SPICILEGIVM OR A Glean of Mixtling By JOHN WINTER Minister of East Dearham in Norfolke JOH 6.12 Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost Antoni cupis Deo placere ora dùm orare nòn poteris manibus laâ—ora sempèr aliquid facito Aug. ad Fratres in Eremo â—erm 17. Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae Celata virtus Hor. Car. l. 4. od 9. LONDON Printed by A. M. and are to be sold by Joseph Cranford at the Sign of the Gun in St Pauls Churchyard 1664. TO THE READER NEither in hope of reward nor expectation of thanks but in respect of my own duty I freely present these few papers to the pleasure of the casuall Reader craving his pardon lest haply for a moment I may divert his eyes from better employments or trouble his thoughts with less pertinent notions Poeticall license is on my side Scribimus indocti c. I will go no further with the verse because in those two words I am concluded I hold Socrates by his favour an Ethnick-haeretick for his criticall resolution not to write at all because he could not write so well as he would Socr. Schol. I rather comply with the Novatian Bishop Sisinnius but not in his haeresie who being asked why he bathed himself twice in a day answered because I cannot do it thrice And I have endeavoured this third time to do thus much because as yet I can do no more Whatsoever defects appear in the follong Discourse this I dare give under my hand that the Authour intended well to all parties to the King and subjects Church and State And I would to God that every tongue and pen at this day going within His Majesties Dominions the respective Excellencies of their parts only excepted were such as these of East Dearham Norff. Octob. 5. 1663. JOHN WINTER ORATIO FESTINATIO Prayer is good speed O Most glorious GOD and most gracious Father assist these my endeavours and compleat my labours For thy own sake crown thy own gifts for thy mercy sake pardon my offences I cannot do the good I would much less the good I should and the evill I would not that do I. But thou art a God who acceptest the will for the deed and grantest to thy servants both to will and to do of thy good pleasure O eternall Son and most blessed Saviour instruct and inable mee the least of thy Ministers and the greatest of sinners to do something relating to thy glory conducing to the good of thy Church and the discharge of my own duty For not onely my own heart by wofull experience but thy sacred Word telleth mee that without thee thy best servants can do nothing O blessed Spirit God of truth and comforter of thy Church strengthen mee in these my undertakings For thou art the same from all eternity and of old time holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity three Persons and one God prompt and guide mee Sanctifie mee through thy truth thy Word is truth Thou bast put it in my heart to be inditing of good matters and now let mee freely speak the things I have made unto my heavenly King As thy servant David's tongue was the pen of a ready Writer so make my pen the tongue of a divine Oratour that the meditations of my heart the words of my mouth and the works of my hands may be ever acceptable in thy sight O Lord my strength and my Redeemer Amen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man a little World THe Great GOD having made the Great World of other things was pleased to draw a Map of it in the dust And so he formed Adam and out of him Eve the work of the sixth day and a compendium of the labours of the other five And now behold a petty walking World the Coelestiall and Tertestriall Globes united in a little creature the line of whose life is but a span long Here is Heaven and Earth in a small volume soul and body constituâ—ing one individuall person the spirit being like a noble Guest in a homely Cottage a diamond immur'd in clay and a spark obscur'd in ashes In this divine creature shines this image of the Creator a trinity in unity understanding will and memory Praise thou the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Nor ought we to pass by the corporeall fabrick without wonder As we must not admire the scabberd and despise the blade so we ought not to under value the scabberd which conteyns the blade David made this reflection upon his bodily structure I am fearfully Psal 139.13 and wonderfully made Os homini sublime dedit c. The erected figure of Man's building gives him a praeeminence above the groveling brutes teaching him to look towards heaven and to walk uprightly Howbeit set him not insult too much upon his mother nor forget whence the visible part of him was taken and whither it must return The four wrangling Brother-Elements in this mortall body by a discording concord hold out the slender thrid of our life untill ambitious praedominancy which spoileth all bodies naturall and politick confoundeth doe proportion and by fatall distempers relapseth us into our ancient Chaos In the mean time though but for a short time Man is a new and old Exchange of things What do ye lack Here is in this little pack of Wares all that ye can ask or think of treasures pleasures wisdom prudence folly madness health sickness joy grief hope despair riches poverty honour shame glory and misery I need not speak of the outside ornaments pride and bravery for they shew themselves Thus the saying of the dying Emperour Severus Ael Spar. may now by many a person justly be taken up Omnia fui nihil mihi prodest I have been all things and nothing profits me And that Man is not called a little world in vain the world of severall and antipathetick dispositions of men declare One is aiery and pleasant as a Lark and hath learned to sing as well falling as rising another is as chollerick as a Dog a third as meek as a Lamb a fourth as fierce as a Tyger a fifth as idle as an Ape and a sixth as filthy and sluggish as a Swine Old Israel's Jury of sons make good this verdict in the variety of hierogly phicall liveries put upon them by their dying prophetick father Reuben is water for his incontinency Gen. 49. and instability Simeon and Levi fire and sword instruments of cruelty Judah a Lyon Zabulon a haven for ships Issachar the picture of an English man in the late times of war or in the present diversity of opinions a strong Ass couching between two burthens Dan a Judge and a Serpent God blesse us from serpentine Judges any more in High Courts of Justice Gad a troop to overcome and to be overcome And the Lord deliver us from seeing any more of that Asher God
as the sons of Jacob did with their brother Joseph who hated him for the singular love their father bare him Gen. 37.3 4 and for the peculiar Coat he put upon him And therefore could not speak peaceably unto him This is a strain beyond the malice and spite of Presbiterian Corah or Independent Dathan and Abiram though tending to the like effect through the garments to wound the function and together with Aaron's Mitre to throw down Moses Scepter Good Saints surely they are that deal with the Priests of the Lord as the Thieves dealt with the Traveller between Jerusalem and Jericho who stripped him of his raiment Lu. 10.30 and wounded him and left him half dead And if the injury done to the Ministers of Christ and their contempt and scorn be done to Christ himself Lu 10.16 Act. 9.5 as all who have the faith of Christ must believe than as the Church once in the Person of Christ spake concerning those barbarous souldiers so Christ again in the person of his Church may say of souldiers as bad They parted my garments amongst them and for Vesture they cast lots And God deliver us from unreasonable men in whose eyes our very Coats though honourable make us criminall It is a sad time when violence is preferred before science when passion overrules reason and the sword strikes against the Gown Even common reason and generall civil practise will afford distinct professiions their respective differentiall Habits And shall not the Church have leave to rule her children in their garbs and services Did Christ promise to send his Holy Spirit upon his Church Jo. 14.26 and to lead Her into all necessary truth and knowledge And hath he not allowed her so much discretion as to clad her children To appoint her inward Attendants their Habits and Liveries both for working dayes and Holy dayes We see when any fault is espyed in a Minister he is presently checked by his Coat that a Man in his Coat should do so And indeed God Almighty did upbraid Eli for his indulgence to his sons in their sins by the Linnen Ephod 1. Sam. 2.28 If then the sin of the Priest be aggravated by his Priestly garments then the garment serves to put the Priest in mind that he ought to be clothed with righteousness Again if the sin of the Priest is the greater for his Coat then their sin must be the greater allo who do wrong to him that wear's that holy garment And so much is to be gathered from the black deed of Doeg the Edomite which is heightened by this circumstance that he slew fourscore and five persons 1 Sam. 22.18 that did wear a Linnen Ephod The white and outward garment I hope I may say without offence is Angelicall Mark 9.3 Jo. 20.12 Revel 1.13 it is coelestiall So Christ appeared at his transfiguration So the Angels appeared at Christ's resurrection And Christ appeared unto St John in a Priestly habit Seeing God and Angels honour this Priestly habit how can wretched man despite it Seeing they are pleased to appear thus to men why should the Ministers of God disdain to appear in like habit in the presence of God and in the face of his Congregation The Ministers of God in a qualified sence are Angels that is the Messengers of the Lord. And wee all hope to be as Angels of God in heaven Why then should we be afraid to be like them in this also here upon earth Rev. 19.8 Clean Linnen is in a mysticall sense the righteousness of the Saints then let no man wickedly stain it neither let any man maliciously strain it to make it otherwise And if any would know how to reconcile black and white in the ministeriall habit let them take it thus The black becomes us as Mourners whose Lord and Master is for a while gone from us and as more than ordinary Mourners who besides our own sins and miseries have the sins and miseries of the World to lament and bewail The black shew's what our present condition here is in re indeed and at hand The which shew's what we are in spe in hope and what we shall be hereafter In this World we must have our black and white and most commonly black untill we shall be clothed upon with immortality In the mean time our tribulation worketh patience our patience hope our hope perseverance and that will bring the Crown Contraria juxtase posita magìs elucescunt Thus black and white are reconciled Thus contrary things do set off and beautifie one another Thus all things work together for good to them that fear God It hath been the the constant practise of the Church of God in all ages to have peculiar habits wherein to officiate in holy things Euseb l. 3. cap. 28. And it hath ever been accounted scandalous for Persons in holy orders to transgress this practise St John did wear the Priestly Habit called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Policrates Bishop of Ephesus in his Epistle to Victor Bishop of Rome doth witness And Eustathius Bishop of Sebastia in Armenia was condemned and deposed by the Councell at Gangra for casting off his proper habit and putting himself into the garb of the philosophers for putting his follwers likewise into a new habit Socr. scho lib. 2. cap. 33. for countenancing and encouraging Conventicles and for taking servants from the command of their Mastrs under the colour of Religion As also for crossing the Church inobservation of times abolishing the fasts of the Church and prescribing to his followers to fast on Sundays By whichit appearts the unlucky man was unlike his Name for that carried constancy and stability in it But he had nothing less in himself And it would be noted that when Men begin to waver and vary from the Church but in some outward things they do not stay there but fall into pernicious Principles and practises God grant there may not now be found in the Church of God Bishops of Eustathius his temper to the Countenancing of Separatists to the disquiet of the Church and to the hinderance of piety and of Churstian amity For as Plato told his young man though it be no great fault to play yet it is a great fault much to use it So A custome in disagreement though but in small matters will in the end prove no small matter Gehazi's Leprosie worse than Naamans 2 Kings 5. NAaman the famous Generall of the King of Syria's Army had an inbred Enemy which he could neither flee nor chase and that was his Leprosie For which he is advised by his captive Maid to repair to the prophet Elisha He is forthwith sent with the Letters Commendatory or rather Mandatory of the King of Syria to the King of Israel And he comes as though he had come to Court to trade with some Malefactors near the King some Merchants of the Church and State to buy places For he brings ten Talents of
and the Church which oppositions at the first were but the results of spleenfull animosities taken up against the miscarriages of some particular persons in place and office Sìc nimiùm altercando veritas amittitur Thus by too much strife truth is lost And now whereas Forreigners were wont to accuse English men of being too phlegmatick it must henceforth be acknowledged that they are too cholerick And which is worse their anger is like a torch kindling soon and burning long And very deplorable it is that neither the reflection upon the water of our own Baptisme nor the dews and showers of God's refreshing mercy after the parching heat of our late affliction nor yet the prayers and tears of the Church can quench this civil fire And although most of them who first did blow the coales and many who brought fuell to the pile are long since turned to dust and ashes yet too many there are who thrust their fingers to rake in the embers Suscitare hesternos ignes to renew our late mischiefes and to revive our common miseries Surely the wrath of man can never work the righteousness of God He that saith He maketh his ministers a flaming fire Psal 104.4 intended thereby the spiritual edification of men and not their bodily destruction And he who sirnamed two of his Apostles the sons of thunder did not approve their sudden flash and hasty bolt Luk. 9.54 when they moved for fire to come down from heaven to consume the Samaritans The Tyrants of Sicily invented no greater torment for others than their own corroding envy was to themselves And as ambition is both the delight and the rack of the ambitious so a person overcome with choler is punishment and misery enough to himself here although he should meet with none hereafter His flesh only wanting a good cause is broyled like St Lawrence on a gridiron his bones are stewed in his wasting marrow and his heart is boyled in his own blood And now as the Lord said to the Prophet Jonah doth any man think that he doth well to be angry that he doth well to be angry against others unto death then let him think upon him who is ready to judge both the quick and dead who for our sins is justly displeased and in whose sight without his mercy no man living shall be justified And who may stand in his sight when he is angry Let the thought of that great day which shall be revealed by fire cool and quench the rage of every man's choler lest he be consumed in the flames wherein he hath delighted Melancholly ANd hast thou found me O mine enemy this needs must I say of thee as Aristippus did of a wife thou art parvum pulchrum magnum malum thou art to my doting fancy in thy Visits the fairest and the blackest the sweetest and the bitterest of my friends of my foes and of my intimate acquaintance I cannot but admire thee as St. Bernard did Ambition and say Lib. 3. de Consid Quemodò omnes torquens omnibus places How doest thou please all those whom thou tormentest And oh that I might ever have such a stock of charity for all my visible Enemies among the children of men as I have for thee I know thou hurrest mee and yet I freely forgive thee I hugg I embrace I cherish thee and the world can never cause me to forsake thee And yet to give this humour it 's due it is never so great an enemy but it may be as great a friend What some have affirmed of Geniusses how every man from his birth hath two waiting upon him one for his good the other for his harm may be expounded of Melancholly doing both offices which is a weapon both for offence and defence as it is used On the one side it is a check to pride and self-love a barre against presumption a threshold to humility a door to patience wings to divine meditation and an handmaid unto devotion And whereas the jolly world count such a mans life to be madness the truth is as Cotys King of Thrace said of his severity this madness keep 's men in their right wits On the other side when it is exorbitant and indisposed Melancholly is a traytor to the Master a foe to humanity an Antagonist to reason the Cut-throat to hope and joy a black cataract upon the eyes of the mind preventing divine illumination and finally a desperate sollicitour unto perdition Sìc fit Melancholicus aùt Deus aùt Daemon Thus a Melancholly person is either a God or a Devil And what shall I say of this humour It is a kind of ubiquitary When I take the wings of the morning and mount upon my prime meditations towards heaven then melancholly is there And when in heavyness of spirit I go down towards hell it is there also The light of the day cannot expell it and the night feed's it I cannot flee from this haunting ghost nor can I go from it's presence Though I change places places change not me I am like the young man who admiring why he was never the better for travell was told by Socrates that the reason was Laert. because in all his travels he still carried himself about him So carry I my mortality my misery my imperfections and therewithall my melancholly It is true I bless God for it I look towards heaven but it is at a great distance and through many clouds both of affliction and of ignorance I am no more satisfied nor can be with all that I have heard or with all that the world can tell me in this land of my pilgrimage concerning the joyes above and the glory of that eternall kingdome 1 King 10. than the Queen of Sheba was with the report which she heard in her own country concerning Solomon's Court. Untill her eyes saw she was rather afflicted than affected rather tormented than contented She did not hear the one half nor do I one thing of a thousand Eye hath not seen ear hath not heard 1 Cor. 2.9 nor hath it entred into the heart of man When I awake up at the last day I trust in God I shall be satisfied But how long Lord most holy and true How long O when shall I come to appear before the presence of God Alas when I think to come nearest heaven in my soliloquies and private solaces then this my bosome-companion crosseth my purpose and bring 's me down to the pits brink My own heart condemnes my heart of foolish presumption for my hasty desire to be made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like to the Angels of God in heaven who am become through sin even as a beast before God and may be compared unto the brute creatures that perish When I hear the holy man David putting the question Psal 24. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord and who shall rise up in his holy place and then finde him answering himself Even he