws and to the judgement of all good men for 1. The Laws of Moses provided so liberally for the Priests and Levites that the buying and selling of Priests places was never known nor heard of among the Jews until Jeroboam's time who as he sold them so he sold himself to do evil and to commit wickedness 2. Pharaoh was so religious that when in the great Dearth 2. Of the Gentiles all the land of Aegypt was sold the Priests had such a portion of Corn allotted them that they needed not to sell one foot of their land and therefore I doubt not but Pharaoh will rise in judgement against all those that take away the lands of the Priests as our Gentlemen and Souldiers strive to do or do sell the Spiritual promotions unto the Priests as our Simonaical Patrons do 3. The Law of Grace saith Freely have you received that is 3 Of grace all the graces and gifts of God therefore freely give Math. 10.8 especially what you give to God and for the Service of God and sell it not 4. The Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws forbid nothing more 4. Of the Civil and Canon-Law and with greater care than the buying and selling Of Spiritual Offices And the ancient Fathers learned Schoolmen and all the later Classes of Casuists Jesuites and of our zealous purest Protestant Writers together with the wisest Princes and Statesmen that have established many Statute-Laws against this sin are all infinitely deceived if this buying and selling of Ecclesiastical preferments be not infinitely prejudicial to the Church of God and therefore a most heynous and a horrible sin against the Law of God 2. I say that this buying and selling of Church-Livings 2. This selling and buying of Church-Livings will be the decay of Learning and Religion will be the diminution of all Learning and the lessening of the number of Learned men for when the world seeth that after a man hath spent his time first in School where he suffereth a great deal of sorrows and thinks no creature more miserable than himself when he seeth all others free and himself only as he supposeth bound under the rod then in the Vniversity where most of the Schollers are as Phalaris saith to Leontides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 needy of all things but of hunger and fear How difficult it is to become a Scholar or else if they escape these rocks the better part do with continuall watching and studying wear their bodies and tyre their spirits and spend all the means they can procure from their friends for many years together and in the end after all this cannot get a poor Parsonage or Vicarage unless they pay for the lease of their wearied and almost worn out life to the hazarding of their soules and all other Preferments when the truth of their buying is made known What Fathers will be so â—â—provident I had almost said so irreligious I may truly say so unworldly wise or so little prudent in managing of their estates as to cast away their means and their sons upon such sourges I think I may say with the Poet Invitatus ad haec aliquis de ponte negabit A beggars brat knowing these inconveniencies would scarce accept these Offices and discharge those duties they do owe upon these conditions Obj. But you will say that we must not and ought not to respect our own gain and look after our own profit but as the Apostles and servants of Christ our chiefest care should be for the peoples good because our reward shall be great in Heaven Sol. I answer that as in the Common-wealth we owe our selves and our service wholly unto our Prince and to our Countrey yet some convenient reward will make us the more willing to serve So in the Church of God though I must preach willingly and wo is me being called to that office if I preach not so and discharge all other Priestly offices cheerfully rather for the gain of Souls then for any other the greatest gain in the World yet necessary maintenance will inable me or any other to do my duty the more cheerfully and with the more incouragement no man can deny the same Luk. 10.17 Matth. 10.10 and our Saviour tels us The workman is worthy of his hire and therefore as the Ministers of Christ do give unto you spirituall things so reason sheweth what the Apostle setteth down that you should give unto them and not sell unto them these temporall things that so not only we which are already entred into this calling may discharge our duties the more joyfully The reward of learning is the best means to increase and to continue learning but also others which as yet are not of this calling may by the reward of learning be induced to undertake the Ministry that otherwise is despicable enough in the world the more willingly because as Symmachus saith Virtus aemula alitur exemplo honoris alieni virtue is cherished and set forward with the example and
might presently enjoy that happy Life and Socrates smiled upon his Hemlock that his Adversary gave him to dispatch his life while he assured himself that it would send him from this mortal Frailty unto eternal felicity And not only these particular men and the like learned Philosophers and wisest sort of men but we read also how those famous Nations of the Brachmans Indians Persians and indeed all other Pagans whatsoever had this desire of Immortality and Eternity imprinted in their hearts by the pen of Nature And no marvel Why they desired perpetuity for as thou canst not like so well of the longest Lease of thy House or Lands as of the Free-hold and Perpetuity so there can be no true rest nor any satisfying content in any transient thing but only in that which is perpetual for when we have improved our Ambition to our own content even to the height of our hearts desire and have attained to so much happiness as this world can afford us and are become the only men both in Court and Countrey both in Church and State and as able to do so much in the Ecclesiastical Affairs as Ensebius Bishop of Nicomedia could do with Constantius the Arian Emperor and as much in the Political State as Haman could do with Ahasuerus Sejanus with Tiberius or Hebraem Bassa with Saladine the Great Turk who were the only Favourites that were most powerful with these great Monarchs and as dearly beloved of them as Ephestion was of Alexander or more than this could we come to be the Pope that challengeth to be the Head of the Church or to be such a Monarch as was Alexander Nebuchaduezzar or the most Illustrious of all the Rom. Emperours yet then we may be cut off with Belshazzar in the midst of our dayes or if we can be permitted to spin the Thread of our Lives to the fulness of years yet at last and that soon enough time and age will take us down and we shall bring our years to an end even as a Tale that is told and then as Job saith the eye that saw us shall see us no more and the men that feared us shall fear us no more but seeing that as Solomon saith a living Dog is better than a dead Lion the poor living Snakes that are now trode upon by the Tyrants and Oppressors of this world may then tread upon the Graves and trample upon the necks of their greatest persecuters even as Diogenes did upon those buried Kings and Princes amongst whom he sought for the bones of King Philip but could not distinguish them from the bones of a Peasant But what of that What matter of all this when as the Divinity of the School of Epicures is that after death there remaineth nothing of us to be any waies prejudiced nor any thing any waies at all and the Doctrine of the Stoicks is nothing different when as Seneca though he seemed to be a friend to that Principle of the Immortality of the Soul yet this is one of his proper Aphorismes that non potest esse miser qui nullus est he cannot be a wretched man that is no man and to shew that after death there is no more tidings of any man he writes unto Martia quod mors omnium est solutio ultra quam mala nostra non exeunt How many men denied the immortality of the soul and the life that is to come that death is the resolution and period of all things beyond which our evils cannot extend and Cicero tels us that his friend Atticus was hardly perswaded to believe the immortality of the Soul and before him Cebes in Plato was of the same mind and Dicaarchus that as Cicero saith wrote three Books of the mortality of the soul and Panetius whom Cicero in all his Offices doth so much commend and so often imitate and divers Philosophers as Epicurus and Democritus that lived in the time of Alexander the Great were in like manner so blinded by the devil as not only to doubt but also to believe this damnable Doctrine Plin. Nat. Hist l. 2. c. 7. Arnob. in Oct. and Pliny judgeth this Doctrine to be puerile deliramentum a childish simplicity and so likewise Cecilius as Arnobius testifieth calleth these Tenets of the Christians Anniles Christianorums Fabulas old wives Fables and Nicephorus writeth that Synesius the Platonist quoad alia quae Christiani profitentur promptum se facilem praebuit Nicephorus l. 14. c. 55. approved well of all other points that the Christians professed sed Resurrectionis doctrinam nefandam ac detestandam judicavit but the Doctrine of the Resurrection he liked not and the Poets cried out with Theocritus Non est Spes ulla sepultis But as Catullus saith though Soles occidere redire possunt Catul. ad Los◠p. 3. the Sun and Moon may lie down and rise again yet nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux nox est perpetua una dormienda when once our short life is fallen down we shall have one perpetual night to sleep and so Lucretinus and Enninus and many more were of the same faith And which is wonderfull in the School of Christ we finde some of the same minde as of old time Hymenaeus and Philetus with whom joyned the Valentinians Corpocratians Cerdonians Gnosticks Marcionites Selucians Manichees Hieraclites Priscillianists and the rest of that litter as Saturninus Basilides Secundus Marcus Appelles and some of the Popes themselves with John the 23 and Leo the 10. that as they were transcendently wicked so they were wickedly tainted with this errour and liked not of this truth and many more of their associates in these our own dayes that following Hobbs his Leviathan have fallen away from the faith and as if per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 animarum the souls of these Hereticks had entred into their bodies they will neither believe the resurrection of the body nor the immortality of their souls and therefore they labour not for their union with this Eternity Yea and that which is more to be admired such is the corruption of our nature and the madness of our mindes that although the continual sight and most sensible apprehension of our vanity and the shortness of our lives in this world mingles all our best wine with most bitter waters and puts a stop unto our pleasures and many sad thoughts into our heads and perplexities into our hearts yea though it seemeth that there is in a man a kinde of inclination and disposition of nature and an earnest desire to continue and perpetuate his being and that it is a thing universally religiously because it is the principal foundation of all Religion and peaceably received and concluded throughout all the Christian world especially by an outward and publick profession that the soul of man is immortal and shall so continue for ever and that there shall be a resurrection of the body and another life after this yet seriously and
inwardly in their hearts not onely the Epicures The many worldly professours of the Christian Religion do believe neither the immortality of the soul nor the resurrection of their bodies nor any other life after this life and the Hereticks aforenamed and the Sadduces the greatest Lords of the Jews that did not stick with open mouth to deny it but also the greatest part of these our Christian Professours as I fear do believe neither the immortality of the soul nor the resurrection of the dead nor any other life after this the short life of their vanity For is it possible that men should be so haughty and so proud so covetous and such oppressours of their Neighbours so sacrilegious and such robbers and spoylers of God himself as we see men are so as the Poet saith Vnde habent cura est paucis sed oportet habere Is it possible I say they should be such if they did believe that their souls are immortal that after this momentary life of their vanity their bodies shall awake and rise out of their graves and that Christ shall come to judge them according to the works they have done in this life and as he saith himself To render unto every one as his deeds shall be No surely it cannot be that they do believe these things but as the Fool whatsoever he profest with his mouth to deceive the world yet said in his heart There is no God so they whatsoever they say in words yet factis negant their deeds tell us to their faces that they do but dissemble and deceive themselves but they cannot deceive God nor all wise men that will rather believe their own eyes in what they see them do than their words in what they say they do believe What a persidious fellow Carbo was And therefore as when Carbo swore any thing in the Senate the Senators and the people of Rome presently sware they did not believe him So when these sacrilegious persons and thefe grievous oppressours of the poor and the rooters out of the innocent from their possessions do profess that they believe these things What Apolloâ—orus dreamed I do profess unto you that I believe them not But as Apollodorus the Tyrant dreamed that he was taken and flead by the Scythians and his heart thrown into a boyling Caldron should say unto him I am the cause of all this mischief so I say The hearts of these men deceive them for as the Wise man saith The heart is deceitfull above all things and for a man to deceive himself is the worse deceit in the world for excepting the worst of thoughts which is the thought of the Fool that said in his heart There is no God there cannot be a more brutish and perverse thought than to imagine that the soul perisheth when the body is dissolved for what need we care what evil we do what need we fear what Judge condemn us or why should we abstain from any of our desires if our souls dye when our bodies are dead But to shew you that whatsoever they say yet they do not believe in any eternal being either of body or soul after the end of this their vanity The former point proved I pray you look into an excellent Book though sleighted by some Fanatick spirits where the Wise-man sheweth how the prophane worldlings and the worldly Atheists do make this conclusion of their incredulity to be the ground and foundation of all their impieties for they say but not aright Our life is short and tedious and in the death of a man there is no remedy neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave for we are born at all adventure and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been for the breath in our nostrils is as smoak which being extinguished our body shall be turned into ashes and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air Sap. 2.1 2 3. This is their saith and therefore they make this conclusion saying Come let us injoy the good things that are present and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth Cap. eod v. 6 7 8 9.10 11 let us fill our selves with costly Wine and Oyntments and let no flower of the Spring pass by us let us crown our selves with Rose-buds before they be withered let none of us go without part of his voluptuousnesss for this is our portion and our lot is this Let us oppress the poor righteous man let us not spare the widow nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged let our strength be the Law of Justice and let us lye in wait for the righteous And this was the very reasoning of Sardanapalus Ede bibe lude post mortem nulla voluptas There is no felicity after death therefore soul take thine ease sit down and be merry and I fear it is the occasion of so much wickedness in many men and of such a deluge of sin in these dayes that doth overflow both the Church and Commonwealth to the destruction and ruine of many thousand souls that in their hearts they scarce believe their souls to be immortal or that there shall be ever any resurrection of their bodies or any account to be given for what they do for so you see the reason why they oppress the poor and rob both God and man and satisfie themselves with all kinde of delights because their breath in their nostrils is as smoak which being extinguished their bodies shall be turned into ashes and their spirit as they suppose shall vanish as the soft air And truly I think the conclusion very good if there were any truth in the premises for though Plato and Socrates and Seneca and the like vertuous men did so much love vertue for the very beauty of vertue and did hate vice onely for the ugliness of vice and Anselimus is reported to have said he had rather to be vertuous though severely punished for it than be vicious though never so highly rewarded yet because these Ejaculations spring from more than ordinary knowledge no less than some sparks of the motions of Gods Spirit which God sometimes wrought in the hearts of the Heathens and much more in Anselimus that was a Christian It is contrary to all shew of reason that a man The incredulity of the life to come the cause that men commit much wickedness which believeth the mortality of the soul should have any desire to be vertuous or any fear to be most vicious unless it be onely for fear of some Temporal punishment For if our time be but a very shadow that soon passeth away and after that our end there is no returning why should I endure so much labour and suffer so much want or want so much pleasure as the reach of my wit or the laws of my strength can any wayes afford me or why should I abstain from any vice from any villany and fast and weep and
mourn and go in sackcloath and ashes if after one moment of time I shall be reduced to nothing and be never more questioned and neither rewarded for my good deeds nor punished for my evil doings Therefore I think that this Atheistical conceit of the annihilation of the soul and the incredulous thought of the immortality thereof is the main cause of so much wickedness as is now raging in the world And on the other side if men did but seriously think and faithfully believe that after this short time of a few dayes pilgrimage our souls shall remain for ever and receive either everlasting joyes if they do well or eternal punishments if they do evil I do assure my self that men would have some care for the time to come and like Moses choose rather to suffer a momentary affliction with the people of God Heb. 11.25 than to enjoy the plesures of sin for a season and so engage themselves to endure the punishment of sin for ever The necessity of rooting out this incredulity And therefore to root out so pestilent an errour and to confirm so necessary a truth as is the doctrine of the Immortality of the soul for the perpetuating of man all wise men that had any love of goodness in them and all the holy men of God both in the Old and New Testament and all the Fathers of the primitive Church and their successours the Bishops and other godly Preachers to this very day have been carefull to preach this truth and have shewed themselves very punctual and plentifull in this point for to let pass what Ovid saith Morte carent animae Ovid. Metam Tibul. l. 4. Propertius Claud. Manilius l. 4. Plato in Tim. Cicero de repub somâ—o Scip. l. 1. Tusc quest and what Propertius saith Sunt aliquid manes laethum non omnia finit luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos and what Claudian saith Haec sola manet bustoque superstes evolat and to pass over the testimony of Pherecides that was Master unto Pythagoras and of Socrates and Plato and Cicero and the rest of the Philosophers and Orators that with unanswerable arguments have maintained the souls of men to be immortal and so likewise to pass by the unanimous consent of the Fathers that were so plain and so plentifull to prove the same as you may see in S. Clement Recog l. 1. Iren. l. 2. c. 63. 64. cont Valent. Tertul. de res carnis S. Aug. dogmat Eccles c. 16. Arnobius de fide resur and the rest of them almost in every place I finde the Prophets and our Saviour himself and his Apostles be very exact and diligent to declare the same and to prove it so fully that the most incredulous heart if it were not filled with all blindness could not conceive the least thought against it Yet because the Devil is still tempting men to incredulity and to doubt of these things and is still so powerfull with these worldlings that he quite blindeth them so that they cannot see the clearest light nor understand the plainest truth Therefore to undeceive these silly souls that do so miserably deceive themselves we are still bound to defend and vindicate these truths and in that respect I likewise shall not think much to produce some few Reasons that the Devil himself cannot answer to make it manifest that although man in this life is altogether vanity and but a blast of no continuance as hereafter I shall shew unto you yet God made man to be perpetual for God made all things that they might have their being and especially man not to be reduced to nothing and he made the soul of man immortal and never to dye but to live for ever For Arguments proving the immortality of the Soul and the life to come 1. Moses tells you that when God had framed and made man of the dust of the earth He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and so man became a living soul and not a dying soul or a soul that should dye but such a soul as should live for ever because the soul is the cause of our natural spiritual and eternal life whence the Latines do call the soul Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia vivificat corpus dum adest seipsam cum abest á corpore And when God threatned Adam that if he did eat of the forbidden fruit Or surely dye Gen. 2.17 he should dye the death that death signifieth not the death of the soul or the annihilation of the body but the dissolution or separation of the soul from the body that as it was made out of the dust so it might return to the dust again which while the soul remained in it unseparated it could not return and this St. Paul sheweth plainly when he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If our earthly house be dissolved that is 2 Cor. 5. dis-joynted as a house that we pull down is separated one part from another but not destroyed so is the soul separated from the body and neither of them destroyed and reduced into nothing but the soul remaineth still immortal for ever and as God saith Gen. 3.19 the body returneth to the dust from whence it was taken 2. It is said that Abel being unnaturally murdered by his blood-thirsty Brother vox sanguinum clamabat ad deum and the Hebrew word saith Collerus signifieth ex ingenti animi dolore exclamare to cry out with a vehement grief of mind queritando vociferari and to complain with a most lamentable voice therefore surely his crying soul was still alive though his slaughtered body was lain dead 3. God saith unto Moses I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob and the God of your Fathers therefore Abraham Isaac Exod. 3.15 and Jacob and the rest of their Fathers were still alive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 secundum aliquid and that is in respect of their Souls because as our Saviour saith unto the Sadduces God is not the God of the dead but the God of the living and the bodies of these men that were turned to dust could not be said either to be alive or to be Abraham Isaac or Jacob therefore Abraham Isaac and Jacob were still alive in respect of their Soules 4. Moses is said to have died in the Land of Moab and to be buried in a valley over against Beth-peor and yet S. Matth. saith Deut. 34.5 6. Mat. 17.3 that when Jesus was transfigured on the Mount Moses and Elias appeared to the Apostles talking with Christ therefore Moses was dead and not dead and was buried and not buried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. dead in respect of his body and living in respect of his Soul and so Moses and Elias were still alive and they themselves in respect of their Souls and not their shadows or phantasmes which can no waies be faid
societatem verumetiam quae ad Divinam religionem In this Kings and Princes do serve God as they are commanded by God if they do command as they are Kings in their Kingdoms those things that are good and honest and prohibit the things that are evil not only in causes that do properly appertain to civil society but also in such thâ—ngs as belong and have reference to Religion and Piety And when they do so the Bishops and Priests be they whom you will should observe their Commands That the Bishops Priests ought to submit themselves to the lawful commands diâ—ections of their Kings civil Governours and submitt themselves in all obedience to their Determinations and censures For Moses was the civil Magistrate and the Governour of the people and as he received them from God so he delivered unto the people all the Laws Statutes and Ordinances that appertained to Religion and to the Service of God And when Aaron erected and set up the golden Calf to be worshipped and so violated the true Religion and Service of God Moses reproved and censured him and Aaron though he was the High Priest of God and the Bishop of the people yet as a good example for all other Priests and Bishops he submitted himself most submissively unto Moses the chief Magistrate and said Let not the anger of my Lord wax hot Exod. 32.22 And I would the Pope would do so likewise And therefore though we say the Judge is to be preferred before the Prince in the knowledge of the Laws and the Doctor of Physick in prescribing potions for our health and the Pilot in guiding his Ship which the King perhaps cannot do Yet it cannot be denied but the King hath the commanding power to cause all these to do their duties and to punish them if they neglect it So though the King cannot preach and may not administer the holy Sacraments nor intrude himself with Saul and Vzzia to execute the Office of the Priest or Bishop yet he may and ought to require and command both Priests and Bishops to do their duties and to uphold the true Religion and the Service of God as they ought to do and both to censure them as Moses did Aaron and also to punish them as Solomon did Abiathar if their offence so deserve when they neglect to do it and both Priests and Bishops ought like Aaron and Abiathar to submit themselves unto their censures CHAP. VII The Objections of the Divines of Lovaine and other Jesuites against the former Doctrine of the Prince his authority over the Bishops and Priests in causes Ecclesiastical answered And the foresaid truth sufficiently proved by the clear testimony of the Fathers and Councils and divers of the Popes and Papists themselves BUt against this Doctrine of the Prince his authority to rectifie the things that are amisse and out of order in the Church of God Obj. the Jesuites and their followers tell us Spirituales dignitates praestantiores essâ— secularibus seu mundanis dignitatibus That the Spiritual Dignities are more excellent than those that are worldly When as these two Governments Gen. 1.16 Rom. 13 1â— And though the light of the Church be the greater yet that proves nor but that the King should be the prime and chief Governor of the Church the one of the Church and the other of the Common-wealth are like the two great Lights that God hath made the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the Government of the Church must needs be acknowledged to be the Day and to have the greater light to guide and to direct it The Apostle telling us plainly that now the Gospel being come and the Church of Christ established the night is past or far spent and the day is at hand and come amongst us And the Government of the Secular State is like the Moon that ruleth the Night and receiveth her cleerest light from the Sun as all Christian Kingdoms do receive their best light and surest Rules of Government from the Church of God which is the pillar and the ground of truth But To these that thus make the Civil Government subordinate to that which is Spiritual as both the Papists and our Fanatick-Sectaries here amongst us like the old doting Donatists would do and so abridge and deprive the Christian Prince of his just right and jurisdiction over the affairs and persons of the Church I answer Sol. 1. That Symbolical propositions examples parables comparisons and similitudes can prove nothing they may serve for some illustrations but for no infallible demonstrations of truth Isidorus in Glossa in Gen. ut citatur In the Scourge of Sacriledge 2. I say that Isidorus a popish Doctor preferreth the Government of the Kingdom before the Priesthood by comparing the Kingdom unto the Sun and the Priesthood unto the Moon 3. I say that Theodore Balsamon a good School-man saith Nota Canonem Dicit Spirituales dignitates esse praestantiores secularibus sed ne hoc eò traxeris ut Ecclesiasticae dignitates praeferantur Imperatâ—riis quia illis subjiciuntur You must note that when the Canon saith the Spiritual dignities are more excellent than the Secular Balsamon in Sexta Synodo Canone 7. you must not so understand it as to prefer the Ecclesiastical Rule or Dignities before the Imperial State because they are subject unto it and so to be ruled by it 4. And lastly I say that the Regal Government or Temporal State and civil Government of the Common-wealth is not meerly secular and worldly as if Kings and Princes and other civil Magistrates were to take no care of mens souls and future happiness which they are bound to do and not to say with Cain Nunquid ego custos fratris Am I obliged to look what shall become of their souls But they are called Secular States and civil Government because the greatest though not the chiefest part of their time and imployment is spent about Civil affairs and the outward happiness of the Kingdom even as the Ecclesiastical persons are bound to provide for the poor and to procure peace and compose differences among neighbours and the like civil offices though the most and chiefest part of their time and labour is to be spent in the Service of God and for the good of the souls of their people And so Johannes de Parisiis another man of the Roman Church Johannes de Parisiis Can. 18. doth very honestly say Falluntur qui supponunt quod potestas regalis sit Corporalis non Spiritualis quod habeat curam corporum non animarum quod est falsissimum They are deceived which suppose that the Regaâ— power is only corporal and not spiritual and that it hath but the care and charge over the bodies of his Subjects and not of their souls Which is most false Obj. 2. They say as I have said even now that similitudes and examples nihil
Example answered it is most impertinently alledged for Ezechias was the lawful King of Juda and the King of Assyria had no right at all in his Dominions An impertinent example but being greedily desirous to enlarge his territories he incroached upon the others right and for his injustice was overcome by the sword in a just battell and therefore to conclude from hence that because the King of Juda refused to obey the King of Assyria therefore the inferiour Magistrates or Peers of any Kingdome may resist and remove their lawful Prince for his tyranny or impiety surely this deserves rather fustibus retundi quà m rationibus refelli to be beaten with rods then confuted with reasons as Saint Bernard speaketh of the like Argument And whereas they reply that it skilleth not whether the Tyrant be forreign as Eglon and the King of Assyria were or domestique as Saul Achab and Manasses were The ubsurdity of their replication because the domestique is worse then the forreign and therefore the rather to be suppressed I will shew you the validity of this argument by the like The seditious Preachers are the generation of vipers nay farre worse then vipers because they hurt but the body onely and these are pernicious both to body and soul therefore as a man may lawfully kill a viper so he may more lawfully kill any seditious Preacher Quia Dare absurdum non est solvere argumentum But to omit their absurdity let us look into the comparison betwixt domestique and extranean Tyrants and we shall find that domestique Tyrants are lawfully placed over us by God who commandeth us to obey them and forbiddeth us to resist them in every place for the Scripture makes no distinction betwixt a good Prince and a Tyrant in respect of the honour reverence and obedience that we owe unto our superiours as you see the Lord doth not say Touch not a good King and Obey righteous Princes but as God saith Honour thy father and thy mother be they good or bad so he saith Touch not the King resist not your Governours speak not evil of the Rulers be they good or be they bad and therefore Saint Paul when he was strict y charged for reviling the wicked high-Priest answered wisely I wist not brethren that he was Gods High-Priest for if I had known him to be the true High-Priest I would not have spoken what I did because I know the Law of God obligeth me to be obedient to him that God hath placed over me Bad kings to be obeyed as well as the good be he good or bad for it is Gods institution and not the Governours condition that tyeth me to mine obedience So you see the mind of the Apostle he knew the Priest-hood was abolished and that he was not the lawful High-Priest therefore he saith God shall smite thee thou whited wall But if he had known and believed him to be the true and lawful High-Priest which God had placed over him he would never have said so had the Priest been never so wicked because the Law saith Thou shalt not revile thy Ruler But for private robbers or forreign Tyrants God hath not placed them over us nor commanded us to obey them neither have they any right by any Law but the Law of strength to exact any thing from us and therefore we are obliged by no law to yield obedience unto them neither are we hindred by any necessity either of rule or subjection but that we may lawfully repell all the injuries that they offer unto us Example answered 3 3. For the peoples hindring of King Saul to put his son Jonathan to death I say that they freed him from his fathers vow non armis sed precibus not with their weapons Saul was contented to be perswaded to spare his son but by their prayers when they appealed unto himself and his own conscience before the living God and perswaded him that setting aside his rash vow he would have regard unto justice and consider whether it was right that he should suffer the least damage who following God had wrought so great a deliverance unto the peohle as Tremelius and Junius in their Annotations do observe Gregor in 1 Reg. 4. And Saint Gregory saith The people freed Jonathan that he should not die when the King overcome by the instance of the people spared his life which no doubt he was not very earnest to take away from so good a son Example answered 4 4. Touching Ahikam that was a prime Magistrate under King Jehoiakim I say that he defended the Prophet not from the Tyranny of the King but from the fury of the people for so the Text saith The hand of Ahikam Jerem. 26.24 that is saith Tremelius the authority and the help of Ahikam was with Jeremy that They that is his enemies should not give him into the hands of the people which sought his life to put him to death because Ahikam had been a long while Counsellour unto the King and was therefore very powerful in credit and authority with him The act of Ahikam no colour for Rebellion And you know there is a great deal of difference betwixt the refraining of a tumultuous people by the authority of the King and a tumultuous insurrection against the King That was the part of a good man and a faithful Magistrate as Ahâ—kam did this of an enemy and a false Traytor as the opposer of Kings use to do 5. For the defection and revolting of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam Example answered 5 their own natural lawful King unto a fugitive and a man of a servile condition and for the Edomites Lybnites and others that revolted against King Joram 2 Chron. 21. 2 Reg. 14.19 and that Conspiracy which was made in Jerusalem against Amazia I answer briefly That the Scriptures do herein as they do in many other places set down rei gestae veritatem non facti aequitem the truth of things how they were done not the equity of the things that they were rightly done and therefore Actions commanded to be done are not to be imitated by us unl sse we be suâ—e of the like commandement Non ideò quia factum legimus faciendum credamus ne violemus praeceptum dum sectamur exemplum We must not believe it ought to be done because we read that it was done lest we violate the Commandement of God by following the example of men as Saint Augustine speaketh for though Joseph sware by the life of Pharaoh the Midwives lyed unto the King and the Israelites robbed the Aegyptians and sinned not therein yet we have no warrant without sinne to follow their examples Besides God himself had foretold the defection of the ten Tribes for the sinne of Solomon and he being Lord proprietary of all his donation transferreth a full right to him God is the right owner of all things and therefore may justly dispose any Kingdom on
in the blood of so many faithful Christians do sing with the Psalmist Psal 58 9. The righteous rejoyce when they see this vengeance they shall wash their feet in the blood of the ungodly for as Solomon saith The tender mercies of the wicked are meer cruelty Prov. 12.10 And I believe the first inventers of that Design to root out all the Papists in Ireland and to get that Act to purchase all the Lands of the Rebels had tasted too much of this bitter root of such destructive Doctrine whereby you see how the Religion of these men robbes us of our Estates keeps no faith with us and takes away our lives 7. Though among the works of God every flower cannot be a Lilly 7. They would have a party among all men both in Church and Common-wealth Gal. 5 6. Col. 3.11 every beast cannot be a Lyon every bird cannot be an Eagle and every Planet cannot be a Phoebus yet in the School of these men this is the doctrine of their to be new erected Church that with God there is no respect of persons and neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but whether they be bond or free masters or servants Jew or Gentile Barbarian Scythian a country-Clown or a Court Gallant rich or poor it is all one with God because these Titles of Honour Kings Lords Knights and Gentlemen are no entities of Gods making but the creatures of mans invention to puffe him up with pride and not to bring him unto God and therefore though for the bringing of their great good work to passe they are yet contented to make the Earl of Essex their General and Warwick their Admiral and so Pym and Hampden great Officers of State yet when the work is done their Plot perfected and their Government established then you shall find that As now they will eradicate Episcopacie and make all our Clergie equall as if all had equally but one talent and no no man worthier than another so then there should be neither King Lord Knight nor Gentleman but a parity of degrees among all these holy brethren And to give us a taste of what they mean as the Lords concurrence with them inabled them to devour the Kings power so they have since with great justice prevailed with the House of Commons to swallow up the Lords power and have most fairly invaded their priviledge when they questioned particular Members * As my Lord Duke and my Lord Digbie 8. They would have no man to pray for temporal things Matth. 33 34. Matth. 6.11 9. Not to say the Lords Prayer 10. Not to say God Speed you 2 John 10.11 12 Not to pray for the Malignants 1 John 5.16 for words spoken in that House and then the whole House when they brought up and countenanced a mutinous and seditious Petition which demanded the Names of those Lords that consented not with the House of Commons in those things which that House had twice denied 8. Because our Saviour saith Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and the righteousnesse thereof and all these things that is meat drink and cloathes and all other earthly things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be cast unto you and again Be not carefull for to morrow they teach their Proselytes that they ought not to pray by any means for any of these things whereas Christ biddeth us to say Give us this day our daily Bread 9. They cannot endure to say the Lords Prayer for that 's a Popish superstition but their Prayers must be all tautologies and a circular repetition of their own indigested inventions 10. You must not say God speed you to any neighbour or any traveller lest he intends some evill work and then you shall be partaker of his sin 11. They will not allow any of their Disciples to pray for any of the Reprobates and therefore they do exceedingly blame us and tear our Liturgie because we say That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men 12. Because Christ saith Call no man father on earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven the child must not call him that begat him and nurseth him his father nor kneel unto him to ask him blessing nor perform many other such duties which the Lord requireth and the Church instructeth her children to do to this very day and this foolish Doctrine of calling no man Father no man master or Lord and the like in their sense because they understand not the divine meaning of our Saviour's words hath been the cause of such undutifulnesse and untowardnesse such contempts of superiours and such rebellions to Authority as is beyond expression when as by their disloyalty being thus bred up in them from their cradle they first despise their father then their Teachers then their King and then God himself CHAP. IX Sheweth three other speciall points of Doctrine which the Brownists and Anabaptists of this Kingdom do teach 13. BEcause they can find no Text in Scripture when as the Alcoran is not so impudently hellish as to justifie the action for to warrant men to absolve our consciences from any Oaths that we have voluntarily taken for the performance of any businesse I cannot say that they do professedly teach but I do hear they do usually practise this most damnable sin as that Master Marshall and Master Case did absolve the Souldiers taken at Brainceford from their Oath which they took never to bear Arms against his Majesty which is a sin destructive both to body and soul when their Perjury added to their Treason makes them two-fold more the children of hell than they were before and if they be taken again they can expect nothing but their just deserved death and therefore I do admire that any man can challenge the name of a Divine which doth either preach or practise a point so devilish 14. They think sacriledge to be no sin Acts 20.34 1 Thes 2.9 1 Cor. 1.12 14. Because Saint Paul saith These hands have ministred to my necessities and to them that were with me and again Labouring night and day because we would not be chargeable to any of you we preached unto you the Gospel of God and because the rest of the Apostles and Disciples were Fishermen Tradesmen or professours of some Science either liberal or mechanick as Saint Luke was a Physician Joseph a Carpenter and the like who did live by their manual crafts and were chargeable to none of their people but sought them and not theirs to win their souls to God and not their monies unto themselves therefore they think it no robbery to take away all the revenues of the Church nor sacriledge to rob the Clergy of all the means they have because they should either labour for their livings as the Apostles did or live upon the peoples Almes as many poor Ministers do to the utter undoing of many souls in many distressed and most miserable Churches But because this revenue of
our people and to fight against God's enemies that have long laboured to overthow his Church as we read of some Bishops of this Kingdom that have been driven to do the like and if these men might do these things without blame as they did why may not the same man be both a Bishop and the Kings Counsellour both a Preacher in the pulpit and a Justice of the peace on the Bench and yet the callings not confounded though the same man be called to both offices for you know the office of a Lawyer is different from the office of a Physitian and the office of a Physitian as different from the duty of a Divine and yet as Saint Luke was an excellent Physitian and a heavenly Evangelist and S. Paul as good a Lawyer as he was a Preacher for he was bred at the feet of Gamaliel as was Master Calvin too as good a Civilian as he was a Divine for that was his first profession so the same man may as in many places they do and that without blame both play the part of a Physitian to cure the body and of a Divine to instruct the soul and therefore why not of a Lawyer when as the Preachers duty next to the teaching of the faith in Christ is to perswade men to live according to the rules of Justice and Justice we cannot understand without the knowledge of the Laws both of God and men and if he be obliged to know the Law why should he be thought an unfit man to judge according to the Law But. CHAP. IX Sheweth a full answer to four special Objections that are made against the Civil jurisd ctions of Ecclesiastical persons their abilities to discharge these offices and desire to benefit the Common-wealth why some Councils inhibited these offices unto Bishops that the King may give titles of honour unto his Clergy of this title LORD not unfitly given to the Bishops proved the objections against it answered six special reasons why the King should confer honours and favours upon his Bishops and Clergy 1. IF you say the office of a Preacher requireth the whole man and where the whole man is not sufficient to one duty for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ob. 1 2 Cor. 2.16 then certainly one man is never able to supply two charges I answer that this indefinite censure is uncertainly true Sol. and most certainly false as I have proved unto you before by many examples of most holy men that discharged two offices with great applause and no very great difficulty to themseves for though Saint Matthew could not return to his trade of Publican because that a continued attendance on a secular business would have taken him from his Apostolate and prove an impediment to his Evangelick ministration yet Saint Peter might return to his nets as he did without blame because that a temporary imployment and no constant secession can be no hinderance to our Clericall office No man is alwayes able to do the same thing when there is no man that can so wholly addict himselfe to any kinde of art trade or faculâ—y but that he must sometimes interchangeably afford himselfe leisure either for his recreation Vt quemvis animo possit sufferre laborem or the recollection of strength and abilities to discharge his office by the undertaking of some other exercise which is to many men their chiefest recreation as you see the husband-mans change of labour doth still inable him to continue in labour and the Courtier cannot alwayes wait in the same posture nor the Scribe alwayes write nor the Divine alwayes study Change of labour is a kinde of recreation but there must be an exchange of his actions for the better performance of his chiefest imployment and that time which either some Gentlemen Citizens or Courtiers spend in playing hawking or hunting onely for their recreation the better to inable them to discharge their offices why may not the Divine imploy it in the performance of any other duty different but not destructive or contradictory to his more special function especially considering that the discharging of those good duties to give counsell to do justice to releive the distressed and the like are more acceptable recreations unto them as it was meate and drink to Christ to do his fathers will then the other fore-named exercises are or can be to any others John 4.34 and considering also that where the Bishop or Pastor hath great affairs and much charge he may have great helpes and much aid to assist him You will allow us an hour for our recreation why will you not allow us that hour to do justice Ob. 2. 2. If you say they are spirituall men and therefore cannot have so great a care of the temporall State and Common-wealth Sol. 1. The ability of the Clergy to manage civil affaires Ignat. Epist ad Ephes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I answer that as now the Common-wealth is the Church and the Church is the Common wealth and have as good interest therein and better we hope then many of the Common-wealth have in the Church and they should be as able to unde stand what is beneficiall to the Common-wealth as any other for Ignatius saith that Kings ought to be served by wise men and by those that are of great understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not to be attended upon by weak and simple men and if Kings must be served by such men then certainly the service of God is not to be performed by Weavers and Taylors and others like Jeroboams Priests but it will require men of great abilities learning and understanding in all businesses whatsoever such as are indeed well able to discourse De quolibet ente And they have very unprefitably consumed themselves with their time in their head-pain vigils and heart-breaking studies in traversing over all the Common-wealths of the world if they have learned nothing The Clergy of better abilities to benefit the Common-wealth then many others that now sway it whereby they may benefit their own Common-wealth or do understand less what belongeth unto the good of their Countrey especially in matters of equity and right then illiterate Burgesses and meere Chapmen for if you read but the bookes of the Prophets you shall finde how plentifull they are in the precepts of peace in the policies of war and in the best counsels for all things which concern the good of the Common-wealth and do not the Divines read the Histories of all or most other Common-wealths how else shall they be inabled to propose unto their people the example of Gods justice upon the wicked and his bounty and favour unto the observers of his Lawes throughout all ages and in all places of this world and will you deprive the King of the assistance of such instruments for the government of his people The imployment of the Bishops in civil affaires is the good of the Common wealth that are stronger
to set down how the factious and malicious Preachers of the rebâ—llious Cities either neglect to pray at all or pray most seditiously and unchristianly for their own Liege Lord and gracious King and therefore the curse of Judas lights upon them that their prayer is turned into sin which should make them pray that Judas his end should not fall unto them But we that desire to follow the Apostles Precept considering the greatnesse of his cares and charge thaâ— he doth undergo and the multitude of dangers that he is lyable to will most heartâ—ly pray to God both in our Morning and our Evening Prayers both at our sitting and at our rising from our meat Vt vivat Rex exurgat Deus dissipentur inimici that God would give his Angels charge over him to preserve him in all his wayes that he dash not his foot against a stone that his enemies may be cloathed with shame and that he may flourish as the Lilly that he may raign long and happily here and raign for ever in Heaven this shall be my prayer for ever CHAP. XVIII The persons that ought to honour the King and the recapitulation of one and twenty Wickednesses of the Rebels and the faction of the pretended Parliament 3 The persons that must honour the King 3. HAving seen the Person that is to be honoured and the honour that is due unto him we are now to consider in the last place who are to honour him included in this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honour ye him which being unlimited and indefinite is equivalent to an universal and so Saint Paul doth more plainly express it Rom. 13.1 saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let every soul be â—ubject to the higher powers which is an Hebrew Ideome or Synecdochical speech s gnifying the whole man the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being usually taken in Scripture pro toto composito for the whole man composed of body and soul as where it is said Gen. 46 62·27 Act. 2. that Jacob went down into Aegypt with 70 soules and S. Peter by one Sermon converted 3000 soules and the abstract word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew that our subjection obedience and honour which we are to ascribe unto our King must be not as hypocrites render it in shew from the â—eeth outwa d but really and indeed ex animo from our soules and the bottome of our hâ—arts as Aquinas glosseth it and the concrete 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 added unto it makes it the more energetical to shew that all mortal men none excepted are ob iged to do this honour and to yield this subjection unto their King for seeing every man both spiritual and temporal and every sex both man and woman and every degree of men young and old rich and poor one with another hath an immortal soul as well as a mortal body it must needs follow that all cujuscunque gradûs sexûs conditionis are obliged both in soule and body to honour and obey their King And yet it is strange to see how many men can exempt themselves and grant a dispensation unto their soules for the performance of this duty The Pope and his Clergy would be freed from the subjection of Kings for the Pope will be freed because he hath a power above all powers to depose Kings and to dispose of their Kingdomes at his pleasure and the Popish Clergy will perform no duty unto their King because their Function is spiritual but to all these I may truly say as our saviour doth to the lewd servant ex ore tuo out of the Fathers whom they acknowledge and out of their own Authors they are confuted for Saint Chrysostome saith that whether he be an Apostle or Evangelist or Prophet Seu quisquis tandem fuerit or whosoever else he be Pope Cardinal or Deacon he is commanded to be subject to the higher power and that you may see what power he meanes he pointeth out the same by the symbol that is of him that carryeth the sword which you know must be the secular Prince and not the spiritual Pope and so not onely Euthym. Theophylact Oecumenius and other Greek Commentators do avouch but also those Epistles which are recorded by Binius and quoted by the Bishop of Durham as Leo 1. ep 26. 35. Simplicius 1. ep 4. Felix 3. ep 2. Anastasius 1. ep 78. Pelagius 1. ep 16. Martinus 1. ep 3. Agatho 1. ep ad Herac. Hadrian 1. ep ad Constant do make this most manifest unto vs and therefore Espencaeus convinced by such a cloud of witnesses confesseth very honestly that the Apostle here Espenc in Tit. 3. 1. Digres 10. p. 5. 13. Paris 1568. The wickednesses of the pretended Parliament shewed by their actions Docet omnes credentes mundi potestatibus esse subjectos nempe sive Apostolus sive Evangelista c. ut tenet Chrysost Euthym. qui non Graeci And as the Popelings will be free so the Presbyterians and the faction of this Parliament will be as free as they and because every wickednesse laboureth to exceed that which preceeded these do not agree with the Catholiques as Herod and Pilate did to crucifie Christ in the same conclusion and tenet of exemption but they will go a note beyond Ela and surmount both Jesuite and Pope and therefore they not onely dishonour and disobey their King but they have violated and incroached upon all his rights and assumed the same into their own hands for to recapitulate some of their choycest wickednesses 1. As the Church of Rome and the Jesuites teach in Aphorismis confessariorum ex Doctorum sententiis collectis p. 249. that Rex potest per rempublicam privari ob tyrannidem si non faciat officium suum cum est causa aliqua justa eligi alius à majore parte populi which falshood their own Divines confute when Royard saith Rege constituto non potest populus jugum subjectionis repellere so these men maintain that diabolical tenet that the Regal power is primarily in the collective body and derived to the king cumulativè not privatiuè and therefore upon the kings neglect or male-administration it comes back again to the collective body in whom it resideth suppletivè to discharge the royal duty when the king faileth to do the same and then the king so falling from his right they may refuse obedience and if they see cause which they can soone do they may depose him from his office which impudent falshood I have fully confuted in this Treatise 2. They say the Regall Majesty is a humane creature or the ordinance of men primarily and therefore may be deposed by men when as Cunerus could say Sive electione sive postulatione vel successione vel belli jure princeps fiat principi tamen facto divinitùs potestas adest and therefore they have no power to take away that which God
whom the choice of inferiour Magistrates belongeth the power of the subordinate officers neither Peeres nor Parliament can have Supremacy the Sectaries chiefest argument out of Bracton answered our Lawes prove all Soveraignty to be in the King Pag. 70 § The two chiefest parts of the Regall Government the foure properties of a just war and how the Parliamentary Faction transgress in every property Pag. 74 CHAP. XIII Sheweth how the first Gouernment of Kings was arbitrary the places of Moses Deut. 17. and of Samuel 1 Sam. 8. discussed whether Ahab offended in desiring Naboths Vineyard and wherein why absolute power was granted unto Kings and how the diversities of Gouernment came up Pag. 78 § The extent of the grants of Kings what they may and what they may not grant what our Kings have not granted in seven speciall prerogatives and what they have granted unto their people Pag. 83 CHAP. XIV Sheweth the Kings grants unto His People to be of three sorts Which ought to be observed the Act of excluding the Bishops out of Parliament discussed the Kings Oath at His Coronation how it obligeth him and how Statutes have been procured and repealed Pag. 88 § Certain quaeries discussed but not resolved the end for which God ordained Kings the praise of a just rule Kings ought to be more just then all others in three respects and what should most especially move them to rule their people justly Pag. 92 CHAP. XV. Sheweth the honour due to the king 1. Feare 2. An high esteem of our king how highly the Heathens esteemed of their kings the Marriage of obedience and authority the Rebellion of the Nobility how haynous 3. Obedience foure-fold divers kindes of Monarchs and how an absolute Monarch may limit himselfe Pag. 98 CHAP. XVI Sheweth the answer to some objections against the obeying of our Soveraigne Magistrate all actions of three kindes how our consciences may be reformed of our passive obedience to the Magistrates and of the kings concessions how to be taken CHAP. XVII Sheweth how tribute is due to the king for six speciall reasons to be paid the condition of a lawfull tribute that we should not be niggards to assist the king that we should defend the Kings Person the wealth and pride of London the cause of all the miseries of this Kingdome and how we ought to pray for our king Pag. 116 CHAP. XVIII The persons that ought to honour the king and the recapitulation of 21 wickednesses of the Rebells and the faction of the pretended Parliament Pag. 121 CHAP. XIX Sheweth how the Rebellious faction have transgressed all the ten Commandments of the Law and the new Commandement of the Gospell how they have committed the seaven deadly sins and the foure crying sins and the three most destructive sins to the soul of man and how their Ordinances are made against all Lawes equity and conscience Pag. 213 CHAP. XX. Sheweth how the rebellious Faction forswore themselves what trust is to be given to them how we may recover our peace and prosperity how they have un-king'd the Lords Annointed and for whom they have exchanged him and the conclusion of the whole Pag. 127 PSAL. 39.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Verily every man living or in his best estate is altogether Vanity Sela. OUR Blessed Lord and Saviour saith the night cometh John 9.4 when no man can work therefore I must work the Works of him that sent me whilst it is day and S. Paul tels us the time will come when men will not endure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts they shall heap to themselves Teachers that is 2 Tim. 4.3 Teachers enough in every place and every time so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth but what kind of Teachers shall they heap unto themselves the Apostle tels you they shall be teachers after their own lusts that is such Tub-teachers of the new Order as will study rather to satisfie their lusts and to preach what they please best than to edifie their soules And I believe all wise men see that time is now and not till now fully come therefore it behoves all the true Teachers to bestir themselves to work the works of him that sent them while it is day while they have any time and while there is any true Light yet remaining before the sad night and darksom clouds of Errours and Heresies be grown so far and to prevail so much against the Truth that you shall scarce find any place or person where or by whom the new lights may be confronted and the old Truth confirmed unto us So it behoveth me and it is my duty to employ my Talent to the uttermost of my power against these false Prophets of the Great Antichrist that is now come into the world and by these heaps of his Emissaries laboureth quite to overthrow the Church of Christ And as Clement recordeth that when Barnabas came to Rome to preach the Gospel of Christ and divers rejected it he briefly said In vestra potestate est vel recipere quae annuntiamus vel speruere It is in your choice either to receive what we teach or to reject it but we may not be silent and not speak quod vobis expedire novimus what we know to be expedient and necessary for you quia nobis si taceamus damnum est vobis quae dicimus si non recipiatis pernicies est Ciem Recog l. 1. p. 6. so say I. And therefore that you may be somthing and so happy I beseech you listen to these words that testifie that in your selves you are nothing but Vanity For verily every man And the nearest way to exchange this Vanity for Eternity and so to make us happy that are in misery is to know our own vanity and to understand our own misery For Knowledge saith Hugo Card. is the way to God and understanding saith the Prophet David Psal 49.12 20. is that which distinguisheth and differenceth man from beast for man though he be never so great in honour never so powerful in place and never so rich in wealth yet if he hath no understanding he is compared to the beasts that perish And the two chiefest parts which are like the Body and Soul of all the Knowledge that makes us happy are these two Precepts so much commended and so often urged unto us even by the Heathens themselves that yet notwithstanding were destitute of all true Knowledge that could make them happy because they knew rightly neither of those two things that they so much commended which were 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know God 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know thy self For John 17.3.1 to know God the only way to make us happy 1. Our Saviour tels us this is eternal Life to know God i.e. to know the Father to be the only true God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ For the Heathens knew that God alone is the summum bonum and the only true
and perfect Eternity to which all men naturally have a propensity and desire to be united but yet cannot because they know him not and therefore is that Precept to know him so often urged The reason why we know not so much of God as should make us happy And the reason why we know not so much of God as we should and which should make us happy is because we know not our selves we know not our own vanity and misery for the nearest way to bring us to Eternity is to understand our own vanity and the first step to happiness is to know our selves to be unhappy and that this unhappiness was derived unto us by that sad accident of sin which separated us from God who is felicity and eternity and made us wholly to become vanity and replenished with all misery and therefore 2. The very Philosophers could tell us that to know our selves is the ready way both to know God 2. To konw our selves the best way to know God and to enjoy God For as he that knoweth God will never relie on himself so he that knoweth himself will alwaies seek to rely on God because he seeth his own vanity his weakness and his frailty to be such and so great that he cannot subsist without God and therefore Socrates seeing this sentence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know thy self engraven upon the Portal of the Temple of Apollo and considering with himself that there could be no access unto God but through his House and no entrance into the House but by the Door and then seriously musing with himself why this Sentence should be set upon the door he concluded that the readiest way to come to God was to know himself and therefore he left the course and practise of other Philosophers that searched into the motions of the Heavens and the influence of the Planets and applied their studies rerum cognoscere causas to understand the causes of all natural things which they conceived was the only thing that could make them happy and bring them to enjoy the summum bonum and he gave himself wholly to learn the knowledge of himself and he conceived there was no folly comparable to this to be painful and diligent to know all other things and to be ignorant and know nothing of himself to study Arts and Sciences and to forget himself and therefore non se quaesiverit extra but he employed all his time and his pains to know himself because he conceived that the knowledge of himself would be more beneficial to him than the knowledge of all other physical things whatsoever For which cause and no other the Oracle seeing him preferring the moral Philosophy before the Natural pronounced him the wisest man in Greece not because his knowledge was more compleat or his sufficiency greater than others but because his knowledge of himself was far better than the knowledge of others that studied other things and neglected to understand themselves And no marvel that the Oracle should proclaim him for the wisest man that doth best know himself because it is not only very good and profitable but also a very hard and difficult thing for a man fully and truly to know himself that is to know Not only the quiddities and the qualities both of his body and of his soul which notwithstanding in themselves are most admirable and excellent if we consider 1. The Parts and composition of the Body which as the Prophet saith are fearfully and wonderfully made yea so admirably composed that Galen saith Galenus de usu partium 1. The admirable structure of mans body the true expression or the tight Anatomization of them is as an holocaust or Sacrifice most acceptable to God that hath by that excellent composure of this incomparable structure shewed his own most incomprehensible wisdom as you see the least finger and the least Joynt of any Finger hath his use and cannot be spared by any means 2. That far more noble part of man that Spark of heavenly fire 2. The difficultie of understanding the particularities of the Soul and immortal spirit which is his Soul in the Original Essence Faculties Operations Use End and the like almost infinite Points thereof wherein and about which the best Philosophers have so puzled themselves that they rather bewrayed their own Ignorance than truly expressed any point of the most necessary knowledge of this Substance as learned Suarez in his voluminous work de Anima sheweth and Aristotle himself confesseth when he saith that the more knowledge a man hath of these things the more occasion of doubting is offered unto him which made him as many men think to define the Soul to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporis phisici organici vitam habentis potentia which is ignotum per ignotius a definition harder Arist de Anima l. 2. c. 1. tex 6. Cicero l. 1. Tuscul q. What man should chiefly know concerning himself or at least as hard to be understood as the thing defined Whenas Cicero reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translateth the same to signifie a continued and perpetual motion which is far short of the right definition of the Soul But especially to know mans Original how he came into the world his duty what he should do and how he should behave himself while he continueth in the world his state and condition how he standeth in relation to his God that made him preserveth him and giveth to him all that he hath while he liveth in this world and what shall become of him when he dieth and departeth out of this world these and the like Considerations concerning man are hard to know and few men do learn them which is the reason that few do attain to Eternal Life Yet as the Poet saith Plagae dant Animum What effects Afflictions do work in us And as S. Greg. saith Oculos quos culpa claudit poena apperit the eyes which sin and transgressions have blinded afflictions and punishments have opened because as the Greek proverb saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Persecutions bring Instructions and suffering teacheth understanding as the Children of Jacob being questioned and afflicted in Egypt about their Brother whom they had sold unto the Ishmaelites had their eyes opened and their sin which for so many years they had buried in the Grave of Forgetfulness and in the Pit where they had thrown their Brother is now revived and makes them to confess and to say one to another We are verily guilty concerning our Brother in that we saw the anguish of his Soul when he besought us and we would not hear Gen. 42.21 therefore is this distress come upon us and so Crosses and Afflictions do reduce our sins unto our remembrance and extort Confession of their Misdeeds from many others And therefore the Prophet David either upon the consideration of Absolons unnatural Rebellion and Persecution of him What moved
to be Moses and Elias did then appear unto the Apostles 5. David saith I will not die but live and declare the works of the Lord and yet David is dead and was buried therefore it is his Soul that liveth 6. The wise man saith that when a man dieth then shall the dust that is Eccl. 12.7 his body return to the Earth and the Spirit shall return to God that gave it and being with God it cannot be dead but remain immortal for ever 7. When Lazarus died he is said to be carried up by the Angels into Abrahams bosom i. e. in respect of his Soul Luke 16.22 for his Body was not carried up into his Bosom And so Dives being in torments must be understood in respect of his Soul for it is said that being dead he was buried in respect of his Body and therefore the Souls both of the good and of the bad do still remain immortal 8. Our Saviour saith Fear not them which kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul therefore the Soul is immortal whenas all the strength of man Mat. 10.28 and all the power of Hell is not able to kill it 9. The hope of Glory and Reputation and the desire that every man hath of the continuance and perpetuity thereof how vain soever it be yet doth it carry a great evidence of the Immortality of our Soules 10. The impression of that vice which robbeth a man of the knowledge of humane Justice and is alwaies opposite to the Justice of God and indelibly imprinted in every mans Conscience doth infallibly conclude that the Justice of God requireth the same should be chastised after death and therefore that our Soules must needs be immortal 11. In the Book of Wisdom it is most plainly said the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God and there shall no torment touch them Sap. 3.1 2 3. in the sight of the unwise they seemed to die but they are in peace A place so plain that sense can desire no plainer And many more Reasons might be produced to confirm this Truth but these are sufficient demonstrations to shew unto you that although man in respect of his being in this life is altogether Vanity yet simply considered he is to be eternal and to have a perpetual Being because God never made man to have an end and to be reduced to nothing but as the wise man saith he created all things and much rather man that they might have their being Sap. 1.14 And what madness is it therefore that men will not believe this Truth especially considering it is most certain that the remembrance of their end and the shortness of their time here how their dayes do pass away like a Weavers shuttle or like a Post that tarrieth not will alwaies be such a corrasive to their Souls as will put an end to all their earthly Comforts whenas nothing in the world is left us to rejoyce in but in that thing only which is perpetual and remaineth ours for ever But then here you must understand that besides the prime Eternity which is God there is a twofold perpetuity of men That all men both good and bad shall remain and be perpetually 1. The one by our Unition with God which is perfect felicity 2. The other in our Separation from God which is the Extreamest Misery And Seeing the Souls of men are immortal and do naturally affect Eternity as not only Divinity sheweth but also the soundest Philosophers have sufficiently attested and every mans Conscience in the expectation of his reward for his Actions be they good or bad perswadeth him to believe it is most certain that those wicked worldlings which desire nothing but the Honours and the Prosperity of this present Life and those incredulous Hereticks both of the former times and of this present Age which against their Consciences do withstand this Truth shall notwithstanding be perpetual either in their Union with God or in their Separation from God and as it is the greatest Comfort of a Christian man to believe that he shall be everlastingly with God in all happiness so it is not the least torment unto a damned soul to consider that he shall be for ever and ever in Torments separated from God And therefore the Errour is not that men do seek for perpetuity which they shall be sure to have but that they seek the same amiss The twofold error of men in seeking perpetuity 1. Seecking it too late Either not that which is with their Union and Fruition of God or if that then either not as they should or not where they should seek it that is either not in the due time or nor in the right place where it may be found as 1. For the time many seek it but too late and so they miss it because that now is the time acceptable ex hoc momento pendet aeternitas and our perpetuity either with God or without God either in Joy or in Torments dependeth upon our demeanour in this present and little short time that we have here to live 2. For the Place you may see how most men purchase Lands build Castles gather Riches 2. Seeking it in the wrong place heap up Treasures and so lay down such Foundations of perpetuity here on earth as if they were to live here for ever and they do so rely upon these transient things and mortal men as if they were immortal Gods and so they seek for their perpetuity in the Regions of Vanity and they would find perfect Felicity in this Valley of Misery but as the Israelites by joyning themselves to Baal-peor separated themselves from El shadai the Almighty God so these men by seeking Eternity in these vanities shall never be able to find it and to be united with it because Eternity and Felicity are not to be found here on earth For as the Apostle saith we have here no continuing City and we are but as Pilgrims and strangers here in this world and our perpetuity is to be expected not in this life but in the life to come And so by this large Introduction that I have made you see that these words of the Prophet are not to be understood of man simply considered but of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of his State and Condition in this life for though man be to abide for ever yet as he is in this life verily every man And to prove this unto you you shall find the wisest King and the most learned Preacher that aver Israel had assuring you that there is nothing here in this world but vanity and vexation of Spirit and that you might the sooner believe this Truth he doubleth and trebleth his words saying Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity that is nothing else but meer vanity And lest proud Man should think that this is meant of Gold and Silver and the like inanimate things of this world or
to supplant others to advance himself and he cares not how nor how many others he maketh poor to make himself onely rich Aug. de verb. Dom. Ser. 17. And yet this is not all for you may remember what St. Augustine saith Quid est diu vivere nisi diu torqueri nam vita presens est aerumnosa quam humores tumidant dolores extenuant ardores exsiccant aera morbidant escae inflant jejunia macerant Augustinus joci dissolvunt tristitiae consumunt solicitudo coarctat securitas hebetat divitiae jactitant paupertas dejicit juventus extollit senectus incurvat infirmitas frangit maror deprimit post haec omnia mors intermit universis gaudiis finem imponit ita cum esse desserit nec fuisse putetur And you may remember also that Job tells you and Seneca tells his friend Lucilius the very same that vivere est militare the life of man is a warfare here upon earth and Lucan saith Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra sequuntur Whether this be true or no let the Warrior himself and not I be the Judge but for what Job saith you may see it literally verified throughout all the world and all Christendome now to become the shambles of Christian blood The many miserable Wars of these last centuries of years even in Christendome The which men if you consider their Civil breeding and their much teaching in the School of Christ that doth so straitly forbid all ambition and all revenge and so earnestly enjoyn all men to love one another you may admire that as Jerusalem justified Samaria so the pretended Christian should justifie the bloody Turks or men-eating Canibals that glut themselves upon buried carkasses and do use as the Poet saith Pinguescere corpore corpus and are therefore deemed by the more civil Nations to be but the remote prodigies of lost humanity For If you now let your thoughts to consider and your eyes to wander throughout all the Christian Kingdomes of Spain France Germany Poland Sweden Italy and the rest of the neighbouring Nations that profess to believe in the same Jesus Christ and do hope to be coheirs of the same Kingdome of heaven they shall see most of these men striving to be not homicidae cucurbitarum the cutters down of Cucumbers as St. Aug. stiled the Manichaeans but Homicidae Christianorum the bloody killers of many good Christians and so make Rivers of blood and Hills of Christian carkasses And how he that shed his blood to redeem those carkasses will judge of this I am atfraid to speak and tremble to think of it And yet you must not think that I say this to retard the courage or to blunt the Swords of our gallant Souldiers that have just causes to make War for when wickedness groweth so wilfull as to seek our lives that desire to live in peace or to rob us of our livelihood lands or goods that God hath justly given us then you must know that out God is the God of War as well as the God of Peace and his name is the Lord of Hosts and he will make his sword drunk with blood and will strengthen our hands if we trust in him to scatter all those people that delight in War and to destroy those Enemies that maliciously labour for our destruction What Wars the Author blameth But I blame all shedding of Christian blood in any War either to plant Religion which should be done by preaching and not by fighting which in seeking to make them Christian men will make them no men or dissembling hypocrites in stead of faithfull believers or else to satisfie the ambition of any man that desires to inlarge his Dominion and so unjustly to wrong his neighbours when as every man from the King unto the beggar should be contented with what God hath justly given him and that policy can never be justified which is not every way consonant to equity or especially for any subjects put of a rebellious discontent or ambitious desire to usurp the Power and Authority of their Soveraign to turn the sweet waters of Peace to become rivers of Christian blood This is that warfare which I chiefly discommend as the greatest of all vanities But 3. If the Sword or Bullet in this warfare taketh not man away 3. His egress yets Age and Sickness will soon summon him to his death and dissolution and till then his whole life is spent inter suspiria lachrymas betwixt sighs and tears troubles of minde and distempers of body and a thousand such sad accidents that will soon bring hoc vitrium corpusculum this our frail and brittle body and our distressed life to a miserable death and when we dye or as the Psalmist saith When the breath of man goeth forth he shall turn again to his earth and then all his thoughts Psal 146.3 and all his high designs and vain conceits perish and then it will appear which till then proud man will not believe that the life of man is but a flower that soon withereth a smoak that soon vanisheth and a bubble that suddenly falleth or as others say a shadow a dream a nothing And it were well for many men if as their great thoughts either on some deep plots of state or how to hook unto themselves their neighbours inheritance or to wreak their malice on their poor brethren or the like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Castles in the air as Aristophanes calleth them do vanish into nothing when their soules part with their bodies so likewise their bodies and their soules should then with their Thoughts return to nothing But that cannot be for that now mans soul must pay for all his evil thoughts and suffer for all the wicked works and the great wrongs that he hath done and though à corpore vermis é vermibus foetor his body turnes to worms and those wormes yield such Sent as all the Spices of Arabia cannot keep away yet the living spirit of every wicked man that cannot and shall not die must now for his unrepented evil be hurried into the dreadful Regions of all horror where it must live and lie for ever and ever to suffer unsufferable and unconceivable torments a life that lives not and a death that dies nor And so you see that man is Vanity and a wicked man in misery worse than vanity And therefore Reason should perswade you all to labour to become more than men that is more than meer men and to desire to be born again not of flesh and bloud but of water and of the Spirit of God that you may be brought again to that Union and Communion with God which you had when we were first made by God 2. The Prophet saith that totus homo vanitas all the whole man that is both his Body and his Soul is vanity for what is this body of ours but a piece of earth 2 Point That whole man is vanity
1. The Body which we tread upon Saccus stercorum saith S. Bernard a sack full of dust to say no worse and a Magazine of all Diseases Coughes Agues Feavers Gouts and what not and when these have satisfied and feasted themselves upon our bodies what are our bodies but a feast for Worms And the Soul though it be a pure Spirit as it proceeded from God yet as it is now 2. The Soul traduced from our Parents as many Divines think it is or as it is infused into our flesh as others do believe and remaineth in our bodies all the Faculties thereof are corrupted the Understanding is darkned with ignorance the Memory dulled with forgetfulness and the Will defiled with Misse-affections And so as Earth is good and Water is good yet being mingled together they do make a dirty Puddle and neither of them can be said to be then a pure Element so the body and soul of man though both were good in their Originals and good in their own kind yet now being both coupled together as Mezentius coupled the dead bodies to the living they are both marred and become so deformed by corrupting one another and associating themselves in their desires that now the eyes are the burning-glasses of Concupiscence and lusting after our neighbours Wives Lands and Goods the Tongue is a Razor of detraction to defame and slander our own Mothers Sons the Throat is an open Sepulchre the Hands Engines of violence to rob wound and kill the Heart a Mint of all Villanies the Feet swift to shed bloud and the whole man is become a Beast saith the Psalmist and a Devil Psal 74. John 6.70 saith our Saviour for one of you is a Devil And so you see that all the whole man if he be but meer man as he is begotten of flesh and bloud in his best is but vanity in his next inquity and in his worst consideration a meer misery and so miserable that being but meer man he hath little cause with the Philosopher to thank God that he was made a man when it had been better for him as out Saviour saith of Judas that he had never been made and never born Mark 14.21 And therefore if we labour not to become more than men that is to be like Bacchus That we should labour to become more than meer men bis genitus as the Poets faign of him to be born again of another Mother the spouse of Christ and so to become double men and to consist of the old man begotten of mortal Seed and of the new man that is begotten by the immortal Seed of Gods Spirit we shall never be happy and never otherwise than as I said vanity and misery for though the old man be never so Glorious and never so honourable the Off-spring of Kings and Princes and though outwardly it appears never so beautiful without blemish yet if the Inner man of the heart that is begotten by Gods Spirit be not found out 1 Cor. 3.3 the other is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flesh as the Apostle termeth it and flesh is an Epithere given to Beasts by the Prophet and that by way of disparagement too where he saith their horses are but flesh and which is viler Esa 31.3 all flesh is grass that soon withereth and rotteth and becometh the Dung of the earth 1 Cor. 15. and the Apostle saith that flesh and bloud shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven because that as I shewed you before flesh and bloud being but meer vanity which is the most opposite to Eternity they can inherit nothing but eternal misery 3 Point 3. As totus homo so omnis homo vanitas every man is vanity that is not only the Fool but also the wise man for there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever but as the fool dieth so dieth the wise man therefore the wise man concluded Eccl. 2.15 16. that this also is vanity And so likewise the young man as well as the old man the rich as well as the poor and the strong as well as the weak the heroick Achilles as well as base Thersites may soon die and vanish away to nothing How all the world is round and all things in the world in a perpetual motion And to be brief you see how the gallant Courtier and the Royal Majesty are no more exempted from vanity than the poorest Clown and meanest Subject for as Eternity is said to be an intelligible sphaere whose Center is every where and his circumference no where but in it self as I shewed to you before out of Trismegistus so the form of the whole world is sphaerical and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or little world which is man in state and condition is also sphaerical and round even as round as a hoop or rather indeed a meer circular-center without any circumference at all and as the primum mobile the first wheel of all the Sphaeres of this whole frame is ever in motion and by that motion we see that part which is now the highest within a dozen hours to become the lowermost so suddenly is the change of the highest things even so it is in all things than are under the Sun there is a perpetual motion and that motion changeth all things which made holy Job to say a Saying worthy to be remembred that although man is but of few dayes few indeed God knoweth and those few dayes are full of troubles and that we all know yet in those few dayes he cometh forth like a Flower that is by little and little and he is cut down that is in a moment he flieth also as a shadow that is very swiftly and never continueth in one stay but is still divolved from one condition to another For our blessed Lord God and loving Father Job 14.1 2. out of his wise Providence and secret love to man hath so tempered all the Accidents and the whole course of mans life with such proportion and equal counterpoyze of occurrents that ever and anon Joyes and Sorrows are mixt together good haps and sad tidings succeed one another as for example David as it were to day is a poor Shepherd The vicissitude of King Davids condition keeping his Fathers Flock and pulling away his sheep out of the Lions Claws and as it were to morrow he is magnified in the Court of Saul he is matched with the Kings Daughter and saluted for the Kings Son in Law and his epithalamium is Saul killed his thousands and David his ten thousands yet presently he fleeth as a banished man and he is prosecuted and persecuted as a Partridge is hunted upon the Mountains but within a while he is crowned King and reigneth in a short space over all Israel even from Dan to Beersheba and as a gallant Conqueror overcometh all his enemies round about him yet that Glory must not last long but his own not only
them as Josias did when they left the world yet we find that many famous men while they lived have been quite forgotten for want of Writers when they were dead For how should we have known the valour of Hector and Achilles and the wisdom of Nestor and Ulisses if Homer had not recorded the same unto posterity Or how should we have understood the Piety of Constantine and the Clemency of Theodosius if Eusebius and other Ecclesiastical Writers had not declared the same unto us And of those that have been as happy in the Trumpeters of their Fame as themselves have been Famous in the Actions of their Lives we see that as Death took away the Authors so time hath wasted away their Writings and as the Poet saith What wonder we that Writings fail When stately Tombes do wear The very Stones consume to noughts With Titles they did bear Or be it granted that a man might truly say I shall live when I am dead and as Ovid saith Perque omnia secula Fama Si quid hobent veri vatum prae sagia vivam Ovid. Metamorph l. 12. in fine Nomenque erit indelebile nostrum My name shall remain indelible among the Posterities yet if you do attentively weigh the most infinite spaces of Eternity you shall find that the prolonging of our Names on earth can yield us no great Felicity for if we compare the stay of one moment with ten thousand years they have some proportion though it be but very small but this number of years how oft soever it be multiplied yet it is no way comparable to Eternity because limited things may in some sort be compared among themselves but that which is infinite admitteth no comparison at all saith Boetius And therefore the longest Fame be it as long as you can imagine Boetius de consol Phil. l. 2. c. 8 yet it is but of a very short continuance And 2. It is of a very small Extent For you may learn by Astronomical Demonstrations that the compass of the whole earth in comparison of the Heaven is no bigger than a Pins Point and of this earth not above the fourth part is known to be inhabited saith Ptolem. and that which is inhabited is distinguished by many Nations of different Languages Fashions and Conversations whereby it happeneth that the same Fact which in some Countrey is laudable in another place is punishable therefore our Fame and Glory must be penned up in a very narrow bound commonly within the compass of one Nation For if it should go further yet the difficulty of travel over many Seas the diversity of Speeches so hard to be understood and the scarcity of Traffick to be generally transported will never permit our Fame to spread it self very far For if the Glory of the Roman People in the time of Cicero when it was most flourishing and they were Terrarum Domini Masters of most places that they knew yet did not passe beyond Mount Caucasus that lieth betwixt Scythia and the Indians as the Orator confesseth then certainly the Glory and Fame of any particular man can never penetrate where the Glory and Trophies of such a Glorious Nation could not pass And therefore all the Honour of this world and the greatest Fame of the Noblest men whether it be for Birth Wealth Valour Learning or what you will yet can it neither last long nor extend it self very far and therefore must it needs be a very great Vanity And so you see that every man in his most Honourable estate is Vanity Nay more than that Point 4 4. The most excellent state is thought to be that which is most powerful in Authority to rule and command all others but the Vanities that are incident and attendant on this state would require a Volume to display them I will only say what Horace hath most truly and you may daily see how that Saepius ventis agitatur ingens Pinus Et decidunt Turres feriuntque summos Fulmina Montes And so you see that every man in his best estate let his state be what you will yet he is but Vanity Nay that is not all For Point 5 5. Every man living is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnimoda Vanitas altogether vanity and this is one degree of Calamity further than all the rest For to consider that every man is vanity is bad enough but to be vanity in our best estate is worse and in that estate to be altogether vanity is worst of all because this sheweth unto us that man is but meer Vanity and nothing else but vanity or vain in all that he is and vain in all that he doth as 1. Vain within and vain without vain in his Body and vain in his Soul 2. Vain in his thoughts vain in his words and vain in all his works And 3. Not only totaliter vanitas wholly vanity but also universa vanitas all vanity so that there is no vanity in the world that can be named or found out but you may find the same in man as Pride is vanity and you may find enough of that in man lies are vanities and most men are so addicted and delighted either to invent lies to hear lies or to relate lies that you shall almost finde nothing in most men but lies and so of all other vanities whatsoever they be they are to be found in man Antoninus for methods sake ranketh them into three special Series 1. Iustalitatis Antoninus part 1. tit 2. c. 8. Sect. 3. of instability which the Preacher handleth from the first Chapter unto the fourth Chapter 2. Iniquitatis of iniquity whereof the Preacher treareth from the fourth Chapter unto the twelfth Chapter 3. Paenalitatis of penalty which the said Preacher setteth down in the last verse of the twelfth Chapter For God shall bring every work into judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil Others terme the first degree of Vanities to be the vanity of our Creation The second degree they call the vanity of our Condition The third is the vanity of our Dissolution 1. Touching the vanity of our Creation God put no trust in his servants saith holy Job that is he trusted them not with such a stability Job 4.18 or he made them not so absolute that they should be independent and free from all possibility of falling and therefore seeing that nihil est omne quod ex nihilo est all in themselves are nothing which are made of nothing as Origen saith this possibility to vary and to be reduced to their first privation and non-entity is nothing else but an innate vanity or a momentary nothing if they be not still upheld and sustained by their Creator who as the Apostle saith Beareth up all things with his mighty word Heb. 1. or with the word of his power that is Jesus Christ Yet 2. The vanity of our Creation was but comparative as the creature stood in collation with Gods infinite