and Pleasure to these Eternal Consorts of the Heavenly Hallelujahs Assure to me my Gracious God! The Pleasures of that Life and let the eager Courters of them take all the Joys of this let me be one of those that sit on thy Right Hand there and dispose as thou pleasest the Blessings of thy Left Hand here I shall not grudg to part with all whilst I gain thee O Blessed State of Immortality Write my Name in thy Book O my Glorious Creator Sanctifie me with thy Grace O thou ever Blessed Spirit and then Come Lord Jesus make no long tarrying A DIALOGUE ON THE Contempt of the WORLD Between the TEMPTER and SOUL TEMPTER COme Noble Soul enjoy the day And drive distracting Cares away For Pleasures Heav'n did Thee design Then Crown with Roses and with Wine SOUL To Heav'nly Bliss the Heav'nly King Designs Immortal Souls to bring Such Frothy Joys thou dost prepare Thou Foolish Monarch of the Air. TEMPTER See how the Generous Juice inspires Noble Thoughts and soft Desires See Wit like it sparkling and Bright That steals away the Nimble Night SOUL No rather Tempter let me find The Comforts of a Peaceful mind Such Joys as Ravisht Saints do feel As they Devout at Altar Kneel TEMPTER Oh! Tast the Joys of tender Love The softness of the Paphian Dove See! How Transported Lovers lie And in Elysium seem to die SOUL No feel the Joys from him above Who 's God of Peace as well as Love Unmingled Bliss and constant Charms Flow only Jesu from thy Arms. TEMPTER The Misers Pleasure next Adore The Beauties of the shining Ore How Pleasant is it to behold Large Farms and ponderous Bags of Gold SOUL I joy with th' Eye of Faith to see The Riches of Eternity These always shall remain the same Whilst those shall perish in the Flame TEMPTER Go thou in Honours Chariot Ride And Triumph in the Glorious Pride Fames Trumpet speak thy Praise aloud Thou Walking thro' the bowing Crow'd SOUL Thou know'st false Friend the greatest Fame Vertue and Religion claim And what the Noblest-Honour brings Is for to serve the King of Kings TEMPTER Then toucht with some Celestial Flame Seek out at least some future Fame Mens Tongues shall thee a Being give And make thee in the Grave to live SOUL I hope in Heav'n Eternally To live when thou shalt Wish to die When an immortal Starry Crown My joyful Temples shall surround When a New Body all Divine Shall the Phoebean Lamp outshine When I shall see i th' Triune Glass Whate're shall be or is or was When I shall feel my exulting Soul In Oceans of fresh Pleasure Role When Death and Time shall be no more But New Joys still augment the store And an Eternal Next shall always be before FINIS BOOKS Printed and are to be sold by F. Saunders THE Baronage of England 2 Vol. by Sir William Dugdale Beaumont and Fletchers Works Shakespears Works Ben Johnson's Works Mr. Cowley's Works Sir William Davenants Works The History of the Council of Trent The Civil Wars of France by Davilo The History of Venice by Paulo Paratu Earl of Orrerys Plays Sir Robert Howards Plays The History of Siam by Monsieur Lou Bere in English with Cuts Mr. Killigrews Plays Mr. Drydens Plays and Poems Mr. Shadwells Plays Sir Charles Sedley's Plays Sir George Elheredges Plays Mr Wycherly's Plays Sherlock's Practical Christian Mr. Wallers Poems Sir John Denhams Poems Dr. Dom's Poems Hudibras Quevedo's Visions Scarroon's Novels The Life of Alexander the Great The Life of Theodosius the Great Memoirs of the Court of Spain Mr. Boyles Seraphick Love Style of the Scriptures A Present for the Ladies being an Historical Account of the Female Sex Zingis a Tartarian History Sultan of Barbary a Novel Philantry and Bellamont a Novel ERRATA PAge 6. for things it self read things themselves p. 21. f. the wise r. Tho' wise p. 23. f. from Disposition of Body r. from an Indisposition of Body p. 30. f. five particulars r. six particulars Ibid. add 6ly To place our Affections on Heavenly things p. 36. f. Judicial r. Judaical p. 52. f. which Rich Men c. r. which Rich Men envy the Poor Man for and would sometimes â—art with all they have to enjoy p. 61. f. contribute r. contributes p. 100. f. inbred r. ill-bred p. 110. f. Almighty goodness r. the Almighty goodness p. 116. f. Laws r. Law p. 119. f. Arius and Dioscorus r. Arius and Novatianus p. 122. blot out or p. 124. f. Letnuli r. Lentuli p. 125. f. so due courteousness r. a due ibid. f. and be far r. and to be far p. 134. f. his Sunshine r. this Sunshine p. 137. f. one ill success r. our ill success
the Day-time that so they may be able to hold out their Trade the longer Add to this the Trouble and Disturbance which is given to Servants and Attendants to whom a certain Regard is due and oftentimes to whole Families and this will be a Motive to a good natured Man to find out some sitter Opportunities to drink in Fifthly That he should not spend too much Money in Drinking Many a Man has been ruined in the World not only by keeping a drunken Company but one that has been too expensive for him For one Man can afford to spend more upon his Diversion than will keep another Man's Family so that if an ordinary Mechanick will keep Company with none but Gentlemen and Merchants 't is ten to one but he starves his Family by only paying his Club with them who yet may never drink to excess all the while For every poor Man cannot pretend to those more generous Drinks which may be well enough afforded by Persons of better Quality the drinking of them may be no Detriment to their Families whilst the other Man's Children may pine for Bread as he is drinking Wine Now such a Man ought to consider that his Diversion is the last thing he ought to consult that he ought to provide his Family of Necessaries before he allows himself those Superfluities and that his pleading that he never drinks to excess will not in the least attone for his Inhumanity and Barbarity to his poor Family And perhaps more Families of late in the Nation have been ruined by this affectatious Vanity than by down right Debauchery since Men of all Qualities almost have endeavoured to live alike since every little Man is ambitious of keep the best Company out of hopes of getting some considerable Character and Reputation by it although by all sensible Men of their own Cabal he is lookt upon but as a bold and ostentatious Fellow and is adjudged by God Almighty for not providing for those of his own House to be worse than an Infidel Of Chastity The third Branch of Temperance is Chastity which is a Vertue which consists in avoiding all unclean Actions and all immodest Behaviour Now therefore that we may be perfect in this we ought First To avoid all unclean Actions whatsoever in an unmarried State I will not say that a State of Virginity is a State of Perfection but it is certainly a State of very great Beauty and Purity 't is that which comes near to the State of Angels and the nighest of any thing in this World to the Nature of God himself But then this State is to be a State of Virginity indeed not only of Celibacy as the Papists generally make it where if the Parties keep from Marrying they may commit all the Whoredoms and Villanies in the World and yet keep their Oath of Continency most strenuously Nay to see how they abuse the State of Virginity with such abominable Permissions and Dispensations it would put a modest Heathen to the Blush To find how a great number of the Casuists of that Church make simple Fornication but a Venial Sin and when for Health Sake and to expel an extimulant Humor no Sin at all that the Pope can give a License to commit it nay that he has actually granted such a License as is beyond what any Man though never so wicked would expect for Pope Pius III. gave Leave to the Cardinal of St. Lucia and all his Family to commit Sodomy all the three hot Months in the Year And indeed the Libertines of the Church of England are so far reconciled to the Romish Church as to plead for the Lawfulness of Fornication as strenuously as they with this only difference that these say their Church has made it no Sin and the other are pleased to say that their Priests only have made it One Therefore this deserves to be considered a little more particularly First Fornication and all other Acts of Uncleanness are sinful because they are an Undervaluing our Nature the putting us upon the most shameful Practices such as no sober Reason will allow contrary to the Design and Purport of Nature and to the unspeakable Abuse and Dishonor both of Soul and Body For our Bodies were given us by God Almighty to be serviceable to the Soul in all Spiritual and Rational Employments and for the Conveyance of sensual Pleasures as far as may make for the Preservation and comfortable Subsistence of the Animal Life but not to employ them to the vilest purposes not to make them a Drudge to our wicked Lusts and Desires and to serve to all the filthy ends of Beastliness and Sensuality Nay the Apostle carries on this Argument farther 1 Cor. 6. where he bids us flee Fornication because our Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost and therefore it is an horrible Impiety to profane with our wicked Lusts that Place which is taken up for the Residence of the ever blessed Spirit But then what a greater Dishonor is it to our immortal Souls those pure Aethereal Substances those Angelick Natures to consent to such vile Actions contrary to all natural Law and Reason to make them so undervalue themselves and to neglect their own Interest and Happiness And upon this account the Wise Man informs us Prâ—v 6.32 Whoso commiteth Adultery with a Woman lacketh Understanding that is he never acts more unbecoming an intelligent Being he never degrades Reason more than in that and such like Actions Secondly This is contrary to the End and Institution of Matrimony that State which God himself has appointed for the Propagation of Mankind and for mutual Comfort and Assistance in this Life For when once Men betake themselves to these unlawful Pleasures they grow very cold and indifferent to the Comforts of a married Life and take all Opportunities to despise it as an Enemy to their Pleasures and natural Freedom But this at best is but audaciously to break out from those Fences which God Almighty has made about us and to pretend to a Freedom which is inconsistent with our Nature and contrary to our Obedience 'T is to cassate and make void God's Holy Ordinance to contemn and trample under foot that Primitive Institution as old as our very State of Innocency 't is to invert the Order and Prescript of Nature to wrest God's Dispensations out of his Hands and to prosecute their Enjoyments upon their own Terms and Measures Thirdly 'T is contrary to the express Word of God For setting aside the Seventh Commandment where under Adultery all Sins of Uncleanness are forbidden and the woful Denunciation against them in many Places of the Old Testament our Saviour's Command Mat. 5.27 has improved the old Precept Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt not commit Adultery But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a Woman to lust after her hath committed Adultery with her already in his Heart Then certainly all outward acts of
other satisfactions that we were not Born into the World together and therefore it must be expected that one must go before Have we lost a Good and Dutiful Child the comfort of our Lifes and the Hopes of our Family We are not overmuch to bewail our Misfortune because it has happened for his Good God himself has Adopted him into a better Inheritance than we could have provided for him and has adorned him with one of the Virgin Crowns of Heaven as a Reward of his early Piety Rev. 14.4 Were not our Hearts whilst he lived too much set upon him And did we not too much love and admire the Creature to the neglect of the Creator Was it not necessary to have this Bar removed to have our love return into its true Chanel Had not God before tried many ineffectual Scourges and Corrections to bring us to Repentance till at last he was forced to rouze up our sleeping Consciences like the Aegyptians by such an amazing Judgment as the smiting our first born So that all this may be the effect of Gods Love and Tenderness for the Salvation of our Souls and therefore ought to be repaid by a thankfulness and an acknowledgment of his Mercy and not by a Repining at his Providence Have we a Dear Friend snatched away from us by unexpected Death whose love like Jonathans was very pleasant unto us wonderful and passing the love of Women Yet God our best Friend will remain with us his Friendship can be ended by no Period of Time nor can be equalled by any Mortal Affection for he so loved the World that he gave his only begotton Son to Die for us Shall we bemoan and hunker after the senseless Ashes of a departed Friend and neglect to repay our Love to the ever blessed Jesus that Miracle of Love and Friendship who so loved us as to lay down his Life for us Have we lost a bountiful Benefactor who has hitherto liberally rewarded our Industry and upon whose Munificence we still depended for further Advantage It is true we can never pay acknowledgment enough to the Memory of so Noble a Friend and we must Write the sense of his Kindnesses upon our Hearts in indelible Characters but we ought not by that to distrust Gods Providence and to let our Gratitude run over the great Original Cause of our Happiness only by fixing our Eyes upon the blessed Instrument of his Goodness We should consider that it was a Signal Token of Gods Kindness to us that our Benefactor made such early Provision for us and that he remembred us before he went to the Grave where all things are forgotten Under Slander 3. Not to be Impatient or Dejected for the loss of our good Name It is perhaps one of the Killingest Griefs which can befal a Man to lose his Reputation in the World to have all peoples Tongues sounding in his Reproach which he has not in the least merited and to be laying to his charge things which he never did But then he must consider that this is the common fate of many Innocent Men nay the greater part of them that are of the most shining Piety for their Goodness exposes them to the Envy of those malicious Tongues whose wickedness does reproach them whilst the Vertues of the other shines forth with such brightness Our Blessed Saviour himself that inimitable Example of a spotless Integrity had all the blackness of Guilt thrown upon him which the malice of Devils and Devilish men could invent After all his Sobriety and Temperance after all his Mortifications his long and unparalleled Fasting he was reproached as a Glutton and a Wine bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners Tho' he spake such things as never man spake tho' he so frequently confuted the Jewish Doctors Vindicated Moses from the wicked Glosses they had drest him up in tho' he over and over made it appear to them that he did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil yet he was reproached as a Preacher of strange Doctrines as a Seditious Person that set up for a Temporal Kingdom in opposition to Caesar that he had no Commission and Authority for his Preaching that he had a Devil and came to destroy Moses and the Prophets Altho' he produced Miracles in confirmation of his Doctrines to the astonishment of the Beholders more and greater than all the Prophets down from Moses to Malachy yet they attributed all the efficacy of his Almighty Spirit to the power of Satan and would have him to cast out Devils by Belzebub the Prince of the Devils When therefore we have so great an Example before us of reproached Innocence we ought to account it matter of great Joy to be thought fit to tread in the steps of our blessed Master We fall infinitely short in Dignity to our Glorious Redeemer and therefore any Disgrace which we can suffer must be inconsiderable to that which he underwent who yet notwithstanding this despised the shame Whatever Infamy we undergo yet if we have a good Conscience to bear up our Spirits we may defy all the Censure of the ill-natur'd World when we have his Sun-shine within our own Breasts we need not value all the gloomy Clouds which hang hovering without us 'T is to the Judgment of God that we are to stand or fall and not to that of peevish men and if we can keep a Conscience void of offence in his sight who knows our Innocency we need not much matter how we appear in the vitiated Eyes of others 'T is but the ill Opinion which some good men have of us that need to disturb us and they will shortly be undeceived either by our vindicated Integrity in this World or in the great Judgment of the other when all hidden things shall be revealed but as for the Evil ones we could never expect to have their good word unless we would agree to be as wicked as they It is but a little time in comparison of the duration of our Being before our Innocence will be compleatly cleared and why should we be more hasty than God is who defers the vindicating of his Providence to that great time of Retribution altho' he sees his Being Disputed his Providence Denied his holy Name and Word every day Blasphemed by Insolent and Daring Sinners 4. Loss of Preferments To bear patiently the loss of any Honour or Preferment we expected If we would contemn the World as we ought to do we ought not so to set our Hearts upon any thing we have a mind to here but that we bear the disappointment of it with a great deal of Temper and Indifferency for we ought to consider that this is a World of Contingencies which no one can expect a constant run of Fortune in that there are so many unexpected hits which turn the Scales in every Design we embark in that there are so many cross Rubs which lie in the way that we can never be positively