The revvard of the faithfull. The labour of the faithfull. The grounds of our faith

The revvard of the faithfull. The labour of the faithfull. The grounds of our faith

Table of contents

Title page

To the right Honorable and Religious, Sir Roger Townshend, Knight Baronet; all grace and peace.

THE SEVERALL ARGVMENTS.

1

I. The difference of our Sauiours opinion concerning good and happie men, from the wiser and vulgar sort of people among whom he liued.

II. How Righteousnesse and Grace, are the food of our Soules.

III. What is the fulnesse wherewith those Soules that hunger after Righteousnesse shalbe satisfied.

IIII. A short incitement to the heauenly ambition of Gods Saints.

2

I. That euery Creature which would bee preserued in his Calling by the blessing of God, must labour for it.

II. A faithfull Minister is a great labourer.

III. The seueral parts of Isaacs Labour and Reward.

IIII. It is good husbandrie to be a Religious man, and one of the Children of Abraham.

V. Why the godly are many times poore, & how the wicked are often rich in this world.

VI. That as God will haue his children (though neuer so religious and rich,) vse the meanes as well as others to obtaine his blessing; so that husbandry hath alwayes beene an ancient and honourable meanes of life.

VII. God neuer bestowes vpon any the rest of glory, that takes no paines to make it sure to himselfe by the meanes of Grace.

VIII. Husbandry hath beene an ancient and honourable meanes of life.

IX. A iust reprehension of ill husbands, who eyther straggle out of their own Callings, or haue vnlawfull, vnprofitable, or no Callings at all.

3

I. The wisest of the heathen, and all creatures are good witnesses.

II. How wee should infallibly finde out the true Word of God, which may leade vs to the knowledge of him, our selues, and our supreame happinesse.

III. The seuerall Prophecies concerning the Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection of the Sauiour of the world.

IIII. A free Reprehension of all fashionable Aggrippaes in faith; and farther motiues to winne them to become through beleeuers.

V. A iust Invectiue against all false, blind, and dumbe Prophets, who are indeed no true Witnesses of the Lord.

[Page] [Page] THE REVVARD of the Faithfull.

FINIS.

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THE REVVARD of the Faithfull.

MATH. 5. 6. They shall be satisfied.

THE LABOVR OF the Faithfull.

GENES. 26. 12. Then Isaac sowed in that Land.

THE GROVNDS of our Faith.

ACTS 10. 43. To him giue all the Prophets witnesse.

At London printed by B. A. for Beniamin Fisher, and are to be sold at the signe of the Talbot in Pater-noster row. 1623.

To the right Honorable and Religious, Sir Roger Townshend, Knight Baronet; all grace and peace.

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Honorable Sir,

BENEFITS, they say, are alwayes best giuen, when they are most concealed, but thanks when they are made most knowne. Giue my priuate estate leaue therefore to borrow the Art of the Printer, which is the publike Tongue of the learned, to expresse my selfe (though with no other learning then what your kinde respects haue taught mee) [Page] most gratefull vnto you: who indeed am bound, though principally, yet not onely to your Honoured selfe, but totj Gentj tuae, to the worthy Lady your mother, the religious Knight, Sir Nathaniel, your second Father, & without thought, not beyond my desire, to your most noble & learned Vncle, the Right Honorable Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount Saint Albones my free and very Honourable Benefactor, whose Gift, as it was worthy his bestowing, so was it speedily sent, and not tediously sued for; Honourably giuen, not bought with shame, to one whom he neuer knew or saw, but onely heard kindly slaundered with a good report of others, and opinion conceiued [Page] by himselfe of sufficiencie and worth. For by your Fauours I confesse, my estate is something, but the sence of my pouertie much more increased. For if we may beleeue Neros wise Maister and Martyr; There is none so poore, as he who cannot requite a benefit: but I am glad your Estates will be alwayes beyond any retaliating kindnesses of mine who could not, indeed, with out doing you much iniury, wish my selfe able to make you amends.

As therefore Aristippus came to Dionysius, so doe I to you. [...] Hauing receiued what I wanted, to returne what I had. Though in trueth this small p [...]esent may bee better sayed to bee [Page] giuen by you to others, then by my self to you, who thought it worthy of more mens reading then your owne, which I pray God it may be. Surely if there be any worth in it, it is in the dignitie of the matter, and the fitnesse of it, for our nature and times. The matters are the Grounds, Exercise and Reward of the faithfull, Heauenly Light Bodily labour, Spirituall rest. The first of which brings with it light for our Soules; the second, Health for our bodies, and the third for them both eternall Blessednesse. But in our times there is three Vertues are so great strangers, in which there are so many euill heartes of vnbeliefe, all standing ready to depart [Page] from the liuing God, that wee had need to offer a holy violence to our nature, and to fall out with our times, that fall so fast away from God, or else it is to be feared least the tide and streame of them both carry vs not into the riuers of Paradise, there to bee landed vpon the mountaines of our saluation, but into the riuers of Brimstone, whether all are wasted that depart from GOD: as himselfe telleth vs; Depart from mee yee cursed into euerlasting fire.

And so much the more need had wee, that liue in this last Age of the world, to looke to the infirmitie of our natures and diseases of the time: because natural infirmities are alwayes greatest [Page] Tyrants in our Age, and it is no otherwise in this old world, then in old persons: If we were borne weake sighted, it is a venture but in age a great dimnesse, if not a totall blindnesse doe not befall vs. If a lame hand by nature hath disabled the actions of our youth; the hand which in youth could doe little, will doe nothing in our age; if we haue traduced a personal inclination from our parents to any vice, it is a grace if that inclination grow not to an affection in our youth, and in our age to a habite. So fast grow the ill weedes of Nature when Nature it selfe decayes in vs.

Now wee cannot bee ignorant that in the very Spring of nature, these three [Page] strong infirmities were seeded in vs. The first vpon the effacing of Gods Image, a dimme eye-sight or darknesse in our soule: the second a lame hand or idlenesse in the body, which grew when Mortalitie first broke in vpon vs, and left our nature consumed of that first-borne strength it then flowrished with: bringing in vpon our labour an accursed sweat, vpon our sweat, wearinesse, and consequently faynting, and languishing the whole body with vnrest, and disease: The third vpon the losse of our heauenly inheritance, an inclination and affection of the whole man to such a happinesse, as wee cannot build for our selues, out of the beautie and delights [Page] lights of this world: which Salomon happily alluded vnto Eccles. 3. 11. where speaking of Humane happinesse, to reioyce, and doe good, that is, to eate and to drinke, and to enioy the good of all our Labour, verse 13, (Which questionlesse is therefore lawfull, because it is there sayd to bee the gift of GOD) hee telleth vs, that, God hath made euery thing beautifull in his season, and hath set [...] Coelum, the worlde, as it is translated, or the desire of perpetuitie in their heartes, so that no man can finde out the worke that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Whereas it seemes to me, Salomon allowing vs this Humane felicitie, as good in it selfe, yet secretly [Page] accuseth it (by reason of the immoderate affection, and desire of perpetuitie wee cast after it) for blinding the eye of our consideration so farre, as thereby wee cannot finde out the worke that God maketh from the beginning to the end: which doublesse can bee no other then his worke of our Redemption, purposed from all eternitie in CHRIST our Lord who therefore as himself is called [...], the first borne of all creatures, so his day is cald Nouissimus Dierum, the last of all dayes, he onely being (as himselfe witnesseth) [...] & [...] and the Frst, and the Last, the beginning of all things, and the ende of all things. Colos. 11. and in this worke onely consists the knowledge [Page] of our perfit happines wherein is both perpetuitie and sufficiency, which work of Gods, most men therefore cannot finde out, because they acquiet their desires with this humane felicitie, and lie downe vnder Issachars blessing, which indeed, is but a cursory and viatorie happinesse, seruing vs onely for the time and by the way.

These then are the three great diseases of our soules, bodies, and persons; Blindnesse of Spirit, Idlenesse of Body, Loue and rest in the world; which the beginning of the world, made by corruption, naturall; and the Age of the world, by the second nature, and of custome, hath made delight full to vs. And truely, if our [Page] owne experience did not teach vs how most men in our daies placed themselues in these infirmities, and with what delight wee are ignorant, idle, and enamored of the world: yet the Oracles of GOD would plainely euidence it vnto vs, wherein wee shall finde it prophecied of this last tempest of the world, that it should bee full of seducing Spirits to infidelitie, of idle busie bodyes, of louers of pleasures, more then louers of GOD, To cure which three great diseased of our natures, and our times I haue sent abroade by your perswasion (and therefore haue burdened you with the Patronage of it) this short Praescript, which I pray GOD may worke by [Page] the power of his Spirit soundnesse in vs. To the riches of whose grace, I most entirely commend you, and rest

Your Worships in all hearty affection and Christian seruice GILES FLETSHER.

THE SEVERALL ARGVMENTS.

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I.

THE difference of our Sauiours opinion concerning good and happy men, from the wiser and vulgar sort of people among whom hee liued. 1

How Righteousnesse and Grace are the food of our soules. 17

What is the fulnes where with those soules that hunger and thirst after Righteousnesse [Page] shall bee satisfied. 46

A short enticement to the Heauenly ambition of Gods Saints. 95

II.

EVery Creature that would bee preserued by the blesing of GOD in his Calling must labour for it. 130

A faithfull Minister is a great Labourer. 155

The seuerall Heades of obseruation arising from Isaacs Labour. 163

It is good Husbandry to be a Religious man, and one of the ch [...]ldren of Abraham. [Page] 176

Why the godly are manie [...]imes poore, and how the wicked, are often rich in this world. 198

God will haue his Children, though neuer so reli [...]ious and rich, vse the [...]eane, as wel as other men, [...] obtaine his blessings. [...]. 227

God neuer bestowes vpon [...] the rest of glory, that take no paines to make it sure to themselues by the meanes of Grace. 247

Husbandry hath alwaies beene an ancient and commendable meanes of life. 258

A iust reprehension of euill [Page] husbands, who either straggle out of their Callings, or haue vnlawfull, vnprofitable, or no Callings at all. 281

III.

The wisest of the Heathen, and all Creatures are Gods witnesses. 303

How wee may infallibly finde out the true Word of God, which may leade vs to the knowledge of him, our selues, and our owne supreame happinesse. 320

The seuerall Prophesies concerning the birth, life, death, and Resurrection of the Sauiour of the world. 337

[Page] A free Reprehension of all fashionable Agrippaes in Faith; and farther motiues to make them become thorough Beleeuers. 371

A iust inuectiue against all false blinde, and dumbe Prophets, who are indeede no true Witnesses of the Lord. 389

1

1

‘MATTH. 5. 6. They shall be satisfied.’

I. The difference of our Sauiours opinion concerning good and happie men, from the wiser and vulgar sort of people among whom he liued.

OVr Sauiour when he came to be the true Light of the World, had [Page] a hard taske to make his Light shine in the darke vnderstanding of such, eyther grossely or affectedly ignorant men, amongst whom hee liued: who eyther hold many common errors for vnquestionable truths, or if they were of the wiser sort, many false lights, & appearing truths for certaine Rules, and vnerring principles of their belief. The false lights, which had a fayre shine of truth to varnish them ouer with; were these, and such like.

That hee was a right honest & religious man, [Page] that offered no man wrong. That was kinde, and louing to those that deserued well of him. That would neuer forsweare himselfe, eyther to benefit his owne estate, or to hurt another mans. That if hee were affected to a maried woman, kept himselfe from Adulterie with her. If he were neuer so angry▪ yet brideled in his rage, that it broke not out into murder. That when his Parents were in want, honoured them with maintenance: That made long Praiers; gaue great Almes; fasted often; payed the Tythes [Page] duely; and so farre honored the very ashes of the Prophets; that hee built their Tombs being dead, to keepe aliue their memories and names. This was the Pharisies Starre-light. Al which the common People who liued in the shadow of those ceremonious times, and night of their owne ignorance, held for great & beautifull lights, truths most credible, and worthy to be beleeued and followed of all: but when the Sunne arose, this star-light soone dis-appeared; and our Sauiour makes it plaine in this, and the [Page] sequent Chapters. That al those were but the outsides of truth, which an hypocrite might disguise himselfe, and face it with, as well as an honest man; nay that all of them, except they were circumstanc't with those times and places, and done after that manner & forme they ought, were, for all their faire lookes, but shining faults. Or rather, as nothing is more deformed in the sight of man, than such a defectiue monster in Nature, who should want halfe of his parts, (imagine one abortiuely cast out, with one [Page] legge, one eye, halfe a nose, &c.) so in the sight of God, who lookes to the inner man, this semihonesty, which wants the better halfe and in-side of it selfe, cannot but appeare most prodigious and mis-shapen.

For our Sauior counts that no Christian vertue, Not to offer wrong: For so they which returne wrong for wrong, offer no wrong, they doe but vim vi repellere, strike blow for blow; but the Vertue was, to suffer wrong with patience, & not only to abstain from offering wrong with violence; [Page] So to loue those that are desertfull, hath no vertue in it: for not to doe so, were to do them iniury; but to loue the ill-deseruing, to loue our enemies, to loue our persecutors, this indeed is the grace of a Christian.

And what if our estates allow our poore Parents the honour of maintenance? If our harts withdraw from them the honour of obedience, of holie imitation, of filiall reuerence, doe we think we haue performed a sonnelike part to them, or the duty of a Childe?

Againe it is no Vertue [Page] to keep a mans selfe from periury; for he that neuer forsweares himselfe, may yet bee a common swearer: but to set a Watch before his lips, that they should neuer vnaduisedly sweare at all, that was the Vertue.

Besides, what was it to keepe himselfe from Adultery and Murder, if he had adultery in his eyes, lust in his hart, if he were enraged with anger, and had dipt and stained his thoughts in bloud? God who is a Spirit, lookes to the issues of the Spirit, if thou desirest reuenge, if thou lustest after a woman, [Page] thou art before God guiltie both of adultery, and of bloud. And so much almes, and often fasting, & due payment of tithes, what goodnesse haue they, if the almes must bee trumpeted abroad, and the fast must set a sowre face vpon the matter, and the tithes must bee boasted of, and layed as it were in Gods dish, when he comes to pray before him in the Temple, as though God who giues him all, were beholding to him, for restoring him the tenth part of his owne? To conclude long prayers [Page] and building the sepulchres of the prophets, which of all other were their most colourable virtues, were they not indeed crying sinnes in the sight of God, when they were (I say not onely vtterd arrogantly in euery corner of the street, that they might bee seene of men, and not closeted vp, for GOD alone to see them) but when vnder pretence of long prayers, they deuour'd widowes houses, and vnder colour of building the tombes of the Prophets which were dead, they had no other intent but with the [Page] more safety, and lesse suspition to slay the sonne of God, who was then aliue among them, the Prince of the Prophets.

Looke then as beautifull and fayre fruit to see too, yet if it be rotten at the core, when the outside is par'd off, hath no such goodlynesse within, as outwardly appear'd, but very rottennesse at the heart: or to vse a more proper similitude, As a piece of smooth and rotten wood, if it bee set in the darke and seene onely in the night, makes a great blaze, and showes to bee a very lightsome [Page] body: but assoone as the day rises, it forfeits the flame, and the rottennes of it is plainely discouered: so was it with these appearing truths which the Pharisees obtruded, and thrust vpon the darke vnderstandings of the common people, for most heauenly lights & lamps full of glory: they were all but vizards of truth, rotten opinions, lies with painted faces.

And as these were the false-lights that dazeled the eyes of the wiser sort of people, so there were, beside these, certaine cō mon errors, which went [Page] abroad as most receiued, and graunted positions & verities, which all men beleeu'd, as: That they had good cause to reioyce, who had euery mans good word for them, and many friends in the world, whom they might trust to; That rich men were happy, For they liued at hearts ease. That they liued the most comfortable liues in the world, that were alwayes merry hearted, and were euer laughing. To name no more. That it was a most wretched estate not to haue sufficient meate and drinke, but to liue alwayes [Page] as in a famine, in hunger and thirst.

But our Sauiour, as before hee extinguisht their false, and pharisaical lights, so in these, hee opposed himselfe against their popular, and common errors. And therefore he sayes not (as they) Reioyce because ye haue many and great friends in the world, and because you haue euery mans good word for you but the playne contrary Reioyce, and bee exceeding glad (what? when you haue many friends that speake well of you, and do you good, no but) when [Page] you haue many enemies that shall reuile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of euill against you falsely for my names sake, verses the 10. 11. And blessed are, who? the rich in estate? no but the poore in spirit, ver. the 3. And not they who were merry hearted, & alwaies laughing had the most comfortable liues: but blessed are they that mourne verse the 4. For they shalbe comforted. In a word to land my self at home vpon the present words. That not they which abounded with all things, and could say to [Page] their soule as Diues did. Luke the 12. Soule eate, drinke, aud bee merry: for thou hast much goods layed vp for many yeares, were blessed: but blessed are they that hunger, and thirst after righteousnes: For they shall bee satisfied. For the truth is. It was a most absurd, & improper soloecisme of speech, when the riche foole (so our Sauiour cals him and therefore I doe him no wrong) bid his soule eate, and drinke those goods, that hee had layed vp for his body to eat, & drinke. For the soule with such food could neuer haue [Page] beene satisfied, but those soules onely shalbe replenished and filled, that hunger after the kingdome of Heauen, and the righteousnesse thereof. For as righteousnes here, so the Kingdome of God hereafter, as grace here, so glory hereafter, are the onely repaste to banquet a Soule with. First therfore let vs see.

II. How Righteousnesse and Grace, are the food of our Soules.

THat is properly called the food of any [Page] thing whereby it is inwardly preserued from consumption, corruption, and death. And therfore as the Body hath something to preserue it for a time, which is bodily food, so must the Soule haue some spirituall repast to perpetuat, and preserue it for euer. For nothing beside a diuine nature can bee of it selfe aye during. Let vs therfore because this paradox to a naturall man will seeme strange, goe with him to his owne arte, the arte of nature. There we shall find these two Sanctions publisht, as receiued [Page] trueths of all, first, [...]isdem alimur ex quibus constamus, Euery nature is nourished by that, whereof it is first made, and the second is Simile nutritur a simile. Like is nourisht of like. Now it is a speech of our Sauiour which it may bee euery man remembers, but few men marke, when after fourty dayes fast in the wildernesse, he was tempted to satisfie his hunger by making bread of stones, he answered. That Man liu'd not by bread onely, but by euery word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. Which speech though a [Page] prophane Ignorant will perhaps derisonly scoffe at, as thinking it impossible to liue by words, yet such words as proceed out of the mouth of God haue more vitall sweetenesse, and nourishable sap in them, than all his corne, and oyle, and wine haue. Was not the whole world made by the word of God? Was not the soule of euery reasonable creature made by the same word, and so imbreathed into the body of the first father of our humane nature? and is now still infused into euery one of our bodies, [Page] when they are perfectly instrumented, and made fit for the soule to dwell [...]? This a naturall man cannot deny in reason, because they of his owne [...]ribe Socrates, Plato, Aristo [...]le and all wise men euer confest it, not only to vse [...]heir owne words, [...] and as some of [...]hem speakes [...]. a foris ingredi, & [...]aelitus aduenire: But proue it by necessary demonstration. I will vse [...]ut one argument (be [...]ore I proceed) to euidence it, because religion shall not be beholding to a naturall man for her [Page] ground worke: which Iustin Martyr one of the first penmen of God after the time of the blessed Apostles, who was called by all men for his depth of Learning [...], vses to eui [...]ce the opposers of this truth in his time.

All things, sayes he, arose first eyther out of the power of nature, or fortune, of God. Out of a power of nature they could not. For tell mee (sayes the father) whom could nature by her power first bring forth. Could the fruits of the earth, or the foules of heauen, [Page] or the trees of the forrest, or the beasts of the field, or the Cittizen of the world, man, issue first from the wombe of nature? but where I pray should nature find seed [...] some the earth, but from the fruites of the earth before growing, where should shee seeke for egges to breed her [...]owles with, but from [...]owles already bred? whither should she goe to gather her akrons, but vnder the oake before flourishing? what neede [...]nfinite knotts? It is not in the power of nature to bring forth a man but he [Page] must first be borne a child and of whom should that child bee borne, had not there been already in nature both man, and woman? nature then we see, could not by any power in her produce the least creature, but shee must needs haue her semniall causes; and whence are they seeded but from things already beeing? Much lesse could chance: for what is fortune but onely something in nature wherof we know not the cause? If a man digging in a field, find a mine, we cal this fortune: but a mine must bee first [Page] there by nature, before any can finde it there by fortune. And therefore fortune that comes alwayes after nature, cannot bee the cause of nature. It followes then, that the whole world, and the soules of men proceeded neither from nature nor chance: but from the power and wisedome of God himselfe who is as much more powerfull then nature, to call out his worke perfect in his kind at first, as he is more wise then fortune, to adorne his worke with the most graceful order with out any chaunceable or [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] blind confusion. This then being either graunted, or extorted from a naturall man, what followes hence? Truely this. That the soule of man doth consist by the word of God. Secondly, That the soule of man, beeing onely able of all creatures visibly in heauen, or earth to conceiue, and vnderstand a diuine beeing, which our experience teaches vs, must needs be a spirituall substance like God himselfe, and created after his image. For this in reason and nature is a selfe-credible truth. That no Creator [Page]can rayse the power of his action beyond the sphaere of his owne actiuity. A stone cannot liue. A plant cannot see. A beast cannot vnderstand a diuine nature, because it hath no such receptiuity, no such actiue, and diuine power in it, as to take into it an insensible obiect. For then it should work extra sphaerā, beyond the pitch of a sensible being: man therfore onely who hath such an eye of vnderstanding in him, whereby he is able to liue (as it is sayd of Moses Heb. 11. 27.) as seeing him, who is inuisible, must needs be fashioned [Page] and form'd in the similitude of the inuisible God. For, what creature worships a diuine power, sanctifies holy dayes, and Sabaoths, obserues solemne feasts, and assemblies, offers sacrifices of prayer, & praise to God, but man onely? Vpon whose soule doth the law of God naturally reflect it selfe in the knowledge of that which is good, and the conscience of that which is euill, but onely vpon man's? What nature in earth obserues the different motions of the heauenly bodies, and admires the methodicall [Page] Wisedome of God in them, or thinkes vpon his couenant of mercy, when he sees the token of it shining in the waterie cloud (sweetly abusing the same waters to bee a token of his mercy, which before were the instrument of his iust reuenge) but only man's? whose eye lookes beyond the bright hilles of time, and there beholds eternity, or sees a spirituall world beyond this body, esteeming that farre discoasted region, his natiue countey, but onely man? Which diuine thought wee shall not find in the hearts alone [Page] of the children of light, that haue the starres of heauen shining thicke in them (Hebr. 11. 16.) but in the minds of heathen men, that lay shadowed in their owne naturall wisedome, out of which the banisht Consul of Rome Boetius could sing.

Haec, dices, memini patria est mihi,

Hinc ortus, hic sistam gradum.

O this my country is, thy soule shall say,

Hence was my birth, & here shall be my stay.

And of which Anaxagoras, liuing a stranger among [Page] the Athenian Philosophers, and being chid for regarding so little his natiue soile, by one that asked him, why he minded no more his owne country, answered [...]. ô (sayes he pointing vp to heauen) I am exceeding mindfull of my natiue countrie.

Now to apply all this discourse home, man we haue prou'd was created by the word of God: man only was form'd in Gods image and similitude. And who then is the word of God, but the Sonne of God who the [Page] expresse image of the Father, but the Sonne, Ioh. 1. 1. Heb. 1. 3. Since therefore our soules consist by the Word, Christ and euery thing is preseru'd of that it consists, as Nature it selfe teaches; since our soules are made after the image and similitude of Christ, and euery thing is most agreeably nourished by that it is most assimilated vnto, is it not euen in reason an irrepugnable Truth, that our soules must needs be nourished and preserued by the power of our Lord CHRIST, who is Gods Essentiall Word, [Page] and Image?

And heere by the way (but I speake of it onely incidentally as it falls into discourse) wee may see as the high dignity so the causall differēce between the reasonable soule of man, and the liuing souls of bruit beasts. For doe but looke into the booke of the generatiō of creatures, and you shall see there Mans soule was immediately breathed into his body by God himselfe, and was created after his Diuine image: but the Liuing Soules of bruit beasts were educ't out of their elementarie [Page] wombes, & those bodies which were most like thē selues: For so sayes our Lord God, Let the Earth bring forth euery liuing thing according to his kind, and it was so: & so the sea was commāded to bring foorth issue according to his kind, and so it was: which is the reason the liuing souls of beasts fal again into the same matter out of which they were first taken, and of whose kinde & likeness they are, as our corruptible bodies doe. Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt returne: but the diuine and reasonable Spirit of man returns to [Page] God that gaue it, as Salomon speakes, Eccles. 12. 7. being immediately created by him, & of his owne similitude and kinde, & so breath'd into the body: which is indeede the true & prime cause of the immortality of our souls. So that they, being created immediately by the Word & breath of God, out of nothing, and not arising from any praeexistent matter, cānot possibly be corrupted into any other nature, or annihilated by any other word, except we childishly suppose some word more powerful then the Word of God himselfe.

[Page] I haue now prou'd that our soules all consisting by the word of the Father which is Christ, and being imag'd most like vnto him, they must needs (as euery thing else is by their like) be preserued, and nourisht by Christ, whose image they are, and who may therefore with greater truth, and reason be called, the food of our soules, then our earthy diet can bee the food of our bodies: because hee is euery way, both in respect of himselfe, and vs, more preseruatiue, then to bodies any bodily sustenance can [Page] be. For, that makes vs continue by being destroyed it selfe, and destroyes vs too, if it be taken in excesse, & though it be neuer so often vsed, yet soone after we shall hunger againe, and thirst againe: neither can it repaire our nature in the headlong ruines of age, so fast but that we must euery day forfeite a little spoile to mortality which it can no way possibly recouer, and in conclusion, vnable to hold out any longer, it must yeeld vp the whole body as a pray to death. But we cannot drinke too much of our [Page] spirituall rocke, nor eate too much of our heauenly Manna, which after we haue feasted our hearts with, we shall find noe more hunger, or thirst; feele noe more iniuries of age, or time; feare noe more spoiles of mortality, or death. Neither is the soule nourished by this diuine food, as the body is, by wasting that whereby it selfe is preserued, and consuming that to maintaine it selfe, whereby it selfe is kept from corruption: but as the sight of al eyes is preserued and perfected by the light of the Sunne, whose beames can neuer [Page] be exhaust, so our spirituall life is nourished by the participation of the life of Christ, which is indeede [...], annona cali, the flower of heauen, neuer engrost by possessing, nor lost by vsing, nor wasted by nourishing nor spent by enioying but hath that heauenly, and vnconsumable nature in it (being to nourish immortall soules) that it preserues, all without decaying it selfe, it diuides it selfe to al without losse or diminution of it selfe; it is imparted to all, and not impayred by any of those replenished [Page] soules, that banquet vpon it.

Now if the quaere be made how our soules are thus by Christ preserued from their owne corruption, and beyond their owne natural life, to a life Celestiall & diuine, there can be no other answere giuen, but by beeing implanted into the life of righteousnes which fontally is in him. As if the branches of a wild oliue being cut off from the reall stocke where it grew naturally, should be kept from withering and corruption by ingrassing it into the stocke of a sweet [Page] and flourishing Oliue-tree. So our soules beeing created in naturall righteousnesse and holylinesse by God, and being soone after by our fall cut off from that life, and so remayning in the state of corruption and decay, would soone wither and dye totally, were they not eftsoons reymbark't and stock't againe into the Tree of life, from whence they sucke a more diuine life of righteousnes, then that they were created, or now liue in. For the natural righteousnes thogh it were in the kind of it perfect, yet it was of a [Page] short continuance, (as nature left to it selfe alwayes is) and our habituall righteousnesse, though it continue for euer, yet it is very imperfect, like the twilight of an euening, or the first breake of day in which the shadows of earth, and the light of heauen are confused; and therfore the soule of man vnable to liue perpetually by any of these liues which were defectiue, could haue no way bene preseru'd from his owne corruption, but by the participation of this diuine Righteousnesse of Christ, which is infinitely [Page] more durable then Adams naturall, and more perfect then our poore habituall righteousnes either is, or euer could haue bin Neyther let it seeme strange to any that the Soule which dies by vnrighteousnes and sinne, should be sayd by grace onely and righteousnesse to receyue againe life, and preseruation.

Hence are those scripture phrases so frequent You are dead in your sinnes, ye are strangers from the life of God, & of the wanton and sinfull widow, [...] she was dead being aliue, that is, dead to [Page] God, and the righteousnesse of Christ, and aliue onely to nature, and the corruption of it. Hence againe on the contrary the Iust man is sayd to liue by the righteousnes of faith, (Hab. 2. 4. Heb. 10. 37.) and therfore this life, which we could not acquire by our nature, because it is eternall; God is said in he first Epistle of Sa. Iohn 5. 11. to haue giuen it to vs; and least wee should trouble our selues to know where this life was found out for vs, it is added in the same place. And this life is in his Sonne. Thus Saint [Page] Paul speakes Col. 3. 3. that [...]ur life is hid in Christ, and that it was no more he that liued but Christ that liued in him, Galat. 2. 20. thus hee tells the Corinthians that wee were made the Righteousnesse of God in Christ. 2. Cor. 5. 21. and 1 Cor. the 1. the 30. that Christ was made of God vnto vs, Wisedome, Righteousnesse, Sanctification and Redemption, and therefore twice the Prophet Ieremy tells vs that, This is his name wherby he shall be called. IEHOVAH-tsidkenu, THE LORD OVR RIGHTEOVSNESSE. Ie. 23. 6. and 33. 16. For as [Page] verily as our sinnes tooke away his life, so assuredly shall his righteousnesse preserue ours, in which because wee haue a double state, one in our apprehension of it by faith, the other in our comprehension of it by vision, and intuition, therefore here the Saints of god are sayd to be blessed onely in their hunger, but hereafter they shalbe happy in their fulnes, here God onely feeds them with a sufficiency of grace, there he fills them with such a satietie of glory in which their soules, with the greatest excesse, without [Page] the least surfet, shall bee feasted for euer. For God is not like old Isaac, that hath but one blessing for his sonnes, and therefore as wee must learne of S. Paul, with our sufficiency to bee content, My grace is sufficient for thee: so let vs with him striue, at least in our most heauenly thoughts, get awing and rauisht into the third heauen, then to behold

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III. What is the fulnesse wherewith those Soules that hunger after Righteousnesse shalbe satisfied.

THE fulnesse heere meant is nothing else but a perfect expletion of all the naturall desires of Soule, Body and Person, according to the vttermost receptiuity of them all, which their owne proper and most agreeable obiects, wherein euery desire rests it self wholly acquited, and filled. For instance nothing [Page] can arrest the vnderstanding of man, but that which is absolutely true, or rather Truth it selfe. For that is the most proper and agreeable obiect to our vnderstanding: and who is that but Christ our Lord? I am the Truth saies our Sauiour: Nothing can satisfie the reasonable will of man, but onely that which is perfectly good, or rather goodnesse it selfe: and who is that but onely God? For as our Sauior speakes, there is none good but God; nothing can fill the restlesse affections of man, but onely [Page] those fountaines of pleasure, that haue in them neither defect nor end, such as can be found no where heere. And where are they, but at the right hand of God only? Psalm. 16. 11. In thy presence is fulnesse of ioy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for euermore: the first takes away all defect. In thy presence is fulnesse of ioy: and the second admits of no end: at thy right hand are pleasures for euer.

And this is the first fulnesse or saturity of the soule: the second is of the body. And the naturall desires of the body are [Page] life, health, and beautie. Now where can we finde life, but in that Country which is the land of the liuing, whether no death is suffered to approach; or whether should we go to meet with indeflowrishing and vnattainted health, but where there is no sorrow, no paine, no sicknesse at all? And that is no where, but onely in the Holy City, which S. Iohn calls the new Hierusalem, Reuel. 21. 4. There shall be no more death neyther sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more paine, but as the two glories of the Old and New [Page] Testaments, Dauid and S. Paul speake, God shall deck his Saints with health and wee shall put on incorruption and immortality in those Courts of Honour.

And thus as the soule and body haue their natural desires: so the whole person of man desires naturally as close an vnion with the Diuine being, as it is possibly capable of: secondly it desires glorie and honour, being one of the beames of GODS countenance, which hee casts vpon his most noble creatures. For there is a sparke of Diuinity in Glory, which makes all [Page] men, I had almost said all creatures naturally appetent of it, according to the size they haue measured them out by God, to vessell it vp in. Cupido gloriae nouissimè exuitur etiam a sapiente, sayes the wise Historian, many to giue life to their Honor, hauing lost their owne. And this holy Ambition, as it deriues it selfe to another world, so it is in man both a naturall and lawfull desire, within the expectation of which, the whole creature stretching out the neck of it, (as S. Paul most significantly speakes, waites for, and [Page] sighes for, and (like a woman) is in a dolorous trauaile for to be deliuered, [...], into the free libertie of glory, granted to the sonnes of God. The last hunger both of soule and body as they are vnited, is of diuine societie and friendship, and therefore as the Philosopher calls man [...], a sociable Creature, so the Apostle would haue vs [...], to associate our selues (at least in our trauelling thoughts) with the Citizens of Heauen, who as for number they are infinitely more, so for [Page] nature are farre more illustrious and blessed, then our vnder companions that liue here below, centred with our selfs in this little point of earth are. For God himselfe being a Diuine Spirit, and those Palaces of glory being farre more extensiue and spacious, then our narrow regions, how can there but be, as Dauid and Daniel both witnesse, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousand thousands of ministring Spirits to wait vpon their high and transcendent Soueraigne, the King of Spirits Royal: and therefore [Page] S. Paul reckoning vp our heauenly companions, Hebr. 12. 22. begins with an innumerable cō pany of Angels, so that this desire shall aboundantly be satiated and content.

But of heauen we that are on earth cannot say much. For though Satan took our Sauiour vp into a high mountaine, and thence shewed him all the Kingdomes of the earth, and the glory of them in a moment of time, Luk. 4. 5. which shewes of how small moment they are, that in one short instant and article [Page] of time could sodainelie giue a blaze, and so vanish: yet there is no mountaine high enough, nor any time long enough, but eternity to vnuaile the glory of the Kingdome of Heauen, which God purposely (no doubt) hath concealed, that he might know who would loue him for himselfe, because all men could not but loue him for his glory, if he should let it fall vpon our eyes, and display it selfe in the diuine beames of it. Yet as farre as the eye of right reason, guided▪ (like the wise men in the search of [Page] our Sauiour) by the heauenly starres of light that shine euery where in Gods word, may discouer this holy land, let vs not wrong our sacred hunger of knowledge, as blindely to wrap vp all in a cloud, and to denye it this iust satisfaction: which especially consists in a threefold glorious vnion, wherewith God hath promised in his Word to vnite the persons of the Elect to himselfe: which close with the Diuine Being I mentioned before to be the most ardent and naturall desire of our whole person, and [Page] that wherwith the whole man is most delighted, satisfied, and filled.

First therefore wee are vnited vnto Christ as vnto our Head, and so wee make but one body with him; and this is a closer vnion then eyther children can be vnited to Parents, for they are diuided parts from their Father, but wee are vnited parts to Christ our Lord; or married couples can be vnited each to other. For they being diuerse bodies, are vnited but into one flesh, but wee to Christ are vnited into one body, and one flesh, [Page] as the Apostle speaks, we are all set into his body, and are flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, [...], as hee with a most significant elegancy speakes in the 4. and 6. to the Ephesians. And this is the first vnion of our persons with God by his Son Iesus Christ, which makes vs way and entrance to the two remanent.

The second vnion is whereby our persons are spiritually vnited to God by the very Diuine and Holy Spirit of God him selfe: so that this infinite, and glorious, and euer-liuing [Page] Spirit diffusing it selfe through euery member of Christs mysticall body, makes vs of one spirit, and one soule, as it were, with the Diuine being; not by the vnion of essence and information, but of inhabitance and participation.

The last vnion is that whereby the Diuinity of God dwelling in vs after an vnspeakeable gracious manner, vnites himselfe whole, although not wholly to vs, far beyond the possibility of any other creature in the World. For other creatures haue no power of [Page] vniting themselues so as God hath. The reason is, cause they are of so grosse and if not corporeall, yet materiall being, that it is impossible for them to make vs partakers of their Essences, which haue all of them certaine Characteristicall, and indiuiduall differences, whereby they are incommunicable in their Natures to any other beside themselues. But wee are made (as S. Peter tells vs) partakers of the Diuine Nature after an eminent manner; which though it cannot be plenarily exprest, yet it may bee shadowed [Page] by some weak resemblances.

The Rule whereby we may conceiue of this vnion is, that Euery thing the more subtill and pure, and immateriall it is, the more closelie it may vnite it selfe to another Creature. So the water will soake thorow another body, and vnite it selfe into euerie part of it by insinuating his supple ioynts into euery empty place and ouerture of the body, vpon which it is infus'd, that it will seeme to make but one body with it: as in a vessell full of ashes; which earth, being a [Page] grosser body cannot doe. Againe, the Fire being a more subtill and refined body then the water will vnite it selfe to the most churlish and impenetrable body, after a very close and peruious manner; as to a stone, yron, steele, or golde, which the water, being a more condensed, and lesse fine body, can neuer pierce or soake into. Againe, a spirituall substance will yet more closely vnite it selfe to a body, then this finest and most subtill of corporeal beings: And therfore wee may remember that Satan tells our Sauiour, [Page] that a Legion of them, that is six thousand eight hundred and thirty (for the Romane Legion consisted of 6100. foote, and 730. horse, though heere I thinke not this precise number but a great multitude is meant) did all couche and lodge together in one poore possessed man. Wherefore, as wee see if a hundred candles were lighted vp in a roome, all the beames of them would be in the same place vnited together, at least locally, though not essentially (which those that are skilfull in the Opticks [Page] demonstrate by the seuerall irradiations of Light wherewith each of them vnconfusedly passe thorough one another) so it is with spirits, a thousand of them may be locally vnited together without any consequent absurditie, because their follows no penetration of dimensions, and therfore filling no place at all, they cannot exclude one another from the same place they are in, as bodies doe.

Againe, it must needes bee confest, that the Diuine Nature of our Lord God may yet more nerely close with his creature▪ [Page] in a strayter vnion, then any other, because his essence is not onely more good, & so more communicatiue of it selfe, but incomparably more immixt and pure, then any creatures (besides himselfe) can be. This being the prerogatiue royall of Diuinity, to cōsist not of Act and Power, or to be something after, which before it was not (as longer liu'd, or wiser, or better, or more glorious) but to be Actus Purus, All Act and Essence without any reference of time, or difference of qualitie. That is, God is not as [Page] Man or an Angell may be; good, and true, and wise, and liuing; but hee is wisedome it selfe, truth it selfe, selfe-goodnesse, and selfe-life. Now wee know in formall Vnions, that is alwaies the closest that is most communicable of it selfe, and of which the subiect whereunto it is vnited, is most capable. And therefore it must needs bee, that God who is Truth, may vnite himselfe to the vnderstanding, more closelie, then a thing that is true: because the proper obiect of the vnderstanding is Truth, not a true [Page] thing; and so to the will, because hee is goodnesse it selfe, and life it selfe, & the will is a more proper subiect of life and goodnesse, then it is of a thing that is good and liuing.

This is a retruse, and hidden, but in truth a very diuine motion of the gracious and formal vnion, whereby God pleases to impart his Diuinity to his Creature. For looke as wee see in the eye of a man the liuely Image & form of the thing it sees, (which makes me cal this a formall vnion) shining euidently in it, without [Page] which the eye could neuer see the thing: so it is in the jntellectuall part of the soule. The thing which is vnderstood must haue the jmage of it as cleerely represented, and vnited to the vnderstanding, as the visible object is to the eye: and therefore it is a Truth famous in the Shooles, Intellectus est omnia. The vnderstanding is all things. Not all things by the Essence of it, but by the similitude it hath with it, in the act of intellection.

And this is the very reason, why in spirituall things, as long as wee [Page] liue in our Bodies, our vnderstanding is so childish and Infant-like; because in this blinde and corporeall world, all Spirituall Essences are represented to it forma tantum disparata, in some desperate, that is, vnlike and different forme & shape, to that which indeed and in truth they are of (as if a Painter should expresse the Sunne by a spot of guilt, and should draw the Starres with a little yellow Oakre, in his draught of the heauenly body) we cannot see their owne faces, nor get the true jmage of themselues [Page] into the eye of our vnderstanding. It was Gods speech to Moses, who had better eyes then any that euer liued after him. Thou canst not see my face, For there shall no man see mee, and liue, Exo. 33. 20. Isay 64. And therefore as when the Angells of the Lord haue beene seene among vs, they appeared sometimes like beautifull young men, as to Lot and the Sodomites; sometimes like Chariots of fire, as to Elishaes seruant; somtime with countenā ces shooting like lightning, Mat. 28. 3. so when God himselfe pleased to [Page] descend vpon Mount Sinai, or vpon our Sauiour his sonne, his spirituall Essence, could neuer be seene, but himselfe came riding downe in the similitude of a Doue, & himselfe came down so clowded, and guarded about with fire, that neyther the persons, nor the eyes of the Israelites could come neere him. But when the morning of glory shall arise, wherein our soules shall awaken from the heauy eye-lid of our flesh, and the veyle of our body shall first be remoued, and after being depur'd from his drosse, be refined [Page] into a bright and spirituall body, wee shall then see God as he is, wee shall see him face to face, we shall know him, as wee are knowne of him: Which nathelesse is not to be vnderstood extensiuely, as if we should comprehend God in the whole extent of his Diuinity, but distinctly onely and truely: as when wee see the Sea, we see so much of it, as can fall into our sight truely, and know it distinctly from al other bodies, to be the sea: but we cannot see all the Sea at once, because the obiect is of too large a [Page] breadth and extension.

This whole discourse driues only to this issue. There is a vnion of bloud between Parents & Children, and this is a remote and very separable vnion. And there is an vnion of one flesh betweene Man and Wife, and this vnion is of a short continuāce, and is soone parted by death. And there is an vnion of Place, and thus Spirits may be locally vnited, who yet may be at extreame oddes and difference one with another. And there is an vnion of affection, & this Friends are vnited with, and it is [Page] (alas too soone) alterable vpon the change of eyther. And beside all these there is a mysticall, or virtuall Vnion of the members with the head, and this the Church is vnited to Christ by, from whom it receiues the diuine influences of all grace and fauour. And there is a Spirituall Vnion, whereby all th' Elect soules and bodies are not onely inspired, and I may so speake, Spirited with the Holy Ghost, who rules and swayes all the thoughts and actions of the soule, as the soule doth all the parts and affections [Page] of the body. And last of all, there is a gracious and admirable Vnion of similitude, whereby wee are made whollie conformable, and alike to the Diuine being, which is the most desireable & accumulate blessednesse of our Nature.

So that looke as you see the very bright image of the Sunne so reflected vpō the water somtimes, that the dull Element seemes to haue caught downe the very glorious body it selfe, to paint her watry face with, and lookes more like a part of heauen, then like it selfe; [Page] who in the absence of the Sunne, is all fabled with blacknesse, and darknesse, and sad obscurity; but vpon the first beames of the heauenly body, is glazed with a most noble & illustrious brightnesse; so is it with our whole man. For when God shall thus imprint and strike himselfe into our darke being, O how beautifull shall the feet of Gods Saints bee? Esay 52. 7. What a Diadem of stars shall crowne their glorious heads? Reuelat. 12. How shall their amiable bodies shine in Sun-like Maiesty? Mat. 13. 4. Neither [Page] let it bee thought a vaine audacity of speech, to say that the countenance and face of Gods children shall break forth into beames of more celestiall glory, then the mid-day sunne euer yet sent abroad into the World. For as S. Paule tells vs, they shall be conform'd to the Image of his glorious body; so he tels Agrippa, Acts 26. 13. At mid-day. O King, I saw in the way a light from heauen, aboue the brightnes of the Sunne, shining round about me: which was no other then the Light of the countenance of our [Page] Lord Iesus, which sight as it struck blindnesse into the face, and thicke scales into the eies of persecuting Saul, so it dressed the whole countenance of suffering Stephen with a most Diuine and Angelical glory: and had not the Light in reason beene greater then the Suns, it would haue beene like the Moon and Starres at mid-day, wholly extinguisht and inuisible.

Neyther let any man amaze his vnderstanding with the manner how a Spirituall substance can so sparkle, and be, as it [Page] were visible in the body. Saint Austins comparison hath life in it, in the expression of that point. Life in it selfe is inuisible, and cannot be seene, yet it so freshes the countenance, and beautifies the eyes, that when the body wants it, and is dead, nothing lookes more dreary and ghastly then a Corps doth: We see not life in it selfe (sayes the Father) but wee see it shining in the brightnesse of the eyes, and smiling in the liuelihood and cheerefulnesse of the countenance. And so it is with a glorious body. God is [Page] Life, and, like Life, cannot bee seene in himselfe by any ocular aspect, but as Life in a Naturall, so God in a glorious body is most apparant, and plainely visible, and conspicuous, euen vnto our eyes.

But some perhaps will thinke this discourse of spirituall satiety (I call it spirituall, not excluding the Body, but because our Bodies themselues shall be then spirituall, as now our very spirits are in a manner carnall) to be fetch'd rather out of the schooles of Reason, then of Gods Word, and to [Page] haue more ground in Philosophy then Faith. For where in Scripture shall we read of any such image of God to satisfie our Natures with? If we turne to the 17. Psalme and the 15. verse, we shal there finde the portion of the righteous excellently described by Dauid: who hauing before set out the men of this world (who haue their portion in this life) their dimensum, which is their belly full of Treasures, abundance of Children, and their happinesse to leaue their substance to their Babes, verse 14. hee reflects his [Page] thoughts into his owne brest, and sings, As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousnesse, I shall bee satisfied when I awake with thy Image. This made Dauids heart pant after the sight of Gods face (for so the words originally signifie,) Psalm. 42. 1. This made him pray, Lighten mine eyes that I sleepe not in death, and needes must the eyes of the righteous be lightened, and then awaken, (when the wicked shall haue theirs shut vp in eternall darkenesse) when they shall behold the face of God, and shall satisfie [Page] with his Image their euigilant soules. Wee shall finde in Scripture besides this Image of God, that for aye blesses the soules of the righteous, two other Images of the wicked world, and of wicked men, wherewith the wicked striue to satisfie their soules; but as S. Paul [...] vs the image of the world does [...], loose continually his forme and fashion: so Dauid tells vs, Psalme the 73. the 20. that when God awakes, he shal despise their image. The image of God satisfies the righteous, when they awake to their [Page] reward; because there is substance, and truth, and goodnesse in it: but when God awakes to the punishment of the wicked, their image is so far from bringing with it any satisfaction of glory, that in the iudgment of God himselfe (who cannot but iudge most vprightly) it is full of shame, most ignoble, and worthy to be despised, hauing no substance, but onely shadow; no truth, but onely appearance, no ground but onely opinion to paint it selfe with: and therefore looke what difference of things there [Page] is in the sound iudgment of one waking, and the skipping and dauncing phansies of a dreaming braine, so much & more is there betweene the swelling images of secular glory, and the diuine image of God, when wee shall awaken from those dreams, which the world, as long as shee can keepe vs in the cradle of our flesh, rocks, and pleasantly sings vs a-sleep in. And therefore Dauid, hauing spoken of the death of the wicked, in the former verse of the fore-cited Psalme, O how suddenly doe they consume and perish,[Page]and come to a fearefull end! presently annexes: As a dreame when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. But let vs leaue this golden Image with all the dreaming World (with Nebuchadnezar) is troubled with in their sleepe, and is angry with all that will not fall down to worship it; and returne to that Image that deludes not dreaming, but satisfies our awaking spirits.

As Dauid speaks of his owne, so S. Paul speakes of all the Elect soules of God, Rom. 8. 29. that they [Page] were predestinated to be conform'd to this Diuine image, and therefore in the 2. to the Corinthians, the 3. 13. 14. &c. he makes his difference betweene the obstinate Iew▪ and the beleeuing Christian, that their hearts was stil veild, and blinded with their olde Mosaicall shadows, and ceremonies; but wee all (saies the Apostle) hauing the veyle done away in Christ, with open face beholding, as in a glasse, the glory of the Lord, or changed into the same Image from glory to glory, euen as of the spirit of the Lord. So that as the Moon and [Page] the Starres, that hauing no in-borne or inherent Light streaming from themselues, and yet gathering together into their burning faces the beames of the Sun, freely sent abroad, and bestowed amongst them, appear like so many little images of the great Lampe of day. So all the Holy Lamps of Heauen, made for Gods seruice, haue onely the Light of Gods countenance to kindle themselues with, which he out of his bounty casts abroad amongst them, and they according to their seuerall capacities, [Page] to fill vp their measures of glory, most ambitiously vessell vp.

This being the Royalty of the Diuine Nature, who is the spiritual sonne of eternall Essences, that he, beyond all other, is most emissiue and communicatiue of himselfe: For as Light is more visible then any colour, and sends out in the eradition of it, a more full and luminous species of it selfe, then any other thing: because it is (as the Philosopher calls) [...] the colour of all colours: so God, who is the Light of all Lights, must needs [Page] in himselfe bee most visible, though neither it to the eye of an Owle, nor God to the sight of our vnderstanding, yet beetlebrowed, can so appeare. But when (as Dauid sings) our soules shall awaken, and the youth of our bodies shall be renewed as the Eagles; both they with the Diuinity, and these with the Diuine humanity shall be transformed into the same image of glory which they shall behold in him. And though now they blinke at Sunne-shine, yet then where the body of glory is, thither shall the spirituall [Page] Eagles be all gathered together, and there feede, and fill the righteous hunger, and thirst of theirs.

And this is the fulnesse of glory our Sauiour meanes to satisfie them in heauen with, who on earth nourish in themselues the righteous hunger after Grace. When the vnderstanding shall be filled with truth, in which is no shadow of error, the will with goodnesse, in which is no mixture of euill, the affections with ioy and delight in which shall be neyther defect nor end; when the [Page] body shall be satisfied with Life that knowes no dying, shall be quickned with health, that feares no sickenesse, shall be imbrightned with beautie, that can neyther bee impayred with disease, nor impalled by death; when the whole person shall be crowned with honour & glory, shall be leagued in friendship with Angells and Saints, shall bee vnited to Christ in body, to the holy Ghost in Spirit, to God in a bright similitude, and likenesse of his Diuine nature: in a word, when they shall enioy (which this world is out [Page] of hope of) honor without ambition, beauty without pollution, glory without pride, power without iniury, riches without oppression, all good without any end of possessing, feare of losing, or sinne in spending. Let vs therefore quicken our drowsie spirits with

IIII. A short incitement to the heauenly ambition of Gods Saints.

IT was a speech of the most ambitious Spirit [Page] in the world, in the excuse of his high swelling thoughts, [...]. If a man would do iniurie, it should bee for a Kingdome, piety was to be obserued in lesse matters; as hee thought: but the truth is, hee needed not haue supposed it to bee such a difficult thing to be perswaded to doe iniury. For as the Philosopher speakes, Nothing is more easie then to doe another man wrong, and he giueth the Reason why Iustice although it be so beautifull a Light in the world, that as he sayes of [Page] it, [...], neither the morning, nor the euening starre is halfe so Oriently beautiful, yet so few men are in loue with it, because it is the good of another, [...], wee are all naturally engrossers of goods for our selues, but wee are loth, though iustly, to diuide or part them with any other; and therefore with more reason the religious man, who is the most ambitious creature vnder heauen, may whet and edge his flaming desires to goe through all the sweat and labour of righteousnesse [Page] with the same speech inuerted. [...] ▪ If a Kingdome be the reward of Piety, who would not be religious? But it is a myracle in reason to see, that when there are three sorts of ambitious in the world: Sinfull, Naturall, and Religious: how many, and those of the choicest wits, offer their harts, and sacrifice themselues, as whole burnt offerings to the ambition of sinne, and how few set their thoughts on fire with the holy ambition of Gods Saints. And yet there is no difference betweene [Page] sinfull, and sain [...]ly ambition (for both would be like God) but that the first would be like him without dependance, and would be proud in being so, affecting a diuine similitude beside the right meanes, and beyond the due measure; and the other is content to climbe by the valley of Christs humility to this mountaine of holinesse.

The sinfully ambitious would haue Gods glory, but not his goodnes, his power, but not his iustice, the Maiesty of his Kingdome, but not the manner of his gouernment. [Page] And therefore all those Angelicall stars of Light, whom God in the Morning of his Works made Heauen shine with, are now become through this sinfull ambition, wandring Starres, to whom is reserued the blackenesse of darkenesse for euer. And this was it, that smote not onely so many stars out of heauen, but would haue struck into hel the whole posterity of Adam, had not our Sauiour snatch'd vp some few of vs into heauen with him: and yet how many soules still scorche themselues in these flames? It was the [Page] imperious speech of the Assyrian, Tyrian, and Romane Princes. I will be like the most high, I will ascend into Heauen, I will exalt my throne aboue the starres of God, Esay 14. I am God, Ezech 28. I sit a Queen (mening as the Lady and Commandresse of the whole World) and shall see no sorrow, &c. Alas, how high this sinfull ambition would climbe in thought, and indeed how low doth it fall! It aspires to the sides of the North, Esay 14. & 13. verse. And verse the 15. it is cast downe into the sides of the pit. It [Page] would ascend into Heauen, verse the 14. and in the next it is brought downe to hell. It fancies to it selfe a high flight among the starres and Angells of God. And loe the shadows of darknesse are moued from beneath, to meet it, and the dead ghosts are stirred vp to salute it with this derisory taunt. Art thou become like vnto vs? How art thou fallen from Heauen, O Lucifer, sonne of the Morning. And these, perhaps great princely and honourable Diuels of Ambition may seeme in comparison of the lesser, to delude their [Page] followers with a kinde of b [...]aue and royall misery. But in very truth it is a sight full of wonder to obserue the children of this generation, at how small game in their spirituall riots, they will play away the saluation of their soules. O the cheap damnation of sinners! With how seely baytes their soules are angled into eternall perdition! A messe of pottage will buy away Esaus birth-right: A small vineyard will make Ahab sell himself to worke sinne, and forfeit his kingdome and all his posterity to the wrath of [Page] God. A fayre-look'd apple, pleasant to taste, will hooke into the Lake of brimstone, a whole world of beguiled soules. The Harlots beggerly bread and water, Prou. 9. 17. will get more followers then Wisedomes costly banquet & choicest wines, though the bread bee stollen and the waters hid. If GOD should liue amongst vs, thirty pence would buy him. A cup of fornication is enough to make all the Kings of the Earth wait vpon the Whore, & the Beast. And can it, can it be, Sathan should hyre vs to bee the seruants of [Page] sinne with such small wages, and God with a Kingdome should not moue vs to be his sonnes.

O let not Nature in wicked, and prophane, & vnreasonable Creatures go beyond Grace in profest Christians. Balaam the Sorcerer would dye the death of the righteous, the naturall good will hee bore himselfe, taught him to wish it. And it is the obseruation of the Philospher: That all Creatures naturally desire to draw and assemble themselues as close to the diuine Being, as possibly they can, which hee [Page] makes to bee the Reason why there is in them all, so vehement a desire (which hee calls of all other the most naturall) of begetting another like vnto themselues; because not being able in their owne bodies to be euerliuing, they deriue themselues to eternity by their issues, thereby [...], as hee sayes, partaker of the Diuine being, as farre as they are able. This is therefore the reason why there is sowne in our Nature, Tantus amor prolis, & generandi gloria: but this naturall and lawfull ambition [Page] of glory in the Creature is most liuelie exprest in the eight to the Romans, of which I spake in the former section. Let vs therefore if the wicked desire the death, endeuor to obtaine the life of the righteous: if the whole creation grone and sigh, and trauel to be deliuer'd from the corruption, whereunto our sinne hath imbondaged it, into the glorious liberty of the children of God, at least, as S. Paul speakes in the same chapter, groan with them, and within our selues, to bee deliuered from our owne sinne, and [Page] to bee made partakers of that glory which God diuides among his saints.

Let vs set before our eyes those Noble examples which the Scripture hath lighted vp for vs to looke vpon. For this is that heauenly Countrie which Gods soiourners and Pilgrims heere on earth seeing a farre off, sweetly saluted, Heb. 11. 13. and trauelling as strangers thorough the world, esteemed onely worthy of their ambition. Thus Enoch walked with God before his death, and therfore without death was translated [Page] to him: being, as S. Iude speakes, the seuenth from Adam, whom God, happily sanctified to himselfe with eternall rest, because he was the Sabbaoth of Men. Thus Moses preferred the naked and solitary wildernesse, before the delights and treasures of Pharaohs Court; and was not this the cause, because he looked [...] to the great recompence of the Reward, by Faith seeing him, who is inuisible, Heb. 11. 27. This made Daniel esteeme the Lions Denne better then Darius Palace, and the three children aduenture [Page] to meete heauen in hell, God in the middest of a furnace infernally heated. This made not valiant men onely, but weak women, fearefull by nature, but resolute by faith, in the midst of all their tortures not accept deliuerance, but making their way through all the cruel mockings & scourgings, and bonds, and prisons, and stones, and sawes, & swoords of wilde persecuting Tyrants, passe on to the Land of promise, without desire of liuing, or feare of dying, Heb. 11. 36. This made the olde Auncient-bearer of Valens [Page] the Emperour, and elder Souldior of Christ, Saint Basil in his Oration of him so much admires, that signal Martyr Goelius tell the raging and menacing Prince, that he knew his reward shold be greater then his torment, and when the Emperour promised him very great matters, to aske him smiling, [...]: Whether hee had any thing to giue him more worth then the Kingdome of heauen? In a word, this carried the heart of olde Simeon into such a holy extasie of religious delight, that earth could [Page] hold him no longer, but he must needs, as it were, breake prison, and leape out of his olde body into heauen. O what a desire of departure to it, doth a true sight of this saluation kindle! Lord, saies he, now lettest thou thy seruant depart in peace, &c. for mine eyes bane seene thy saluation: As if he should say, Lord, now the child is borne, let the olde man die, now thy son is come, let thy seruant depart, now I haue seene thy saluation, O let mee goe to enioy it. Now I haue beheld the humanity of thy sonne, what is worth the [Page] looking vpon, but the diuinity of such a person, which is able to make my young Lord heere euen proud of his Humilitie. For so great a ioy of spirit can neuer be thrust vp into so small a Vessell, as an olde shrunke-vp body of earth is. Since therefore I haue testified of thy Christ, since I haue made an end of my dying note. and sung thee my Christmasse song; since I haue seene thee, O thou holy one of Israell, whom no flesh can see & liue, what haue I to do to liue, O Lord? What should I weare this olde [Page] garment of flesh any more? Thou hast left thy fatnesse off, O thou faire Oliue Tree, and the oyle of it hath made mee haue a cheerefull countenance: thou hast forsaken thy sweetnesse, O thou beautifull Vine, and thy fruit hath warm'd thine olde Seruant at the very hart. Now therfore being thou hast powred thy new wine into this old vessell, O giue the olde bottle leaue to breake, O let me depart in peace; for I haue enough, I haue seen, mine eyes haue seene thy saluation.

These are high-wing'd [Page] ambitious indeed, whose thoughts creep not vpon the earth, nor whose Honours shall be euer layed in the dust: but that flye among the Starres and Angells of GOD: that boast of their kinred with the Almighty, and call themselues the Sonnes of God, Wisd. 2. whom our Sauiour hath made the fauourites of Heauen, companions for his Angels, co-heyres with himselfe, Temples for his Spirit; Parts of his Bodily and partakers of his Diuine Nature; whose kingdomes end not with their liues, but begin with their [Page] deaths; whose pleasures, vnlike to Ionathans hony, kil not with tasting; whose gains haue no fire-brands like Sampsons Foxes, no hell in their tales; whose celestiall banquets are like the feastes of Cana, where their water is turned into wine, & al their teares into ioy, not like faire Absolons (a Type of worldly courtesie) to his Brother Amnon, who when his heart was merry with wine, slew him, and fill'd his wine-bowle vp againe with his owne bloud, ending all the ioy of the feast in teares and lamentation. Indeede as [Page] long as they liue heere in their mortified flesh, especially if the times bee clowdy, the world would thinke their high mindes and abiect bodies very vn-euen matches. For who if hee had met with the ancient Citizens of Heauen, wandring about in sheepes-skins, & goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (as the Apostle speakes, Hebr. 11. would not haue thought them the poorest snakes aliue? But greatest spirits weare not alwaies gayest Armes, nor the best Souldier the highest Crest. And therefore although [Page] a man would thinke the kingdom of Heuen much dishonoured by our Sauior, when he auiles, humbles it in the comparison of a small Pearle, and a little graine of mustardseed, yet indeed it is not discountenanced, but discouered by the resemblance. For though the seed be the smallest, yet the plant is the tallest of all the hearbs that grow, such a vitall flourish is there in the little heart of it, that what Virgil speaks of the Bee, may well be applied to this vigorous graine, Ingentes animos angusto in corpore voluit. [Page] Neyther hath the richest pearle of the Orient any better out-side then the dirty shell of an Oyster, which perhaps S. Paul alluded vnto in the 2. Cor. 4. 7. where speaking of Gods Saints, and this heauenly treasure in them hee tells vs wee haue this pearle, [...] in no better than scalopshels.

Cleane opposite are these glories, & delights, & this ambition to those of our vnder-world. Gather all the roses of pleasure that grow vpon the earth, sayes not the Greek Epigram truely of them:

[Page]

[...],

[...].

The Rose is faire & fading, short and sweet,

Passe softly by her:

And in a moment you shall see her fleet,

And turne a bryer.

They looke fairely, but they are sodainely dispoiled; whereas, contrary all the flowers of Paradise (like the Church, Cant. 1. 5. 6.) sun-burnt & frosted with the heat and cold of this tempestuous world, looke black and homely, but flourish inwardly with diuine beauty, and [Page] are all glorious within. So that wee may well say of the Church as the Poet sings.

[...]

[...].

She's black: what then? so are dead coales, but cherish,

And with soft breath them blow,

And you shall see them glow as bright and flourish,

As spring-borne Roses grow.

The reason of which is, because the World wants (God purposely so ordering it, least we shold relie vpon her Egyptian reedes) those two mayne iettes, to sustaine her crazie [Page] buildings with which the Courts of GODS house are most gracefully pillard & vpheld, Selfesufficiency and Perpetuitie. For who euer saw all the goods euen of this world meet together in one person, & constantly attend him to his graue, Morall Vertue, and Knowledge, & Honour, Friends, Riches, & Pleasure, Health, Strength, and Beauty, Which are therfore insufficient, both because they are commō ly seioyn'd one from another, and haue in themselues no satisfying nature. For what rich man desires not more wealth? [Page] or what great man thirsts not after more honour? or what scholar studies not for more knowledge. But let vs grant what no man shall euer finde, Knowledge, Vertuous; Vertue, Honorable; Honour, Healthfull; Health, Strong; Strength, Beautiful; Beauty, befriended, rich, & pleasant; all these met together to blesse one subiect. Yet because the Measure of them all is our Life, and that is of so short a size as Dauid speakes, Behold, thou hast made my life as it were a span long, and my daies are euen as nothing: (he sayes [Page] not indeede they are nothing at al, but they are as neer it as may be, they are euen as nothing, neither doth hee say, his life is a whole span-long, but as it were a span lōg, the word in the originall, signifies but a handbreadth) how can they but, for want of perpetuitie, fall all vpon our heads, & without the great grace of God; make vs so much the more miserable by their losse, as before in their possession we thought our selues more happy then other men. Seeke we, seeke we therefore the sufficiency of Grace heere, and heereafter [Page] the perpetuity & fulnesse of glory will succeed. For as Dauid speaketh, Light is sowne for the righteous, and gladness for the vpright in heart. The seedes of them both are sowne in our corruptible state, but in the state of incorruption wee shall reape the haruest. What if these ioyes cānot smile vpon as with their owne faces, but are as S. Paul speakes (who had seene them) vnutterable in their natures; (as what tongues of Men and Angells can expresse musicall sounds to a deaf man? or describe the glorious Light, or diuine [Page] Beauty, the visible and celestial bodies flame with to him that is blind) yet let vs assure our selues the honour of our faith is so much the greater, by how much the lesse we see to cause our beleefe, and thogh Thomas was blessed in his seeing, yet hee was chid for not beleeuing but vpon sight, with this comfortable reprehension to vs. Blessed are they that haue not seene, and yet haue beleeued. For sure as I said before, if the glory of GOD were not conceal'd, it would neuer be knowne who would loue him for himselfe, because [Page] all men would loue him for his glory.

2

2

‘GENES. 26. 12. Then Isaac sowed in that Land, and receiued the same yeere, an hundred fold.’

LEt vs goe on now from the spiritual haruest of our soules, wherein God grant vs to be all sharers, because heauen is the field: and the fruit wee shall thereby reape, will be eternall glory, to the haruest whereby our bodies are sustained, and [Page] which maintains our life heere: that if wee be still earthly minded men, and plow in all our hopes into these sandy furrowes, yet when wee see in this story of Isaac, that it is Gods blessing onely that cloaths the valleis so thick with corn, that they laugh and sing for ioy (as Dauid sings of them, Ps. 65. 13.) we may, if not because he will banquet & replenish our soules with Diuine satiety that flourishes in heauen, yet euen in meere good husbandry that hee may feed & preserue our bodies with the food that growes out of the earth, [Page] become religious men, & such as wait vpon Gods blessings in the improuement of all the labours & sweate of our seuerall callings. It will bee a good fruit of the earth, if we vse it to carry our thoughts vp into heauen, there to honour God with praise, and thankesgiuing for his blessing vs heere.

In the generall suruey of which words, after wee haue diuided them into Isaacs labour, Then Isaac sowed in that Land, & his reward, and receiued the same yere an hundred fold, wee will take hold first of this one obseruation.

[Page]

I. That euery Creature which would bee preserued in his Calling by the blessing of God, must labour for it.

FOr as GOD would haue the World cost himselfe sixe daies labour (though in one moment he could haue finish'd it) so hee sets vs to taske, by his owne example, to our weekely stint: Sixe dayes shalt thou labour, Exod. 20. 9. and doe all that thou hast to doe. Which is not to bee vnderstood as a Permission, [Page] but as a Praecept: as though God gaue vs onely leaue, & not charge to labour. For hee sayes not, sixe daies thou Maist labour, but six daies thou Shalt labour. If our mouths will eat (as Salomon tels vs, All the labour of a man is for his Mouth, Eccles. 6. 7.) our browes must sweat for it. For as the Heathen had a Prouerbe among them, Dij venaunt omnia laboribus. Their Gods, they sayd sold all for labour: so we may truely say of GOD indeed: hee hath set the price of all his earthly blessings to be sweat. In [Page]the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread all the daies of thy life, Genesis 3. Neither let the Master thinke to wipe off all his sweat to the brow of his seruant, as though (like our Gallants) hee were borne onely to disport & pleasure, and his seruants to labour and toyle for him. No, euery Man is Gods Taskeman, and it is as naturall for vs to labour, as it is for flame to ascend: so Eliphaz speaks of vs, Iob. 5. ver. 7. Man is borne to labour, as a sparke to flie vpwards, Indeed the labors of men are different, some of mind, and [Page] some of body, some in the field, some in the Citie, some abroad at Sea, and some at home: but labour will meete a man euery where, be hee where hee will. It is our portion vnder the Sunne, as Salomon tells vs: Behold that which I haue seene, sayes the wise man, Eccles. 5. 18. It is good for a man to eate, and to drinke, and to enioy the good of all his labour, which he taketh vnder the Sunne, for it is his portion. So that euery one that would enioy the good creatures of GOD (this subcelestiall happinesse which flourishes vnder [Page] the Sunne) if hee would eate and drinke, or enioy any good, it must be of his labour, his owne labour, not another mans; for that is to steale another mans goods, and with his sweate to warme our own browes. And so seuere was the holy Apostle of Christ in this point (that Golden and Elect instrument of Gods grace to vs) who in labours excelled them all that were hired into Christs vineyard to worke, that hee would haue him starued to death, that to maintain his life would not labor: Hee that will not labour, let [Page]him not eate, sayes the Apostle, 2 Thes. 3. 10.

It were vnnecessary to adde more out of the word of God, to acquaint vs with our duety of labour, the places to this purpose, and the Scripture in this argument is prodigall. Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hands, Ps. 128. 2. Ephes. 4. 28. Let him that stole▪ steale no more but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that hee may haue to giue to him that needeth. Where wee see the Apostle ties not onelie euerie man to his worke, but would haue [Page] him, though hee labour with his owne hands to get his liuing, yet to giue something to him that needeth, & wants hands or feete, or health, or strength, or liberty, wherby to labour. Looke then as we see a field, as long as it hath any heart in it, if it be manured, and tilled, & sowne, and weeded, and well husbanded in euery part, neuer deceiues the hopes of the greedy husbandman, but paies him in his own seed with the most lawfull vsury of naturall, and very plentifull encrease: which if it bee neuer wrought vpon [Page] with the labour of man, but falls perhaps into the hands of the sluggard, growes presently full of nothing but thistles and thornes, ranke hurtfull weedes, as Salomon tels vs Prou 24. 30. I went by the field of the sluggard, and by the vineyard of the slothfull man, and loe it was al ouergrowne with thornes and nettles had couered the face thereof: so is it with the body of man: If it be wel and faithfully laboured, it is fruitfull both to himselfe, his family, and the whole Common-wealth: but if it sleep away all his time in idlenesse. hee [Page] growes not onely vnprofitable, but full of noysom vices, and is as the Poet cals him onely, fruges consumere natus, a hurtfull Vermin, good for nothing but to liue vpon the spoyle. Are not al things imbrightned with vse, and rustied with lying still? Let but the little Bee become our mistresse.

Is shee not alwaies out of her artificiall Nature, either building her waxen Cabinet, or flying abroad into the flowry Meadowes, or sucking honey from the sweete plants, or loading her weake thighes with waxe [Page] to build with, or stinging away the theeuish Droan that would faine hiue it selfe among her labours, and liue vpon her sweete sweat? Ignauum, fucos, pecus a praesepibus arcent. And shal this Little creature, this Naturall good-houswife thus set her selfe to her businesse? and shall we droane away our time in idlenesse, and which alwaies followes it, vicious liuing? Shall our fieldes labour so faithfully to reward vs, and shall we betray our whole liues to idlenesse and sloath. Find mee but one example in the World to countenance, [Page] and sample a man in his idlenesse.

GOD himselfe is the watchman of Israel, that neuer slumbers & sleepes. My Father workes (sayes our Sauiour) and I worke. The holy Angels are alwaies either ascending vp vnto God (as we may see in Iacobs ladder) that is, lifting their thoughts vpwards to honour him in their eternall song, Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord GOD of Sabbaoth, &c. or descending from God to Men with his blessings, as being his Ministring Spirits sent for the good of the Elect to pitch their pauillions [Page] round about, and defend vs from many spirituall and blind dangers, which, alas, our soules neuer see. Not one of them all was seene to bee idle, or stand still.

Man himselfe (which is worthy our obseruing) euen then, when hee was first paradis'd in the Garden of pleasure, yet had something to doe in it, and was not suffered to walke idlely vp & downe like a Loyterer, or Idlesbye that had nothing at all to doe: but was set to keepe it & dresse it, Gen. 2. Labour hee must though sweat he should not, and businesse hee had to doe, [Page] though sweat hee should not, and businesse hee had to doe, though in the doing of it he felt no wearinesse or toyle.

And as these most noble creatures of God Angels and man were not suffered to bee idle, so if wee looke vp to the heauens themselues, we shall there see there that mighty body in continuall motion, neuer standing still, but flying about the world with incredible swiftnesse, that Dauids great Giant, who euery morning like a Bridegroome comes out of his Easterne chamber, & [Page] delights to run the heauenly races God hath set him, with all the lesse starres of the glorious body, might shed their beames vpon the Earth in the seasons of it, & so bring foorth hearbes and fruites for the seruice of man and beast.

It is indeede a naturall Truth, Omne Corpus naturale quiescit in loco proprio. Euery naturall body is quiescent in his owne proper place: and yet wee see though all gladly rest in their owne regions, and inuade not the confines of their neighbour Elements, yet they are alwayes [Page] mouing and coasting about in their owne orbes and circuits, thereby teaching vs to labour euery man in the circle of his owne calling, and not to busie-body out abroad with other newe workes. The Aire breakes not into the quarters of Heauen, and yet, wee see, it is alwayes fann'd from place to place, and neuer sleepes idly in his owne regions: the reason is, because otherwise it would soone putrifie it selfe and poyson vs all with the stinking breath of it, did not the diuine prouidence of God driue it [Page] about the World, with his Windes, that so it might both preserue it selfe, and serue to preserue vs, which otherwise it could neuer doe.

And truly whether we ascend vp into Heauen, or descend with Dauid into the deepe, we may discerne the whole Ocean, which is a farre more sluggish element then the Ayre, neuer rest, but euer moued either by the Windes, or by a proper motion, whereby naturally it ebbes and flowes to preserue it selfe sweet and wholesome for those [Page] creatures that liue in it, and withall that it might by such inter-tides be the more seruiceable to the vse of man in the conueiance of commodities from shoare to shoare. So that in a word, euery thing moues for man, & should man only himselfe be idle & stand still.

Giue mee but one example in the whole World of sloath, and restiue idlenesse, but one, and I will giue thee leaue to keepe Holy-day, and play away all thy life without sweat or labour: only perhaps of a standing poole, and that [Page] growes noisome that no man can endure it: or of some deformed Toade, and that is full swolne with rankour and poison; or it may be of an idle Droane, and that because it plaies in Summer, dies in Winter: But if wee looke vp to Heauen, that will teach vs to runne the races God sets before vs with ioy and gladnesse; if the holy Angels may instruct vs, they will take vs out a lesson of faithfull labour, both in our thoughts to God, and actions to men. All the Creatures of God will set vs a worke by their examples. [Page] Chuse therefore whether thou wilt with thy vitious idlenesse be of a corrupted, and venemous nature, and so die; or exercise thy selfe in the holy labours thy vocation cals thee to, like the blessed Angels, and all other the more noble Creatures of God.

And that we may see reason why wee should labour, wee must know that it is both a Diuine and naturall Truth, Deus & Natura nihil faciunt frustra: God and Nature made nothing idle. It is for vs the heards of the field, and the fowles of [Page] Heauen, and the fish in the Seas labour to bring forth their young. It is for vs the wearie Oxe is yoakt to labour, and the Horse takes the bridle into his mouth to ease vs by his trauaile. It is for vs the poore Silke-worm spinnes her clew, and the thriftie Bee gathers her honey to the combe: but as all these labour for vs, so it is our labour that orders and guides them, and sets them all a worke first. Indeed God hath of his goodnesse made them our seruants, and put our feare vpon them. The feare of you shall be [Page]vpon all Creatures, Gen. 9. 2. But it is not our parts to vse their labours to make our selues idle, but if wee would haue them labour for vs, wee must be fellow-labourers with them for our selues. And indeed two speciall reasons would God haue vs labour for; one to keep vs from the greene-sicknesse of Idlenes, which in truth is the immediate mother of all Sinne, as wee may see by Dauids Tower-walke; and the other for the more full enioying of our life and health. For as it is labour that procures all things [Page] necessary for our life and health, as meates and drink. clothing & housing: so it is labour that preserues our health, by warming our blood, that it be not gellied with vnkindly colds into rheums and dispersing those ill humors which with idlenesse would grow vpon vs, and by prepuring the body more delightfully both to receiue nourishment without surfet, and without disquiet, rest, & sleepe.

Ye see therefore there is both great reason for vs to labour if wee would enioy our health, and necessitie [Page] if we would supply the wants of our own liues and example, if wee would follow either the command of God, or the patterne of other the most honourable creatures God hath made.

Now let not here the good husbandman because (he as Isaac) tills his ground and sowes it, engrosse all labour into his owne calling, and so thinking himselfe onely the true labourer, quarrell with all other professions as more idle, and lesse necessarie. Let the good husbandman haue [Page] alwayes his due honour reserued him; but let not the good husbandman thinke all other men bad-husbands because hee is good, for hee may bee a bad man, though hee bee a good husbandman, in so thinking. For as man himselfe is diuided into seuerall respects of body and soule, estate and person; so euery calling that is lawfully employed in the prouiding for any of these, hath in it true labouring men. The husbandman indeed he sees the body, the shepheard cloathes it, the Architect houses it, and the Physitian [Page] cures it. It were a labour but to reckon vp the seuerall calling that labour about the body, and indeede would passe my skill to name them: so about the estates of men, Iudges and Lawyers, and Notaries and Officers labour: and about the persons of men, Princes and Magistrates labour, to keepe them in ciuill order and gouernment; and about the soule of man the Minister of God labours. I cannot stand to euidence the labour of all these callings: I will onely make it plaine because the calling of a Minister [Page] is by some slighted, as a matter of no great paines and sweat. That

II. A faithfull Minister is a great labourer.

I Would not willingly make comparisons betweene him and the husbandman, and say his labour is beyond theirs: but this I may safely say, that God himselfe compares him not onely to a husbandman, but to shew the greatnesse of his labour, to euery calling [Page] indeed that is most sweated with industrie and toyle.

I know all men thinke their owne callings most laborious, but whether thinke you it easier to plow vpon hard ground, or vpon hard stones? whether to commit your seed; to those furrowes that will return you fruitfull thankes; or those, that for your labor will spoyle your seed, & requite you with reproch and slander? whether to such ground as is good, and naturally opens her bosome to drinke in the dewes of heauen that fall [Page] vpon her, and gladly receiues the Sunne beames shed from God to warm and make fruitfull the seede credited to her wombe, or such ground as neuer thirsts after the watering of Apollos, though as Moses speakes (Deut. 32. 2.) his words drop as the raine, and his speech distill as the dew; neuer can indure the light of heauen to shine vpon it, but lies alwayes in darkenesse, and in the shadowes of death? yet such ground (stones I should haue sayd) did the diuine courage of Stephen meet with in Ierusalem[Page](Act. 7. 59.) such S. Paul wrought on at Lystra (Act. 14. 19.) such Moses and Aaron and Iosua toyled vpon in the wildernes (Num. 14. 10.) such the Prophets (Matt. 21, 25.) such the Prince of the Prophets found in his owne inheritance, though he had before (as we see in Esay 5. 2.) pickt all the stones himselfe out of it. (Iohn 8. 59).

What one difficultie or danger is the roughest calling assaulted with, that his is not. Does the plowmans labour know no end, but is it as the Poet speakes of it: Labor [Page]actus in orbem, Quique in se sua per vestigia voluitur? So is his. Does the Shepheard, the sun-burnt and frosted shepheard, watch ouer his flockes by night, strengthen the diseased, set apart the sound, binde vp the bruised, seek out the lost, rescue those that are preyed vpon? so does he. Marches the soldier before the face of death? liues hee among the pikes of a thousand dangers? walks he throgh his owne wounds and blood? So does he: but as the ground this spirituall plowman tils is harder, so the wolues & Lyons [Page] this Shepheard watches against are fiercer, and the Armies he graples with of another temper then such as are made like himselfe of flesh and blood; being Powers and Principalities, spirituall wickednesses, & worldly gouernors, one of whom could in a nights space strikes dead the liues of a hundred fourescore and fiue thousand souldiers at once, all armed and embattayld together. Isay 37. 36.

Let all the Princes of valour that euer liued, bring into the field their most tried and signall [Page] warriour, whose face and brest stand thickest with the hononourable starres of braue aduentures; if I doe not single out to encounter him one souldier that beares in his body the markes of the Lord Iesus, who shall haue broken through an Iliad of more dangers and perils, then he, let Gath and Ascalon triumph ouer Sion once againe, & let it be said that a second and more noble Saul is falne vpon his high places, then euer yet fell before. For wee shall finde him all the world ouer in labours more abundant, [Page] in iourneys more often, in more perils in the city, in the wildernesse, in the sea, more often in watchings, and fastings, in hunger and thirst, in cold & nakednesse, in prison more frequent, and ofter in wearinesse and death. 2. Cor. 11. 23. &c. Let not him therefore that sowes the earth with his labor, slander the spirituall tilth of our soules with lazie thoghts, alas! in the times of peace, contempt is the greatest haruest we reape and in the tempests of persecution, our blood is the first seed is sowne in the Church. But enough [Page] of this generall theame of labour, Let vs now go on to

III. The seueral parts of Isaacs Labour and Reward.

SOwing then is the matter or substance of his labour, and the circumstances are three. First of person, Isaac a religious person sowes; the next of Time, hee sowes in a time of famin and dearth; the last of place, it is the ground of strangers, the the land of [Page] the Philistims he sowes in. His Reward followes his labour, wherein we looke first vpon Isaac, in the manner of the benefite, which is by Receipt: hee does not take it as a due, but receiues it as a reward, he makes not himselfe the Lord, but the Steward of Gods gift: and then we cast our eyes vpon God (as the eyes of all things looke vpon thee O Lord) who commends the benefit by his celeritie in giuing which was in the same yeare. Secondly, by Isaacs necessitie of receiuing, it being now a needfull [Page] time of Famine; and last by the measure and size of returning his seede, which was not thirty, nor sixtie, but a hundred fold.

Now if we regard either the substance or the circumstances of the words, a man would thinke (as the world now goes) that Isaack had neither reason, or neede to sowe in such a Land and at such a time, as he did. For that hee was exceeding rich, is confest of all, both by the gifts of Abimelech the King of the Philistims which he gaue him, and by the inheritance [Page] of his Father Abraham which he left him: and therefore what neede had he to labour?

We know it is the order of many men, if they haue liued long in the Countrey and by their labours haue enriched themselues, they forsake the fields, and betake themselues to the delights, and ease of the Citie: and againe Citizens when they are well feathered by their trades, they flye abroad straight to purchase something in the Countrey, that they may there summer themselues in their bowers [Page] and arbours of pleasure: they are all soone wearie of their labour, euen as soone as they are enricht by it. Which though it be allowable in men ancient, as the Poet aduises: ‘Solue senescentem mature sanus equum;’Especially if not only Age, but some disease and weakenesse of their bodies requires it: for so God dismist the Leuites at 50. yeares old from their seruice at his Altar, yet it is not so in men, either able to labour, or without labour vnable to liue. For here [Page] wee see Isaac a rich man, and now past threescore yeares old (as wee may gather from the 25. verse of the former Chapter) yet still labours and sowes his ground.

Againe, let a man be but indifferently left by his Friends, though hee doe liue in the Countrey, yet he will (as he out of his young gentilitie will please to boast) scorne to follow the Plow; he will keepe perhaps a Cast of Hawkes, or a Kennell of Hounds, and he will call them and follow them day by day; but thats all the calling he will follow. [Page] Questionlesse, Hawking and Hunting are both lawfull; but only to make recreations of, not to make callings of. For he that makes the following of such sports his only calling, inuerts and turns the order of God vpside downe. For whereas God made all beasts naturally to serue man, he spends his life in seruing and following of beasts, and so makes himselfe the seruant of those creatures, of which God hath made him the Lord: weakely esteeming that the priuiledge of his estate and his blessing aboue [Page] others, which Noah wisely laied vpon Canaan as of all other the greatest curse. A seruant of seruants shall he be: but Isaack thinkes it no disparagement to his Gentilitie to till the Earth: nor Iacob that was his heire to follow Sheepe, though perhaps my Lord Esau goe a hunting euery day an ende. Yet I thinke not Isaac was a Plowman, but I thinke he followed his seruants that were so, and in such labour there is no man, but shall finde as much wisedome as delight, and health.

[Page] Besides, if a man would labour vpon the ground, one would suppose, being rich, the ground should be his owne, not anothers: what would one of our small heires say, should I now turne Farmour. I thanke God I haue beene brought vp after another fashion, and haue ground enough of mine owne to liue vpon by other mens labours. Well I make no question but Isaac was as well brought vp as such idle, out of calling Gentlemen, and yet he plowes, and sowes, not only another mans ground, but [Page] the ground of straungers, where hee could exspect nothing but hard dealing, which indeed hee found.

The last circumstance is of the time, which was a time of Famine; wherein all men are most discouraged to sowe, both because of their present want of that seede they cast into the ground which might serue themselues, and because they feare the yeare to come may proue as barren, as that which was past: Yet for all this, Isaac though rich, neither thinkes it too meane a calling for [Page] him to till the ground, neither is discouraged from labouring, though he spent his sweat vpon the ground of strangers, and sowed in a most vnseasonable time, and what might the reason of this be?

First, Isaac was a religious person, and lookt assuredly for Gods blessing, which he found and therefore sowed. From whence we gather this instruction. Tis good husbandrie to bee a religious man, and one of the children of Abraham, that is, a faithfull man.

Secondly, Isaac knew [Page] that hee who meant to reape the fruit of Gods blessing, must sowe the seede of his owne labour, in some lawfull and honest course, and therefore he sowed, whence arises this Obseruation, That as euery man must vse the meanes, that would be profited by Gods blessings: so that Husbandry hath beene an auncient and honourable meanes of life.

Thirdly, Isaac had Gods promise to blesse him in the third verse of this Chapter, euen in this vnlikely place, and therefore sowed among strangers, and from hence we [Page] may borrow this direction. A Childe of God makes Gods will the rule of all his actions, though it seeme neuer so repugnant to his reason.

And to conclude, Isaac had learnt by experience, that God was not ruled by nature, but was the Ouer-ruler of it, and therefore though Famine should haue eaten vp all the Land besides, yet he was sure God could preserue him, and blesse his seede, when the the fields of other men languisht with desolation, and waste, and therefore hee sowed then in the time of [Page] Famine, from whence we we will learne this last instruction. God alwaies glorifies himselfe in preseruing his Children by taking aduantage of the most vnlikely time that may bee to preserue them in. Let vs now begin with the first.

IIII. It is good husbandrie to be a Religious man, and one of the Children of Abraham.

FOr though the wicked Mowles of the Common-wealth, that are alwaies rooting in the earth [Page] after profit, suppose they should lose much if they were troubled in their bargaines with the scrupulous vice of Religion (as they thinke it) yet by their leaues, Godlinesse is great gaine, as the Apostle tels vs, and is instated in a double portion by Gods owne promise both of the things of this life, and of the life to come. Hee giueth meat to them that feare him, and is euer mindfull of his promise, sings Dauid, Psal. 111. 5. His are no Court-promises prodigally made, and purposely forgotten; but so carefull is God after [Page] an especiall manner to be out of debt to those that rely vpon his word, that in the times of dearth and famine, when all other are lankt, and shrunke vp with the leannesse of the Earth; yet then (as it is in the fifth of Iob, the 20. and 22.) God shall redeeme thee from death, so as thou shalt laugh at destruction and famine. What though a man begin with little, as Iacob did, Yet if thou seeke to God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almightie, though thy beginning be small, yet thy latter ende shall greatly increase, [Page] as one of Iobs false friends truly prophecied at randome of Gods purpose toward Iobs estate. No matter therefore how wicked men are opinioned of Godlinesse, who accompt it a very vnprofitable, and most vnthriftie vertue: the truth is, it is farre otherwise.

For Godlinesse is not only a gaine without losse, but a great gaine without the least losse: but wicked gaines are all like Samsons Foxes, they haue fire brands in their tailes, that consume all their Masters good husbandrie: For they gaine [Page] a little part of the world, and lose that in the ende which is more worth then the whole world, and such gaines will profit little. For as our Sauiour saies, What will it profit a man if hee gaine the whole world, and lose his owne soule? So that indeed a wicked man gaines only for other, but gets losse for himselfe: for whilest he loses himselfe, his heires enter vpon all his gaines, and such are but silly gaines God knowes, and I would they knew so to: but the gettings of a Religious man brings no such after-claps [Page] of griefe and sorrow with them, as Salomon tels vs in 10. of the Prou. 22. The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and hee addeth no sorrow with it: but how hurtfull, and full of irremediable sorrow the goods are of vnrighteous Mammon, Saint Paul most excellently describes in the 1. Epistle to Tim. the 6. 9. But they that will be rich (saith the Apostle) fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtfull lusts, which drown men in destruction, and perdition. A man would haue thought Temptations, [Page] and Snares, and Folly, and hurtfull Lusts, and Destructions, and Perdition had beene miserie, and sorrow enough for a Couetous heart, a heart that will be rich, Quasi nolente Deo, to be drowned in. But as Salomon saies, God addes no sorrowes to the riches he giues, so Saint Paul addes more to those the world giues. For the lone of money (saies the same Apostle in the same place) is the root of all euill, which while some coueted after, they haue erred from the Faith, and pierced themselues thorow and thorow with many sorrows.

[Page] All these mischiefes happen not to rich men, but to men that will bee rich, not to men that haue money, but to men that loue money, and set their heart vpon it. If riches increase, set not thy heart vpon it, saies Dauid. A man may haue riches, but riches must not haue the man, as Aristippus said of Lais the Harlot, [...], otherwise they should not be Gods blessing, which they are, Deut. 28. they would not be rewards of obedience, Psal. 128. they would neuer make vs friends in Heauen, Luke [Page]16. 9. we should neuer see poore Lazarus landed by the Angels in the bosome of rich Abraham, Luc. 16. 22. Our Sauiour would neuer haue sent out his thunder of imbossibilitie against them, with this lightning, How hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdome of God, wee should haue seene Abraham, Isaac, Iacob, Ioseph, Iob, Dauid, Hezechiah, the rich Arimathaean, &c. either lesse religious, or more poore.

Looke then as good ground to the Seedsman; so the honest heart when the seede of Gods [Page] benefits are committed to him, puts out all the grace of God to the greatest aduantage of his glorie that he can, and is neither idle nor vnprofitable in his fruit-seasons. For he knowes he must giue account of euery idle word, how much more of many talents, or a whole life mispent in idlenesse: but Gods seede brings forth in him either 30. or 60. or 100. fold, and Gods talents are restored for two, fiue; for fiue, tenne. Neither can it be otherwise; for he is Gods owne husbandrie, and therefore to be a religious [Page] man, and a childe of Abraham, must needs be good husbandry, because it is Gods, who will alwaies blesse his owne grounds, and be sure to let his Sunne shine, and raine fall vpon them, and water them, except sometime, that they may be more fruitfull after, hee lets them for a while lye fallow, and for a yeare or so, as Dauid did, lye spar'd and broken vp, without any outward shew of fruite at all.

Now because all men are reasonable, though some be not religious, let vs see whether there bee [Page] not great reason for it; that Religion should bee thought good husbandry, and should enrich the man, that is a faithfull practiser of it. I am perswaded there is none but will confes, that he which is the best disposed to get and to keepe; & the least inclined to mis-spend goods well gotten, is most likely to prooue a rich man: the Poet ioyns both the wayes of thriuing in one verse: ‘Non minor est virtus, quā quaerere, parta tueri.’

Now if we would know what are the getting virtues, they are agreed vpon [Page] to be Labour and Diligence. Salomons little Ant will tell vs how much is got by Labour, if we go to her. Go to the Ant thou Sluggard, consider her wayes, and be wise. Prou. 6. 6. And Salomons selfe will tell vs what is the fruite of a diligent hand. Prou. 10. 4. A diligent hand maketh rich: for as the Ant labours much and wisely, (so the Poet most elegantly describes it.

It nigeum campis agmen, praedamque per herbas

Conuectat calle angusto, pars grandia trudunt,

Frumenta obnixè humeris, [Page] pars agmina cogunt,

Castigantque. moras: Opere omnis semita ferret.

So the diligent hand loues to labour, and goes willingly through all the vp-hils of thrift, as Salomon speakes of his good houswife. Shee perceiueth her merchandise is good, therefore shee worketh willingly with her hands: shee is early vp at it. And is a wicked man of this disposition? It may bee is laborious, by reason of the nenecessity of his estate, and the strength of his body: but is hee constant in his labour, does hee loue it? Nay, will he not presently [Page] breake out into some excesse or other, and so soone spend ill, what was well gotten? O how hard a thing is it to see a good workman indeed, almost in any calling not to haue some one secret or known vice, that like a wicked vermine consumes all his labours? but an honest & religious hand as it sets it selfe to worke in obedience to Gods cōmand, and so gaines his blessing: So is it both constant in his labour, and prouident to auoyde the mispences other men fall into. For as hee is not drowsie in getting his liuing: so is he [Page] neither drunken nor greede to spend it. He remē bers Salomons counsell in the 23. of the Prouer. 20. Be not among wine-bibbers among riotous eaters of flesh; for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to pouertie, and drowsinesse shall cloath a man with ragges. Does not our experience teach vs (as the French Prouerbes goes) That more men dig their graues with their teeth, then are slaine with the sword: that is, with their ouer greedy cramming themselues: but a religious man is taught to satisfie his body with moderate, [Page] not to surfet his body with excessiiue diet. Do not we see many a labouring man boyle his whole body in sweat all the day long, onely to quench the dropsie of his throate at night with vnreasonable swilling in his day labour turned into drinke? but a religious man as his hand are laborious, so he hath a sober throate, drinking onely to refresh his body, not so, till the drinke comes vp where it went down: the grape of necessity he freely takes alwaies, and somtimes, but seldome the second grape of delight, [Page] but the third of excesse & luxry hee neuer touches or tastes of.

Besides, how many great estates and rich patrimonies may wee obserue by often resorting to the house of an harlot, to haue gone downe into the chambers of death, as the wise man speakes, and neuer to haue seene any resurrection: but the body of a religious man is a member of Christ, & therfore cannot be made the member of an harlot, thereby to consume both himselfe and his estate. what shuld we be tedious in reporting what we cā not [Page] not but know; That by gaming, and pride in apparell, and haunt of ill cōpany, many a rich heire leaues his sonne a poore child, as hee makes himselfe a poore man? All which rocks of danger & ill hushandry Religion (the holy guide of our liues) neuer suffers any that saile in Noahs Arke, I meane in Gods church for want of a right steering their vessels to run foule vpon. And therfore it must needs be (Religion being the mother of frugalitie) good husbandry to be a religious man both because the blessing [Page] of God is vpon him, as we are taught by Scripture, and because he is furnisht with the vertue of honest getting, & kept by it from the vice of vnprofitable spending.

But perhaps a weake Christian will bee ready to quarrel with this truth & to obiect, That althogh Isaac, it may be had some thing left him of his father; yet his father Abraham himselfe was but a poore man, being stript of all his friends, and the hopes of his owne inheritance, and called out by God into a strange countrey, when he was now [Page] seuenty yeares old: & his son Iacob no more worth thē his poore staffe. And that Dauid was poore, & needy himselfe, sayes as much in plaine termes, I am poore & needy, being forsaken of father & mother, til God took him vp & forced, thogh after the best sort, to beg maintenance of the rich churle Nabal; and though God himself say of Iob, that he was an vpright man, and there was none like him in all the earth, yet is it not a prouerbe as poore as Iob. Besides, Mathew and Zachaeus & Ioseph of Arimathaea were all before rich men, but as soone as they [Page] followed Christ, their riches left thē, and they became poore & religious men together; Again was it not Dauids cōplaint in the 73. Psal. That the wicked are not troubled like other men, neither are they plagued like others, but their eyes stand out with fatnesse, & they haue more th [...]n heart can wish. And the prophet Ier. as he succeeded him in time, so he followd him in his complaint. Ier. 12. 1. Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee, yet let me talke with thee of thy iudgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper:[Page]wherefore are they happy that deale very deceit fully? That we may the better know then.

V. Why the godly are many times poore, & how the wicked are often rich in this world.

WE must learne to distinguish rightly of the times when the children of God are poore, and of the persons of wicked men, how they are rich. There is a time of pouertie, and a time of riches, and to say true, except Gods children were first poore, how could Gods blessing enrich them after? So Abraham [Page] and Dauid and Iacob had their times of pouertie, they were poore at first, but their end was rich, and full of Gods blessing; where contrary, the wicked man is neuer rich in the conclusion. So Dauid tells vs in the 37. and 73. Psalmes, when he went into the Sanctuarie to see the end of these men, hee saw the end of the vpright to be peace. Marke the vpright man, for the end of that man is peace, sayes the Prophet: but what sayes he of the wicked? The end of the wicked shall be cut aff. So was the end of Diues in [Page] the 12. of Luke. Hee had no sooner sung the merry Carroll to his soule of Soule eate, drinke, and bee merry, &c. he had no sooner ended his Antheme, but the same night his soule was begd from him and hee could not get a drop of drinke for it, hee had prouided much for his soule, but he had not prouided his soule a whit for God, & the therefore spirituall furies did [...] soone begd away his soule from al the pleasurns hee had loaded his new built Repositaries to banquet it with, and in a moment ingulft it into [Page] perpetuall torment: for as Iob speakes of the wicked Momento descendunt in infernum; Pphylosophy teaches vs, that there can bee no motion in an instant: but sin lies so heauy vpon the soule of the wicked, that it is no sooner out of his body, but it is descended in a moment to hell, and therefore though it be sayd of Lazarus; and the Begger died, and was carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosome, yet it is no sooner sayd, The rich man died also, but as if there had bin no time betweene his dying, and being in hell, it [Page] streight followes. And in hell lift vp hiss eyes, &c. O how sodainly (sings the Psalmist) doe they consume, perish, and come to a fearefull end. Psal. 73 18. The new translation turnes it, how as in a moment, and indeed the originall is, Be-raga, in momento. So Dauids greene Bay-tree, Psal. 3. 35. (a tree that euer beares leaues but neuer fruit, & therefore fit to shadow vnder the lawes of it a a fruitlesse professour) though hee floorisht it for awhile, yet suddainly Dauid did but turne him about, and he could not [Page] finde so much as the place where he stood.

But let vs graunt Diues the happinesse to die a rich man, which he shall neuer doe (for as the heathen sings of death,

I [...]uoluit humile pariter & celsum caput.

Aequat (que) summis infirna.

Death and the Graue, make euen all estates.

There, high, and low, & rich, & poor are mates.

Yet the riches they haue, are not like Wisedomes durable riches, but God blowes vpon them, not only cutting off themselues, and their remembrance [Page] as sparkes from the earth; but scattering their estates, and blasting their seede and posteritie: so that he perisheth both sooner and oftner then other men. He spends his daies in wealth (Iob 21. 13.) and in a moment descends into hell; there how soon is his soule lost? His bodie is as chaffe, that the storme carries awey (ver. 17. 18.) there he loseth his body as soone. And what pleasure hath hee in his house after him, when the number of his moneths is cut off in the middest, (ver. 21.) there perisheth his estate. And to conclude, God [Page]laies vp the punishment of his iniquitie for his children (ver. 19.) there hee dies in his posteritie. So that, although he flatter himselfe with an opinion of his riches, that it will keepe him aliue in his name, and memorie, and posteritie, and houses, and lands, beyond the condition of other men (as Dauid tels vs, Psal. 49. 11.) that this is his very thought) yet to speake soothly, as the last of the best, and the best of the last, Poets saies of all morall helpes which Fabricius, and Cato, and Brutus, three of the most famous [Page] of the Romane Worthies thought to eternize themselues by,

Cume sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies,

Iam vos secunda mors manet:

So may the vngodly rich more truly say of himselfe, and all worldly meanes, whereby he hoped to perpetrate his life, and memorie.

The poor man dies but once: but O that I

Already dead, haue yet three deaths to die.

For, being dead in his bodie, he still remaines aliue in his soule, estate, and posteritie to suffer [Page] death, and therefore death is said to gnaw, and feed vpon him, Psal. 49. 14. And it is worth the obseruing how soone his name rots, which that it might flie into eternitie beyond the names of poorer men, he so feathered himselfe with houses, and lands, and children, and called them all by his owne name. And therefore our Sauiour in the Storie of Lazarus, and Diues, keepes the poore mans name aliue to the worldes end, but industriously leaues the rich mans name at vncertaintie, with There was a certaine[Page]rich man.

This is the first and maine difference of the times, but there is another. For there are some times of persecution, and some of peace. When we therefore say that a religious man is a Thriuer, we meane in the time of peace, when God bleses the Land he liues in with quiet, and lets the beames of his Gospell freely display themselues: but in the times of persecution, when clowds, and storms arise; when the Arke of God is tempested about, and failes as it were in the bloud of his Children, it [Page] is contrarie. For as before, the poore religious man growes rich, with Abraham, and Iacob, and Dauid, and Isaac; so in the times of bloudy persecution, the rich man, that is truly religious, voluntarily grows poore, as Mathew, and Barnabas, and Zachaeus did. But their riches then left not them for want of Gods blessing, but they to get a blessing of God, left their riches to supply the wants of others. There is a time of Warre, and a time of Peace, saith the Preacher, Eccl. 3. a time to get, and a time to cast [Page] away. Now it pleased God Isaac should liue in a time of peace, and so should haue a time to get: but Mathew and Zachaeus, &c. were to liue in a time, when the whole world was at war with God, and that was a time to cast away. And as God gets himselfe honour in enriching his Children in the times of peace; so it is his good pleasure, that his Children by being poore sometime for his sake, should get themselues glory from him.

I but will a poore Christian say. Now are [Page] peaceable times: and yet there are still many rich wicked men, and more godly that are poore. So questionlesse, there are many rich godly men, and more poore that are wicked. But to satisfie this doubt also. I told you there is a second distinction to be vsed of the persons of rich, & poore men. It may be thou art godly and poore. Tis well: but canst thou tell whether, if thou wert not poore, thou wouldst be godly? Sure God knows vs better then wee our selues doe, and therefore can best fit the estate to [Page] the person. Why shouldest thou thinke much to see Lazarus by Diues his gates; God knowes that was the way he was to ascend to heauen by, and it may be hee had neuer been comforted in Abrahams bosome, if God had not brought him thither by affection, and by Diues his gate.

Rest therefore thy selfe content with that estate God hath set thee in, that is best for thee, if thou beest a childe of God, and it is not Gods order to giue thee his blessings to hurt thee with.

If I should see my [Page] childe dissolutely affected to gaming, should I giue him a patrimonie to dice away, or thinke it a kindnesse in me to nourish a vice in him? If I had an vngratious brother, whose heart I should perceiue so leagued with some harlot, that hee would lose his honestie, and spend his estate vpon her; should I not rather keep him honestly poore, then send him to perish with my benefit, and make my purse his bane? What if he should wearie me with intreatie, and for the time thinke vnnaturally of me, as foolish [Page] children that haue kniues denied them, will cry; and a man in a burning feauer, thinke much when he is denied cold drinke? Might hee not thinke more hardly of me after, when he comes to iudge rightly, If I should haue helpt him then to haue destroied himselfe? Exorari in perniciem rogantium saeua bonitas est. It is vnkinde mercie to be intreated of any man to his vndoing. And although this benefit of God be something more obscure to the by-cause, thou seest not thine owne future wickednesse, yet it is no [Page] whit the lesse benefit in it selfe, except thou thinkest it a lesse benefit for a man sleeping to be saued from a wilde Beast, that would deuoure him in the darke, then it is to be so rescued in the day, and when he now sees it, and is awake. Certainly God sees something more then thou dost, either for thy glorie, or his owne, or for the example of others, why he denies thee riches, which if thou shouldest enioy, thou mightst haue cause after to complaine of his goodnesse. For what a Heathen man in the like case saies of himselfe, [Page] and his Friend, may be more truely said of God, and his children. Non committam vt possit quandoque dicere, Ille amando me occidit. I will neuer giue him cause to say one day of me, Hee killed me with kindnesse.

But yet though I be poore, wilt thou say, why should a wicked man be rich? why it may be (for ought wee know) God may make him a good man before his death; as he did Mathew and Zachaeus, the two rich Publicans, and great sinners; And wilt thou childe with Gods Prouidence for giuing [Page] him his temporall blessings, vpon whom he meanes to bestow his eternall: but if not: wee know not whether by riot, or mispence he may become poore before he die, and so God will punish his sinnes with the losse of his goods.

But say he be not a rich man only, but a couetous man, and liues thriuingly all his life, and dies in as great plenty as the most religious thriuer, why should God suffer him to be rich by raking to himselfe other mens goods? Why doest not thou yet, being a Christian [Page] knowne that a couetous man, is the poorest man aliue. For must not he needs be poore, whom God himselfe doth not satisfie? doe not enuie him, he punishes himselfe with his riches sufficiently, in thinking himselfe to be still and still in want. Yes, but wee, thou wilt say that iudge rightly of him by his estate, thinke him all a rich man. I, but thou doest him the more wrong. For that which God makes his iust punishment, his riches, thou thinkest to be his happinesse, and Gods blessing [Page] vpon him. Heare not therefore what we or the world talke of him, but what the Wiseman, and the Wisdome of God himselfe, speakes Eccles. 6. 1. for our iudgement is many times out of weaknesse, and the Worlds alwaies out of opinion, but God iudges euer out of truth, and that when all mens shall faile, and heauen and earth must passe away, shall, and must stand for euer. There is an euill which I haue seene vnder the Sunne, and it is common among men. A man to whom God hath giuen riches, wealth, and honour,[Page]so that he wanteth nothing for his soule of all that he desireth, yet God giueth him not power to eat thereof but a stranger eateth it. Does not God now most grieuosly punish this man with riches? were it not a lamentable sight, and almost a cruell part of a Prince, if he should make a couetous rich Miser spread a large Table for others, and should there make him sit at it, till he were pined to death himselfe? This is the very state of euery couetous soule.

But indeed to say true. A couetous man that rauines [Page] and snatches at other mens goods, is no more properly in Gods sight a rich man, then we would call him that had stollen a great summe of mony from another man, rich. We shall doe him no wrong if we call him a rich theefe. For yee know wee neuer reckon the goods of theeues their owne goods, because as soone as they are taken notice of, their goods are all seiz'd vpon to the Kings vse: And so many times as soone as God sends out his pale Pursiuant to attach this couetous wretch, the [Page] goods presently are disposed of all God will haue them: some times it may be to his honest heire, or perhaps to the destruction of such as inherit with his sinne his substance, as the rich Epuloes Brothers: but many times to the building of Hospitals, or the erecting of Grammar Schooles, or putting out of Prentises, or redeeming of Prisoners, or founding of Colledges, or releeuing of maimed Soldiers, or making of good waies, such as himselfe neuer walkt in (or which now is a rare point [Page] of pietie) in doing some good to the Church of God, by restoring to the right vse, vsurped and impropriate tithes, or buying them from the dead hands they lie in, and laying them vpon Gods Altar, that feedes not vnder the Gospel any mortmaines, such as were the hands of the Romane Clergie; but such as are more free, and actiue in the seruice of the Prince, & Common-wealth, then any in the whole bodie politique of double their abilitie, and strength. And truly the want of doing good in this one [Page] kinde is the very blush of our profession, most rich men neuer dreaming vpon their death-beds of any such streine of pietie, as being long dead in their mindes to the Church, before their dead bodies come to rest in it: Or releasing of captiues, or helping poore Ministers, or maintaining in the Vniuersitie poore Schollers, or setting vp in their honest Trade new beginners, or some other such good and pious vses; and so they come all in conclusion to Gods Exchequer.

Leaue then to slaunder [Page] the diuine Prouidence of God in the dispensation of these moueables (as wee truely call them) by supposing them blessings to the wicked, when in their needy superfluity, they wāt what they haue, or when the religious man is made better by their want, by thinking their want to him any punishment at all. Be not enuious with Dauid, to see the vngodly man prosper a while: but if Diues haue a short and small portion in this life, as Abraham tels him: let him haue it; Alas! he hath no other▪ Only wait [Page] thou vpon the Lord, and verily thou shalt haue enough.

Hauing now endeuored to heale the lame hands of such as are shrunke vp and withered with idlenesse and sloath, as our Sauiour himselfe whē he came into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, and found there one with a withered arme, begun his Sabbath daies worke with making him stretch it out like the other: because it is an ill sight to see one in the Church of God and in his Vineyard stand idle, either in doing nothing [Page] or doing naught: Let vs go on to the following obseruation which is.

VI. That as God will haue his children (though neuer so religious and rich,) vse the meanes as well as others to obtaine his blessing; so that husbandry hath alwayes beene an ancient and honourable meanes of life.

I Know it is an vsuall quarrell with such persons whose ignorance & [Page] prophanenesse are quarrell, to fal out with Gods Iustice, because it hath not made them so rich as other men, and because they suppose al their happinesse both in this life, and in the other is already so predisposed of by God, that there is nothing left for them to do, either for enriching thē selues here with the great mē of the world; or hereafter for gloryfying thē selues with the felicity of Gods Saints in heauen. If God please to enrich them, hee can do it they say without their labour, as hee did Iob in the euening [Page] of his daye: And if hee haue ordained them to pouertie, all their labour they say can neuer enrich them, though they rise early, and goe to bed late, and eate the bread of carefulnesse. For except God build the house, the labour of the workeman is but in vaine. Psal. 127.

Againe, if they shall be saued, let them liue how they will, they know God will saue them, but if he meanes not to haue them, all the meanes they can vse, they thinke but idle, and so they lie down in the secret decree of God which being imbrested [Page] in Gods owne bosome thoughts, they cannot possibly diue into; and neuer looke to the execution of Gods decree, which they may finde in the vse of the meanes & in themselues, if by them the meanes be wisely applyed, and faithfully practised.

This argument was very ancient, and first inuented by heathen men, who thought all things ruled by a fatall and stoicall necessitie, which was wholly vnalterable, and neuer to bee changed by any contrary endeuours, or by liuing neuer so religiously [Page] & well. Which reason the wiser sort of men did ordinarily stile [...] the idle reason. And thus as when they are idle they would haue God do them good, so when they are euill they would haue God beare thē harmelesse by making himselfe some cause him some cause of their sinne.

Thus the Grecian harlot cast her adultery vpon Venus and Iupiter in Euripides, but was well schooled for it presently by Hecuba, in these words

— [...]

[...] &c.

Neuer honour your adultery [Page] so much, as to make the Gods the simple fathers of it: no, no; my sonne Paris was the onely Iupiter, and your owne inflamed mind the Venus that brought you to this shame, and vs to this misety. Neither did simple women onely, but the wisest of the heathen Gouernours loade their Gods with their proper crimes:

— [...],

[...]

Sayes great Agamemnon, alas!

It was not he that did them iniurie.

[Page]But Ioue and Fate, and the night Furie.

But Iupiters answer is recorded by the same Poet:

[...]

[...],

Men say their faults are ours when their own wils

Beyond their fate, are authours of their ills.

But how God in the cō production of an action, that is euill; for the euill in it does no way casually concurre, or by way of efficiency: but onely by way of directing, ordering, & limiting the prauitie [Page] of it: so that the most wicked is beholding to God (whom hee foolishly indicts as guiltie, for limiting his sinne, and so lessening his punishment is a discourse somthing stragling from our purpose, who are to enquire the meanes how to obtaine his benefits by our labour, and not the manner how hee workes in vs, when wee vse his benefits against himselfe, and by his goodnesse make our selues the more euill.

Let vs know then that the wisedome of GOD doth not bring in the end [Page] without the appointed meanes, he hath fore-determined. If the Decree of God haue measured thee out a faire portion in this life, he hath set out meanes whereby thou shalt attaine this inheritance, eyther by thy kinred, and so he blest Isaac; or by thy labour, and so he blest Iacob; or by thy seruice and the fauour of great persons, and so hee blest Ioseph; or by thy learning and his blessing of thy studies, and so hee honoured Daniel. God ordinarily neuer breakes off the end from the meanes, and therefore if [Page] thou thinke GOD will bring about the ende, though thou neuer vse the meanes to attaine it, thou deceiuest thy selfe. For God, as in his goodnesse he ordaines the end, so in his wisedome he appoints the meanes to bring the end to passe. Reason not therefore so simply as to say; Whom God will enrich, though hee be neuer so carelesse, wealth shall be cast vpon him; for that is a most inconsequent speech, and sauours too much of the idle Prouerbe, Giue a man lucke and cast him into the Sea: but if thou wouldest [Page] reasō rightly, say; Whom God will enrich, hee will make him carefull to vse the meanes, whereby hee may be enriched. For, although sometime the means may be vsed without atchieuing the end, God, it may be, for the punishment of the wicked, or the triall of his children, making the meanes in-effectuall: yet the end cannot bee attained without the appointed meanes, it being a certaine Rule both in Nature and Religion. Deus & Natura non faciunt saltum. God and Nature make no Leapes: they [Page] leape not from the beginning to the end, but by middle, and so so passe to the end.

We may euidepce this truth by diuers Scriptures. See it first in our heauenly inheritance▪ Rom. 8. 29. Whom he did fore-know, hee also did predestinate; and whom hee did predestinate, them also he called; and whom hee called, them he also iustified; and whom he iustified, them he also glorified. And Rom. 10. the 14. How then shall they call vpon him, saies the Apostle, on whom they haue not beleeued, and how shall they beleeue in [Page] him of whom they haue not heard? and how shall they heare without a Preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent? So then before thou canst be purpled in glory by the bloud royall of our deere Lord, thou must goe through all these meanes, correquisit for thy saluation.

Indeed Gods loue is the beginning, and thy glory is the last end, the loue of God will bring thee to: but there be many meanes betweene the beginning and the ende, his loue and thy glory. First, Gods loue elects [Page] thee to be iustified, and to worke thy iustification he cals thee, and that thou maiest be called, he infuses into thy heart faith in Christ, and that thou mightst beleeue, he causes thee to heare the word, that thou mightst heare, his Prophets must preach it to thee, before they can preach, they must be sent: So that in briefe, The Minister is sent to preach, he preaches that thou maist heare, thou hearest, that thou mightst be called, thou art called to beleeue in Christ, thou beleeuest that thou maiest [Page] be iustified, being iustified, thou art sure of thy Crowne of Glorie, and this glory the loue of God by all these meanes sets as it were vppon thy head. Betweene therfore our glory which is the end, & Gods loue which is the beginning and cause of it, many interiacent meanes, you see, are cast betweene.

And shall God himselfe, that he may bestow vpon vs the exceeding riches of his glory, goe through so many meanes with vs, and shall wee thinke to grow rich hereby doing nothing, without [Page] any meanes at all? Nay certainely, as Christ would haue the treasures of heauen, which he purchased for vs, cost himselfe so much labor; being excruciated with so many dolorous agonies, and such a bloudy sweat as to any other Creature in Heauen or Earth had beene impossible to haue waded thorough: so he would haue vs purchase our temporal riches with our personall labour.

No man is so simple as to thinke he shall make a good voyage, and haue his vessell returne well fraughted, if he neuer set [Page] out at all any ship to Sea: no man lookes for a haruest that sowes no seede: none that keepes not a flocke, or plants not a Vine, to grow rich by his vintage, or to encrease by his Lambe and Wooll. What is the Reason? Is it not because he knows the meanes that brings about the end, and if one be awanting, the other cannot without folly be expected. Why then shold we not be as wise in all things, as we are in some? or why should our folly looke for Gods benefits, without the meanes vsed, when Gods wisdom hath [Page] appointed vs only the vse of the meanes to obtaine his benefits by? If there-therefore thou neyther aske Gods blessing by prayer, nor art laborious and diligent to make way for it by thy industry, nor waitest vpon his prouidence, and vsest thy owne to obtaine it, nor dost by Faith receiue them as the goods of God, nor canst retaine by sobriety and temperance what thou hast receyued; neuer look that Gods blessing as long as thou sleepest away the seed-time of thy youth in sluggish and vngodly idlenesse, should [Page] bring thee forth a haruest of his benefits in thine age: but expect, because thou dost not know that it is Hee that giueth thee Corne and Wine, and Oyle, and multiplies thy Siluer and Gold; but with the grosse-hearted Israelites offerest sacrifice to thy Yearne, or committest adultery with thy ground, and so thinkest the fruit of her Wombe the cause of thy wealth, or kissest thine own hand, or applaudest thine owne wisedome, as the Wise Stewards, or rather sole Lords of all the goods, that God will return and [Page]take away thy corne in the time thereof, and thy wine in the season thereof, and will recouer his Wooll, and his Flaxe giuen to couer thy nakednesse, as hee said hee would doe, and did to the vngratefull Israelites, Hos. 2. 8. 9. So for thy future estate, which I mention onely by way of digression, know assuredly,

[Page]

VII. God neuer bestowes vpon any the rest of glory, that takes no paines to make it sure to himselfe by the meanes of Grace.

NEuer let any vse that idle sophistry against his owne soule, as to say; I know what God hath appointed shall be done. If he will saue me, he will giue mee grace to vse the meanes: if not, all my labour is but in vaine. For all be this Reason for the substance of it, in it selfe, be true, yet in regard of [Page] him it is both idle & preposterous. It is idle, because the very dissolute manner of such as thus reason, prooues them altogether vnholy and prophane; such as wold faine put God to all the labour of sauing them, whether they would or no, without any consequent labor of their own. And if God will not take so much paines with them, as in spight of their owne idle dispositions, to work out all their saluation, himselfe, then it secretly accuses him as a cause of their perishing, when indeed it is their idlenesse, [Page] which will not vndergoe the labour of liuing well, that makes them vnfit, & in-disposed to receiue grace, and their owne wicked and ill life, which is the cause of their eternal punishment & death.

It becommeth not vs therefore to looke first to Gods secret will (like the ouer-curious inhabitants of Bethshemesh, whose irreuerent boldnesse God punished with the slaughter of 50070. men, 1 Sam. 6. 19.) and so to our punishment. For both these are yet hidden from our eyes; and then to Gods grace, which is the means [Page] of our saluation, and our own vitious and impenitent courses which are the meanes of our perishing. For this is preposterous; & by the wicked figure of [...] confoūds the sight of our vnderstanding: but if wee would deale wisely with our soules, wee must looke to see that which is secret, by that which is reuealed, and that which is hid, by that which is manifest: Now the Grace of God, if it be in vs, reueales & manifests it selfe.

—Quis enim celauerat ignem

Lumine qui sēper prodigitur ipse suo!

And our owne desperate and impenitent life is [Page] known to our selues and others sufficiently. If the Sunne be risen, wee shall finde him sooner by his beames vpon the tops of the Mountaines, then in the Orient of Heauen it selfe; and so the Loue of God is sooner discouered to rise in thy heart by the beames of Grace it there shows abroad, then by the flame of it self that shines in his owne breast in Heauen. If then Grace imbrighten thy heart, thou maist from Grace assure thy selfe of Gods loue, and thine own glorie: but if thou findest in thy selfe an impenitent & [Page] incorrigible heart, thou mayst then iustly worke vpon thy selfe a sence of thy misery: I dare not say thou art sure of GODS wrath, but I must say, except thou repent, & God change thy heart, thou art yet in a fearefull and lost estate; say not therefore thus. God hath cast me out from his fauour, therefore my heart is obdurate, impenitent, incorrigible. For this is to argue from that thou knowest not; whether God fauours thee or no: but thus rather. My heart is obdurate, impenitent, incorrigible, therefore if [Page] I so continue, God will surely cast mee out from his fauour and presence. And this thou maist securely doe, because thine owne conscience is both a witnesse and a iudge of thy life, whether it be impenitent or not: Again, neuer argue thus; God will saue mee, therefore I shall bee sure to vse the meanes; for that is to dispute, ab ignoto: For who knowes the will of God? but thus rather I will bee sure to vse the meanes, therefore I am sure God will saue mee, and this is to dispute [...] frō things knowne. For who [Page] knowes not whether hee vse the meanes God hath appointed him in his word to worke out his saluation by? which that thou maist be sure of, hee hath giuen thee his promise, his word, his oath, (Heb. 6. 17. 18.) his writings by his Secretaries the Prophets, which are the conueyances of thy heauenly inheritance; he hath signed thē with two indeleble seales imprinted into thy flesh by baptisme, and into his owne by his Passion and death, the appointed infallible witnesses to testifie his deed. His spirit & thine [Page] owne, thy faith and thy loue (Rom. 8. 16. 1 Iohn. 3. 14. and 1 Iohn 5. 10.) so that although thou beest now on earth, yet when thou hast thy euidence for heauen so surelie made ouer to thee, thou canst not but bee most secure and sure of thy right and title, if thou hast once receiued them, and still keepest them in thine heart, being regenerate and borne anew. Vse therefore the meanes GOD hath appointed thee, and then attend assuredly his promised blessing. For all such promises of GOD haue some [Page] condition or other alwaies eyther implied, or exprest. If thou labour, God will prosper thee, if thou vse the right means God appoints, he wil enrich thee; onely the difference betweene the conditions of spirituall and temporal blessings is, that he hath giuen many wicked men▪ power in themselues to performe the condition required for these vnder-benefits, but the conditions of glory, which are the graces of Repentance; Faith and Loue hee reserues in his owne power, to bestow vpon whom only it pleaseth [Page] him: being not the Steward of other mens goods, as Man is, but the Lord of his owne. Sowe therefore the seeds of Labour, and of Grace in thy Youth, and looke for a haruest in thine age of sufficiency and glory.

But to returne to the labour which Isaac imployed his time in, which was Sowing the ground, wee may from thence learne, that

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VIII. Husbandry hath beene an ancient and honourable meanes of life.

LET not good husbandry sowing the ground, and pasturage of cattell bee counted an abiect and reprochfull course of life, which hath alwaies beene so ancient and honorable a meanes to keep life in the world. It is true indeed, Man in the nobilitie of his birth was not borne at first to this seruiceable attendance [Page] vpon the earth: for both the heathen people had this tradition among them as the Poet sings: ‘—nec non vllis Saucia vomeribus per se dabat omnia tellus:’ And the word of God tels vs as much in the first of Genesis, that the earth of it selfe brought forth euery seed after her kind, without the labour and industrie of man, and till for our sinne it was accursed by God still continued to bee selfe-fertill and to feed her children without their labour. [Page] Mans speciall vocation then being the study of the creatures, wherein he might behold, as in so many small mirrours, the wisdome and power, and glory, and goodnesse of God, which kinde of diuine meditations Dauids Psalmes are euery where sweetly tuning to his Harp, as in the 104. & 19 Psalmes &c. We were all borne in our innocence students of diuinitie. That was the first vocation of our humane nature, but the next was husbandry. For so the first borne child of the nature, the strength, and [Page] heire of the world, that was a Ruler ouer his brethren (as God himselfe calls him. Gen. 4. 7.) was a manner of the earth, and his brother Abel a shepheard to feed his flocks.

Neither did the world many thousand yeares after shake off this honourable simplicitie of life. If wee looke into the 13. and 8. of Genesis, wee shall there finde Abraham a great heardsman, to liue after that fashion of life, although his house were more like a Court then a Family, hauing 318. trained seruants, all men of armes to attend him, [Page] (Gen. 14. 14.) and being in the estimation of those among whom he dwelt a great Lord, and mighty Prince, Genes. 23. 6. Not long after, Iob (an Ismaelit as some of the Ancient thinke, but as others with more ground of Scripture. 1. Chro. 1. Gen. 25. one of his seede by Keturah) succeeded him both in the manner of his life, & in the dignity of his estate: nor was it a miracle to see rich mens daughters (vnacquainted with new tires, and most fashionable dresses) busie thē selues in laborious (and not curious needle) work [Page] but it was ordinary in that old world to meete young and beautifull Rahel tending her fathers sheepe, and watering the flocke, and Rebecca with a pitcher vpon her shoulder, drawing water both for her owne vse, and to water the Camels of Abrahams seruant, an office that our nice virgins, who dresse vp themselues like so many gay silke-worms would thinke scorne of: and in the second of Exodus, the 16. and 17. verses, we shall finde in the field seuen daughters of the Prince of Midian filling the troughs to water [Page] their fathers flockes, whereof Zippora, Moses wife was one. It was the answer of the Patriarckes to Pharaoh (Gen. the 47. Thy seruants are shepheards both wee, and all our fathers. Where we may see that Pharaoh himselfe had his heards and flocks of cattell to feed abroade in his own crowne lands, and royall inheritance. And among the Princes of Israel was not Gedeon taken from the threshing floore Iudg. 6. 11. Moses & Dauid from the Ewes great with young to feed Israel Gods people, and Iacob his inheritance (Exodus[Page]3. & 1. Sam. 16. 11.) may wee not meete Saul after hee was annoynted king ouer Israel following his Oxen. 1. Sam. 11. 5 and therefore the ancient phrase of the world, for kings was the shepheards of people; so Homer vsually stiles Agamemnon, [...], and nothing is more frequent in the stories of elder times, then to see the greatest Princes of the world taken with Cincinnattus and C. Fabricius and Curius Dentatus as they were following the plow to bee the Consuls and Dictators of Rome, which was [Page] then the Queene of Nations, and the Lady of the world. And this not so much the necessitie of their estates droue them, as the honesty, delight, and naturall sweetnes of these countrey and fieldlabours woed them vnto. And therefore old Cato, after hee had out of his censorious grauity well rated, and scolded withall other pleasures, as the lasciuious Mistresse of lewd youth, and the onely harlots of the whole world, cannot in conclusion dissemble his loue to this same countrey Galatea (as Virgil cals this [Page] field-life) but as soone as he begins to speake of it, Redeamus in gratiam cum voluptate, sayes the rough Censour of the world, Let vs bee friends againe with pleasure; as confessing it to be, not so much a clownish labour, as the most naturall, and therefore lawfull delight allowed a wise man. And therefore in the youthful flourish of Rome we shal finde it obserued by Columella, that their faires which the Romans call Nundinae (quasi nono die habitae) were kept once onely in nine dayes, because they would not [Page] leaue their country houses to be drawne into the idle troubles of the cittie more then needes must, and if they were by exigence called to the Senate house for their aduise, they had publike officers, whom they called Viatores, their countrey posts attending such occasions: and when they gaue any man extraordinary commendation, ita laudabant (sayes the first Latine writer de re rustica) Bonum agricolam, bonum (que) colonum, as for the generall Trade (some fewer then, but now so many deale with) of vsury, [Page] the Romane Law was, sayes the same Cato, Furem dupli condemnari, foeneratorem quadrupli, and with good reason is this Art of getting by our mony, not by our labour inueighed against of all such as commend husbandry, as most vnnaturall husbandry, and contrary to the life they write of being, as M. Varro speakes of it, most hated of those, who are beholding to it: but for the certainty of gaine, and the pietie of the getter, and the safety and health of him that vses it, and the apting the bodies of men [Page] military seruices in the defence of the common-wealth those haue euerbin accounted most happie, sayes the same Authour, Qui in eo studio, occupati sunt. By all which it sufficiently appeares that husbandry hath bin both an ancient and honourable meanes of life, before pride and the fashion began to bee vertues of so speciall request in the world, as they are now thought: and that all bee in the glory of Nature before sinne had hlemisht the world, we were by creation all diuines and Priests of God, not to offer [Page] bloudy sacrifices, but of praise and obedience, (which should make vs thinke honorably of that calling, which we were al born to, except we would cast dirt in the face of our innocent nature) yet presently after the soyle of our sin had strucke barennes into the womb of our mother, & her brests were dried vp that suckled vs, husbandry succeeded to bee the next vocation. The first call was of the minde: the second of the body: the first of heauen, the secōd of the earth: the first to the glory of God; the second for the necessitie [Page] of man: and yet I thinke both of them may make the same complaint for themselues, which Iunius, Moderatus Columela, does for them, Sola res rustica quae sine dubitatione, proxima, & quasi cōsanguinea sapientia est, tam discentibus egeat quam ma gistris. Onely the Art of husbandry, which doubtlesse is next and nearest a kinne to wisedome, wants both schollers and teachers, meeting very seldome with such religious votaries towards them as the Prince of the Latin Poets was, who in his Georgicks, or [Page] poeticall Husbandrie, breaks out into this godly wish.

Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae

(Quarū sacra fero ingenti percislsus amore)

Accipiant, caelique vias & sidera monstrent:

Sin has non possim Naturae accedere partes, &c.

Rura mihi, & rigui placeant in vallibus amnes.

Flumina amen, syluasque inglorias.

No, first of all O let the Muses wings

Whose sacred fo [...]ntaine in my bosome springs,

[Page] Receiue, and landing mee aboue the starres,

Shew me the waies of heuē: but if the barres

Of vnkinde Nature stoppe so high a flight,

The Woods and Fields shall be my next delight.

Thus were the opinions of the old world, but it is a world to see now the prodigious change of Nature, when not onelie most men count Husbandrie a base and sordid businesse, vnfit to soyle their hands with: but some, who thinkes his breast tempered of siner clay then ours of the vulgar [Page] sort, call such as haue spent their times in the studies of Diuinity, no better then rixosum disputatorum genus quorum vix in coquendis oleribus consilium admittit. It is the speech of one Bartaeus, a Germane disclaimer, who was better borne thē taught, & more eloquent then learned, against the Diuines of his Countrie, too busily wrangling as he thought, about the Paradoxes of Arminius, who I feare will change, if not his false opinion of the cause, yet his prophane censure of the men, nisi ipse forte inter olera sit, [Page]quae in inferno sint conquenda. Before our bodies were only instruments to serue our soules, and wee delighted our selues in the study of heauenly & diuine knowledge; now our soules drudges onely vpon the bodies seruice, runnes onely vpon the fleshes errands, neyther is any thing more wearisom to it selfe, or more out of credit in the world, then a soule walking & climbing vp the holy mountaines, from whence commeth our saluation, til it be out of breath after the knowledge of heauenly things: before our labour for the [Page] body was soone dispatched, when wee all went naked, and the ground seeded it selfe, & brought forth a voluntary haruest to feede vs: but now all our labour is for food & cloathing (as the wise mā tells vs in his Prouerbes) our nakednesse was then our glory, it is now our shame: it was a curse to till the earth then, it is now a blessing to haue earth to till: so that wee haue learnt to turne by the corruption of our nature, our apparell that should couer our shame, to proclaime our pride: & our Lands that should [Page] feede vs by our labour, to the food of our luxurie: In a word, Religion was once the Lord of our Reason, and our Reason the directer of our vnderstāding, and our vnderstāding the guider of our will, and our wills the cōmanders of our affections, and the affections (which the Philosopher calls materiall reasons, because by them the soule rules our body) the gouernours of our bodies, and our bodies the controllers of our desires and lusts: but now Lust hath snatched the reynes into his owne blinde gouernment, [Page] and madde with Iehu, driues on the body, and the body the affections, and they the wil, and that the vnderstanding to all vnreasonable and irreligious excesses: so that poore Reason carried headlong to the ruine of it selfe, sits like a Waggoner, or rather like vnhappy Hupolitus without his reynes, and is hurried by his wilde horses whither soeuer they please:

—& frustra retinacula tendens

Fertur equis auriga, nee audit currus habenas.

[Page] And from this disorder of mans nature comes it to passe, that in the yearely fruits of the earth which wicked men reape, all the paines of Nature serue them only to maintain the pleasures of their lust, who are alwaies eyther misdoing, or doing naught. Let vs leaue therefore the Commendation of Husbandry, and end with▪

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IX. A iust reprehension of ill husbands, who eyther straggle out of their own Callings, or haue vnlawfull, vnprofitable, or no Callings at all.

IF therefore thou wouldest call downe Gods rich blessing vpon thy estate, rest thy selfe in that vocation God hath set thee (as a Souldiour maintaines the station his Generall places him in) and breakes not ouer the hedges, either to idle courses or other folkes [Page] businesse. When God meant to enrich Iacob, he made him vigilant and laborious: when he meant to honor Daniel, he made him studious and wise: when hee purposed to crowne Dauid, hee sowed in his Youth the seeds of Religion, and Valour. God hath alwaies set the right meanes before the end: doe not thou therefore grudge and repine against God, and set vp sayles to carry thee to some other coast then GOD hath appointed. Delight not thy selfe in planetary motions, but moue constantly in thine [Page] sphere. It is indeede the nature of al men to think other mens liues more happy then their owne,

Optat ephippia Bos piger, optat ar ace Caballus.

Faine would the Oxe the horses trappins weare;

And faine the Horse the Oxes yoake would beare.

The Countrey man admires the brauery of the Court, and the Courtier the content of the Countrie. But take heede of this leuity of minde, goe thou alwaies on in the knowne roade God hath [Page] set thee, otherwise though thou striue neuer so much and (with the two lowing Heyfers that carried the Arke, 1. Sam. 6.) goest on complaining vnchearfully in the way of thy calling, if thou bearest Gods Couenant with thee, God will carry thee thither, and thou shalt endure much misery by the way.

Ionas, wee know was sent by God to Niniue, but he, because he knew God was mercifull, and feared more his owne shame in being counted a false Prophet, then fauoured Gods honour in sparing [Page] the Niniuites, when hee should haue gone to Niniue, set vp his sayles for Tarshish, thinking most foolishly to flie him that was euery where; but God had soone sent his winds after him, to driue him thither, whither hee denied to goe, and when they were not strong enough, but hee chose rather to lose his life, then to be thought, though for Gods honour, a false Prophet, & would needs be cast into the Sea from his obedience to God, GOD had prouided a strong pursuiuant to waft him thither with incredible [Page] speed, & to land him, whether he would or no, vpon the shoares hee fled frō. The Prophet thought he had beene in the belly of hell, as hee speaketh of himselfe in the 2. and 2. of his Prophecie, when he lay stewing in the stomacke of the Fish, and sayling vnder water to the coast God had sent him. Follow therefore thou the vocation God hath set thee in.

Onely take heed that it be a lawfull, profitable, and honest Calling. For some there are, like the smoothe-tongued Parasite in the Comedie, that [Page] get their liuing by flattering and lying lips, that traffique with their tungs for their belly in spending their whole liues to finde out merry tales and beyond-Sea newes to feede his eares that feeds them; and these with their Attique dialects doe so fleeke and smooth him vp they liue vpon, that they make the rich foole halfe besides himselfe with an opinion of his singular goodnesse, and rare vertue; and so continue to blanch his fowle life spent in riot and gaming, and prodigious luxury, till they haue made him as [Page] poore in his estate at length, as before hee was proud in his expence, and such harlotrie the young prodigall in the Gospell met with; but such callings are neither lawfull for him that liues by thē, nor profitable for him that is fed vpon, nor honest before God or men. And therefore these voces ad placitum, that were all borne in the Familie of Gnatho must take heede lest their merry laughing and lying trade of flatterie, though it were alwaies quaestus multo vberimus, since the begining of the world, when [Page] Pride first infected our soules to these later times wherein it is prophecied, that men should be more then ordinary louers of thmselues, and proud, & boasters, be not onely in conclusion punisht with Seuerus his smoake, that stifled a Flatterer to death with this derisory motto, Fumo perijt, qui fumos vē didit, but with Gods fire to, which will reward it with the same fire it was kindled with, Iames 3. 6. Others spend their liues in Callings ciuilly lawfull, but such as are neyther profitable for the Common-wealth, nor [Page] before God iust and honest. Such was the Trade of Demetrius the Siluer-Smith, in the 19. of the Acts that made siluer shrines for the worship of the goddesse Diana, that is, Little temples of siluer, in which the image of Diana sate, as it did in the great Temple: and such are all those curious & puppet-dressing trades that serue for nothing else but young Ladies, & Gallants to dresse and pride themselues vp in the superfluous vanity of ouer-rich and fashionable apparell, fit indeede for the corruption of the [Page] time, but vnfit for vncorrupted persons; contrary to the Apostolicall Canon, 1. Tim. 2. 9. and the will of God, Zephany 1. 8. And among the crowde of this ranke, wee may thrust in our idle Pamphleters, & loose Poets, no better then the Priests of Venus, with the rabble of Stage-players and Balleters, and circumferaneous Fidlers and Brokers: all which, if they were cleane taken out of the world, there would bee little misse of them.

Others bestow their time in Legall, and Callings vsefull to the Common-wealth, [Page] but as they abuse them, neyther honest, nor iustifiable before God. Such are our Tap-houses, & Gaming Innes, I meane not harbouring and viatory Innes, which questionless, in fit places, and where Iustice is neere at hand, if rightly vsed, are not onely lawfull and profitable, but necessarie and honest: for to lodge weary Trauellers, as Rahab did the Spies of Israel, or to let the poore labouring man to haue iust allowance of bread and drinke for his money can bee accounted no other then necessary reliefe: [Page] but for our Tipling Innes in small & vntract Hamlets, without which our Country-Diuels of drunkenesse, Blasphemy, Gaming, Lying, and Queaning, could amongst vs finde no harbor (though perhaps in places of more resort they haue credit enough to be entertained in fairer lodgings) they are eyther the Diuels vncleane Ware-houses for his spirituall wickednesses to trade in; or in our plaine world hee hath no traffique at all.

The last sort of offendors against the vertue of honest Labour, are our [Page] Out-of-Calling Gentlemen, who in husbanding their Lands, and ouerseeing their seruants, and gouerning their families, and in relieuing, aduising and quieting their neighbours, & in giuing good and religious examples themselues, may finde imployment enough for Gods many talents, hee hath trusted them with. But they, neuer thinking why they came into the world, when they should warme their bodies with wholesome labour, take thought onely how they shall boyle them in vncleane lusts: when they [Page] should wash them with the sweat of some honest Calling, they with vnwash'd and durty affections, swinishly wallow themselues in vnchaste & intemperate vices; making their Lands, giuen them to set them a-work, the maintainers of their idlenesse; & their bodies, as Seneca speaks of them, Cribra tantum Ciboru [...] & po [...]uum: S [...]es onely to straine meates & drinkes thorough, and their seruants, for want of skill, to command them, Lords to dispose all their Lands as they please themselues. Such the Romane Common-wealth [Page] was full of, in the declining periods of it, as all the stories tell vs: such the pride of Israel nourished iust before the captiuity of the tenne Tribes; Amos the 6. the 4. 5. & 6. verses; such the kingdome of Iudah vnhappily swarmed with, immediately before Hierusalem was set downe weeping by the waters of Babylon, Ierem. 5. the 7. 8. Such alwaies the body of euery Common-wealth (like ill-humours) is surcharged with (for the Diuine patience commonly waites for his size, till sin hath fil'd vp her measure) [Page] before hee giueth it a purge, either by water, as when hee baptized the whole world from their lasciuious running after strange flesh, or by fire, as when hee sent hell out of heauen against Sodom and Gomorrha: or before hee lets out the inflamed bloud to quench the malignant heat of it, as wee see in the Tribe of Beniamin, Iudg. 20. and after in both the Lands of Israel and Iudah, in the forementioned Prophets.

A rugged fellow and vnmannerly would our Gallants, I dare say, think him, that with the angry [Page] Romane writing in commendation of these country labours, should chide them as he does, to their worke, and vpbraiding their luxurious paines to wait vpon sinne, after the vomit of much indignation, tell them, that they would when they had suckt out all health and vitall sappe from their languish'd bodies, bring themselues to that passe, vt in ijs nihil, mors mutatura videatur: That they had need to be embalm'd as well before, as after their deaths: or should with the Taske-masters of Pharaoh say to them [Page] as they did to stragling Israel, coasting about to gather straw and stubble for their Egyptian works: Ye are idle, idle are ye, goe now therefore and worke, Exod. 5. 17. Indeed they would thinke hee knew good fashion, and ciuill carriage, that would aduise them to trauell with the Prodigall into some farre Countrey, there to spend riotously all their goods vpon Harlots, Luk. 15. 13. or if he would counsaile them to liue in the City, and frequent Maskes and Tauernes, & Theaters; or if he encouraged them to the sports [Page] of hawking and hunting, and if the weather were churlish and lowring, to carding and dicing; or if he would wish them to follow the Court in the delights and reuells of it, not in the honourable seruice and studies of one that meanes to fit himselfe for worthy imployments and actions, whether in Warre or Peace. But thou (O mā of God) flie these things, & in thy Christian Calling follow after righteousnesse and holinesse, in thy particular vocation exercise thy self in such things as may be not only lawfull in the [Page] Common-wealth, wherein thou liuest, but profitable both to thy selfe & others, and especially in the sight of God, and his Church, iust and honest; so that thou maist (as it becommeth a Noble Christian) both reproue with thy cōtrary practise the rich and honourable lasiness which such Lords of Idlenesse (that keepe their Christmasse all the yeere) count the priuiledge of their gentilitie, and delight thy selfe with Isaac to sowe the seeds of thine owne labour, for the obtaining of Gods blessings. And the God [Page] of Peace, if thou water the ground with thine owne sweat, shall blesse thy labours heere a hundred fold, and hereafter shal end thy labours in Rest Eternall.

Amen.

3

3

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‘ACTS 10. 43. To him giue all the Prophets witnes.’

I. The wisest of the heathen, and all creatures are good witnesses.

WHen the heauens and the earth are so farre distant a sunder, who would euer suppose al things on earth should draw to themselues a vitall efficacy, and heauenly [Page] fertilitie from those (as the Scripture cals them) kind influences, so farre sent, except the whole world were campus dicendi, a large field, wherein euery plant with so many sweet flowers of naturall eloquence lessoned our reason by sence, and experience to beleeue it; vpon the departure of whose Summer beames, all the fruite againe, and comly flowishes of earthly profit, and pleasure, in re-interring themselues eftsoones faint, and die away. But this Annual resurrection of Nature we, therfore see in this world [Page] which wee should neuer otherwise haue beleeued, that wee might beleeue that which in this world we shall neuer see: that God is to receiue vs, what heauen is to earth. For thogh he say of himselfe, Esay, 55. the 9. As the heauens are higher then the earth, so are my thoghts higher then your thoughts. Yet it pleases him to descend from that height, in the 57. and 13. of the same Prophesie. Thus saith the High and loftie One that inhabits eternitie. I dwell in the high and holy Place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble [Page] [...][Page] [...][Page]spirit, to reuiue the spirit of the cōtrite ones. Earth hath no power to mooue vpwards, it is beyond the sphere of her actiuitie: Heauen therefore virtually descends: man hath no power so much as to send a good thought vp to God: God therefore bowes the heauens, and comes downe in two speciall beames, one of his goodnesse which shines euery where in his works, and is therefore called by the Apostle, [...] That which may be known of God; the other of his Truth, which is most eradiant in his word, and is [Page] therefore called by our Sauiour the light of the world.

Now so diffusiue is God of his goodnesse, and gratiously as it were prodigall of his image, although in it selfe it can be seene in no place, yet he would haue no place, where it should not bee seene in his works, which are all weake shadowes of some bright excellency, that is substantially resplendent in himselfe. For as the noone-Sunne, which then makes all things most easily seene, can then least of all bee seene it selfe; and yet [Page] lights vp innumerable stars in the night season; wherein, as in so many little sparkles of it selfe, it is visibly, though absent, presented to vs: so our vnderstanding in this midnight of things, may see the spirituall Sunne of our soules shedding some small starrelight of himselfe in euery one of his litle images his works, whose vnapprocheable light in it selfe whosoeuer should hope to attaine vnto, should certenly neuer attaine vnto his hope.

Thus in his workes the wisest of the heathen beheld, [Page] and admired, the goodnesse, and glory, & power of God. The Heauens declare the glory of God, sayes Dauid, Coelum homini praebet spectaculum sayes Tully. The earth is satisfied with the fruite of thy workes, sayes Dauid. Terra foeta frugibus eidem fundit nutrimentum sayes Tully. Thou hast set all things vnder his feete, all sheepe and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field sayes Dauid: Bestiae ipsae hominum causa sunt generatae sayes Tully. He opened the windowes of heauen, and raind downe Manna the flowre of heauen, and [Page] bread of Angels, and feathered fowles, like the sand of the Sea, sayes Dauid, so that well might the Oratour conclude. Neque necessitatibus tantummodo nostris prouisum est, vsque in delicias amamur.

It were ambitious but to name the speeches of heathen Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch, and the rest in this Argument, whose mouthes tasting, their tongues could not but bee singing of this ranke and commendable luxurie of Nature, which God with his open hand hath powred out euerie [Page] where in his workes. Wherein Iustin Martyr, and diuers of the fathers within the first foure centuries haue so throughly sweated their studious thoughts, and as it is said of Caesar, stirred vp a desire in all, but taken away all hope of commendation from any that shold write after them: I will onely adde to theirs the religious song of Epictetus, whose lampe-shell, whereby hee studied was sold after his death (such estimation was there of the woorth not of the thing, but of the man) for aboue 100. Sest [...]rties, [Page] who after hee had began many a sentence with [...], great is the Lord, and greatly to be praysed; he shuts vp his song in these words. If I were a Nightingall (sayes he) I would sing to the honour of my Maker as a Nightingall does; and how is that? Siquis adest auditor (sayes Pliny) Lusciniae prius animus, quam cantus deficiet. The Nightingall, if any will giue him the hearing, will sing himselfe sooner out of breath, then out of tunes; But now I am reasonable man, I will sing prayses to God with vnderstanding, [Page]neuer cease to praise him, and I would to God (sayes hee) all men would doe as I.

But these Sermons which the Creatures preach out of the great booke of Gods workes, though they haue wide mouthes, and lowd voyces, and Stentorian like will be hard through the whole Host of heauen; yet they can but shew vs the out-side of Gods Temple, and bring vs to the Porch dore; here they meet with their Hercules pillars, the great veile of heauen, through which our Sauiour is entred into [Page] the Holy of Holies, keepes them out. They bring God to vs, but they cannot bring vs to God, they tell vs the true God is to be worshipped but how to worship him truly they cannot tell. Besides this naturall diuinitie taught by the creature, if it bee seioygnd from the word had, as S. Paul tels vs it hath a certaine windy and puffing nature in it, to swell & bladder vp the soule of the wisest heathen, with a kinde of Satanical pride, and selfe-worthinesse. As knowing therby al things to be made for them, and [Page] themselues only for God; and so thinking themselues as it were vulgus deorum, semi-gods in comparison both of their Creatures, I and other men. But we (right dearely beloued in our Lord and Sauiour) must haue a feeling as wel of our own misery, as a knowledge of the Maiesty of God, ioyning our wants to his aboundance, and to his goodnesse our euill. Not like the Heathen of all, whom we may say as Eunapius did of Oribasius, [...], They were Larks indeed, and with [...]pictetus, sung [Page] sweetly to Heauen: but they were crested Larks, and thought too highly of themselues: beleeuing God to be, but not knowing what, confessing hee should bee worshipped, but not knowing how. And therefore the Lady of all their Sciences Athens, when shee built God an Altar, sacrificed all her offerings vpon it onely [...], to the vnknowne God. But what saies our Sauiour to this woman of Samaria, that neuer came vp to Hierusalem to learne how to worship. Ye worship yee know not what, wee know [Page]what wee worship. And though, Bias when a Prophane Ruffian asked him what was Religion, held his peace; and being quarrelled with by him to know the cause, answered out of his angry wit, Because hee asked about a matter hee had nothing to doe with: yet let vs assure our selues, that Religion so neerely touches vs all, that wee must not onely know what wee worship, as our Sauiour sayes, but as his Apostle tells vs, be able and ready to giue a reason of our faith, why we thus worship GOD: which that wee may doe, [Page] there is correquisite to the loud voyce of Gods workes, the soft voyce of Gods word.

For as wee can no way know the minde of another man, except it first open it selfe, because it is manifest, as Solons Prouerbe goes, [...], wordes are the onely pictures of thoughts: so much lesse can any man ascend vp to the minde of God, except hee climbe to it by his word, which it therefore standeth with Gods honour to reueale; because he is no lesse gracious then iust, and his Iustice [Page] exacting of vs the duety of Worship, his Grace will not but giue vs a possibility to know how to performe our duties. And thus farre the whole world of vnderstanding men haue gone, the very Heathen themselues. But in this question lies all the sweat of religious quarrells.

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II. How wee should infallibly finde out the true Word of God, which may leade vs to the knowledge of him, our selues, and our supreame happinesse.

HEere the way breaks into foure paths in the search of this perfect witnesse of God, his Word and Truth. In the first and broadest walkes, the heathen Idolator. For diuide the World into thirty parts, and he takes vp (as is obseru'd by a iudicious Mathematician) ninteen [Page] of them: but we must vnderstand his Obseruation of the continued magnitude of the surface of the earth, not of the discreet multitude of men contained in it. In the next wide field of error walks the Mahumetan, who dispreads himselfe into sixe parts of the thirty. In the third, the stragling Iew wanders, who is discoasted into the bounds of all the rest. And the Christian impaths himselfe in the last, and least, and narrowest tract, holding but the proportion of fiue parts in the thirty parts.

The Heathen anciently [Page] mistooke the Oracles of the Diuell himselfe for the word of God, and in a manner is blinded in that errour to this very day, eyther by the illusision of Sathan himselfe, or the collusion of his Priests. The Mahumetan embraces the Alcoron for the vndoubted word of God, and esteemeth that of Diuine and oracular authority. The Iews retaine still the ancient word of God, but they al reiect the New, and are therefore called by the Fathers Archiua Christianorum, The olde Records of the Christians being [Page] differenced among themselues into three Sects; the first whereof are called Charraim, and allow all, and onely the olde Testament. The second sew to the Bible all their fabulous Talmud, & make that of Scripture-authoritie, and are therfore called the Talmudists. The third defalke as much from Gods word, as the second crowded to it, & leaue only the Pentateuch, or fiue bookes of Moses for selfe-credible, named by the rest Samaritans.

Neither can the little flocke of Christ, the Catholique Church, now [Page] professant in the world, goe peaceably in their narrow path together, but with Abrahams and Lots Heardsmen, or Iacobs bretheren, they will wrangling and scolding as they goe: being dissundred into thirteene small, or fiue maine different sects. Protestants, Latins, Gracians, Nestorians, Iacobites: whereof most of them darken that word of God that should enlighten themselues, by carrying the Sunne in a clowd, & reading the Scripture in an vnknowne tongue, eyther of Latine, Greeke or Syriacke, and so traducing [Page] all the authority of Gods Word from it self to the golden and empty Title, of The Church. As the Latins, Nestorians, Indians, Iacobites, the Cophti, and the Mannites. Some of these again spanging out of the Canon of the New Testament, all the Reuelation of S. Iohn, the Epistle of S. Iude, the second Epistle of S. Peter, the second and third Epistles of S. Iohn: others farsing into the Canonicall writings, Apocriphall and vnknowne Authors, the Gospell of Nicodemus, &c. with a world of rotten and vnwriten Traditions. [Page] To omit the populous Churches at this day of the Nestorians and Iacobites, who commit the like error concerning the Liuing word, as they doe about the written; the first diuiding Christ into two Persons by a separation; the second cō founding him into one Nature by the Adunation of his Humanity, and diuinity.

Now all these selfe-arrogating to themselues the word of God, either by oracular Reuelation, as the Heathen or written Tradition, as the Mahumetan, Iew, and Christian, [Page] how in such a world of open Warre, and ciuil mutiny about GODS Word, should blinde soules (such as wee all come into the World with) be euer able to center themselues immoueably in the Diuine Truth of God, and not be carried about with some one winde or other of these erronious doctrines?

Giue mee leaue with the mighty Angell, that held open in his hand the little booke of Prophecies, Reuel. 10. to sweare by him that liueth for euer, and euer. Either the means how to effect this is [Page] here set downe. To him giue all the Prophets witnesse, or there is none in the earth, or vnder heauen. For as in it selfe the least tittle of Gods word is more firmely pillard, and lesse passable, then the whole fabrique of heauen and earth. Heauen and earth shall passe, &c. So to vs this certaintie can no way bee more infallibly euident, then by the Prophesies, that are storied in it. And as the Prophesies are the greatest argument of all the rest: so this is the greatest of all the rest of the Prophesies to argue by. For [Page] here both Gods words are met together. The dead word hath met with the liuing, the old Testament kisses the New, & either to other, one by fore-telling, the other by fulfilling giue mutuall witnesse of their irrepugnable Truthes. Since therefore there is so great vnitie in the words, and the Prophets are all ioyned in one witnesse, & Christ to whom they witnesse is vndiuided, I industriously spare to make any diuision either of the words, or among the Prophets. Only I will set this one truth [Page] in the Light. That Christ is the Center to whom all of them standing round about him as a compassing clowd of witnesses, draw all the lines of their Prophecies, & then briefly gather such Instructions as shall bee thence deducible.

Wee might see this golden circle of all the Prophets geaphically described by the last of the Prophets himselfe, Reuel. 4. and 5. chapters, where in the midst of 4. Beasts, and 24. Elders, a glorious Lambe standeth, and sends forth the 7. Spirits of God into al the Earth. That Christ is the Lamb [Page] himselfe the Passeouer of the Iewes wil tell vs. And that the foure Euangelists are the foure beasts, their euen number; and their standing neerest the Throne; as waiting immediately on the Lambe of God our Sauior, and the strict keeping of decorum, in figuring them like beasts, such as the Lamb himselfe is, sufficiently proues. And doubtlesse the 24. Elders can be no other then the 24. Prophets of the Olde Testament, both because they are called Elders; being more ancient then the foure Euangelists, and [Page] stand in a greater distāce, & farther off frō Christ, their number being iust the very same as S. Hierome obserues: And because as themselues sing to their golden Harpes, the Lambe had made them Kings in matters of Life, & Priests in Points of Doctrine to rule the Earth, hauing before redeem'd thē to God by his bloud, which is not appliable to the stedfast Angels, but onely to such who had beene yong sinners, before they became saintly Elders. And to conclude, the seuen spirits sent forth into all the [Page] Earth, must needs be the seuen gifts of Gods Spirit, precisely set down by S. Paul, 1. Cor. 12. 28. Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, Miracles, Guifts of healings, Helps in gouernment, Diuersities of tongues, which are therefore named by Saint Iohn in the very same place seauen Lamps, and the seauen hornes and eyes of the Lambe; because by them Christ giues Light to his Church, and exerciseth a visible power in all the Earth.

And heere wee see all our Sauiours witnesses are met together. The [Page] twenty fower Prophets hold out the first Lights to discouer the Lamb of God, & least they should be obscure, the Euangelists sets the truth of the story by the wordes of their Prophecie; and that Christs Church may see this truth, Christ sends out into the whole earth, these seauen guifts of his Spirit, as Lamps to giue Light both to his Prophets and Apostles: So that if any Spirit of Antichrist obtrude vpon the Catholique Church any other witnesses, or blinde Light of gouernment, & interpretation besides [Page] these, or think that Christ sent his seuen spirits forth into Rome, & not forth into the whole earth, it is to be held a Spirit of Error, and not of Truth. But to close vp this generall shadow of the Prophets, (which I haue vnawares vnfolded beyond my first purpose) and to open the particular substance of their seuerall Prophecies, we shall find thē all so signally point at our Sauiour, that if Moses veyle were not taken frō his face, and layd vppon their hearts, if they did not by a wicked [...] of the olde Prophecies set [Page] the last comming of our Sauiour in glory before his first in humility, that so they might grow proud by him, who would first learne them to be humble, Learne of me for I am humble, they could not but now at length see him to be the Glory of Israel, who hath beene so long a time already the Light of the Gentiles, all the Circumstances of his Birth; the Miracles, Offices, Doctrine, and Humilitie of his life; the causes, manner, and other cōcurrences of his death; the Place of his buriall, and the assurance of his [Page] rising againe, being so cleerely praeassigned by their owne former Prophets, liuing so long before. Let vs therefore diligently search into

III. The seuerall Prophecies concerning the Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection of the Sauiour of the world.

FIrst, that his Mother should be a Virgin, was foretold, Isay 7. 14. and we shal finde it Mat. 1. 18. fulfilled. Beholde, a [Page]Virgin shal conceiue, which the Iews most sillily translate a young woman, as Trypho the Iew in his disputatiō with Iustin Martyr, and Aquila and Theodotion, both Iewish Proselites in their Translations. But as Iustin replies, it were no wonder for a young woman to conceiue, whereas the Prophet speaks of it as a wonder. Behold, the Lord himselfe will giue you a signe, [...], as your ancient Septuagint, saith the Father, reads it, and not as your idle Rabbies newly translate it, [...], Behold, a [Page]young woman shall conceiue, making that a very strange wonder, then which nothing is more common and vsuall. Besides, to speake in grammer property, [...] Alma signifieth neyther a Virgin simply, nor yet a young woman, but one betweene both, a Virgin already espoused, but not married, such as Mary was to Ioseph, such as Rebecca was to Isaac, when she veyled her face at his sight, Gen. 24. 65. and is therefore deriued from [...] to veyl or hide. This being the maiden ceremony of the olde world, [Page] for Virgins after they had once made choice of their husband, to couer their faces, & to be Nuptae, before they were Maritae, veyled from al other before they married their owne man. The husbands being to become the veyle of her eyes, as Abimelech speaketh of Abraham to Sarah, Behold he is the veyle of thine eies. And this was Gods owne Argument, to prooue our Sauiour his Son the Messias, Gen. 3. 15. Ier. 31. 22. and in the place now cited.

And as the person of his Mother, so the person [Page] of his Messenger was as disertly fore-told by the Prophets, Esay 40. 3. Malach the 3. & 4. chapters, and fulfilled by Iohn the Baptist, Luke the 4. who is therefore called Eliah, not because he was to be person aeliter, but onely personate, being to come in the spirit of Eliah, and in the manner of his life. Eliah fasted often, so did Iohn; Eliah was girt with a leather girdle, so was Iohn; Eliah spake all his Prophesie, writ none, so did Iohn; Eliah reproued the people openly to their faces, so did Iohn; Eliah was sent to renew the [Page] worship of God, then defaced and changed, so was Iohn; Eliah told Ahab and Iesabell of their faults plainely, so did Iohn Herod and Herodias; painted Iesabel sought Eliahs life to slay him: dancing Herodias sought and obtained the life of Iohn, and slew him. So that in his place and apparell, in his manners and Prophecies, in the prosecution of his life, and persecution at his death, Iohn, though he were not Eliahs persō, yet did throughly personate Eliah. And this was Iohns crying Argument, to proue our Sauiour the [Page] Messias, The voyce of a Cryer in the wildernes, prepare ye the way of the Lord, saith Esay; Who art thou say the Iewes to Iohn? The voyce of a Crier in the Wildernesse, prepare yee the waies of the Lord, saith Iohn to the Iewes.

But our Sauiour as he had two Natures, so hee had two Messengers. Iohn was a burning & shining Light on Earth, but the Starre burned, & shined to giue him Light from Heauen. A Starre shall come out of Iacob, saith Balaam, Num. 24. 17. Where is the King of the Iewes. saies the Wise men, for [Page]we haue seene his starre, & are come to worship him, Mat. 2. 2. And this is the heathen mans argument, that so much troubled Herod, and all Hierusalem with him.

Now if we search diligently, eyther the time when this starre first appeared, or the place whether it led the Wise men after it had brought them out of their owne Countrey; was it not in the time of the first Herod, Luke 3. 1. when the Scepter was departed from Iudah? Gen. 49. 10. And the Land was forsaken of both her Kings, Esay 7. 16. [Page] And this was olde Iacobs argument to proue Iudahs sonne the Messias. The Scepter shal not depart from Iudah, till Shiloh, that is, his Sonne come. And went it not with them directly to a little Bethleem? foretold by Micah the 5. the 2. and in the 2. and 5. of Mathew interpreted by the chiefe Priests and Scribes, and people, all gathered together at the commmand of Herod to this very purpose, who making this quiry, Where Christ stould be borne? receiued this answere: In Bethleem of Iudah. And thou Bethleem art not the [Page]least among the Princes of Iudah: for out of thee shall come the Gouernour that shall rule my people Israell. And this was the Argument of all our Sauiours enemies met together against him: Herods, the chiefe Priests, the Scribes and the Peoples to proue him the Messias.

Wee might now take our Sauiour out of the Cradle of his birth, and looke vpon him in the Miracles, Offices, Doctrine and Humanity of his Life: all which wee shall finde curiously foretold by Moyses, Dauid, Esay, Zachary, and witnessed [Page] not onely by the mouthes of Children and Wise men; but forcibly arrested by the Peoples & Pilates, and the voyce of the very Diuells themselues, crying, Wee know thee what thou art, euen the Holy one of God: but because the great Rocke of Scandall whereat both the obstinate Iew stumbleth, and the wise Grecian of the world esteemeth folly, is the ignominie of the Crosse, the one looking for the glory of a Crowne, and therefore hating the shame of the Crosse, and the other knowing God to be impassible, [Page] and therefore mocking the Christians God by calling him [...] the Crucified God: let vs see whether our Sauiour may not say to these two Naturalls, what hee sometimes said to his owne disciples trauelling to Emaus, who at that time were iust opinion'd in euery point like vnto. For first, they dream'd of a temporall Redemption. Secondly, when they saw our Sauiour condemned and crucified, they concluded, it could not be hee that should redeeme Israell. Thirdly, they talked of [Page] Christ, as of one dead & crucified, when hee walked into the middest of them: and when hee talked to them out of his word, their eies were held (as these mens are) that they know him not. And therefore well may our Sauiour now say to these as hee did then to them. O fooles and slow of heart, to beleeue all that the Prophets haue spoken: Ought not Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into glory? Yes assuredly, if with our Lord we should begin from Moses (who spilt the typicall bloud of our Sauiour in his Paschall [Page] Lambe, and in all his bloudy Sacrifices) & goe through all the Prophets, we shall find none more punctually leuelled at him, or more closely touching him to the quicke, then those of his Passion.

If GOD bee to smite him, Zachary will foretell it, Awake, O Sword, against my Shepheard, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hoastes, Zachar. 13. 7. If at this first blow of God, his Disciples proue all fugitiues, the same Prophet in the same place foretels it. Smite the Shepheard [Page]and the sheepe shall be scattered. And this was our Sauiours owne argument to proue himselfe the true Shepheard, and them his little, and fearefull flocke. If the Iewish people and the heathen Soldiers, if the Kings of the earth, & the rulers of the Iewish Synagogue gather themselues together against him, as at his death they did, and for many yeares after: Dauid will not conceale it: Why did the Heathen rage, and the people imagine vaine things? The Kings of the earth stood vp, and the Rulers were gathered together [Page] against the Lord, and against his Christ. And this was the argument of the whole Primitiue Church met together in Prayer. Acts. 4. 27. If wee would know who should betray him, Dauid tells vs. Hee that eates bread with me. And when he had dipped the sop, hee gaue it to Iudas Iscariot. Sayes the beloued disciple Ioh. 13. 26. And this was Iudas his venturous Argument to proue our Sauiour the Sonne of God, and himselfe the sonne of perdition. If we would know the price of his treason Zachary sets it [Page] downe. They weighed for my price thirty pieces of siluer, and I cast them to the Potter in the house of the Lord: Zach. 11. 13.

If the time of death be doubted Dauid will foretell vs, in the 9. Chapter and 5. last verses of his Prophesie, where hee reckons 70. weekes (euery weeke standing for a Sabbaoth of yeares, a day for a yeare, which makes in all 490. yeares a short kinde of Arethmetique vsuall in the Scripture.) to be determined before the cutting off of the Messias. 7 weekes whereof, that is 49. yeares, [Page] were to be accomplisht before the building of the Temple. And 62. weekes that is 434. yeares before the Annoynting of the most holy, which time was ended, when the heauens broke open themselues, and the Spirit of God came riding out vpon the wings of a Doue, whose wings were siluer, and his feathers flam'd with pure gold, to anoynt him to his propheticall office with the oyle of gladnes aboue all his Fellowes, which holy vnction St. Peter mentions in this very Sermon of his. Acts 10. 38. Now [Page] the remainent weeke, that conteynes 7. yeares more in the midst of which, that is after 3. yeares and a halfe the Messias by the Sacrifice, and oblation of himselfe was to make all other Sacrifices and Oblations to cease, wee shall finde exactly fulfilled in the preaching of our Sauiour, who after hee had preach't 3. yeares and a halfe offered himselfe vpon the Alter of his Crosse. And this was the Angell Gabriels most accurat Argument to Daniel to proue our Sauiour the Messias, who here before the time, was the [Page] Prophet of his death, and the messenger of his Birth in the fulnes of time after, and therefore could best acquaint vs with them both.

But if we would see the whole passion of our Lord most exquisitely drawne with the lines of his owne bloud, let vs but ioyne Dauid, and Esay, and Zachary together, & you shall haue it exprest with as much as death can be. If a crowne of thornes teare his hayre, and his whole visage should bee shamefully dishonour'd with his owne bloud, and the [Page] peoples spettle, if his backe should be beaten with stripes, and his cheekes buffeted, Esay will set him before our eyes in this very forme, in his fifty and two and fifty Chapters. His visage shall be more deform'd then any mans (sayes the Prophets) his forme more then the Sonnes of men: I gaue my backe to the smiters, and my cheekes to them that pluck't of the hayre, I hid not my face from shame, and spetting.

If his whole body should bee rack't, and tenter'd with the violent discension of euery part [Page] of it vpon the Crosse, so that his bones should be disioynted, and might all be tould: if his handes, & feete were to be nayl'd to it: if the people that past by should wagge their heads at him, and the Priests should mock him and say he trusted in God let him deliuer him, if he will haue him; if the Soldiers should cast lotts for his Garments, and the standers by should giue them vineger to drinke, all this will Dauid most heauily sing in the 22. and threescore and ninth Psa. All my bones are out of ioynt, they pierced my hands, [Page]and my feete, I may tell all my bones. They that passe by shake their heads at mee saying. He trusted in God, let him deliuer him if he will haue him. I was a thirst, and they gaue me vineger to drinke, they parted my garments among them, and cast lotts vpon my vesture.

If hee suffer among theeues Esay tells vs Hee was numbred among the wicked. Esay. 53. If he pray for his enemies, Father forgiue them, Hee prayed for the transgressors sayes the same verse: If they pierce his side with a speare. They shall see me whom they haue pierc't [Page] sayes our Sauiour by Zachary, in the 12. Chapter and the 10. verse of his Prophesie: If all this storme fell from heauen vpon him for th'iniquitie of Gods people, and to saue vs from death, Esay precisely sayes asmuch in the fore mentioned chap. For the transgression of my people was he smitten, the Lord hath layed vpon him th'iniquity of vs all. And this was Caiphas the High-priests blind argument to proue our Sauiour the Messias. It is expedient that one man should dye for the people. Iohn. 11. 50.

[Page] In a word his Buriall in the graue of rich Ioseph is foretould by Isay 53. He shall make his graue with the rich, and his Resurrection by Dauid Psal. 16. 10. Thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy one to see corruption. For God before had made his soule an offring for sinne, as Esay tells vs 53. 10. And this was the great argument of the two great Apostles, wherewith they conuerted both Iewe and Gentil to the faith of Christ Acts. 2. and 13. Chapters, 800. at two sermons.

[Page] I will not adde to these Diuine Attestations, the propheticall Acrostique of Sebyd Erythcaea cited by Constantin in his oration which he intitled ad Caetu [...] sanctorum, the 18. Chapter, and translated as he sayes by Tully, before our Sauiour was borne. [...] who I doubt not not but might Prophesie of Christ, as Balaam did: Nor the Aegyptian crosse which among their [...] Diuine Hieroglyphicks signified Saluation, as the heathen themselues confest, out of Socrates in the 5. booke [Page] of his Ecclesiasticall story, the 17. Chapter. Nor th'illustrious report of Iosephus, in th' 18. of his Antiquities both of our Sauiour, and Iohn the Baptist, which the Iewes ignorantly slaunder as inserted by the Christians, mistaking this Iosephus, the sonne Matathias who writ in Greeke, for another Iosephus of theirs, who writ in Hebrew, the sonne of Gorion, in whom indeed there is no such report. Nor the wirtie, but not so weighty Arguments of some of the Fathers. As of Iustin Martyr, who would [Page] needs perswade Trypho, and his two fellowes, that the holding of Moses Armes in the figure of a crosse, and the spitting of the Paschalll Lambe with the two shoulders passant prefigur'd the crucifying of our Lord: or of Irenaeus speaking of the incredulous Iew, who should see our Sauiour, the life of the world, hang before his eyes, and yet obstinate his heart in vnbeleefe, out of the eight and twenty of Deut. Et erit vica [...]ua pendens ante oculos tuos, & non credes vitae tuae. lib. 4. aduersus Haereses cap. 23.

[Page] But if any would lay the foundation of his faith wider, and hope to himselfe more Arguments to ground his beleefe vpon: Let him but aduisedly thinke with himselfe how it became the Sauiour of the world to liue, and what other witnesses to beare him testimony of him: and then let him adde to the prophesies of his death, the innocence of his life. For neuer any man liued as he liu'd, which of you (sayes our Sauiour as to all our enemies) can accuse me of sinne: And to the innocence of his life [Page] the Authoritie of his Doctrine. Neuer man spake as this man does, say the emissary scouts sent to apprehend him. And to the Authoritie of his Doctrine the power of his miracles: Wee neuer saw such things in Israel, say all the people, and to the miracles that hee wrought the miseries that he suffered, Behold and see if there were euer griefe like my griefe, may our Sauiour truely say of himselfe: And to the miseries that he suffered himselfe, the constancy of his Appostles, and Primitiue Martyres that suffered for [Page] him. Who, who euer had such witnesses, as to kindle other men into the same faith with them, would set themselues on a light fire of zeale, till they were consumed for the honour of their Lord? So that the first Imperious Persecutour of the Christians Nero▪ that in humane lumpe of crueltie, whom Nature for hast might seeme onely to haue curded vp into a knot of bloud, guest not much amisse when anoynting their bodies of the Christians he set them burning in euery street of Rome, like so many [Page] Torches, to giue light to the Cittie as Tacitus reportes in the 15. of his Annales. For they gaue light indeed, not for awhile onely to that heathenish Cittie, but to the whole Christian world for euer after. Neuer was there day kindled with halfe so many beames, as that night was, sure neuer was there night, though all the Starres in Heauen should flame out in it, to make it glorious, that shone halfe so brightly as did this when to meet their Bridegrome in the first watch, and morning of their Gospell, so [Page] many early Virgins had lighted their Lampes.

And to these liuing Martyres, let him adde two dead witnesses, the voyce of the Sonne from heauen at his exspiration, when the whole world lost the day at Noone; & the voyce of the Earth at his Resurrection, when her mouth opened, and let abroad so many Saintly bodies, that awakned, and leapt out of their graues to tell it in Ierusalem, that Christ was risen. O the Diuine vertue of this celesticall body! If it die, heauen that enlightens all, extinguishes [Page] it selfe; if it reuiue, the dead worke of the Graue, that receiues the dying, excludes the liuing, and like the barren wombe of Sarah is alust to bring forth the Children of promise, in testimonie of the secret influence of life it felt, after Christ had layen with her. And thus it became the Sauiour of the world to liue, thus to be borne, thus to die againe; these witnesses became him, & these Miracles. And therfore giue me leaue to vse, first

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IIII. A free Reprehension of all fashionable Aggrippaes in faith; and farther motiues to winne them to become through beleeuers.

AFter the voyce of so many Prophesies, & witnesses, art thou yet an Infidell? O that there were not in Christs militant Church, as there were in Othoes military Campe, so many men, so few Soldiers, so many professors, so few Christians. Let me but aske thee [Page] as St. Paul did Agrippa, Beleeuest thou the Prophets? and I would I could say as he does. I know thou beleeuest; but I feare I may better say, as the Prophesie it selfe speakes, Who hath beleeued our report? And what might the reason be of so much infidelitie among so many beleeuers of vs; that so many with the Roman Soldiers should kneele downe to Christ, and by an open professiō of their mouthes say to him Hayle King of the Iewes with the smooth voyce of Iacob, and yet with their practise, and rough hands of Esau [Page] smite him on the head, & face, and crucifie him?

Is it not because they liue neither as iust men by Faith, nor as wisemen, by reason, but wholy by sence? so ignorant are they, & like bruit Beasts before God, beleeuing only what they see, & quae sunt ante pedes, as the Oratour speakes, what they must needes stumble vpon with their eyes, and no more? Well: hast thou both thine eyes out of Faith, and Reason? giue me thy hand (O thou reasonable Beast) and follow me with that one blind eye of Sence, that [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] thou hast left thee. Thou wilt not beleeue in Christ because thou didst not see the former Prophesies foretoulde of him, fulfilled by him. That thou mayest see then, what thou shouldest beleeue now, beleeue those Prophesies which are yet to be seene.

Thou sawest not perhaps, the comming of Christ in humilitie foretould by the foregoing Prophet; but that which was foretould by his following Apostles, thou maist yet see [...], the comming of Antichrist in pride. Thou couldst not [Page] see Ierusalem destroy the Temple of Christs Body foretould by the former Prophets, but our Sauiour himselfe Prophesied of the destruction of Ierusalem, and that is yet to be seene. Thine eyes cannot behold the spirituall Kingdome of Christ, because it is of another world, and beyond thy eye sight; but the power of this Kingdome, which was to breake in pieces the former great Monarchies of the world, and it selfe to remaine vnshaken for euer, Prophesied twice by Daniel in his 2. and 7. Chapters, if thou [Page] wilt but open thine eyes, thou canst not but behold. The Diuine image of the inuisible God dwelling bodily in the humane Nature of our Sauior prophesied in Esays Immanuel is to diuinely subtile for his owls eies to looke vpon: but it is visibly to be seene by thee, that the false image of the heathen, like Dagons Idol before the Arke, are fallen downe, and by the power of Christs Kingdom beaten to the ground, Prophesied in the second of Esay, and Dauid, and diuerse of the Prophets. How the Kings of the [Page] earth, and the Rulers banded themselues together against the Lord, and against his Christ, to extinguish his Church in the very Cradle of it, Prophesied by Dauid, was, thou wilt say, before thou were borne to see it: but happy, happy art thou, that thou art borne to see now Kings to be the Noursing Fathers & Queenes the Nursing Mothers of his Church Prophesied by Esay. Es. 49. 23. Thou seest not the whole world Iew and Gentil forget themselues, and rebell against the Lord, denying his Kingdome, [Page] or to be gouerned by him: We haue no King but Caesar: But thou seest now the Kingdome is the Lords, and he is the Gouernour among the Nations, and that all the ends of the earth hath remembred themselues, & turned vnto the Lord, Prophesied by Dauid Psa. 22. 27. Briefely thou seest not the Resurrection of our Sauiour in glory among the Iewes Prophesied by Dauid; but thou seest that which was immediately to follow among the Gentiles, the Resurrection of grace, foretold by all the Prophets. [Page] Neither canst thou see now the Iewes crying crucifie him, crucifie him. But thou maist yet see that which instantly followes, His bloud be vpon vs, and vpon our Children.

Since therefore thou hast lying before thine eyes, by the power of Christs kingdome, the 4. great Monarches of the world broken in peeces, by the diuine Image of God, the false images of Heathen beaten downe, the destruction of that citie that destroyed him, and the dispersion of that People that scattered his; [Page] the rebellious Gentiles his seruants, and the persecuting Kings his Subiects, if thou wilt not be among those whom our Sauiour blesses, Blessed are they that haue not seene, and yet haue beleeued, be at least one of Saint Thomas his Disciples, vse thine eyes as he did his fingers, and be not faithlesse, but beleeue,

For I will not feare to say that the certainty of our faith arising from the Prophecies, is more powerable to perswade, thē if it were by an ocular demonstration, now before our eies miraculously cō firmed, [Page] then if one should rise from the dead to instruct vs, then if GOD himselfe should descend, & speake to vs from heauen. A great audacitie of speech will some say: I, and a proude hyperbole of Truth, but such as the Scripture vses, They haue Moses and the Prophets (sayes Abraham) let them heare them. And though such purple-habited, and high-dieted Epicures as are already in the state of the damned, though they liue in the world among vs, foolishly suppose, that of one should rise and come to them from the dead, they [Page] should presently beleeue yet the Father of the faithfull who knew better how faith was begotten, tells vs plainely; if they will not heare Moses, and the Prophets, neyther will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead.

And what sayes Saint Peter, who himselfe heard the voyce of God immediately, and gloriously speaking to him from heauen? This is my Well-beloued Sonne, heare him. We haue (sayes he) a more sure word of Prophecie, whereunto you do well, that yee take heed, 2. Pet. 1. 19.

And is it possible any [Page] word in the earth should be more certaine, then word of God immediatly speaking to him from heauen? Certes, not in regard of the substance of the thing deliuered. For so both the word of God immediatly framed by himselfe, & spoken from heauen, or vttered by the mouth of his Prophet, is all one, and hath the very same identiall certaintie: but both in regard of the manner of deliuery, the Prophesies are more sure, because they are larger, and more copiously expositiue of themselues, in case of doubts emergent, [Page] God speaking but awhile by a voyce immediately framed by himselfe, but speaking by his Prophets from the beginning of the world to the end of it, which are therefore interpretatiue of themselues: and specially in regard of vs, Because the voyce of God immediately speaking from heauen to vs, is more astonishing and lesse instructiue then otherwise it would be. So we see the Children of Israel, when God spake from heauen to them, Exodus 20. 18. 19. shaken into such an Ague of [Page] feare and trembling (as Moses himselfe was, Heb. 12. 21.) that they started backe, and stoode a farre off, and cryed to Moses. O let not God speake anie more vnto vs, lest wee die. Which naturall feare God does not onely pardon, but approue, and therefore stooping to their nature, and laying aside his owne Maiestie, wee shall see in the 18. of Deuter. 16. verse, what he sayes to them, and by whose mouth hee promises to speake to vs. According to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the Assembly,[Page]saying, Let me not heare againe the voice of the Lord my GOD, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord sayd vnto me, they haue well spoken in all that they haue said, I will raise them vp a Prophet from among their Brethren, like vnto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, him shall they heare, &c. Thus when the Greeks came to see our Sauiour, Iohn 12. 21. and God gaue a maiesticall witnesse to him from heauen: they were all so horrowed with suddaine amase and affright, that some thought it [Page] thundred; others, that an Angel spake from heauen to him: but what was sayd, none of them all knew. And thus our Apostle heere himselfe was for the time that GOD spake in Mount Tabor, strucke halfe beside his vnderstanding with feare and astonishment. Matth, 17. 6. and talked himselfe hee knew not what. Luke 9. 33.

We see therefore, how strongly the Rocke of our saluation, Christ the Corner-stone is layd by the Prophets, in the Church of God, and how mightily Christ vpholdes the [Page] Scriptures, that are built vpon him: one by foretelling, the other, by fulfilling, the written word how the liuing should be borne, and liue, and die, should bee buried, and raised, and the Liuing word, by so entring the wombe, and his graue, so liuing, dying, & rising, as was written: so that if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to those onely, whose minds are blinded by the God of this world, as the Apostle speakes. But as our Christian Faith is much dishonoured by a company of rude and vnsettled Professours; so it is [Page] vtterly ashamed of the multitude of false, blind, which is strange, & dumb witnesses the Church of God is pestered with. I will end therefore with

V. A iust Invectiue against all false, blind, and dumbe Prophets, who are indeed no true Witnesses of the Lord.

LEt the Iesuit now, the Sophister of Christianitie, cal to vs to beg light and sufficiencie, and auritie [Page] to Gods word from their Romane Church, tell vs, tell vs that we must run to Rome, to their Spirituall Man to enterpret the Scriptures, who commonly vnderstands not the Tongues they were writ in: Let their Apostolicall Cha [...]re vaunt it selfe, it cannot fall from the Faith, because the two noble Apostles, S. Peter, and S. Paul, sate in it by their doctrine, ymbrightened it by their example, and with their owne blouds baptized it. Alas! did not our Sauiour himselfe sow Hierusalem with his doctrine, grace it with [Page] his Miracles, shine vpon it with the light of his vniuitable example, water it with the showre (the best showre that euer fell from heauen) of his owne blood: And yet is not that Vine-yeard become a wildernesse? hath it not losse with the leaues the fruit, with the power of Religion, the profession of it? And is it possible that Gods word should bee darke it selfe that giues light to the simple? insufficient, and vnperfect in it selfe, that makes perfit the Man of God? that Gods word should begge authorities [Page] from mans! and such a mans, who is either the man of Sin, or the Beast drunke with the blood of the Saintes, and Martyrs of Iesus? from such a beastly, and sinfull mans word: That hee should bee the sole and Infallible Interpretour of Gods word, and his diuine Lawe, in whose chayre-sentence all our thoughts must acquiet themselues, who by his dispensatory court of Faculties, is the daily Cancelour of it, and is therefore [...] stiled by the Apostle [...], the lawlesse Man? Who can [Page] make Apocryphal Authors Canonicall; Humane Traditions of Diuine Authoritie: disanulling in Princes holy Marriages, and making Legitimate amongst them incestuous Contracts: Inioyning his Fryars vnlawfull chastity, forbidding his Seculars holy Wedlocke, commending in his Cardinals royal excessiue pride, commanding in his votaries abiect humilitie; counsayling in his Iesuits, blind, and sinfull obedience, countenancing in forrein Subiects secret and Sainctly Rebellion: creating heere among vs [Page] a Religious murder, and meritorious treason, and making the bulletting of a whole Commonwealth vp into the ayre at a shot, an Action not onely vndiscouerable, and to bee sealed vp vnder the holy Signet of Confession, but canonizing the father of the Action for a most heauenly and venerable saint. All which to the word of GOD are most repugnant, and gladiatorie.

Is this the man vpon whose lip of knowledge they would haue vs and all the Prophets hang? to kisse whose toes, and [Page] commit idolatrie, with the golden Crosse vpon his Pantofle, they would haue vs flye ouer the seas?

Well, when wee heare say, hee is better able to make good his Interpretations by the Lights of Art, & helpe of Tongues, and authoritie of Scriptures, rightly inferred from the Collation of places, the significancy of phrases, the light of circumstances, the Ayme of the words, and the Analogie of Faith, and hath ioyned to all these a sincere loue of the Trueth, without any siding, and part-taking for gainefull [Page] and honourable respects, and an vnwearied search for it without prae-iudicating affections (all which together make vp, not an infallible, but the least fallible Interpretour) we will then thinke, whether it bee fit to put out all these Lights in other men, thorough the whole Church of GOD, and with the losse of our Christian libertie, to imbondage our selues to his Romane Chayre.

It is best therefore to keep on this side the seas, from the false and whorish Prophet of Babylon, that beares onely false [Page] witnesse to Christ, and to consider those Ecclesiasticall home-Droanes of our owne, which hiue themselues vnder the shadow of our Church (the wicked thiefe money, that siluer dropsie, that now raigns in vnconscionable Patrons, making way for them) & so beare indeed, either no witnesse to Christ at all, or but very slight, and rash witnesse.

It was Eliahs speech from God to Ahab. Hast thou slaine, and also taken possession; and it may well be his Churches to either of theirs. Hast thou taken possession, and wilt [Page] thou slay also? not the body once, but for euer the soules, of innocent men. Let no man quarrell with me, as Ahab did with Eliah. Hast thou found me O mine Enemie? If he doe, I must borrow Saint Paules answer: Am I thine enemy, because I tell thee the Truth? No (I speake not out of rash, but charitable zeale) thou art thine owne Enimie, thou art Gods Enimie, thou art the enimie of his Church. For if thou didst loue him, thou wouldst feede his flocke, feede his Sheepe, feed his Lambs. If thou diddest loue his [Page] Church, thou wouldest shew thy loue by thy obedience to it. Who enioynes euery one eleuen moneths residence vpon his cure, and graunts him but one months absence, whereas it is a venture, but without long search you may finde one that absents himselfe eleauen moneths, and is resident but once a yeare, and that is perhaps at haruest, or peraduenture at Easter, when his owne, and not so much the Churches profit calles him to his benefit, not his Benefice. He would being resident preach euery Sunday, as [Page] shee commaunds him, in her 45. Cannon. Hee would labour to cōuince Heretiques, (which now in his absence growes vppon her) or see them at least censured as she bids him in her 65. and 66. Canons. He would keepe the sound in safety, and visit the sicke, as shee directs him in her 67. Canon. Thus he would do, and not laugh at them that did thus, and would haue him doe so, as men more precise, than wise, of more heate than discretion. I am not so intemperate, as to rage against all Non-residency, [Page] which in case of insufficiencie of one Liuing, or publique, and necessarie imployment, either in Vniuersities, or Court, must needs be allowable: but either our Church it selfe is precise, that bids him doe thus: or he that does the contrary without any ouer-ballancing reason, prooues himselfe a Bastard, and none of hir Children.

A double wound it is our church receiues from these men. For as themselues haue not the grace to correct their owne sinne, so they haue commonly in their roomes [Page] certaine vnder-curats, so grossely ignorant, as not to know theirs. They that know nothing thēselues, are set by these to teach others, of whom we cannot say, dies diei, but nox nocti indicat scientiam. One night teaches another, a blinde Prophet, a blinde People: yet I haue seene some of these not onely stand high vppon their bare and solitary honesty; but peremptorily censured graue and worthy Ministers, as Demosthenes an Arrian, the Cooke of Valens, the Emperours kitchin did Saint Ambrose, as men, [Page] not throughly gifted for their place, which reproach Saint Ambrose smiling, put vp and off with this merry answere. [...]. I haue met with to day a barbarous Demosthenes: but to the common virtues of a Christiā vpright feet, and honest hands, it were good these men would adde the tongue of the learned Esay chap. 50. v. 4. else the Greeke Epigram will finde fault with their sermons, and tell them, sound hands and feete will not excuse lame heades and crackt braines.

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[...]

[...].

I do not deny but that God is able to perfect his power in these mens weakenesse: For it is not impossible for our spirituall Sampson (as hee ouercame his enemies, and was refreshed with a iawe of the seely beast) so to make the waters of Life spring between the teeth of these simple creatures: but these vnsent Runners might do well to content thēselues with one Cure, and not to be too busie in trudging between many, as some of them are (for to bee so officious must [Page] needs proue offensiue to the church, till they know better how to applie more seasonably, than yet they can, the sacred word of God to the pretious soules of their Hearers; and to set those Apples of siluer into these pictures of golde.

Neyther doe I denie but that such trading Preachers may find work enough for their mouths, by making other mens labours runne through them. But this is to get their Liuing by the sweat of other men, & to wipe it off to their owne browes. And if we should [Page] see a rude Carter offer to play vpon the instrument of a fine-fingred and dactrycall Musitian (suppose one of these Trades-men, vpon the golden Harpe of the sweet Singer of Israel) who could but laugh at him, and say, as the Greeke Prouerbe goes, [...] Asinus ad lyram. But such derisorie reproofes are too milde for such tayles of Ieroboam, more fit indeede to make Priests for Baal, thē Prophets for God, who intrude themselues into the Ministery for meere necessity, and therefore may say indeede with St. [Page] Paul, A necesesitie is layed vpon me. But whereas the Apostle proceedes, And woe vnto me if I preach not the Gospell. How much better may they say to themselues, and woe vnto mee, if I preach the Gospell.

And lest wee should feare to speake against such vagabond Shepheards as are not able to feed the flockes, they are fed by, Prophesie against them (saies the Lord) woe to the Shepheards that feede themselues: that is their end; but Gods end in appointing Shepheards followes. Should not the [Page]sheepheards seed the flocks? Nay, what can they exspect, but the double woe of Ieremy and Ezekiel: woe, woe to the Shepheards that destroy and scatter my sheepe. But as these blinde Guides are most insensible of their owne maladies, because ignorance is a disease (as the Greeke Tragedian calls it) that neuer paines a man [...]: so it is no lesse then a myracle to a man of vnderstanding, to see the great zeale and little knowledge, some well, but weake minded people vse, to defend these Trades-men with: [Page] Was not our Sauiour, say they, a Carpenter, Marke 6. 3. before he was sent to preach? S. Peter a Fisherman, Matthew a Publican, S. Paul a Tentmaker? True indeed; but our Sauiour ventured not himselfe to preach, before the Spirit of GOD sent him, Luk. 4. 18. and lay'd a most district charge vpō his Apostles, to tarry at Hierusalem, till by the commission of the Holy Ghost, they should be indued with power from on high, Luk. 24. 49. But these men, as they cannot arrogate the ordinary means to make [Page] their Calling iustifiable: so I suppose no man euer saw the Spirit of God descending vpon them, and fitting them with extraordinary and infused gifts of knowledge.

Christ, indeede was a Carpenter, but to build heauen and earth, and his Church in them both: S. Peter was a Fisher, but to angle in all the Circumcision to the Faith of Christ, & to circumcise, not their fore-skins, but their hearts, [...], as an ancient Father, alluding to the fifth and second of Iosua, where the Israelites were circumcised [Page] with kniues of stone, most elogantly speaketh of him. Mathew was a Publican, but to gather the precious soules of men into the Heauenlie Treasury of the King of Kings. Saint Paul was a Tent-maker, but to perswade Iaphet to dwell in the Tents of Sem, and to spread Christs Tabernacle all the world ouer among the Gentiles. But in the great day of their Reckoning, when the Disciples of our Lord shall bring in their Accomps, and S. Paul shall say, I haue gathered to the faith, all the Riches of the [Page] Gentiles; and S. Thomas, I haue gained all the treasures of India; and S. Peter, I haue gathered the dispersions of Iudah: What shall these hirelings say, but wee in our little flocks haue scattered so many, and we haue destroyed so many, and we haue wasted & prey'd vpon & deuour'd so many. And therefore as the feete of these wise Stewards shall shine like the Starres of heauen for brightnesse; so these had need to take heed least their heads, for the clowdes of ignorance they are wrapt vp in, [Page] meet not with Marcellus his fate, apud inferos. Cui non atra caput tristi circum volat vmbra.

Pardon mee (right deerely beloued in our Lord and Sauiour) if when Thorns & Thiftles grow vpon Gods Altar, as the Prophet Hosea speakes, I am forced to vse a little fire of Zeale to consume them. I am sorry there is such a necessity still for Gods spirit to descend in fiery Tongues. O that it might alwaies flie down with the wings of a Doue from heauen vpon vs. But as long as common Customes lawfully [Page] robbe the Churches Treasure, and commit open sacriledge euery day more then other vpon Melchisedcks Tithes, the Patrimony of Christ; insomuch, as it is verilie thought, the Church within these threescore yeres, by concealements, incroachments, and customary thefts, hath been spoyled of no lesse then 40000. yearely. What hope can there be of sufficiency of the Prophets, when the insufficiency of their meanes will not afford it? when one Subiect into whose cofers 20000 pounds: when a Lay Parson, [Page] into whose Cofers 20000. pounds annually flow in, and therefore if he were but a Pharisee in profession, should out of his aboundant streames of wealth, cast in much into the common Treasury of the Church, shall taken into his owne possession fifteeene houses of God, and sticke downe but the bare feathers of ten pounds or twenty Nobles a yeere for the needy seruice of Gods Altar? Can all the flourishing and pragmaticall wits in the world, if they were headed in one braine, shew by what iust [Page] right a Laye hand can inuade & coast vpon Gods portion of Tithes, which he hath giuē to those that wait vpon his Altar for the food of their bodies, and the poore people change with vs for the foode of their soules? Is not this the reason why in the great haruest there are so few Laboures. For the Psalmist had no sooner said, They haue sent fire into thy Sanctuary (meaning perhaps the fire of Couetousnesse that deuoures all) or as he speaks of them in another Psalm Let vs take to our selues the houses of God in possession; [Page] but presently it followeth, There is no more any Prophet, neither is there among vs any that knowes.

But GOD perswade those whom it most concernes, to regard in time the common pouerty of the Church, and to set a sea-banke against this diluviating euill of Satan, who as GOD drowned all the world in the beginning of it, and sau'd aliue onely the Arke of his Church, so now in the end of it would the Diuel drowne the Arke and Church of God it selfe, with these inundations [Page] of blinde Seers, dumbe Teachers, betraying Patrones, Sacrilegious Customes, Lay-Parsons, theeuish Tithings, and which by the abuse of them, were become so many Chappells of Sathan, where many a soule turn'd the Sabbaoth of God into the Deuils holi-day, drunken Tap-houses; vnder the weight of which sinne, the whole Land staggered, and the Churches; of God, like poore Sion, euen vpon his own day, lay desolate and waste. But these gates of Hell shall neuer preuaile against the Suburbs [Page] of Heauen, Gods sainctly Colony here on earth, and therefore wee will end as Dauid doth, Psa. 20. 9. Say Lord; Let the King heare vs when we call.

Information about this book

Title statement

The revvard of the faithfull. The labour of the faithfull. The grounds of our faith

Fletcher, Giles, 1588?-1623.

Edition statement

1623

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2005-12 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A00954

ID [STC]

STC 11062

ID [STC]

ESTC S117621

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

99852833

ID [PROQUEST]

99852833

ID [VID]

18185

Availability

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early English books online.

Notes

(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A00954)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 18185)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1475-1640 ; 836:04)

Source

— The revvard of the faithfull. The labour of the faithfull. The grounds of our faith, Fletcher, Giles, 1588?-1623..

Extent

[22], 419, [1] p.

Printed by B. A[lsop] for Beniamin Fisher, and are to be sold at the signe of the Talbot in Pater-noster row,. At London :: 1623.. (Dedication signed: Giles Fletcher, i.e. Giles Fletcher the younger.) (Includes index.) (Printer's name from STC.) (A variant of the edition with Leonard Greene's name in the imprint.) (Some, print show-rthrough; some leaves tightly bound.) (Reproduction of the original in the British Library.)

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