mouth or lip-labour God respects so much as the heart or mind in an intelligent orator yet the resurrection of the body denotes that our prayers should not bee meerely mentall but conjoyned with corporall action for shall wee not with Saint Paul hope to see God even with the same eyes Lift them up towards Syon hill then bend the knees reach up the handes offer the calves of the lipps make all thy powers powre forth the prayse of him that made thee Meere worldlings in Iudgement are blind in censuring divine mysteries for did not Festus and the learned Athenians deeme Saint Pauls preaching foolishnesse but an over stupid devotion ladeth out of the lighter of the fantasie more into the Arke of the Church then shee should carry but Sectaries would throw the Churches treasure over boord All our life heere is but an entertayning of vanities what good doth capps and reuerences really any man The satisfaction of appetits is but the uncouering of our wants heaping of Riches but as ill servants that will runne to others from us and lagge behinde us nothing heere permanent or true happinesse let us therefore bee carefull to purchasse by prayer and good deedes treasure for heaven that wee may have wherewith to satisfie our reckoning there with the great Host who hath forgiven us one score already and therefore let us not presume too much on the next When I consider the weakenesse of our humane nature I wonder mankind can bee proud for wee cannot subsist a little time without the props of meat and drinke sleepe rest c. which the Angells and spirits need not nor use but when I cogitate our frayltie and vanitie I breath with the Prophet David Lord what is man that thou shouldst be mindfull of him The best use of dreames is to cogitate that as by fullnesse or coldnesse of the stomacke Crudities causeth fearefull apparitions to the wakeing and working fantasie and as good and temperate heate digestion and humours cause pleasant and delightfull passages yet all but shaddowes and vanish like darknesse from the Sunne when we rise So when the soule is freed from this terrestreietie which clowdeth the judgment and reason then the evill workes cōmitted essentially casteth the soule most really amongest those are indeed evill not in apparition but deformed Divells indeed And the good vertuous deeds amongst the blessed pleasures of holy spirits and Angells Wherefore let us take heed wee goe not to the bed of our grave with a stomacke over-charged with Sinnes It much matters not what Religion a foole or a knave is of for their babling is but vaine prating and the tree is best knowne by the fruit Dis the god of Mony now laughs out right because his wares are in more esteeme amongst fooles then vertue and Stultorum plena sunt omnia Th' Almighty God is the Soule of the universe and the rayes of his splendour is the quintessence in every thing bee it Minerall vegetable or Animall therefore in whatsoever genus or region an investigating Philosopher would grow intelligent in that let him seeke the quintessence which is his Moone or else hee laboureth in vaine and gathereth leaves in steede of fruites and seedes for no man can truely meliorate any thing beyond his naturall perfection but by multiplying his quintessentiall part Quintessence is not as Spageriques mistake it separation of pure from impure but must be taken from both the thinne and thicke the spirituall and corporall It is within all things non secundùm locum et partes sed secundùm virtutem et actionem naturalem What is it to mee what is in the Sunne Moone Starrs whether they are worlds or whatsoever Containing when there is a law set downe for me viz. to serue their Creator and mine on this earth whereto I am fixt by that upper ordinance who made them and all But what I can lawfully finde heere he hath given me leave thereby to prayse him and helpe my selfe What thou speakest i. e. cogitates within thy selfe know God onely hears that sees without the eye heares without the eare and made thee both interiourly and exteriourly But what thou doest outward either by action or wordes spirits and men both good and badde see and judg of Cave Not by eating drinking or sleeping doth the soule live c. but those additions helps her to sustaine the bodies ponder and grossnesse When thou tellest another any thing thinke hee is thy enemy present in his rotation of thought or may bee so futurely Man blessed by God with a good understanding may be compared to those feathered Fowles who lose their plumage in molting time so may man his grace in the heat of sensualities and yet by repentance recover but he that is swallowed up by vice is as the Fowle taken kild and plum'd by Cooke ruffian the Divell God is the Spirit of Spirits the Lord of Lords King of Kings to be worshipped in Spirit and truth Angels Spirits Potestares Powers Sunne Moone Starres Firmament Fire Ayre Waters Earth the faculties of his hand and the universe his Instruments Man his Spirit is a sparke of that flame a droppe of that Sea a moate in that sunne his soule with her powers are his Spirits faculties his body is the organon God made man and the whole world to his glory prayse and use yet without his needing them as we doe neede viz. garments houses c. God is within all things but not included without all things but not excluded There are some of opinion that each man hath a double Genious a good Angel and a bad as they please to tearme them which I hold no other but the Animall spirit and the intellectuall The Animall desireth the bodies contentment the intellectuall the soules if the Animall hath the domination the man is given to mundane lights which perish with the life if the intellectuall hath the predominance the soule rejoyceth in spiritual pleasure and affects things good and eternall Every mans conversation for the most part showes who carieth the bridle of the will how and when Those that worke on Natures terminations resemble them who swallow the nut shell and all for the kernels sake for no man can further reach the determinate ordination of God in his handmaide Natures house then by exuberation of the seeds for as sayeth the Philosopher Species in Speciem non transmutation nisi reducantur ad primam materiam and that ordinately digested doth in Philosophie worke beyond Natures Creatures wee see wherefore let no man despise or condemne that he knoweth not God almighty being the fountaine of all wisedome as wee call excellent Sapiens cannot be without the poore riveret of reason which hee hath given to man As our Saviour suffered the afflictions of humane nature as hunger thirst sorrow feare anger weeping abstinence paines c. So ought wee in soule and life to imitate him to our powers viz. to abstayne from Ebrietie to avoyd vayne mirth and to greeve
Sol lula stellae venter mare pedes terra c. Thicke fire was the medium betweene God and Moses in the bush So the unspotted flesh though elementall of the Sacred virgin the interpose betwixt the Deietie of Christ and us For Ethnicks Atheists Turkes Iewes c. making question why an Eternall should have a Sonne answere is God's power and word tooke flesh of the Sacred virgin to satisfie his justice by the order of his mercie and since it was for man hee served it in the same livery which no Angell or creature could doe no more then the hatchet can worke alone Hee gave Moses lawes in Tables of stone which Moses brake in anger of the Israelites Idolatrie but hee gave us precepts in our owne similitude which was darkned likewise by our Sauiour his death on the Crosse but renewed by his resurrection as the other by Moses remounting If there were 100000000 millions of people on the earth's surface more then there is every one having a burning glasse yet all might use it to effect by one Sunne In which there are excellent cogitations to bee meditated The glory of the Almighty shines in all good things as his relucent creature the Sunne spreades his beames in the universe but when it pleased him to contract himselfe to his word then as a burning glasse gathers the rayes of the worlds Sunne so hee kindled a fire on Syon hill and a bright flame in the wombe of the blessed Virgin which the proud malice of the Iewes striuing to extinguish made this Gods Son our soules lumination shine the brighter Whensoever thou seest the Moone goe into a Clowde thinke of the glorious ascension of our Saviour and how hee is in the Sacrament or Communion God is one in himselfe but as hee appeares to the world and us is three viz. God the Creator and our Father God the Sonne as he wore our humanitie suffered and redeemed us God the holy Ghost as hee instructeth gouerneth and Consolateth us Yet all is one God to whom bee all prayse The exceeding difference betwixt us and our Saviour Iesus Christ is very apparent in our disposition for we are bent to the Humanitie and he bent it to him When we contemplate in the feruour of Prayer to find an Idea of the all-Creator the utmost wee arive vnto is a light which our limited thoughts cannot so expound as belongs to his ubiquitie and so wee are set up as with a period Therefore O wonderfull bounty and goodnesse of God that hath sent downe his Sonne and cloathed him in the shape of our humanitie whereby he is our speculum and through whom we see Gods mercie power love c. The word Godly or God-like and it's Econtra hath great signification denoting some vertuous action or contemplation or the contrarie to the contrary The whole universe is but as a bowle in the hand of the Almightie but no magnitude can containe him that made space and place As the luminous carboncle of the Firmament whose presence makes the Day joy and the Night mourne his absence is the guide vnto our bodies in this world So the incomprehensible glorious Sunne of Heaven is the presence of our day in God and our guide to his presence All the workes of God are essentiall concreate not as man looking on his face in a glasse a vanishing shaddow for God from all eternitie could not but know himselfe and looking upon himselfe doubled the beames of his glorious essence begat his similitude or quatenus nobis his Son the divine love of which resemblance produced the holy Ghost or Spirit three individuall persons in one Godhead to whom bee prayse honour and glory in one thankes Let God his studie bee the cheefest place in thy Soules house The highest orbe for our station is the earth the lowest orbe to God's vision is the earth what hee hath done above is for us to looke upon and admire not to examine but what hee hath by his Commandements and his Sonnes precepts directed us to doe and beleeve wee ought carefully to looke unto that is by our Saviour his words thus in breefe Loue God above all things and thy Neighbour as thy selfe God is a spheare whose Center is every where whose circumference is no where A light which through too much claritie becomes invisible a greatnesse containing all magnitude a power gouerning all potencie and a goodnesse inexplicable To beleeve things fall only under our sences comprehension requires no reward for reason payes it but things beyond our reach and verified by two double Testimonies engrosseth our blisse of faith in heavenly Characters The miracles of our Saviour being so supernaturall showed the stony Jewes had beene Gorgonized before his comming All sacred words and divine figures denote unto us what wee ought to know and knowne to hold inviolably and strongly The Humillitie of our Saviour is th' exaltation of our hope to salvation the foote of which Ladder was his humanitie the top his deitie the Angels going up and downe figures of his Passion Death resurrection and ascention Iacob's sleeping our lethargie in sinne God who containes all glorious formes within him cannot be comprehended in any figure by man therefore hee sent his Sonne in man's owne figure to bee the readilier cogitated by man The Ancient Ethnique world were ever too apt and busie in Deifying men if they were but a litle taller in their deserts then the ordinarie pitch of others as in Saturne Iupiter Hercules c. And this was but a tricke of that evill and malignant intelligent spirit that aped in them before hand what he knew would really follow in our Saviour Christ Iesus thereby thinking to stopp his reputation with such communitie By our pronenesse to evill and penetrative sorrow after the fact it declares that our Nature is depraved from the first purity we were plac't in for goodnesse cannot produce euill Doubtlesse the conuersation of some intelligent evill and depraved spirit through envy instigated enticed and contaminated man's Soule which was the fruite forbidden or that Tree of knowledge in good and evill even as coyture with an uncleane woman contaminates the body of a man It hath beene questionable in my thoughts why that displaced dejected spirit should so greedely seeke after mans ruyne I can cogitate no further then that his nature being depraved his burthen of torments great his despaire of release desperate and greevous his enuy therefore is strong upon those are in way to obtaine his place whom he seekes to hinder ensnare in the nets of their owne sensuallities which hee knowes and see's by their proceedings and life Paradise was created and the man in it of pure and incorruptible Elements and the corruptible World for all other things but by mans breach of Gods Commandements the puritie being taken away man became Companion with the other Creatures and by feeding on those Corruptible things by little and little was so thrust out of
seeme to our selues or others If otherwise better the let us acknowledge with Socrates Philosophy God his goodnesse and grace makes vs so but a man drownd in the Lethargie of his vice oft makes himselfe so by lanching or wading too deeply into the sensuall and tickling pleasures of the flesh Teach me thy knowledge in this or that thing saies one you thereby loose not your owne share your fire will warme us both c. but who shall pay mee for spoyling my Cloathes in fetching of the wood sayes the fire maker or feed my hungry stomacke and radicall moisture spent thereby Had meere thankes Magner fedd his henns with meere thankes and they laid no egges O unconscionable coveteousnessel O blind selfe louel nothing is a mans owne truely that hee comes not by duly The world accompts him a gentleman that can liue of his reuennewes without doing any thing but he is the true gentleman that doth the brauest and best actions The Ocoult Philosophers in their books do tell there is such a thing that you may have but tell not plainly how to come by it For how ever ignorants couetous idle persons prate If so soveraigne a knowledge were to be purchased by the buying and reading of a twelvepenie booke the course of man would bee in confusion wherefore one sayeth Deus Celauit Apollo ne mundus devastaretur And old English proverbe viz. I stout and thou stout who shall carry the dirt out The children of this Arte understand the Language of the parents onely to the rest they speake in obscure riddles for as cocks the birds of the Sunno crow and are onely answered by other cocks so in this divine mysterie the intelligent must be a bird of the Sunne also In all thy merrie-makings and feastings take heed of embracing Crapulae Be still most wary and suspicious of thy selfe and actions but to consider the various conditions of Man is a judgment necessarie in these times of libertie Laughter is the hickock of a foolish spleen but he notes himselfe judicious or stupid that changeth not his countenance vpon his owne talke A Puritane seekes reputation more by words then by deedes and supposeth more of God's hearing then his seeing Storme not too much when thou art standred by some evill and envious tongue but thinke how the Sunne curtaind with clouds yet in time stripps and dissipates the congealed vapours and getts the victory and brings those veyles into thinnesse and so to nothing but ayre so Magna est veritas praevalet It it an Arcanum almost to knows Mens dispositions by nothing their affections in diet for the melancholy and earthly loues to feed on grosse and great substances hunts with slow hounds the ill digesting hare The Flegmaticke on broaths eates butter cheese rootes cabbage pornpions mellons cucumbers drinkes whay and foure shillings Canarie The ayerie clymes at dainty fowles delights in hunting the roe bucke fowling fishing and hawking and esteemes more of the sport then the prey The fiery and high constitution cares rather for that is spirituall then corporall drinks wine largely loues hot spices and as Natura Natura gaudet so hee to cherish his fire loues the Quintessence and heate of things as the Pigeon a hot bird loues salt and so did Alexander the Great wine the spirit whereof was food to his fierie spirit and not as many will mistake his delight was in ebriety for Nature many times makes tacitly our appetites seruants to her ends To this may be objected Then all your ale-house knights domineering drunkards are his kinsme Answer No they are led to guzzell by their ebrious voluptibility not by their naturall inclynation Witnesse the weaknesse of their spirits when with a small charge they goe reeling and stumbling in the streets a vice most punishable for misusing Gods good gifts and defacing his Image in themselues viz. reason So the sedulus glutton and the goutie letcher not provok't by the surcharge of the third concoction unable except onely to groap talke bawdely and so obsceanly c. is very reprehensible as Rebells in nature and mutiners against order It is a pusillanimous and meere womannish weakenesse of the judgment to dissesteeme any excellent thing offered for the pouerty of the offerer A resolued greatnesse of the minde stands firme against the event of a doubtfull cause A drunkards love is as brittle as glasse mettall for a slipp or fall of a word breakes it in cutting peeces Make thy selfe sure of nothing without the power of thy action that is not wholy in thy hands for inter Poculum et labra chance is a dicer when I consider maturely how life in these lower things is disposed and re-taken by the Almighty Creator and ordainer of all things I finde in the most centrall and Terrestriall that is the metalline bodies their life is termined shut and imprisoned within themselues in the vegetable that they haue their spring station and dissolution And then their life is breath'd vp into the common aire the instrument from whence it came insused by the Sunne Moone and Starrs c. In the Animall that they eate drinke steepe moue and dye and their lives are given up into the generall spirit of the world But in mankinde that he hath a reasonable soule and according to his desert is adjudged by him that infused it O then how precizely ought we to consider our courses here If there were not a hope for vs in the goodnesse of God the better sort of Men which are most afflicted in this life were more wretched then ether vegetable or Animall creatures The prosperity and sensuall felicitie of this life is but Animall happines Few men attaine true wisdome heere in this world that have not seene Fortunes both faces that is adversitie before a rich estate Riches is a muffler and makes many in this life play at blind-man buffe with their soules The minde that lookes too vehemently upon the goods of this world makes its thoughts a slave yet wee ought not to let passe an honest necessary care or due occasion Those Arts wherein young men most excell by their agilitie should not bee an old mans practise or election for it fits age to excell in wisedome judgement not in delights and pastimes but as a moderate hearer and beholder The earth even to our comprehension is but a point or centrall pricke in regard of the universe a mole-hill in Gods sight and we thereon Ants to whom he hath given a sparke droppe or portion of reason thereby to discerne his Almighty greatnesse and prayse his holy name The rest are but as creeping vermine in his sight the difference is of us he will take a seuere account as of those to whom he hath given that Talent of understanding how we have disposed of it When I consider the great good generall providence of the Almighty who hath opened his hand of aboundance and throwne downe his goodnesse upon the earth for