labours to refound back in dolefull and despairing Ecchoes How sadly doth it expostulate with heaven My dearest God what is become of that Lovely attribute thy Mercy are the treasures of it shut up from a poore sinner and wilt thou be a God of mercy to the whole world and wilt not to me O let me for ever dwell in dungeons deep beyond the reach and sight of man so I may but enjoy the brightnesse of thy face Let me live more poore and disconsolate then Job upon his Dunghill in a naked and forsaken deformity so I may but hide my spots and put on a Beauty in my soul which may invite thine eye again Who ever thou art that now riotts it in the world and dalliest with damnation didst thou but know the agonies of guilt the cruelties of a Murdering sin and the stings thy pleasures leave behind them how quickly wouldest thou sacrifice thy life to nobler services and employ thy time in sweeter thoughts Wert thou now to die how would the terrours of an evill Life affright thee when every sin would appear a Messenger of horrour and the flattering world prove but an infernall Comforter Shew me that Gyant-Conscience this would not at length Master that frozen soul these flashes would not melt and blast againe that Steel-backt sinner whom gentle loades will not at length numerously over-burden The world knowes not a misery like it the terrours of the Grave are trifles to it which could it but shroud the Guilty soul and in it's dark and solitary regions promise a freedome from future Misery how willingly will it buy its peace with death and beg its sharpest Dart for a speedier passage losse of friends or fortune Crosses to the very bone are but Scratches to these wounds give me a Catalogue of afflictions and there is none I think except this which is not tolerable But a wounded spirit who can bear How unsupportable O Lord is the burden of a Wounded Spirit how terrible are the Stings of Conscience and the apprehensions of thy wrath how miserable is he that securely wraps himselfe in Sinne and grows insensible of his guilt till the memory of his Crimes revive it and when death puts him in mind of the World to come hath nothing but the horrours of his Life before him Thou hast plac't an impartial Register in our bosomes which no flattery can bribe nor teares Silence from reminding us of thy Justice and yet how many are there whose Leviathan-consciences break the Silver Cords of thy Law like threds of Towe and are so farre from acknowledging their guilt that they are hardned in impenitence But teach me O Lord as I sinne so to sorrow dayly that so when I shall come and appeare before Thee I may find no other terrours no other sins my accusers then those which I have if not throughly crucified yet at least seriously repented of in my selfe before Eccles Chap. 12. v. 13. Feare God and Keepe his Commandements for this is the whole Duty of Man ANd yet how few are there that performe it which yet is not so much our duty as it ought to be our delight He that hath but once got the habit of adoring his Maker will quickly finde Religion but a pleasure and that Law which seemes so hard and unpleasing to the World will be but a recreation to his Soul But alas How little is there of Davids piety amongst us now when instead of delighting in Gods Law we deface it more are so far from meditating in it either day or night that we never think upon it at all 'T is the duty of the world now to sin confidently and an argument of much valour to banish this timorous religion of fearing either God or his Law The Preachers doctrine is now grown worse then a paradox mere Apocrypha 't is heresie to revive it To tell us of our duty is to scandalize the times that so officiously break the Law And no wonder there are so many Atheists there was never such a time to engender them as now Track Antiquity to its first rise and you cannot match this age again The world never multiplied so fast in sin abhominable Sects like Colonies new plant the earth prophaness is grown hereditary and sprouts out by propagation so that in time posterity may perhaps become Heathens Were God and his promise mutable a deluge would be but a sleight punishment We do not onely sin but glory in it more whilst some not content to be private and silent Atheists proclaim it loud and are mad to have the credit of being known so as if we could not be ingenious enough unless we denyed our Maker No wonder religion is out of tune when there is no harmony of a Church of that Christianity sounds low when common Morality is not heard And yet it is a lesson we cannot learn too well a tribute we cannot pay too much too often We owe our beeings to the bounty of his hand what homage then can we better pay then that which by glorifying of him purchaseth a Crown for our selves Tell me ye blind followers of the world what 's the glory ye pretend to Ye that laugh at heaven and make divinity a mantle for unrighteousnesse that with the Pharisee count formality your religion and make an outside-piety your duty Alass Heaven is not got by pious frauds guilded crimes or fortunate transgressions nor the divine Eye to be deluded with a painted zeal 'T is not a pretended sanctity that can cloathe us with immortality nor a fashionable devotion onely that will carry us to heaven How miserable is he whose god is the world and makes it his religion to neglect his Maker What didst Thou bestow our reason on us for O Lord but to harken unto the voice of thy Law that the Celestiall Oratory of thy Word might at least win us from an ignorant prophanesse Shall Heathens that had no other end no other reward for their piety than some temporary applause or the inward triumphs of their Spirits for doing well out-strip us in the beauties of a Morall life and we that have higher and purer hopes be scarce honest for thy sake Shall they that knew Thee not be more passionately Good than we that have found out Heaven and expect eternity to succeed Though it was not in the power of Man to find Thee till Thou didst reveal thy selfe in Christ yet now having so richly and fully shewn us the Treasures of thy Love shall we not strive to doe something for thy Glory Make us we beseech Thee to consider the advantages that are in thy Service the happinesse that attends obedience and that Crown which is the reward of Faith that so out affections being mortified unto these perishing objects here below may be enlivened onely with desires after those Eternall Excellencyes that are in Thee Luke Chap. X. v. 25. And a certaine Lawyer stood up and tempted him Saying Master what shall I doe
hath the world learnt his lesson How do the Catholicke Pharises pride themselves in a supererogatory devotion and thinke to climbe heaven by a ladder of their owne making glorying in a superabundant piety and triumphing in a meritorious excesse of dooing even more then they need How nimbly do our Trembling Enthusiasts too follow their leaders steps here in a sanctimonious pride by a supercilious purity presuming to reforme the world and new modell it againe That saint themselves Stylo novo and with the Pharisee not onely thanke but tell God plainly they are not as other men That raylingly proclaime themselves the great light of the world and in a pious Lunacy would new gospell it againe extravagantly proscribing all religions but their own These melancholy Pretenders seclude themselves from others and by a sullen devotion are become so strangely divine that they have almost lost their humanity So that if the Pharisee was not as other men yet these are as like the Pharisee as may be having so exactly learnt both his nature and religion So naturall is it for us O Lord to be deluded even in our best Performances and whilst we vainly thinke our selves not onely better then others but good enough in Thy Sight to be carried into presumption 'T is humility crownes all our Graces and puts a Beauty on our requests whilst the confidence of our owne merits does not onely deforme but seclude us from thee Teach us therefore with such gratitude to use thy gifts that we become not forgetfull of our selves or Thee Whilst others Pride themselves in a meritorious supererogation let us indeavour humbly to confesse and bewaile our imperfections Let not a spirituall Pride seise upon our souls so shall we be innocent from the Great Transgression Romans Chap. 6. v. 21. For the end of those things is death WHo then would propose that for his happinesse which shall perish with himself whose end is not only death but hell and will destroy him not onely now but hereafter too Indeed were there no hope that our remains should revive again or the ruins of our frame rise up to a finer shape we might well drown our selves in enjoyments heere and fixe our felicity in pleasures Every man might then without sin become an Epicure and he that could invent new fashions of luxury would not only be more ingenious but more fortunate too Morality would be all vice yet vice it self no more a crime but our felicity not to be extravagant then were a sin against nature he that is most Brutish would be most Rational Law would then become an enemie to Humanity there could be no society but in confusion and in spight of policy were there no heaven no hell we should pleasantly mingle to a chaos and obey no other discipline then that of riot Every one might then turne Atheist without scandall to be without God in the world would be no misfortune every man might be his own without blasphemy Could they that live dye like Brutes too and revive no more the comfort of not being damned would be greater then the sweets of sin But alas he that dies now must live againe that his life may be rememberd nor yet is it somuch the feare of Death as the horrours of a guilty conscence the terrible presages of a future eternity that scares the departing soul The pangs of expiring nature are nothing to those stings the memory of our crimes bring with them The sorrowes of the Grave and our being here no more for ever are joyes to the miseries that are to come Tell me thou that hug'st the world then and gropest for paradise in a grove of sins thou that makest earth thy treasure and wrap'st up the riches of thy hopes in time's bosome or the enclosure of a span when those bright and nimble guides of life thy eyes shall grow weak with age or weary with paine when every limbe shall become an object of sorrow and those parts that were so officiously employed in sin shall become instruments of despaire When that delicious frame that darling edifice thy Body shall by its tottering qualmes and trembling convulsions affrighten its disconsolate owner how will the flashes of a future justice and the terrours of thy end confound thee Can those enjoyments that flattered away thy soul restore it now can those pleasures that stole heaven from thee recover it again can thy vanities asswage thy sorrowes or the memory of thy sins the misery of thy end Where 's that musick whose aires like Davids harpe might charme the cries of conscience and by its straines drop a harmony that might still the trouble of thy anguisht soul Where are those trophies thy ambition purchased at the easy rate as onely sinning for that Honour for which thou hast sold heaven that soveraignty for which thou becamst a slave thy selfe and lost the freedome of thy soul Cannot all thy Greatnesse raise thee up a litle and by a power once so much feared and applauded reprieve thee from the grave or a more eternall prison Where are those treasures thou soldest thy best inheritance for whose ravishing splendours took away thy sight and made thee blinder then themselves Can they neither bribe nor buy thy pardon or will the grave know no other fee then so rich a misery Where are all those diversions that robb'd thee of thy piety and the thoughts of thy Maker those pleasing vanities that took away all sense of heaven and foresight of thy end Are all vanisht to a toomb and an unwelcome period are all thy jollities terminated in a Coffin and no other object left to keep thee company but thy Crimes and those terrours thy guilt presents Behold now then ye Lovers of the world more then of God and see the picture of your end those ruines you have so smoothly built on Try if all your imaginary felicities are proofe against this shaft or can secure you from this intruder the single Conquerour of the world whose very prison is but a reserve for a worse and its execution here but a repriefe for a more lasting and yet living death He that liv'd in pleasures must live in flames and having revell'd it in sin riot it in tortures and the misery is that wishing not to live he can never die And yet how vaine are our desires still after the world O Lord how soon how smoothly are we led by the false and transitory pleasures of this life from Thee The wages of sin is death and yet how foolishly do we preferre its service before thine whose reward is life The end of prophaness is eternall ruine and the pleasures of impiety period in confusion and yet we sadly embrace the proffers of sin before the promises of thy glory Pitty O Lord the frailties of our natures and forgive the irregularities of our lives fill us with noble desires after Thee that the vanities of the world may be our scorne and thy Glory onely our Ambition
Chymia Coelestis DROPS FROM HEAVEN OR PIOUS MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS On severall places of Scripture By Ben. Parry Gent. LONDON Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be sold at his shop at the Prince's Armes in St Paul's Church-yard 1659. To His Highly Honored Friend WILLIAM GLYNNE Esquier Deare Sir GIve me leave to present you with a few meditations which owe their birth to that place wherein your Honourable Father received his and therefore by a kind of Alliance may seem to challenge your acceptance The solemne retirements of those silent walks gave life to these thoughts which now under your name dare shew themselves abroad and from the society of Groves and Ecchoes take the liberty of a more open view They are not that which the world usually calls by the name of study though heaven cannot be too much studied on but the exercise only of a few spare thoughts sometimes on a pious subject a tribute which no Godly mind can pay too often And I was the more ambitious they should receive the honour of their Dedication from your hand as being so well acquainted with your vertue and the noblenesse of your spirit which is already become its owne Herauld beyond the loudest Encomium my pen can give Let Philosophers count the orbes and reckon up the starres none can speak so feelingly of Heaven as he that loves it best Of all Knowledge experimentall is the noblest and of all Meditation that which informs not onely the mind but the manners too The end of Divine Contemplation is reformation and he is but a dry Christian whose life consists more in speculation then in practise and though I am no Preacher yet I hope without putting me to the trouble of a Complementall excuse for being in print you will pardon my ambition if desirous to acknowledg my engagements to your Noble Relations as a testimony of my respects to your selfe I have made choice of this having no other way to manifest how much I desire to be esteemed SIR Your affectionate servant BEN. PARRY Oxford Novemb. 1658. The Epistle to the READER READER PErhaps the Title may Invite thy Eye though the meannesse of the Comment may not merit thy Perusal They are indeed the experiments of but a very young pen though the subjects are so divine they would finde worke enough for the Gravest in that Profession And they have so little of any affected or elaborate Curiosity that I need not tell thee They are onely the sudden effusions of a few pious minutes in my vacancies from other studies And who can Imploy his thoughts better at any time And therefore I took no other pains than not to breathe them to the Ayre onely but some Noble Conservator that might recal my thoughts and put me in mind againe of That which so equally concernes all Eternity If you wonder at their hasty ambition of being in Print It was not indeed the Request of Friends or any such thred-bare motive that stole them out I knew not well what else to do with them and therefore thought it as good to let them be lost in the World as in my Trunck And though I am not so confident as to think they are so good as to merit thy Applause yet I hope they are not so bad but they may be worth the Reading Farewell Chymia Coelestis Drops from Heaven OR Pious Meditations and PRAYERS ECCLES chap. 12. v. 1. Remember now thy Creatour in the dayes of thy youth REmember thy Creatour c. It is one of the best expressions in the Preacher's Sermon For who knows whether he shall live to be old And yet that voice which speaks so loudly to the whole World and still will tell the end thereof is scarce audible in the eares of many 'T is one of this Divine Singer's most harmonious Lessons and yet the World is not pleas'd with the tune Strange that the Sweetest of Preachers should have so few followers being his oratory is so Divine and yet it is a Text which though they will neither hear nor read they cannot chuse but see for the whole world is but a Comment on it Every Creature we do but look on preaches this Doctrine which we can so carelesly sleep out with our eyes open Nature carries this memento in her forehead the very Brutes in this can reason with us and it is strange that Man should forget his Maker did he but remember himself But alass youth loves not to be put in mind of Heaven 't would spoyle his memory and make him thinke of his Prayers too often Piety will but dull his blood Religion makes him look old the thoughts of Heaven and another World will make him graver then becomes his yeers his blood tels him he is not yet in a temper to turne Divine he may serve God time enough when he can doe nothing else Thus these earthly objects of Pleasure hurrie away our thoughts from Heaven and its Purer Joyes we can spend the beauty of our years in vice and think to please God well enough with the deformities of age wee can revell our piety and time away in vain delights and thinke our selves strong enough to force Heaven and become religious when we are wither'd with infirmities and have nothing left us but repentance and a tomb We are so well pleased with the sweetnesse of sense that wee are careless of any other felicity and so much delighted with the happinesse of sinning freely that we could willingly be of that Religion which tolerates vice most We place our devotion with the Epicure in the riots of Nature sportfull meetings are our religious Exercises a Sermon is as troublesome as a Funeral to us to hear of our end amidst our pleasure sounds like a death's Lecture the unwelcome eccho of the Grave Let the Preacher lesson us never so well to remember our Maker Wee had rather follow Satan's doctrine to Injoy the World as long as we can and thinke of Heaven at our leisure And shall the Lusts of the World O Lord be greater in my Soul then the Love of thee shall the temporary delights of sin drown the memory of thy glory My Life is but a Span and yet I beseech thee shorten that rather then it should be spent in a neglect of Thee better this Earthly tabernacle should be dissolved then become a Theatre for sin to revell in Let me pay Nature the debt I owe her sooner then perhaps she would call for it rather than run in score with thy Justice 't is better I should dye and be lost in the memory of the World than forget Thee Thou broughtest me from nothing not to sin but to serve thee and hast imprinted in me a ray of Thy self that I might not seek mine own but Thy Will nor pursue the World but Heaven make me therefore to see the solid and ravishing consolation that is in serving thee what Joy accompanies thy grace that so I may no longer follow my
there where the same Jesus shall receive us with an Euge to his Glory Thou sentest thy Son O Lord to die for us that by beleeving in him wee might have life He under whom thou hast put all things was pleased to put himself under them and left his Throne to be Crucified for our soules that we might receive the Triumphs of his passion and be partakers of his Glory O let not those miseries of our natures which first invited thy mercy make us uncapable of it let not those that knew Thee not but by thy miracles be more zealous in their acknowledging thy goodnesse then we who by the manifestation of thy love plead an interest in thy blood But grant that we may live in a perpetuall Gratulation to thy merits who camest from the Bosome of thy Father to save our souls To this end do thou give unto us that faith without which it is impossible to please thee and with which thou givest every other grace teach us so to rely on thy mercy that we may not neglect the meanes or thinke that a Dead faith will carry us to that life which Thou hast promised to none but such as worke out their salvation with feare and trembling Iohn Chap. 20. v. 11 And she stopped downe and looked into the Sepulcher SEe how religiously Mary stoopes to behold her Saviour in his Toomb whilst her yonger Sisters that spend more time on their dresse then their devotion will scarce kneel to their praiers 'T was not an apparition of Angels in the shape of Ghosts nor the mournfull silence of a toomb where dwelt no other object then death cloathed all in horrour that could fright her from her contemplation See the power of Divine love that can even with pleasure looke that in the face whose very aspect onely strikes the world to palenesse and stand not onely at its doore but enter into its chamber to meet heaven and without feare in the sad and solitatry vault repose it self among the bones and carkases of the Dead and make a Coffin its pillow till the morne Thus the martyrs triumph'd in their flames and were charioted up in raptures by fire as if the greedie element had warm'd them only How nobly did they meet death and sang Anthems to the musick of their Chaines as if they had been rather Priests then sacrifices in that cruel solemnity How sweetly did Stephen close his eyes after he had seen Jesus and heaven opened and then cheerefully expired under an heape of stones a monument richer than the proudest marble having with his owne blood writ himselfe this Epitaph the best of any I am the first Martyr Thus the Saints made their torments their pleasure and turned death with all its terrours into a scene of mirth 'T was not the rage of Tyrants nor the fury of the most ingenious kinds of torture that could force them from the love of Jesus He that loves his Saviour will with Mary not only stoop but step into a Toomb and passionately embrace even a Coffin for his sake he will looke on death but as the Messenger of his Glory the Harbinger of his happinesse and therefore with St. Paul all in raptures all in flames beg a dissolution whilst his soul full of nothing but approaching heaven is all in extasies transported thither How hardly can we be perswaded O Lord to forsake the vanishing pleasures of this life for thy glory and our owne happinesse How unwillingly should we lay downe our lives for thy sake or the Gospells that can so hardly part with one sin in obedience to thy Law Thy yoake is easy and thy service a perfect freedome and yet we count thy sanctuary a prison thy law a trouble and can scarce sacrifice so much time to our devotions as to pay unto Thee the honour due unto thy name Pardon and pity this Corruption of our frames and teach us whether we live or die to delight in that for which thou mad'st us even to glorifie Thee that so whensoever this earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved we may receive our change with joy and be carried by Angells to an everlasting inheritance Joh. Chap. 11. v. 25. Jesus wept O Who can hear this and not dissolve all in pious showrs Can the most most frozen eye read this and not thaw its selfe all in streames He that hath not so much piety as to weep for himself or his sins yet let him have so much humanity as to accompany his Saviour's teares And yet see how the marble Jewes instead of seconding censure his greife with a Could not he that restored the eyes of the Blind have kept Lazarus's open No wounder they would not be mourners with him who were to be murderers of him and be but little sensible or compassionate of his teares whose cruelty was scarce satisfied with dearer drops when his whole body became an eye that wept blood And yet Divinest Saviour how many are there that beare thy title but indeed are Jewes that pretend to wear the livery of thy name but blot out the golden characters of thy cross How coldly must they needs be affected with thy teares that are scarce sensible of thy sufferings and be but carelesse of thy life who are so forgetfull of thy death O Mary how richly are thy teares now required those eyes that became moving baths for thy Saviour's feet did sure now run over to see His brim-full and distill drops whose very inbalming revived thy Brother O Lazarus didst thou but know thy glory thou wouldst dye still to be so lamented and willingly be buried in thy grave again to be so honorably bedewed No question when thou wert a spectator of his sufferings but thou didst exceed the women in their teares and sacrifice thy Eyes in showers to thy divine Restorer This was indeed the grearest funerall that ever the world saw or is like to see for the Lord himselfe was a Mourner here Divinest Saviour thou wept'st so those that could not and for many that would not weep for themselves and wouldst not denie thy tears who pouredst out thy life thou art so in initly good thou desirest but unfained sorrow for sin to excuse the gilt thereof and yet so farre are we such is our misery from accompanying thy teares that we can scarce weep for our owne sins O teach us in a pious gratitude to do something for thy sake who hast done so much for ours that as thou hast glorified thy selfe by our redemption wee may also glorifie thee by a constant thanksgiving and may no more sell ourselves to sin that have been so dearly bought for heaven and the joys of thy kingdome John 12. v. 2. But Lazarus was one of those that sate at the table with him CAn the dead eate then was not Lazarus but new wound up in his grave and is he set at meale Is his toombe turn'd into a table and does he wipe his hands in the napkin that bound up his