himself who knoweth best how far By representments it convenient were To shadow forth his nature did devize As many and as few as might suffize God knew that if mans frailty might not see Some objects whereupon might fixed be His weak Devotion he would either make Vain Fictions or Devotion quite forsake It therefore pleas'd his goodness to prepare Those objects for the Jews which fitting were For them such was the Serpent made of brass Till by Idolators abus'd it was Such were their Temple and the Mercy Seat On which or towards which their eyes were set In their Devotion that the wandring sence There being fixed Faith might raise from thence The safer flight and that Religion may A body have wherein her Soul may stay For doubtless that Religion is untrue Which hath no outward shape for men to view As for the Jews Our weakness tendring too God hath vouchsaft the like for us to do He hath advanc'd for us to look upon The Image of his Crucified Son And limb'd him in his word with such dimensions As may and should employ our Apprehensions Without all vain additions of our own Until the Essence of it may be known Nor of our selves nor to our selves was made This Image But the same from God we had He set it up for us to fall before it To contemplate to honour to adore it This Image he that faithfully shall view Thereby that long left Image may renew Wherein Mankind was framed by God's hand And in that likeness we shall ever stand Still praised be that Image which hath power To perfect such Imperfectness as our And let all those who shall the same despise Be guilty of the worst Idolatries Oh Christ so perfect my renewed will That I this holy precept may fulfil Amen III Thou shalt not take y â— name of y e Lord thy God in vaine c. Curses Blasphemies and Oaths Some can vary as their Cloaths And the Ruffin now begins To seek fashionable sins No more fearing to blaspheme Than to take a praiseful Theme But the Sin they count so small Doth aloud for vengeance call And in Figure here we view What for this offence was due Command III. If thou wilt free be kept from blame Take not in vain GOD's holy NAME TO fright Blasphemers we present them with An Emblem of the Son of Shelomith Who worthily condemned was to dye And Stoned for his daring Blasphemy For 't is a Crime now ripened in excess Though branded with a horrid Guiltiness And of this Blott who ever standeth free All these that follow deeply Guilty be The Common Swearer For his impious tongue Not only to the Godhead offers wrong But to his power he sometime rends and tears Christ's holy Body when he vainly swears He that affecteth cursings groweth foul By what this Law forbids For on the Soul Which loves to Curse these plagues are often brought Which to befall another are besought They are not in a mean degree to blame Who shall prophane the great Almighty's name Through Levity as when him name they shall For trifling Causes or no cause at all He that with Oaths protests in matters vain Or sweares for Truths what he himself doth fain Or tells for certain an uncertain thing Or vows to God what he neglects to bring Or maketh vows of what are not allowed Things lawful or things comely to be vowed Even he who ere he be that shall transgress These ways is tainted with a guiltiness For all these ways Gods name is vainly used And such offences cannot be excused To these we add our Scevites who presume The power of Exorcisms to assume And work by Conjurations of such kind As may no lawful approbation find And much from these those Cheaters differ not Who by confederacy the name have got Of cunning men or women and pretend To know black Arts and Practice to defend Our bodies or to keep our goods from harms By wicked Spels prophaning in the Charms The names of God or portions of his Writ For in such Actions they dishonour it Nor is he better who delights to make Gods Truth a Theam for vain discourses sake Or thence extracteth Jests or reads or hears His Word with heedless Eyes with careless Ears Or unprepared Heart Nor are they less Prophane who to conceal their wickedness Or meerly to be deemed men devout Still at their Girdles bear Gods Book about Or Study holy Scriptures to devise A Cloak for Sins and proofs for Heresies Or truths pervert their falshoods to maintain For all of these assume Gods Name in vain They of the like offence partakers are Who as they term it make a Holy War For Christ And in his name do that pretend Which is for some concealed wicked end All they who pray for these by name of such Do fight Gods Battles do offend as much If they shall know it For accursed is Such bold and bloody policy as this He that plots Treason or invents a Lie The Cause of God or Truth to justifie Doth Stray as wide For to assist his Foes These in Gods Name within his Ensign goes Moreover they are guilty of this Crime Who in undecent manner or ill time Reprove or threat or comfort or apply Gods promises or Judgments or deny Their needful application in Gods Name When time and place for them require the same For of the Service careless they appear Pertaining unto him whose name they bear He breaks this Law who runs ere he be sent And in Gods name speaks what God never meant He that from Holy Orders goeth back And by his Idleness becometh slack In Duties of his Calling or grown rich By Church promotions thinks it overmuch To execute that Function as he ought To which with wealth and honour he is brought Even he what fair excuse so ere he make Is justly said Gods name in vain to take For if he proveth guiltless he receiv'd A dispensation more than I believ'd A Prayer without Faith a formal mention Of Gods due praise without a due intention Yea vain or complemental Salutations Without Sincerity are prophanations Against this Law though many men have thought That these are signs of persons better taught Dissembling Fasts Thanksgivings mumbled out With babling Repititions and devout In nought but feigned Term or length of Time Do make men guilty likewise of this Crime Nay many Sermons of the vulgar strain Are taking of the Name of God in vain He that his Church or Chappel hath bedeckt And yet Gods living Temples doth neglect He that a love to those doth seem to carry Yet leaves defac'd his outward Sanctuary He that to bend his body is asham'd When he shall here his blessed Saviour nam'd He that without an inward Adoration Bows outwardly or with an Affectation To mimick Gestures or performs the same Unto the vocal sounding of the Name Or either practiseth or leaves undone Such Duties in Contempt of any one Even He though to be guiltless he
A PARAPHRASE ON THE Ten COMMANDMENTS IN Divine Poems ILLUSTRATED With Twelve Copper Plates shewing how Personal Punishments has been inflicted on the Transgressors of these Commandments as is Recorded in the Holy Scripture Never before PRINTED Also a Metrical Paraphrase upon the CREED and LORD's-PRAYER Written by GEORGE WITHER Esq Author of Britain's Remembrancer Psalm 119. 5. Would GOD my Ways were so Directed that I might keep thy Statutes Licensed according to ORDER LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Eben Tracy at the Three-Bibles on London-bridge 1697. To all such as have formerly been Friends to the Author his Daughter and only surviving Child Dedicates these Meditations IT was seldom my Fathers practice especially of late years to Dedicate his Works to particular or great Persons And did I attempt any such thing now I should be afraid lest I might disturb his rest in the Grave All you therefore that had a kindness as well for his Person as his Works I desire to accept of my good will in sending this Relique of his abroad in publick Which though it hath been written some considerable time is but lately minded or come to hand And however it happened to be bundled up with other old Writings where I found it yet I verily believe it was designed for the Press by those many alterations he had made which had so blur'd the Original Copy that I was forced to get it Transcribed before it was fit for my self or any body else to read And having now perused it I could not in conscience conceal such necessary Truths as are therein contained in hopes that it may take the effect himself desires in his Epistle to the Reader exprest in his Prayer believing that that good Spirit which first dictated those Petitionary words will accompany them to the Worlds end And then I also believe that what I have done in making this publick will be acceptable both to God and Man which that it may shall ever be the Prayers of From my Lodgings at Mr. Snowdens a Printer at the lower end of Great Carter-lane the 23d of April 1688. Your assured Friend in all Offices of Love and Service E. B. ADVERTISEMENT THE Copper Plates mentioned in my Fathers following Epistle in some of his removals from one Habitation to another have been lost so that I have been forced to get new ones made TO THE READER IN that great Plague which as I believe was the most contagious Pestilence that ever afflicted this City of London it pleased God to enclose me there and to give me grace to make such observations upon his Justice and Mercy as I hope however others esteem of them shall never of me be forgotten during life A while before this last Visitation the same gracious God provided me a little place to escape unto where I did but only hear of that which my Brethren suffered and therefore as I may well fear was not so sensible of their misery as I ought to have been Yet I was not altogether without Meditations as became the time but as the necessities wherewithal God hath yet exercised me would give leave endeavoured to employ some hours in the consideration of things pertinent to the Honour of my Preserver that I might not appear less thankful for this deliverance which was without Terror than I seemed to be for that which I obtained with fear and danger Part of my Musings were upon the Moral Law the neglect whereof being the cause of all Plagues is never impertinently thought upon much less when the hand of God is extended to chastise us for infringment of the same And what I then meditated is now offered unto the publick view that it might the oftner occasion me and others to be mindful of our Duties Neither my Estate nor the place I lived in would afford me the use of Books at that time therefore instead of them I perused mine own Heart to to see what I could read there For in the Heart of Man it was originally written And though our corruption hath now so defaced it that we need some helps to explain the essential meaning of the Holy Text long since written in Stone Yet if we would but be so diligent as good Antiquaries in examining defective Inscriptions upon decayed Monuments we might sometime find the Truth more certainly than by trusting over-confidently to the search of others who many times deliver their own Fancies instead of the right meaning of Gods Law Others I confess though not many in the English Tongue have to this purpose devulged large Commentaries But some want Money to purchase them and some want leisure to peruse them for they are so large that many Readers had rather venture to break all the Commandments than to scan over those Tracts and yet perhaps these brief Meditations have expressed somewhat which is not found in any of them I profess not as I have elsewhere said to teach the Learned but to be unto them a Remembrancer only of what they already know which will otherwhile happen by this means even when they take up my Books to peruse them with contempt rather than for any better end yet they who are as Ingenious as Learned have entertained them with good respect as not unuseful The same Spiritual nourishment which others have tendred more artificially dressed for the publick Feasts of the Soul I have here and elsewhere indifferently fitted for their private refreshments who are best nourished with plain Diet and who have heretofore wanted either opportunities or due care to come to those Repasts And if I can but find means to relieve the Blind and Lame in understanding till a more powerful means shall fetch them from the Hedges and High-way-sides to be Guests at the great Banquet I shall hope to have done somewhat worth my pains Ignorant persons may be advantaged hereby mediately or immediately by receiving Information or occasion of Reformation yea the Composing thereof in Verse will cause many to be the more delighted therewith Some the better to remember it others out of curiosity to take notice of it who may afterward give it more serious entertainment and no doubt all good men will afford it a favourable censure so far as it shall deliver the Truth So far only I desire it should be allowed and in that desire do humbly submit the same to the Censure of Authority and the Success to Gods blessing Which I beseech Oh Glorious God so to manifest in this Mite vouchsafed out of the Infinite treasury of thy holy Spirit that like a grain of Mustard Seed it may be fruitful to the encrease of Piety beyond the expectation answerable to so despised a means For some in these days have perverted the plain meaning of thy Law yea some have lately strived both by their words and works to make the same wholly void and of no use that they seem either not to have known or to have quite forgotten That thy Truth remaineth from
wary keep me of departing from This Law that I may still in heart and hand Continue faithful unto this Command Amen IX Thou shalt not beare false witnes against c. Who can hope for Justice where Magistrates false witness bear Or secure in falshood be When great Princes scape not free She who Naboth's death contriv'd Was in Wrath of life depriv'd And her flesh by Dogs was torn Though a Queen and Princely born That all others heed may take How this Precept they do break Command IX In any case no witness bear Of things which false or doubtful are VVEre his Edict omitted who could say He should enjoy his life or Goods a day If nigh his habitation chance to dwell Such Neighbours as the wicked Jesabel And her curst Instruments whose downfall here Is typfi'd that such may stand in fear Where could we be secure from perjur'd men Unless God sent forth Vengeance now and then To find out those who secretly contrive How others of their portions to deprive Since very often this offence hath none Who can behold it but that God alone Or by what means might they be kept in awe Whose greantness makes them careless of this Law How safe seem'd Jesobel by being great And yet how boldly did the Prophet threat Succeeding Vengeance and though she were high How low upon a suddain did she lie That high and low might view her cursed plight And more in truthful honesty delight Most know that of this Law they breakers are Who bear false witness at the Judgment Bar And very many are not without fear In such ungodly actions to appear But few do seem aright to understand Their other breaches of this Ninth Command To lie accounted is a fault so small That many feel no sence thereof at all But make a Play-game of it yea and some Such Patrons of that Evil are become That they allow and justisie the same As Praises rather meriting than blame But this will prove though held a petty sin The Serpents head that brings his body in And an officious lying may in time Ingage us to commit a greater Crime However he that an untruth shall speak Or Truth if to deceive this Law doth break To praise is commendable yet thereby When we of others better testify Than they deserve true vertue we deride And sinners in their sins are justifi'd Unless it be by such a modest praise As flows from hope our Friend affects the ways Which yet he walks not that our praise may be A Gale to ripen what we blooming see For this is neither purpos'd to deceive The Hearer nor advantages to weave For him that speaks it but a wise intention To cherish buddidng Virtue by prevention But he that flatters doth pollute his mouth And is a falsifier of the Truth The Parasite who shames not to uphold Whatever by his Patron shall be told Or seeks by Jeering to discountenance A simple Truth and falshood to advance Against this holy Precept so offends That punishment his Guiltiness attends Yea they who get access to great mens Tables By coming furnished with News and Fables Are thereby often guilty of this sin Which by this Law hath countermanded bin When we dare venture to reiterate Those Rumors which the common people prate On meer surmises we are accessary To many slanders We make Truth miscarry And bear false witness to the wrong of many When we suspect not that we wronged any Nor can we satisfie for these offences Which then may follow if our Sov'raign Princes Or there affairs of state shall wrong sustain By such false tales as we receive or fain When out of levity Reports we make Of others frailties or occasions take To mention Jestingly what may disgrace The person either absent or in place Without just motives or content shall grow To hide what Love and Equity should show We in the main or in some circumstance False Testimonies may thereby advance But he that uttereth slanders in despight Or justifies the thing that is not right Or judgeth rashly in anothers Cause Or any needful witnesses withdraws Or by concealing what for truth he knows Betrayeth Innocency to her Foes Or hears another injur'd in his Fame With Silence when he may prevent the same Or unto any one occasion gives Whereby he falshood for the truth believes Ev'n every such a one false witness bears What Cloak of Honesty so'ere he wears Nor are they guiltless who avoid not that Whereby occasions rise to perpetrate Against this Law As Bribery Respect Or disrespect of persons which infect The soundest minds and bring them by degress Their innocent Integrity to leese Yea he who so loves Bribes though he were wise They will make deaf his ears hood-wink his eyes And so corrupt his heart that the shall know No Truth except some profit thence do flow Nor any falshood fear to entertain Whereby he may assured be of gain And lest by some those men be judged free From this offence if any such there be Who by False Miracles false Revelations False Dreams false Visions false Interpretations Of Holy Scripture or by such like patchings Of â—arnal wisdom and of Sathan's hatchings Affirm that thing for truth which is a Lye Know that these Juglers in degree as high As he that 's worst prove guilty of this Sin Which by this Precept hath forbidden bin For though our Doctrines be not so unsound But that some truths among them shall be found Though cloath'd in Lamb-skins we do seem to go Though for a blameless life we famous grow Though in our formal Zeal surpass we shall The Pharisees and ev'ry Priest of Baal Tho' oft we fast tho' loud we pray and long Tho' we seem'd wrong'd and patient of the wrong Tho' we affect the Crown of Martyrdome And dye as if we death had overcome Yea tho' we seem as Angels who from heav'n Had Power and Knowledge and Commissions giv'n Yet if our Zeal our outward Piety Our Knowledge our affected Constancy Our suff'rings and the Truths which we have said Were that the God of Truth might be betray'd And falshood favour'd We offenders are Against this precept we false witness bear And all our Godly shews are fruits of evil Delusions and Impostures of the Devil Lord sanctify my heart and keep my tongue That it may neither do my neighbour wrong Nor prattle those Untruths which may oppose The Verities thy Spirit shall disclose But grant that I who see how these offend May find out mine own Errors and amend Yea Lord so teach me and be so my Guide That faithful to this Law I may abide Amen X Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours House c. When in us this Vice begins Crowns we pawn for crooked pins And by coveting of more Forfeit what we had before Blockish Ahab therefore mind Who by fooling in this kind Life and Kingdom to his cost For a Kitchen-garden lost And his fall is on Record That his fault might be
contentment then To hear and see great multitudes of men Assemblies make to invocate thy Name And in their songs to magnifie the same Indeed this is our Duty and when this Upon thy days by some performed is â—â—ou tak'st it as a honour done to thee â—â—â—t in such Dutys we might serious be Yet still the benefit is all our own Thy praise is neither more nor farther blown To thy avail nor doth our holiness Conduce to ought but out own happiness The days on which we memorize thy Graces And meet together in thy holy places Are much for our avail for then and there Thou teachest us our Crosses how to bear What to believe and hope there we may learn How we 'twixt Good and Evil may discern How Truth from cursed Error we may know What Path to shun or take what work to do And how and whom to love which is the Sun And height of all whereto on Earth we come Which manifests that only for our sake It pleased thee some days of Rest to make Sure ev'ry mean capacity is able To understand that in the second Table Mans welfare is immediately intended And that therefore those Laws be recommended To universal practice so to stay Our minds from running out another way For if our lives ambitiously we spend In brawls for honour If we set an end To all our kind by Murthers If we please To plague our selves with ev'ry soul disease And ev'ry grief of Heart which will arise From Fornications and Adulterys If all our Labours should be made a prey To Thieves till want had worn us quite away If we should plague each other by our Lies By slanders or in humane Perjurys Or if our hearts upon the Rack were set By lusting after what we could not get These madnesses our mischiefs only be But neither harm nor discontent to thee Except in this respect that having took Our Nature thy Compassion cannot brook To see thy Members injur'd by the Sin Which lawless people are delighted in Thou hast affirm'd the better to apply Thy workings to our mean Capacity That all things for thy Glory thou hast wrought And yet it is not therefore to be thought Thou wantest Glory and didst work for more Or that it gain'd ought wanting heretofore Nor may we think a power so truly wise Should work for that which we are bid despise But rather than thou honour dost expect To be to thee ascrib'd as an effect Of fruitfulness belonging to the Natures And undespis'd condition of thy Creature Yea I believe unfainedly oh God By what I from thy self have understood Thou wrought'st for Love Not meerly to attain Thy Creatures love for that had been as vain Because indeed as little need thou hast Of their imperfect love as of the blast Of their weak praise Oh Lord thy love it was Thy Love essentail which did bring to pass The works thou mad'st That blessed love of thine Which is thy Self Oh Essence most Divine For being All and all at full possessing In thy Self-being thou conceiv'st a blessing To be conferr'd on others not to add Ought to that Blessedness thy Essence had Thy wisedom infinite a passage found By thy eternal Power which hath no bound Distinct and finite Natures forth to bring without impairing or deminishing Thy perfect Essence which of thy perfection Should give some Demonstration by reflection Among the rest one Creature thou did'st name Compos'd of all which th' universal Frame Therein contained And the same did'st make Not only so as that it might partake Of all Created things and also be A certain Medium 'twixt them and thee But which is to the honour of it more Thine Image in it self it likewise bore And had a possiblity to be United undivisibly to thee A Species of this Creature Lord I am And for what end created we became As I conceive it here I mean to tell Oh teach me better If I say not well Thou being Love it self and therefore kind It was thy gracious and eternal mind Mankind a Sharer in thy bliss to make And grant him License also to partake That Glory which thou didst enjoy alone Before all other Beings were begun And this great favour Lord thou pleased wert As well became thy Wisdom to impart By Means Degrees and on the same condition Through which we best might gain the best fruition Of what was purposed and come to be United as I said before to thee To Adam this great Mystery appear'd Till disobedience Foggs in him had rear'd Which dull'd his Reason and his heart declin'd From Thee within himself this bliss to find The Law thou gav'st him was not as is thought By some of us that proof might so be sought Of his Obedience For thou knowest all Before it is and what shall still befall Much less as other some conceited are Was that Command intended as a Snare Those to entrap whom thy eternal Hate Had fore-decreed Oh God! to reprobate Far it is from the Goodness of thy Nature To be a God so Cruel to thy Creature And far far be it from thy Creatures too To their kind Maker so great wrong to do This rather seems the cause there could not be A possibility that Thou and We Should make a perfect Vnity unless Our Nature had Essential Righteousness For otherwise thy Justice would abhor That which thy Mercy did endeavour for And from uniting us become so far That thine own Attributes would be at War When therefore Man seduced fail'd in that Which might have perfected his blest Estate And that perform'd not whereby Justice might In our Advancement take a full delight Behold thy powerful Mercy did prevent Our total ruin by a Wonderment Beyond the Worlds Creation out of nought For when by Sin we further off were brought From what thou had'st intended us then by The not obtaining of an Entity Thy all-inventing wisdom found a mean Through which our Essence made e'rewhile unclean Should be re-purifi'd and so perfum'd That personally it might be then assum'd Unto thyself and Man thereby attain A Happiness not to be lost again If some few easy Duties he will do When Grace enables Nature thereunto And doubtless every Man shall one day know That thou on him such portions didst bestow Ev'n pers'nally that if he be undone It was not Adams but his fault alone This Mystery thy goodness brought to pass And for no other end Oh Lord it was But for our good for neither dost thou need Our Praise or Love nor is it for the deed Of Love or Praise or Worship or of ought Which by our faculties to pass is brought That thou requirest them of us but that we Should not unto our selves defective be In doing our endeavours to attain So much as lieth in our power to gain Lest it indamage us and in the way Unto our true perfections stops may lay Essential goodness hath essential peace Without all diminution or increase And therefore