and in the hands of young men if there be not counsayl at home and in the breasts of the aged And as some fruits are ripe before others and divers fit for divers seasons of the year so God and nature hath so ordayned that the bodyes of young men should be ripe in their youth fittest for bodily employments by reason of their naturall heat and spirits and the counsayls of old men in their age through their long experience and observation Things go well where both do their parts in societies It is worthily sayd of one that Childehood should be manly that is not without all wisedom and age childe-like that is without pride and arrogancy Yet may the aged above the younger sort chalenge and use a kinde of authority and confidence in their words caryage So is there to be permitted unto childhood that childeishnes which without violence to nature the God thereof cannot be driven from it Many in pride striving and streyning to have their children men and women too soon and ere they be full boyes and girls force them above their pace and eyther cause them to tyre as discouraged or occasion them to content themselvs in after time with certayn manly forms without substance unseasonably forced upon them in their childehood Fruits ripened by art before their time are neyther toothsom nor wholesom So children made men when they should be children prove children when they should be men Notwithstanding stubbornnes and corruption cannot too soon be forced out of them Neyther is half that libertie to be given to the younger sort which they would take not knowing nor being easily brought to beleiv how slipperie their state is till they come to feel it by their fals which if they did they would not complayn with the foolish young man in the poet that all parents keeping any hand over their children though for their good are injurious unto them As all men are to honour all men because they are men and made after Gods image so should the younger sort specially be trayned up to a bashfull and modest reverence towards all and cheifly towards their ancients Which so well becomes their mayden years as that the phylosopher accounts blushing a vertue in young folks though a fault in the aged Many parents desire to have their young ones trayned up in such exercises and courses as may inbolden them But they should for the most part provide much better for them specially in our audacious age if they got them held constantly in courses of modestie and â—hamefastnes that so Demetrius might have his wish in them which was that young folks would reverence their fathers at home all men abroad and themselvs being alone The Apostle writeing to Timothie warns him to fly the lusts of youth If Timothy who was brought up in the knowledg of the Scriptures from a childe and who had profited so well therein and whose place in the church was so eminent for the teaching and governing of others stood in need of such advertisement and warning what warning can be sufficient for ordinarie young people to eschew and fly from such lusts and vanities as to follow after them and unto which the heat and heedlesnes of youth carryeth them It is indeed a great mercy of God when young persons get over that their slipperie and inexperienced state without eyther such publique scandall or secret wound of conscience as the scar whereof they carry to their graves with them How much more and greater a mercy is it when they receav the grace to consecrate their youth and best dayes to God in holynes offering their souls and bodyes as the sacrifices of young lambs unblemished upon the Lords altar Wicked men who hate goodnes both in youth and age use to say young saints old divels But the truth is young divels old Beelzebubs for the most part To whom yet if God in singular grace vouchsafe repentance in after age what a corasive will it be to the heart of such a convert casting back his eyes to his youth consumed in lusts and vanitie to think how great dishonour he hath brought to Gods name and hindrance to others salvation which he may repent of but cannot redeem On the contrarie sweet is the remembrance in old age of a youth led in true vertue and godlynes Some would enjoy both the honour of age and liberty of youth But curled grey hayr is not comely Eyther state hath its benefit and burden alotted of God He that obteyns the benefit must be content to bear the burden Young men must be content to want the honour which is due to the aged of their order otherwise in regard of the image of Gods eternitie which they bear And so must the aged be content to forbear even the lawfull libertie delights of youth Multitude of years should teach wisdom sayth young Elihu in Iob to his three ancients And this the younger sort should with reverence and may with good reason look for at their elders hands considering their long experience and manifold advantages above them for the getting of wisdom This wisdom makes their age honourable indeed and their grey head a crown of glory being founded in the way of righteousnes whereas an elementarie old man having no other argument to prove that he hath lived long but his grey hayrs and wrinkled forehead is a contemptible and ridiculous creature How many such a b c old folks are there in the world whose grey hayrs promise wisdom knowledg and to whom opportunitie and means of atteyning it hath not been wanting who yet being proved and known will appear very babes in understanding and such as for that skill had need to begin to live againe This is not meerly a want of wit in them or of the love of knowledg eyther but withall a curse of God upon them usually punishing a lustfull and rechlesse youth with a doltish age in whom the proverb is true in another sense Ab equis ad asinos Such of young horses become old asses A wise man should live well in youth and before old age come that he may dye well in age if it come and may be ready for death as the white regions are for the harvest and so may both wayt for it and even meet it the more boldly in the way of such vertuous actions as expose unto it For though youth likelyhood of long life should make none withdraw from any good duety or doe amisse for fear of danger of losse of life yet age should though in course of nature the more fearfull upon ground of good reason wisdom and grace make men the more ventersom of that in a good cause which God destiny will deprive them of ere long though other men let them alone as Solon was bold upon his old age to oppose himself to Pisystratus the tyrant One adviseth to be old
in respect of men howsoever such wiâ—y-beguiliâ—s may for a time if they carrie close amongst other advantages get the opinion of prudent and politick persons and be accounted the more wise by how much they have the more skill to deceav yet if their craftinesse come to be found out and appear they become oftens a prey to all alwaies a scorn to the most simple like the wily fox who being once catched hath his skin pluckt over his ears wherewith everie fool will have his cap furred as a worthy Lord was wont to say Such are heirs apparent to Achitophels comfort and reward His rule was peremptorie that said A wise man will not deceav nor cannot be deceaved So was his profession both of wisdom and honestie lowd who chose this Motto Fâ—llere vel falli res odiosa mihi And though usually it be worse to deceav then to be deceaved though Austin and who not met with many that would deceav but never with any that would be deceaved as a sin is worse then a crosse yet whereas to be deceaved is alwayes either a crosse or a sin or both a man may in some case and manner deceav without either as did Athanasius the President Lucius who pursuing him and approaching neer the boat wherein he was asked for Athanasius and was answered by him whom he knew by name but not by face that Athanasius was hard before him and that if he made hast he might presently overtake him who thus escaped deceaving his Arian persecuter by speaking nothing but the truth and that both wisely and with good conscience CAP. XVI Of Wisdom and Folly SOme have been found not onely contented with but glorying in the name of irreligious and unhonest but hardly ever any were willing to bear the note of foolish or unwise And even of them in whom is found some true love of vertue and goodnesse how few are there that either indeed do or would be thought to do any thing in fauour thereof which might in the least degree impeach the credit of their wisdom in the eyes of the partiall world So fain would all be counted though few in truth be wise The main reason of this seems to be that whereas the want of wisdom imports impotencie and inabilitie Irreligion and dishonestie are by election and free choyse The pride of men if Gods grace correct it not makes them more impatient of a want either inward or outward arguing them to be weak and impotent then of a grosser vice in either upon their own free election and choyse of will And hence it is that many boast of things done by them for some particular advantage which they know to be evill and unlawfull It is the first and a great point of wisdom to know wherein true wisdom stands specially seeing that the thing which God cals wisdom and which the world cals wisdom are as different as Heaven and Earth yea as Heaven and Hell That cannot but be best which God so valueth It is known from the Worlds wisdom by first its object Secondly the properties which attend it Thirdly the School where it is learnt Fourthly the end to which it tends The object is Christ primarily who of God is made unto us wisdom and in whom are hidden all the treasures thereof which the Gospel the wisdom of God openeth unto us He that knows Christ aright in the Gospel knows both God and man and the most gracious and glorious effects of both united in one Secondly The wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercie and good fruits without jangling and without hypocrisie The other is clean contrarily qualified thick and muddie with lusts and monstrously compounded arrogant self-willing and self-loving inexorable quarrelsom craftie and cruell Thirdly The wisdom of God is learnt in the School of Christ and upon the Book of Holy Scriptures the other hath so many Masters as there are corrupt either lusts within a man or customs in the World Lastly The wisdom of God teacheth to provide surely for the Spirituall and Eternall state though with prejudice to the bodily and temporall The other bids make sure worke for the flesh and pinch not it though the Spirituall man speed hardly by it He that will be wise to God must be a fool to the World which yet makes him not a fool in worldly affairs but skilfull how to order them aright both for the Spirituall life and naturall also as far as it is subordinate unto it The high-way to wisdom Divine or humain is to observ and consider the reasons and causes of things He that beleevs a thing because God affirms it shews faith he that does it because God commands it obedience but he that joyns with these the reasons of the Doctrine or exhortation in the Word gets into his heart the props of wisdom against the storms of temptation both of unbelief and disobedience So in humain affairs he that minds or remembers things to be thus or thus gets skill in the things but he that observs and learns the reasons and causes why they come so to passe or are so done he takes the right course to become wise in the matter of what kind soever A wise man is the same though his outward state be changeable yea changed from a prosperous to an afflicted or the contrarie way els he but hits right at aventure when he doth well in either of both His condition is rather happily fitted to him as the howre once a day comes to the hand of the Clock that stands alwayes still then he to it by true wisdom A wise man will wish the more prosperous state but fear the more afflicted and use that which falls and his wisdom in it The Sayler which wants skill may misse his course or drown his Ship in a fair wind but he needs most skill in a tempest So is the wisdom of a man most seen in the right guiding of himself and his affairs in a stresse of trouble and affliction I have seen it in experience that many specially women and women like men who have shewed forth much goodnesse in a quiet and prosperous state of things if any great storm of tryall have happened to have overtaken them have through the want of wisdoms chart and compasse lost all and not onely been altogether uncomfortable but above measure burthensom both to others and themselvs The Apostle by the work of the wisdom of God knew both how to be abused and how to abound He that is not wise for himself first cannot be wise for another either in bodily or spirituall things though he may do him good in both But that is rather by occasion or in humour then upon ground of true wisdom God and nature which teach everie man to love himself most and his neighbour truly and heartily as himself teach him withall to use his best wit and
so far to have respect to that of persons as to hate evill most in them whose persons we most love and so in our wives children and friends more then in strangers and in our selvs most of all And he that hath not learnt to bear things amisse in others which he will not bear in himself hath eyther too much fleshly zeal or too litle spirituall or both which two oftens lodg in one breast by which it comes to passe that many are earnest to pluck the moat out of their brothers eye that perceav not the beam in their own Notwithstanding as it doth not detract eyther from the dignitie or necessitie of naturall heat in our bodyes that there is found in some an agueish and unnaturall heat far greater then the naturall so neyther in truth and just valuation of things doth it derogate from the excellencie and necessitie of the heat of true zeal and life of grace in the godly consisting therein that many are zealous amisse whether knowing and so deceaving others or not knowing and so deceaving themselvs of what spirit they are CAP. LI. Of Hypocrisie HYpocrites have their names from stage-players as rayther playing then working that which is good and vertuous and the same onely upon the stage and to please lookers on And as amongst stage-players the same persons act divers parts at divers times and those very different one from another so is it with the actions of hypocrites They hold no correspondencie one with another but some of them cover and others discover their masters shame as Noahs sons did their fathers And as such persons are never constant for none can long play the counterfeyt untyred so neyther are they free in any one kinde of good but have a goodnes rayther like the water in a dead pit forced out at tymes with buckets then of a living spring which sends out its streams freely and constantly Yea further as Iacob though for his fathers blessing he covered his hands and neck very cunningly was bewrayed by his tongue and voyce so hardly can a counterfeyt carry his matters so close but that oft times even in one and the same work there will be found a jarr of the parts one with another so as eyther the tongue will check the hands or the hands the tongue or both mutually to the shewing and shaming of all When great hypocrites and deep dissemblers are left of God to fall into any grosse or scandalous evill they seldom or never recover their former shew of religion neyther as one sayth will the lambs skin which the wolf wears being once shorn ever grow agayn but God in judgment leaving them in some speciall temptation to grosse wickednes in which they loose their credit in the world which alone they sought and so break the hedg which formerly restreyned them doth punish their former close dissimulation with after open profanenes Young hypocrites commonly prove old Atheists It may well be sayd as it is in the Proverb that Hypocrisie is spun with a fine thread considering how hypocrites deceav and over-reach others and oft times weaker persons those that are wiser then they how much more considering how thereby they deceav themselvs In which latter there is a transgression and evill both in deceaving and being deceaved For albeit a man may often without sin be deceaved by another yet never so by himself seeing the spirit of a man may if it do not alwayes know the things of a man This self deceavablenes ariseth in men eyther from presumption when they think they need not or from slouth that they will not take the payns or from an evill conscience that they dare not trye and examine themselvs and their works and estates with God as they ought Besides hypocrites by false appearances getting credit with others come to esteem themselvs better then they are because others esteem them so This hypocrisie is indeed not onely a base but a foolish evill Base in dissembling the evill which it hath and is ashamed of and in counterfeyting the good which it hath not and is ashamed to seem to want And therefore notably proud people scorning as they use to boast to dissemble seldom come under this coat but do usually appear to men as voyd of grace and goodnes as they are before God Foolish it is if in nothing els yet in covering from men that evill which God seeth and hateth and will punish with infinitely greater both losse and shame and torment then any or all men will or can and not onely the evill dissembled but therewith the dissimulation also which men legally do not Great must the hypocrites portion be in Gods plagues with whom as the principall the apparantly evill as but an accessorie hath his portion appointed It is one thing to doe a work in hypocrisie which onely hypocrites doe and an other thing to do it with hypocrisie which is still ready alasse to mingle it self with the work of Gods grace in all our best actions as Tobyah and the rest of the heathen would have mingled themselvs with the Lords people in the building of his temple The same may be sayd of unbelief indevotion the like corruptions It is no marvayl that Atheist and Epicures judg all that make shew of pietie and godlynes specially above the size custome of the times conceipted fantasticall and very hypocrites seeing they measure others by themselvs And knowing that if they should make the semblance of godlines which the others do it should be no better in them then hypocrisy and fancie they conclude the same roundly upon others from their own premises And of this they are also desirous to perswade both themselvs and others Themselvs for a kinde of envious comfort in evill that others are as ill as they and for their own hardning out of that imagination Others for their miserable credit when they are not thought leaud alone They being themselvs Sadâ—cees would fayn think others have them thought Pharisees by others A tang of this also is to be found even in them who are not voyd of all goodnes towards such as a litle overstep them in the wayes of godlynes Though hypocrisie be in it self a verie odious thing and so evill as it corrupts all good in him in whom it reigns making both his works of devotion and of mercy abhominable to the Lord yet considering how litle true good is in the world it were well for others at least that there were more hypocrisie in many then there is Which would help both to represse in them many grosse enormities for shame and to keep credit with men which now shamelesly they practise and also provoke them to many outward good works for the good of others at the least which now they wholy and boldly neglect in professed godlesnes and dishonesty Besides hypocrisie yeilds though it intend it not a full and loud testimonie to true vertue and godlines seeing
ready blessed is he whom his Lord when he cometh findes so doing Young folk may dye shortly but the aged cannot live long The green apple may be pluckt off or shaken down by violence but the ripe will fall of it self It is wisdom therefore to provide for death in youth there being many more that dye in youth or childehood then that survive till old age but madnes it is to neglect preparation when age commeth Though in truth few dye well in age that have not lived well in youth That we may once dye the great death aright and in peace it is requisite that we dye dayly many litle deaths both by outward afflictions inward mortifyings of our worldly and corrupt lusts We should so live as being content to dye when God calls us hence and that upon knowledg of the nature cause and event of death and out of a good conscience towards God and men And not in senseles blockishnes overcomeing death as the most do by forgetting it as if a man overcame his enemy by getting as far from him as he could nor yet by desperate wearisomnes of life for any troubles in it but as being willing yea desyrous to live to serv Gods providence for good upon earth It is ill sayth the wise heathen to wish death but worse to fear it But godly Christians are to doe both in different respects To desire it as it stands with Gods will that they may be free from sin and misery it being best for them to be dissolved and to be with the Lord To fear it as being in it self a fearfull punishment of sin the dissolution of the most excellent creature upon earth and an end of further praysing God in his church and performing particular offices of goodnes and love to men And in truth though grace have this effect with them that desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ that they do not dye onely patiently but even dye with delight and live patiently yet nature causeth that not onely they that know they must dye as all doe but they also which beleev that after death they shall enjoy a more happie state desire the deferring of it so loath to part are the two old acquayntances the body and soul. Pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saincts when they dye for or in â—ayth and a good conscience as the gold melting and dissolving in the furnace is as much esteemed by the gold-smith as any in his shop or purse Pretious also it is whilst they live and that which God will not lightly suffer to befall them And if he put their tears in his bottle he will not neglect their blood nor easily suffer it to be shed Neyther doth death when it comes part him and them though it part man and man yea man and wife yea man in himself his soul and body Freinds shew themselvs faythfull in sticking to their freinds in sicknes and all other afflictions but they how affectionate soever must leav them in death and are glad to remove them and to haue their dead buried out of their sight But the fruit of Gods love reacheth unâ—o death it self in which he doth his beloved ones the greatest good when freinds can do no more for them He that sayd Before death and the funerall no man is happy spake the truth as he meant of the happines which can be found in worldly things But both he and they who have so admyred his saying should have considered that he who is not happie before death in worldly things cannot be happy in them by it which deprives him of them all and of life it self which is better then they and for which they are But miserable indeed is the happines whereof a man hath neyther beginning nor certainâ—ie but by ceasing to be a man The godly are truly happy both in life and death the wicked in neyther We are not to mourn for the death of our christian freinds as they which are without hope eyther in regard of them or of our selvs Not of them because such as are asleep with Iesus God will bring with him to a more glorious life in which we in our time and theirs shall ever remayn with the Lord and them Not of our selvs as if that because they had left us God had left us also But we should take occasion by their deaths to love this world the lesse out of which they are taken heaven the more whether they are gone before us and where we shall ever enjoy them Amen FINIS THE TABLE Conteyning the Contents of everie Chapter CHap. j. Of mans knowledg of God fol. 1. Ch. ij Of Gods love 4. Chapt. iij. Of Gods promises 9. Chapt. iiij Of the works of God his power wisdom will goodnes c. shineing in them 13. Chapt. v. Of created goodnes 21. Chap. vj. Of Equabâ—litie and perseverance in wel-doing 29. Chap. vij Of religion and differences and disputations thereabout 38. Chap. viij Of the holy Scriptures 53. Chapt. ix Of authoritie and reason 65. Chapt. x. Of fayth Hope and Love Of fayth Reason and Sense 73. Chapt. xj Of Atheisme and Idolatrie 84. Chapt. xij Of Heresy and Schism 87. Chap. xiij Of truth and falshood 90. Cha. xiiij Of knowledg and ignorance 95. Chapt. xv Of simplicitie and craftines 101. Chap. xvj Of wisdom and folly 104. Chap. xvij Of discretion 110. Cha. xviij Of Experience 112. Chap. xix Of examples 114. Chapt. xx Of counsell 119. Chap. xxj Of thoughts 124. Cha. xxij Of speach and silence 127. Cha. xxiij Of books and writings 135. Cha. xxiiij Of good intentions 139. Cha. xxv Of means 141. Cha. xxvj Of labour 143. Ch. xxvij Of callings 147. Ch. xxviij Of the use and abuse of things 152. Cha. xxix Of riches and povertie 155. Chapt. xxx Of sobrietie 162. Chap. xxxj Of liberalitie 166. Chap. xxxij Of health 172. Cha. xxxiij Of afflictions 176. Ch. xxxiiij Of iniuries 184. Chap. xxxv Of patience 190. Cha. xxxvj Of peace 195. Ch. xxxvij Of Societie and friendship 199. Ch. xxxviij Of Credit and good name 209. Cha. xxxix Of contempt and contumelie 214. Chapt. xl Of envie 218. Chapt. xlj Of slander 221. Chap. xlij Of flatterie 225. Chap. xliij Of suspicion 227. Chap. xliiij Of appearances 231. Chapt. xlv Of offences 235. Chap. xlvj Of temptations 238. Chap. xlvij Of conscience 244. Cha. xlviij Of prayer 247. Chap. xlix Of oaths and lots 253. Chapt. l. Of zeale 257. Chapt. lj Of hipocrisy 260. Chapt. lij Of sin and punishment from God 264. Chapt. liij Of rewards and punishments by men 270. Chap. liiij Of affections 273. Chap. lv Of fear 278. Chapt. lvj Of anger 283. Chap. lvij Of humilitie and meeknes 287. Chap. lviij Of Modestie 293. Chapt. lix Of mariage 296. Chapt. lx Of children and their education 304. Chap. lxj Of youth and old age 314. Chap. lxij