Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	eat_v	fruit_n	serpent_n	1,943	5	9.6634	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80530	Experience, historie, and divinitie Divided into five books. Written by Richard Carpenter, vicar of Poling, a small and obscure village by the sea-side, neere to Arundel in Sussex. Who being, first a scholar of Eaton Colledge, and afterwards, a student in Cambridge, forsooke the Vniversity, and immediatly travelled, in his raw, green, and ignorant yeares, beyond the seas; ... and is now at last, by the speciall favour of God, reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England? Printed by order from the House of Commons.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1641 (1641)	Wing C620B; ESTC R229510	263,238	607

God suffers not the Devill to take a shape but such a one as will decipher his practices And the serpent which deceived Eve was crafty in a high degree of craft for many write that his making was upright and that hee was beautified with a head and face somewhat like hers And he that had beene throwne from heaven because hee desired to be like God comes now with a trick to the weaker of the two and his first temptation is a motion to the desire of being like God Yee shall be as Gods Hee knew by experience that the desire of being like God was like Gen 3. 5. enough to lay them low enough under him And because they would be like God Christ would be a man And he comes with a faire apple a pretty thing for the curiosity of a woman to look upon and desire to touch and play with The holy Scripture gives three reasons which moved her to eat of it three reasons besides the Devil's temptation every one being gathered from some conceived excellencie in the fruit And when the woman saw that the tree was good for Gen. 3. 6. food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise alas foolish woman shee tooke of the fruit thereof and did eat Shee lov'd her belly too well Shee delighted in glittering shewes and she would be wise above her condition And these are three great faults amongst Eves daughters But as the profession of wisedome so the desire of wisedome which involveth knowledge of things above our degree and out of our end is an adjunct of folly S. Paul saith of the old Philosophers Professing themselves to be wise they became fooles And she desiring to be wise became Rom. 1. 12 a very foole And now Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord Gen. 3 8. God among the trees of the Garden They add folly to folly they hide themselves from the presence of him that is omnipresent And they are fooles indeed to think the trees of the garden will be more true to them then to God or that the Trees will hide an injury done to one of the best trees in the garden And they doe not hide themselves onely but also their fault and tosse it from one to another The man cries out The woman whom thou gavest to be with mee shee gave me of the tree and I did eat The Gen 3. 12. woman cries out lowder then he The serpent beguiled mee and I did eat They hid Ver ●3 their sinnes and incurred a curse Wee to avoid a curse must confesse our sinnes and lay them open But the woman makes her excuse with lesse fault because shee was the weaker party and taught by the example of her husband And he throwes the fault upon his wife shee not back upon him but upon the Devill And the serpent the Devils instrument in his appearance was laid upon his belly for it and bound to hard fare to eat dust all the dayes of his life And God goes in his curses as they proceeded in their sinnes he first curses the serpent then the woman and afterwards the man who sinned after them all But had he stood say the Interpreters we never had fallen And the Schoole-men give a sufficient reason for he was the root both of Eve and us And he cannot be freed from the greatest fault For it was more in him to be deluded by his wife then in her to be deceived by the Devill MEDITATION VI. GOd being now constrained to banish Adam and his wife out of Paradise stay'd them notwithstanding within the sight of it They were not banished into a farre Country that they might know they should be shortly restor'd and that having Paradise alwayes before their eyes they might loath sin the deadly cause of their expulsion God created all this faire globe of the world for man and therefore did not fashion him before the sixth day till the house was furnished and made in all points fit for his entertainment All the strange variety of creatures abiding either in Aire Earth or Sea were made such and such to help him forward in such and such manner to his supernaturall end and therefore God gave to no creature an upright stature and a tongue to speake and praise him but to man because all the benefits hee cast upon other things were not given to them for themselves but in order to man being rather his then their benefits And both Angels and man having fallen from God hee turnes away from the Angels and turnes with a sweet face and with loving embraces unto man For the Angels being endowed with most eminent abilities of nature and that highly perfected by Grace and having no clog of body to waigh down the spirit sinn'd of meere malice without a Tempter and without an example and therefore fell beneath the benefit of a Redeemer One reason of this love of God to man is prettily expressed by way of History A man and a woman were found guilty of theft whereof the woman was bigg with childe The man having nothing to say for himselfe is condemned and sent away to the place of execution The woman cries and pleads shee is with childe and though condemn'd is onely sent to prison where shee gives such efficacious signes of her sorrow and Repentance that after a while she the fruit of her womb are set at liberty Now the history turnes to a similitude and the fable becomes true historie The Angels had nothing to say and their generations were compleat one Angell doth not beget another and were immediatly sent to the place of execution But Adam and Eve were both with child their number was not up they radically cōtained in them thousands of thousands that should come after them and they were spar'd for their childrens sakes till they were spar'd for their own sakes yet all were spar'd for Christ his sake and wholly for his sake And God hath so play'd the good Alchymist with the sinne of our first Parents extracting many goods out of one evill that some curiously question whether wee may or may not be sorry that Adam sinn'd For if wee are sorry that hee sinn'd wee are sorry that God's deare children as they still encrease their yeares still encrease their blessednesse For where good and evill meet in combat as now after the dayes of Innocence there is opposition and resistance in the performance of good where is resistance there also is difficulty and where wee discover a difference and diversity as well in the measure as in the manner of resistance there occurre also degrees of difficulties and the greater the difficulty the more pretious the reward If wee are not sorry that he sinn'd wee are not sorry that God was abus'd and his very first command broken If we are sorry that he sinn'd wee are sorry that many faire vertues have entred upon our

him if it be of high things he cannot endure it he cannot taste aright bitter is sweet and sweet bitter to his infected palate hee hath litle stomach to his meate hee loathes it and when hee eates it will not stay with him or if it does he cannot digest it perfectly hee cannot stand without leaning hee cannot goe without a staffe he cannot runne without one And why all this Because he is sicke because he is a very weake man O Adam what hast thou done but in vaine Had the best of us beene Adam he would have eaten had there beene a Serpent and a woman perhaps had there beene a Serpent and no woman perhaps had there been a woman and no Serpent perhaps had there beene neitheir woman nor Serpent For God being absent with his efficacie he might have beene both woman and Serpent to himselfe But let him passe It is beleeved that God hath forgiven Adam and his wife who first brought sinne into the world and we may have great hope he will be a tender-hearted father also towards us that never saw the blessed houres of innocencie Nothing can harden his tendernesse but our sinnes And there are onely two deformities in our sinnes conceivable to be most odious and urging to revenge the greatnesse of them the multitude of them O! but the Prophet David a knowing man prescribes a speciall remedy Have mercie upon Psal 51. 1. me O God according to thy loving kindnesse The Latine translation gives it Secundum magnam misericordiam tuam according to thy great mercie great sinnes great mercie a present remedy What comes after according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions a multitude of grievous sinnes a multitude of tender mercies an approved remedy There wants only a lively faith and a vertuous life like two hands to make the application to bring them together and 't is done Consideration 2. THe light of the Understanding which properly belongs to the Understanding is onely naturall and that lesse cleare then it was And a naturall light leads onely to the knowledge of naturall things or of things as naturall for nothing can worke beyond the vertue received from its causes But man is ordained for God as for an end which goes beyond the graspe and comprehension of nature according to Saint Pauls Divinity borrowed from the Prophet Esay Eye hath not seene 1 Cor. 2. 9 nor eare heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him And the end ought alwayes to be foreseene and foreknowne by them who are engaged to direct and turne the face of all their intentions and actions to the end Therefore another light is necessary a light above the knowledge and reach of nature of which the Understanding by nature is altogether destitute Here is a wondrous defect Who can shew mee such another We naturally see there is a God Farther we naturally see that all things were made for us and we for God howsoever the Stoicks thought one man was borne for another And yet by the proper strength of nature we cannot goe to him whom we see to be whom we see to be our end and for whom we see we were made nor yet towards him Saint Austin one of the most searching spirits that ever was both a spirit and a body solves this hard knot of difficulty in a discourse of another linage Consultissime homini praecipitur ut rectis passibus ambulet ut cum se non S. Aug. de perfect Iust cap. 7. posse perspexerit medicinam requirat c. The lame unable man is fitly commanded to go that perceiving his defect of being unable he may seeke a cure and be able But the cure what is it The grace of God and as Conc. Senonense a learned Councell speaketh gratia semper est in promptu the grace of God is alwayes in a readinesse I am not commanded to travell for it wheresoever I am it is there also I may lift up my hands and take it if I open my heart wide it will drop into it And as it was the nature of Originall sinne to weaken the naturall and to darken the supernaturall light of the soule so likewise it is the nature of actuall sinne to wound nature and to kill grace grace only being directly opposite to sinne And thence it comes that still as we sin still we are more darkened and that still the more we sinne still the more we are deceived in our judgements and still erre the more in the sight and knowledge of truth For why doe wicked men ingulft in wickednesse apprehend most horrible sinnes as triviall matters because their Candle is out the light by which they saw is darkened with sinne Why doe weake Christians change their opinions from good to evill from evill to more evill Why doe they grow more strong and obstinate in evill opinions Whither soever I goe I must come hither for an answer Because some private or publike sins have removed their Candle-sticke out of his place and they are in darknesse God blesse my heart from the darknesse of Egypt It is a pretty observation that although the Israelites and the Egyptians were mingled together yet the plague of darknesse which was a continuall night wheresoever it found an Egyptian was neither plague nor darknesse to an Israelite no verily though hand in hand with an Egyptian O Lord I learne here that I am blinde and darke and I know that I am weake and therefore without thee my contemplation will be darke and weake as I am Consideration 3. VVE see God in this world not in himselfe but per speculum creaturarum through the glasse of creatures It is Rom. 1. 20. worthily said by Saint Paul The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearely seene being understood by the things that are made Clearely seene to be but not clearely seene what they are in themselves For if so the things which are seene should be as exactly perfect as the things which are not seene as representing them perfectly It is a direct passage by corporall things up to spirituall For God applyes himselfe accordingly to the nature of every thing in which he workes The Angles are Spirits and therefore their directions even before their union with God were altogether spirituall But wee being partly corporall and outwarly furnished with senses are most commonly taught by things which offer and present themselvs to sense And because the seeing faculty is the most quick and apprehensive the sense of seeing hath more instructions And seeing most like to understanding what is seene may best be understood In all Gods creatures as being the creatures of one God there is a strange kind of consent combination and harmony In earthly things heavenly things are strangely set out and proposed to us For if the way had not some springlings of resemblance with the Country we

Angels not descend with Nabuchodonosor to that inferiour and low rank of beasts And by the more frequent operations of the spirit in high things we become more spirituall and indeed Angelicall By the more frequent exercise of the body and the bodily powers in the acts of sensuality we become more bodily and bestiall MEDITATION 4. ANd God gave us a being so perfect in all points and lineaments that lest we should fondly spend our whole lifes in admiration of our selves and at the looking-glasse hee wrought his owne image in us that guided byit as by a finger pointing upwards wee might not rest in the work but look up presently to the workman The image consisteth in this God is one the soule is one God is one in Essence and three in persons the Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost The soule is one in Essence and three in faculties the understanding the will the memory The Father is the first person and begets the Son the understanding is the first faculty and begets the will I meane the acts of willing by the representation of something which it sheweth amiable The Holy Ghost is the third person and proceeds from the Father and the Son the memory is the third faculty and is put into action and being in a manner joyntly by the understanding and will But here is a strange businesse The Sonne the second person came downe into the world and yet stay'd in Heaven The will the second faculty and she onely goes as it were out of the soule into outward action that we may see the soule of a man in the execution of his will and yet remaines in the soule God is a spirit the soule is a spirit God is all in all the world and all in every part of the world The soule is all in all the body and all in every part of the body Phidias a famous Graver desiring to leave in Athens a perpetuall memorie of himselfe and an everlasting monument of his Art made a curious image of Minerva the matter being pretious Jvorie and in her buckler upon which in a faire diversitie hee cut the battails of the Amazons and Giants hee couched his owne picture with such a rare singularity of Art that it could not any way be defaced without an utter dissolutiō of the Bucklar This did God before Phidias was ever heard of or his fore-fathers through many generations in the soule of man the image of God though not his likenesse remaining in the soule as long as the soule remaineth even in the damned To this image God hath annexed a desire of him which in the world lifts up our hearts to God in Hell begets and maintaines the most grievous paine of losse And to shew that this desire of God is the greatest and best of all desires nothing which any other desire longs after will satisfie the gaping heart but onely the object of this great desire Ad imaginem Dei facta anima rationalis saith S Ber. Ser. de divinis S. Bernard caeteris omnibus occupari potest repleri non potest capax enim Dei quicquid minus Deo est non replebit The reasonable soule being made after the image of God may be held back and stay'd a little dallying with other things but it can never be fully pleas'd and fill'd with them for the thing that is capable of God cannot be filled with any thing that is lesse then God The heart is carved into the forme of a Triangle and a Triangle having three angles or corners cannot be filled with a round thing as the world is For put the world being sphaericall or circular into the triangle of the heart and still the three angles will be empty and wait for a thing which is most perfectly one and three And that wee might know with what fervour of charity and heat of zeale God endeavoureth that we should be like to him he became like to us For although God cannot properly be said like to us as God as a man is not said like to his picture but the picture to him yet as man he may And therefore as hee formed us with conformity to his image in the Creation so hee formed himselfe according to our image and likenesse in his Incarnation So much he seeketh to perfect likenesse betwixt us in all parts that there may be the more firme ground for love to build upon when commonly similitude allureth to love and likenesse is a speciall cause of liking It is the phrase of S. Paul who saith of Christ that he was made in the likenesse of man 2 Phil. 7. MEDITATION V. ANd woman being made not as man of earth but of man and made in Paradise was not taken out of the head that she might stand over her husband nor out of the feet that she might be kickt and trod upon nor out of any fore-part that shee might be encouraged to go before her husband nor yet out of a hinder part lest her place should be thought amongst the servants farre behind her husband but out of the side that shee might remaine in some kinde of equality with him And from his heart side and a place very neere the heart that his love towards her might be hearty And from under his left arme that he might hold her with his left arme close to his heart and fight for her with his best arme as he would fight to defend his heart It is one of the great blessings which the Prophet pronounceth to him that feareth the Lord. Thy wife shall be as a fruitfull vine by the sides of thine house The vine branch may Psal 128. 3 be gently bended any way and being cut it often bleeds to death And the wife is a vine by the sides of the house her place is not on the floore of the house nor on the roofe shee must never be on the top of the house But there is a difference the woman must be a Vine by the insides of the House But now begins a Tragedy It is not without a secret that the Devill in his first exploit borrowed the shape of a serpent of which Moyses Now the serpent was more Gen. 3. 1. subtill then any beast of the field The knowledge of the Angels is more cleare compared with the knowledge of the Devils and moreover is joyned with Charity but the knowledge of the Devils is not joyned with Charity Justice or other vertues and therefore degenerateth into craft according to that of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. in M●●●x●●● 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Knowledge not linked with justice and other vertues is not wisedome but craft And the serpent is crafty For if he can passe his head his long traine being lesse and lesse will easily follow Hee will winde and turne any way He flatters outwardly with gawdy scales but inwardly he is poyson Hee watches for you in the greene grasse even amongst the flowers Wee see that

without the troublesome connexion of a body But man is stored with a fairer number of perfections albeit those perfections which the Angel hath spread farther in fairenesse then these of man Shall this faire creature the noble work of God worship the meane work of man an Image which is but ashes in the likenesse of an Image and which the Popish Doctors confesse if a Papist or other person be driven with extremity of colde hee may burne to relieve his body Goe now man and worship him who when thy body falleth to the poore condition of a stone or block or of the Image that men would perswade thee to worship and stirreth onely as it is moved by a living power and shall be left not a man but the Image of a man the Image of God being departed with and in the soule shall acknowledge his owne Image if not defaced with the worship of Images or other sinnes and call thy soule and his Image home to his rest CHAP. 3. I Cannot come so nigh but I must needs have one pluck at the invocation of Saints By what device can we invocate the Saints without great injury to Gods glory For the more help we crave and expect from others though with some reference to God the lesse wee seeme to depend upon God and want of dependance be it reall or rationall and onely in appearance breeds neglect And a simple wretch beleeving that in what place soever of the world he is hee is there heard by his Saint and his petition granted and as they teach more easily granted doe you think his heart is not vehemently prompted to deifie his Saint I have heard an Italian say in Rome and hee spoke to me when he said it being transported with a high thought of the Popes greatnes so like the greatnesse of God that hee did exceedingly pitty the poore blind Englishmen who beleeved aright in some things and embraced many verities as that there is one God and three persons and the like and yet did not beleeve so plaine and open a matter that the Pope is God upon earth But they meet me as I goe A vile sinner is unworthy to appeare before God in his owne person Is it so Why then doth Christ make publike proclamation Come unto me all yee that labour and are heavy laden Mat. 11 28 and I will give you rest Wee must come unto him that giveth rest And all must come even they that labour under the waight of a burdened conscience they that are in labour and desire to be delivered of a Hedghog that wounds and teares them in their tender inside The spirits labour when men are upon dying and wee that labour to keepe life and soule together must come to him And it is God who as the Prophet David saith Humilia respicit in coelo in terra looks back upon the humble things of heaven and earth For as the low things of earth are humble in respect of him so also the sublime high things of Heaven But he bowes downe his attention to all as the Sun visiteth with equall clearenesse the garden of flowers the greene medow the field of Lillies and the dirty ditch One example is eminent And behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts and cryed unto him saying Have mercy on mee O Mat. 15. 22 Lord thou Son of David my daughter is grievously vexed with a devill Shee was a woman of Canaan but for her unworthinesse her name is concealed And shee came out of the same coasts but what coast or where her house stood or whether or no she had a house wee must not learne And yet shee boldly cries unto him for mercy She gives him his titles by which she acknowledges his power and his gentlenesse For she calls him Lord and the Sonne of David a meek man And shee goes to him for a remedy against the devill that came to destroy the works of the devill Her daughter was possessed with a devill and quod possidetur saith Thomas of Aquine expounding the definition Tho. Aqu. 1. p. q. 10. art 1. of Eternity given by Boetius firmiter quietè habetur We hold fast and quietly the thing we possesse Yet shee hopes and feares and feares and hopes againe and in that hope goes to him couragiously Now certainly hee will come running towards her and meet her above halfe way It is quite otherwise But hee answered her not a word O poore woman why then Ver. 23. the Popish doctrine will appeare probable Christ will not answer a word to a vile sinner speaking in her owne person Had he but look'd upon her with a compassionate eye and said Alas poore woman she would have called him Son of David once again But he answered her not a word And his Disciples came and besought him saying Send her away for she crieth after us She follow'd still and her cries went before her if hee will not see her he shall heare her and he shall know that she is a woman His Disciples begin to think that shee is as much vext with a devill as her daughter shee cries so loud and beseech him to send her away But he answered and said I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Ver. 24. Poore wretch what shall become of her She is lost and lost againe lost in her selfe and lost in her daughter but shee is not of the sheep of the house of Israel And therefore if hee be sent to none but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel hee will never finde her though shee be lost and hee finde what is lost Then came she and worshipped him saying Lord help mee Make roome Ver. 25. give way there now she comes She breaks through the presse and down she falls upon her knees before him shee feares that shee was rejected because she had not worshipped him and now she humbles her heart and her body and lifts up her hands crying Lord help me Is it possible now that Christ should not melt into compassion and thaw into sweet drops of teares and mercy But he answered and said It is not meet to take the Ver. 26. childrens bread and to cast to dogs What a dog If shee be a dog shee is not a curst dog Was ever a dog heard to cry Lord help me I wonder she breaks not out Am I a dog I would have you well know I am not a dog I am a woman You a man sent from Heaven and call a woman dog Had I beene call'd any thing but an unclean dog I had not car'd I doe not remember that I ever bark'd or bit any man And must I now be call'd a dog Her language is of another straine And she said Truth Lord Ver. 27. yet the doggs eat of the crums which fall from their Masters table The woman will be a dog or any thing that hee calls her and shee

who sent a dish of hot meat covered to a Friary the shaved head of a Friar and it was presented to the Friars being at dinner with this Message that such a Gentleman a good Benefactor of theirs had sent them a dish from his Table and many thanks were given with acknowledgment that they were much beholding to him and alwayes bound to him by new favours But the Messenger uncovering the dish began with the other end of his Message and fairely told the Friars that as many of them as came where he was found for he had spared his wife his Master would serve with the same sawce Had this Friar married hee might have died with his head upon his shoulders Upon the last good Friday which I saw in Spain the upper part of a Church fell standing in a Town not far distant from us And as the manner is the women sitting in the body of the Church many of them were oppressed The Preacher seeing it when it first yielded turned to go downe the Pulpit was joyned to a side pillar but he was beaten down and lost the use of both his legs The noise went presently abroad and brought in all sorts of people And the women wearing many Rings they pulled them off and where they came not at the first pull cut off their fingers when many of them were alive and onely stunnied And presently came downe another part of the roof and destroyed them and their crueltie This is the day when the Crosse is adored crept to and kissed and brought into the Pulpit and there spoke to And as my Discourses are altogether occasionall so heere in place of these follies of Devotion I will give matter of Meditation for this and other good times MEDIT. 1. CHrist being promised to the sicke and wounded World in those acceptable words The seed of the woman shall bruise Gen. 3. 15. the Serpents head God in his wisdome suffered the World to walk many hundreds of yeares by the twilight of Nature And then also there was a Church and Melchisedech was a Priest of the most high God The breach of this Law bringing a deluge upon the whole World and an overflow of corruption upon Faith and Manners God gave an addition of the written Law But that likewise little helping to the perfect cure● and the World having now fully seene in the Glasse of long Experience that man of himselfe was altogether unable and that there was extream need of a Saviour God sent his own and onely Son in the fulnesse of time the Prince of Peace when the World was setled in a firm peace Esay 9. 6. to promulgate the Law of Grace a Law which bindeth vinculo pacis with the bond of peace And when both the Law of Nature and the written Law passed by the manifold necessities of the miserable world the good Samaritan performed all the businesse with a little Balsam It is generally true which is commonly said that example doth more forcibly move then words For it is not onely true of ordinary words delivered by the tongue the hearts Interpreter but also of that great Word the Son of God by whom wee were not so strongly and efficaciously moved when in the beginning was the Word and the Word was John 1. 1. with God and when he remained invisibly with the Father as when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us Every man Verse 14. was lost and lost before he was found and lost for ever and a great Father without a Father sent his Son being also a Son without a Son and without a brother for there could not be many such Sons to labour till hee dyed in the recovery And lest vaine men should say God made the World indeed a goodly piece of work but alasse he brought about all this fair diversitie of building with a word or two a word is soon spoken He said let there be this let there be that and both that and this came presently and shewed themselves but hee did not labour he did not sweat in the performance his works are great but they are not painfull Dealing now the great work of our Redemption hee labours to extinguish the flames of sin with teares for hee was often seene to weep but never to laugh with sweat with bloud with sweat of bloud And as the Unicorne is taken in the Wildernesse by laying his head in a Virgins lap and there sleeping till he is bound and carried away with his precious horne the sovereigne cure of poyson So while Christ laid himselfe down in the Virgins lap hee was bound and carried away to be the onely cure of spirituall poyson No marvell now if the whole World favoured the time of his birth and the great Sea was at quiet while the little Halcyon was in building her Nest No marvell if as in his eternall generation he hath a Father without a Mother so in his temporall generation he hath a Father without a Mother so in his temporall generation hee came of a Mother without a Father and from her into the World without opening the doore in his entrance No marvell if the Kings of the East animated with the prophecies of Iob or Balaam came hastily to him under the strange conduct of a new-made Star No marvell though as hee entred into Egypt the trees to which others bowed and gave idolatrous worship bowed themselves to worship him and though the Idols fell in pieces No marvell if Oracles lost their voices and that of Apollo answered Augustus Me puer Hebraeus c. An Hebrew Boy hath silenced mee and no marvell if a false God complained the very day of Christs passion to certaine Mariners at Sea that he was now utterly destroyed For that to which these wonders were directed or from which they were derived was it felfe superlatively wonderfull The Son of the Ever-living God being life it self died for us MEDIT. 2 THe terms of Divinitie are to be taken into the mouth as the Canonists speak cum grano salis with a grain of salt that is wisely tasted and understood otherwise they will not prove good nourishment The Son of the living God was crucified and being God was crucified but God was not crucified Saint Paul saith Had they known it they would not have crucified the 1 Cor. 2. 8. Lord of glory But hee doth not meane that the Lord of glory was crucified For the nature of the Deitie is not passible neither is glory lyable to pain As likewise it is said No man goeth up into heaven but he that came downe from Heaven the Sonne of Man And yet notwithstanding it was onely the Son of God that came down from Heaven for he was not yet the Son of Man In respect therefore of the personall Unitie in Christ the things which are proper to God are sometimes referred to man and the things which pertaine to man are ascribed to the Divinity It is a similitude

the paines the old man tooke And yet riches cannot satisfie the heart of man Saint Austin hath the reason of it in his Meditations Domine fecisti nos propter te irrequietum est cor nostrum donec pervenerit ad S. Aug. in confes te Lord thou hast made us for thee and the heart of man cannot bee quiet till it come to thee and rest in thee And the Prophet speakes not besides the matter When I awake up after thy likenesse I shall be satisfied with it There are holy meditations Ps 17. 15. and vertuous exercises to which wee owe much time and therefore the Devill a cunning dealer keepes the richer part of women busie all the prime of the day in dressing their bodies and undressing their soules and in creating halfe-moones and stars in their faces in correcting Gods workmanship and making new faces as if they were somewhat wiser then God Quem judicem mulier saith Saint Ambrose veriorem S. Ambr. requirimus deformitatis tuae quam te ipsam quae videri times O woman what more true judge can we require of thy deformity that is thy uglinesse then thy selfe who fearest to be seene The Devill is alwayes more forward in seducing women because he knoweth that women are of a soft pliant and loving nature and that if they should love God they would love him tenderly The Devill whither can any of us men or women flie from the Devill Be sober be vigilant saith Saint Peter because 1 Pet. 5. 8. your adversary the Devill as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devoure It is not enough to be sober nor enough to be vigilant He is not our friend but our adversary And he is a busie Devill he goes about an angry Devill he goes about like a roaring Lion a hungry Devill for hee does not roare onely but he comes roaring with a greedy purpose to devoure and hee walketh lest going with speede he should run over you and he keepes not one way but walketh about and does not onely devoure those who stand or meete him in his way but he seeketh whom he may devoure and he is alwayes the same alwayes a Devill for when he hath found his prey fed upon it and eate up all he is not satisfied he goes on still seeking whom hee may devoure God blesse every good man and woman from a roaring Lion Sixtus Sixt. II. and second in one of his Epistles directed to a certaine Bishop gives the Devill no good report Si in Paradiso hominem stravit quis locus extra Parad. esse potest in quo mentes hominum penetrare non valeat If he gave man a fall in Paradise what place can there be out of Paradise in which he may not insinuate and wind himselfe into the hearts of men Here is a picture of the life we so much love and so much desire to continue And in the last place an old house fals or an arrow goes out of the way or our feete slip or the Devill comes to us in the outside of a Saint it is his course with drooping and melancholy spirits and tels us religiously that we shall give glory to God or at least ease and comfort to our selves if we cut our owne throats or hang our selves and we are dead gone Perhaps we may leave our pictures behinde us with our friends but what are they a meerely a meere deceit of the Painter our pictures are no part of us neither doe they represent us as we are we are dead we see but one anothers faces when we are alive we are parted in substances we cannot mingle into one another as wine and water and therefore death puls one out of the others bosome And commonly when our hopes are now ripe and the things we long desired at the doore Death comes and overtakes and takes us And any man being wicked himselfe may send with Gods leave a wicked man to Hell in the turning of a hand and then what would he not give to bee with his friends in the world againe Here the reason fals open why never yet from the beginning of the world any wise man died but if he could speake in his last words he cryed out against the vanities of life and of the world My prayer shall be the prayer of one that knew what hee prayd for O spare me that I may recover strength before I Ps 39. 13. goe hence and be no more Meditation 5. IF I consider man in his death and after it He dyes that never dyed before Hee dyes that knowes not what it is to dye Which of us knowes what the pangs of death are and how going naked agrees with the soule It is as true as old Death is of all terribles the most terrible For howsoever the holy Spirit in holy Scripture is pleased to call it a sleep it is not a sleep to the wicked It is recorded of Lazarus Our friend Lazarus sleepeth and of Saint Io. 11. 11. Act. 7. 60. Stephen And when he had said this he fell asleep And of the Patriarchs and Kings of Judah that they slept with their Fathers But this was the death of the Saints so pretious in the sight of the Lord. And the soule of man now leaving the body carrieth no mortall friends with her they stay behind the brother and the sister and the wife and the pretty little children with the sweete babe in the cradle No temporall goods or evils rather nothing but good or evill Revel 14. 13. workes and their workes doe follow them All the fairest goods which made all people in all ages proud are stil extant in the world and will be after us even to the end of the world And although the living talke pleasantly of their dead friends and hope well while one looketh soberly and saith I doubt not but such a man or such a woman is with God another neither truely doe I a third he she there is no question of it if he or she be not in heaven what shall become of me Yet notwithstanding all this plausible and smooth discourse not one of these three tenderhearted and charitable persons nor any one living here in the world knoweth certainly whither they were carried This we all know certainly Many of them are most heavily tormented in Hell and there curse the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation and the world and all their occasions of sin and all their friends and themselves and all Gods creatures in the very span of time wherein their friends speake well and judge charitably of them while they distribute their words without the least change of countenance and little thinke of their most wofull and most lamentable condition And the Devill though it is open to him after this life yet cunningly keepeth from us who are saved and who damned If one of us were now in Hell but it is a darke and horrid place God keepe