THE REWARD of the Faithful.  MATH. 5. 6. They shall be satisfied. 
THE LABOUR OF the Faithful.  GENES. 26. 12. Then Isaac sowed in that Land. 
THE GROUNDS of our Faith.  ACTS 10. 43. To him give all the Prophet's witness. 
At London printed by B. A. for Benjamin Fisher, and are to be sold at the sign of the Talbot in Paternoster row. 1623.   

To the right Honourable and Religious, Sir Roger Townshend, Knight Baronet; all grace and peace.  
Honourable Sir,  
BENEFITS, they say, are always best given, when they are most concealed, but thanks when they are made most known. Give my private estate leave therefore to borrow the Art of the Printer, which is the public Tongue of the learned, to express myself( though with no other learning then what your kind respects have taught me) most grateful unto you: who indeed am bound, though principally, yet not only to your Honoured self, 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 Uncle, the Right Honourable Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban's 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 given, not bought with shame, to one whom he never knew or saw, but only heard kindly slandered with a good report of others, and opinion conceived by himself of sufficiency and worth. For by your Favours I confess, my estate is something, but the sense of my poverty much more increased. For if we may believe Nero's wise Master and Martyr; There is none so poor, as he who cannot requite a benefit: but I am glad your Estates will be always beyond any retaliating kindnesses of mine who could not, indeed, with out doing you much injury, wish myself able to make you amends.  
As therefore Aristippus came to Dionysius, so do I to you. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Having received what I wanted, to return what I had. Though in truth this small present may be better said to be given by you to others, then by myself to you, who thought it worthy of more men's reading then your own, which I pray God it may be. Surely if there be any worth in it, it is in the dignity of the matter, and the fitness of it, for our nature and times. The matters are the Grounds, Exercise and Reward of the faithful, Heavenly Light Bodily labour, Spiritual rest. The first of which brings with it light for our Souls; the second, Health for our bodies, and the third for them both eternal Blessedness. But in our times there is three Virtues are so great strangers, in which there are so many evil hearts of unbelief, all standing ready to depart from the living God, that we 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 lest the tide and stream of them both carry us not into the rivers of Paradise, there to be landed upon the mountains of our salvation, but into the rivers of Brimstone, whether all are wasted that depart from GOD: as himself telleth us; Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire.  
And so much the more need had we, that live in this last Age of the world, to look to the infirmity of our natures and diseases of the time: because natural infirmities are always greatest Tyrants in our Age, and it is no otherwise in this old world, then in old persons: If we were borne weak sighted, it is a venture but in age a great dimness, if not a total blindness do not befall us. If a lame hand by nature hath disabled the actions of our youth; the hand which in youth could do little, will do nothing in our age; if we have 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 habit. So fast grow the ill weeds of Nature when Nature itself decays in us.  
Now we cannot be ignorant that in the very Spring of nature, these three strong infirmities were seeded in us. The first upon the effacing of God's Image, a dim eyesight or darkness in our soul: the second a lame hand or idleness in the body, which grew when Mortality first broke in upon us, and left our nature consumed of that firstborn strength it then flourished with: bringing in upon our labour an accursed sweat, upon our sweat, weariness, and consequently fainting, and languishing the whole body with unrest, and disease: The third upon the loss of our heavenly inheritance, an inclination and affection of the whole man to such a happiness, as we cannot build for ourselves, out of the beauty and delights lights of this world: which Solomon happily alluded unto Eccles. 3. 11. wheres speaking of Humane happiness, to rejoice, and do good, that is, to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all our Labour, verse 13,( Which questionless is therefore lawful, because it is there said to be the gift of GOD) he telleth us, that, God hath made every thing beautiful in his season, and hath set 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coelum, the world, as it is translated, or the desire of perpetuity in their hearts, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Whereas it seems to me, Solomon allowing us this Humane felicity, as good in itself, yet secretly accuseth it( by reason of the immoderate affection, and desire of perpetuity we cast after it) for blinding the eye of our consideration so far, as thereby we cannot find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end: which doubtless can be no other than his work of our Redemption, purposed from all eternity in CHRIST our Lord who therefore as himself is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the first borne of all creatures, so his day is called Novissimus Dierum, the last of all days, he only being( as himself witnesseth) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the First, and the Last, the beginning of all things, and the end of all things. Colos. 11. and in this work only consists the knowledge of our perfect happiness wherein is both perpetuity and sufficiency, which work of Gods, most men therefore cannot find out, because they acquit their desires with this humane felicity, and lie down under Issachars blessing, which indeed, is but a cursory and viatorie happiness, serving us only for the time and by the way.  
These than are the three great diseases of our souls, bodies, and persons; Blindness of Spirit, Idleness of Body, Love and rest in the world; which the beginning of the world, made by corruption, natural; and the Age of the world, by the second nature, and of custom, hath made delight full to us. And truly, if our own experience did not teach us how most men in our days placed themselves in these infirmities, and with what delight we are ignorant, idle, and enamoured of the world: yet the Oracles of GOD would plainly evidence it unto us, wherein we shall find it prophesied of this last tempest of the world, that it should be full of seducing Spirits to infidelity, of idle busy bodies, of lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of GOD, To cure which three great diseased of our natures, and our times I have sent abroad by your persuasion( and therefore have burdened you with the Patronage of it) this short Prescript, which I pray GOD may work by the power of his Spirit soundness in us. To the riches of whose grace, I most entirely commend you, and rest  
Your Worships in all hearty affection and Christian service GILES FLETSHER.   

THE SEVERAL ARGUMENTS.  

I.  
THE difference of our Saviour's opinion concerning good and happy men, from the wiser and vulgar sort of people among whom he lived. 1  
How Righteousness and Grace are the food of our souls. 17  
What is the fullness where with those souls that hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be satisfied. 46  
A short enticement to the Heavenly ambition of God's Saints. 95   

II.  
EVery Creature that would be preserved by the blessing of GOD in his Calling must labour for it. 130  
A faithful Minister is a great Labourer. 155  
The several Heads of observation arising from Isaac's Labour. 163  
It is good Husbandry to be a Religious man, and one of the children of Abraham. 176  
Why the godly are many ●imes poor, and how the wicked, are often rich in this world. 198  
God will have his Children, though never so religious and rich, use the ●eane, as well as other men, 〈◊〉 obtain his blessings. 〈◊〉. 227  
God never bestows upon 〈◊〉 the rest of glory, that take no pains to make it sure to themselves by the means of Grace. 247  
Husbandry hath always been an ancient and commendable means of life. 258  
A just reprehension of evil husbands, who either straggle out of their Callings, or have unlawful, unprofitable, or no Callings at all. 281   

III.  
The wisest of the Heathen, and all Creatures are Gods witnesses. 303  
How we may infallibly find out the true Word of God, which may lead us to the knowledge of him, ourselves, and our own supreme happiness. 320  
The several Prophecies concerning the birth, life, death, and Resurrection of the Saviour of the world. 337  
A free Reprehension of all fashionable Agrippa's in Faith; and farther motives to make them become through Believers. 371  
A just invective against all false blind, and dumb Prophets, who are indeed no true Witnesses of the Lord. 389    
THE REWARD of the Faithful.  
MATTH. 5. 6. They shall be satisfied. 

I. The difference of our Saviour's opinion concerning good and happy men, from the wiser and vulgar sort of people among whom he lived.  
Our Saviour when he came to be the true Light of the World, had a hard task to make his Light shine in the dark understanding of such, either grossly or affectedly ignorant men, amongst whom he lived: who either hold many common errors for unquestionable truths, or if they were of the wiser sort, many false lights, & appearing truths for certain Rules, and unerring principles of their belief. The false lights, which had a fair shine of truth to varnish them over with; were these, and such like.  
That he was a right honest & religious man, that offered no man wrong. That was kind, and loving to those that deserved well of him. That would never forswear himself, either to benefit his own estate, or to hurt another man's. That if he were affected to a married woman, kept himself from Adultery with her. If he were never so angry▪ yet bridled in his rage, that it broke not out into murder. That when his Parents were in want, honoured them with maintenance: That made long Prayers; gave great Alms; fasted often; paid the Tithes duly; and so far honoured the very ashes of the Prophets; that he built their Tombs being dead, to keep alive their memories and names. This was the pharisees Starlight. All which the common People who lived in the shadow of those ceremonious times, and night of their own ignorance, held for great & beautiful lights, truths most credible, and worthy to be believed and followed of all: but when the Sun arose, this starlight soon disappeared; and our Saviour makes it plain in this, and the sequent Chapters. That all those were but the outsides of truth, which an hypocrite might disguise himself, and face it with, as well as an honest man; nay that all of them, except they were circumstanced with those times and places, and done after that manner & form they ought, were, for all their fair looks, but shining faults. Or rather, as nothing is more deformed in the sight of man, than such a defective monster in Nature, who should want half of his parts,( imagine one abortively cast out, with one leg, one eye, half a nose, etc.) so in the sight of God, who looks to the inner man, this semihonesty, which wants the better half and inside of itself, cannot but appear most prodigious and misshapen.  
For our Saviour counts that no Christian virtue, Not to offer wrong: For so they which return wrong for wrong, offer no wrong, they do but vim vi repellere, strike blow for blow; but the Virtue was, to suffer wrong with patience, & not only to abstain from offering wrong with violence; So to love those that are desertful, hath no virtue in it: for not to do so, were to do them injury; but to love the ill-deserving, to love our enemies, to love our persecutors, this indeed is the grace of a Christian.  
And what if our estates allow our poor Parents the honour of maintenance? If our hearts withdraw from them the honour of obedience, of holy imitation, of filial reverence, do we think we have performed a son-like part to them, or the duty of a Child?  
Again it is no Virtue to keep a man's self from perjury; for he that never forswears himself, may yet be a common swearer: but to set a Watch before his lips, that they should never unadvisedly swear at all, that was the Virtue.  
Besides, what was it to keep himself from Adultery and Murder, if he had adultery in his eyes, lust in his heart, if he were enraged with anger, and had dipped and stained his thoughts in blood? God who is a Spirit, looks to the issues of the Spirit, if thou desirest revenge, if thou lustest after a woman, thou art before God guilty both of adultery, and of blood. And so much alms, and often fasting, & due payment of tithes, what goodness have they, if the alms must be trumpeted abroad, and the fast must set a sour face upon the matter, and the tithes must be boasted of, and laid as it were in God's dish, when he comes to pray before him in the Temple, as though God who gives him all, were beholding to him, for restoring him the tenth part of his own? To conclude long prayers and building the sepulchers of the prophets, which of all other were their most colourable virtues, were they not indeed crying sins in the sight of God, when they were( I say not only uttered arrogantly in every corner of the street, that they might be seen of men, and not closeted up, for GOD alone to see them) but when under pretence of long prayers, they devoured widows houses, and under colour of building the tombs of the Prophets which were dead, they had no other intent but with the more safety, and less suspicion to slay the son of God, who was then alive among them, the Prince of the Prophets.  
Look then as beautiful and fair fruit to see too, yet if it be rotten at the core, when the outside is pared off, hath no such goodliness within, as outwardly appeared, but very rottenness at the heart: or to use a more proper similitude, As a piece of smooth and rotten wood, if it be set in the dark and seen only in the night, makes a great blaze, and shows to be a very lightsome body: but as soon as the day rises, it forfeits the flame, and the rottenness of it is plainly discovered: so was it with these appearing truths which the Pharisees obtruded, and thrust upon the dark understandings of the common people, for most heavenly 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 dazzled the eyes of the wiser sort of people, so there were, beside these, certain common errors, which went abroad as most received, and granted positions & verities, which all men believed, as: That they had good cause to rejoice, who had every man's good word for them, and many friends in the world, whom they might trust to; That rich men were happy, For they lived at hearts ease. That they lived the most comfortable lives in the world, that were always merry hearted, and were ever laughing. To name no more. That it was a most wretched estate not to have sufficient meat and drink, but to live always as in a famine, in hunger and thirst.  
But our Saviour, as before he extinguished their false, and pharisaical lights, so in these, he opposed himself against their popular, and common errors. And therefore he says not( as they) Rejoice because ye have many and great friends in the world, and because you have every man's good word for you but the plain contrary Rejoice, and be exceeding glad( what? when you have many friends that speak well of you, and do you good, no but) when you have many enemies that shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name's sake, verses the 10. 11. And blessed are, who? the rich in estate? no but the poor in spirit, ver. the 3. And not they who were merry hearted, & always laughing had the most comfortable lives: but blessed are they that mourn verse the 4. For they shallbe comforted. In a word to land myself at home upon the present words. That not they which abounded with all things, and could say to their soul as Dives did. Luke the 12. Soul eat, drink, and be merry: for thou hast much goods laid up for many years, were blessed: but blessed are they that hunger, and thirst after righteousness: For they shall be satisfied. For the truth is. It was a most absurd, & improper solecism of speech, when the rich fool( so our Saviour calls him and therefore I do him no wrong) bid his soul eat, and drink those goods, that he had laid up for his body to eat, & drink. For the soul with such food could never have been satisfied, but those souls only shallbe replenished and filled, that hunger after the kingdom of Heaven, and the righteousness thereof. For as righteousness here, so the Kingdom of God hereafter, as grace here, so glory hereafter, are the only repast to banquet a Soul with. First therefore let us see.   

II. How Righteousness and Grace, are the food of our Souls.  
THat is properly called the food of any thing whereby it is inwardly preserved from consumption, corruption, and death. And therefore as the Body hath something to preserve it for a time, which is bodily food, so must the Soul have some spiritual repast to perpetuat, and preserve it for ever. For nothing beside a divine nature can be of itself aye during. Let us therefore because this paradox to a natural man will seem strange, go with him to his own art, the art of nature. There we shall find these two Sanctions published, as received truths of all, first, ●isdem alimur ex quibus constamus, Every nature is nourished by that, whereof it is first made, and the second is Simile nutritur a simile. Like is nourished of like. Now it is a speech of our Saviour which it may be every man remembers, but few men mark, when after forty days fast in the wilderness, he was tempted to satisfy his hunger by making bread of stones, he answered. That Man lived not by bread only, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. Which speech though a profane Ignorant will perhaps derisonly scoff at, as thinking it impossible to live by words, yet such words as proceed out of the mouth of God have more vital sweetness, and nourishable sap in them, than all his corn, and oil, and wine have. Was not the whole world made by the word of God? Was not the soul of every 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 every one of our bodies, when they are perfectly instrument, and made fit for the soul to dwell ●? This a natural man cannot deny in reason, because they of his own ●ribe Socrates, Plato, Aristo●le and all wise men ever confessed it, not only to use ●heir own words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as some of ●hem speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. a foris ingredi, & ●aelitus advenire: But prove it by necessary demonstration. I will use ●ut one argument( be●ore I proceed) to evidence it, because religion shall not be beholding to a natural man for her ground work: which justin 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, uses to evince the opposers of this truth in his time.  
All things, says he, arose first either out of the power of nature, or fortune, of God. Out of a power of nature they could not. For tell me( says the father) whom could nature by her power first bring forth. Could the fruits of the earth, or the fowls of heaven, or the trees of the forest, or the beasts of the field, or the Citizen of the world, man, issue first from the womb of nature? but where I pray should nature find seed 〈◊〉 some the earth, but from the fruits of the earth before growing, where should she seek for eggs to breed her fowls with, but from fowls already bred? whither should she go to gather her acorns, but under the oak before flourishing? what need infinite knots? It is not in the power of nature to bring forth a man but he must first be borne a child and of whom should that child be borne, had not there been already in nature both man, and woman? nature than we see, could not by any power in her produce the least creature, but she must needs have her semnial causes; and whence are they seeded but from things already being? Much less could chance: for what is fortune but only something in nature whereof we know not the cause? If a man digging in a field, find a mine, we call this fortune: but a mine must be first there by nature, before any can find it there by fortune. And therefore fortune that comes always after nature, cannot be the cause of nature. It follows then, that the whole world, and the souls of men proceeded neither from nature nor chance: but from the power and wisdom of God himself who is as much more powerful than nature, to call out his work perfect in his kind at first, as he is more wise than fortune, to adorn his work with the most graceful order with out any chanceable or blind confusion. This then being either granted, or extorted from a natural man, what follows hence? Truly this. That the soul of man doth consist by the word of God. Secondly, That the soul of man, being only able of all creatures visibly in heaven, or earth to conceive, and understand a divine being, which our experience teaches us, must needs be a spiritual substance like God himself, and created after his image. For this in reason and nature is a self-credible truth. That no Creator can raise the power of his action beyond the sphere of his own activity. A stone cannot live. A plant cannot see. A beast cannot understand a divine nature, because it hath no such receptivity, no such active, and divine power in it, as to take into it an insensible object. For than it should work extra sphaeran, beyond the pitch of a sensible being: man therefore only who hath such an eye of understanding in him, whereby he is able to live( as it is said of Moses Heb. 11. 27.) as seeing him, who is invisible, must needs be fashioned and formed in the similitude of the invisible God. For, what creature worships a divine power, sanctifies holy days, and Sabbaths, observes solemn feasts, and assemblies, offers sacrifices of prayer, & praise to God, but man only? Upon whose soul doth the law of God naturally reflect itself in the knowledge of that which is good, and the conscience of that which is evil, but only upon man's? What nature in earth observes the different motions of the heavenly bodies, and admires the methodical Wisdom of God in them, or thinks upon his covenant of mercy, when he sees the token of it shining in the watery cloud( sweetly abusing the same waters to be a token of his mercy, which before were the instrument of his just revenge) but only man's? whose eye looks beyond the bright hills of time, and there beholds eternity, or sees a spiritual world beyond this body, esteeming that far discoasted region, his native country, but only man? Which divine thought we shall not find in the hearts alone of the children of light, that have the stars of heaven shining thick in them( Hebr. 11. 16.) but in the minds of heathen men, that lay shadowed in their own natural wisdom, out of which the banished Consul of Rome Boetius could sing. 

Haec, dices, memini patria est mihi,  
Hinc ortus, hic sistam gradum.   

O this my country is, thy soul shall say,  
Hence was my birth, & here shall be my stay.    
And of which Anaxagoras, living a stranger among the Athenian Philosophers, and being chid for regarding so little his native soil, by one that asked him, why he minded no more his own country, answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. o( says he pointing up to heaven) I am exceeding mindful of my native country.  
Now to apply all this discourse home, man we have proved was created by the word of God: man only was formed in God's image and similitude. And who then is the word of God, but the Son of God who the express image of the Father, but the Son, joh. 1. 1. Heb. 1. 3. Since therefore our souls consist by the Word, Christ and every thing is preserved of that it consists, as Nature itself teaches; since our souls are made after the image and similitude of Christ, and every thing is most agreeably nourished by that it is most assimilated unto, is it not even in reason an irrepugnable Truth, that our souls must needs be nourished and preserved by the power of our Lord CHRIST, who is God's Essential Word, and Image?  
And here by the way( but I speak of it only incidentally as it falls into discourse) we may see as the high dignity so the causal difference between the reasonable soul of man, and the living souls of bruit beasts. For do but look into the book of the generation of creatures, and you shall see there Man's soul was immediately breathed into his body by God himself, and was created after his Divine image: but the Living Souls of bruit beasts were educed out of their elementary wombs, & those bodies which were most like themselues: For so says our Lord God, Let the Earth bring forth every living thing according to his kind, and it was so: & so the sea was commanded to bring forth issue according to his kind, and so it was: which is the reason the living souls of beasts fall again into the same matter out of which they were first taken, and of whose kind & likeness they are, as our corruptible bodies do. Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return: but the divine and reasonable Spirit of man returns to God that gave it, as Solomon speaks, Eccles. 12. 7. being immediately created by him, & of his own similitude and kind, & so breathed into the body: which is indeed 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 preaexistent matter, cannot possibly be corrupted into any other nature, or annihilated by any other word, except we childishly suppose some word more powerful than the Word of God himself.  
I have now proved that our souls all consisting by the word of the Father which is Christ, and being imaged most like unto him, they must needs( as every thing else is by their like) be preserved, and nourished by Christ, whose image they are, and who may therefore with greater truth, and reason be called, the food of our souls, than our earthy diet can be the food of our bodies: because he is every way, both in respect of himself, and us, more preservative, then to bodies any bodily sustenance can be. For, that makes us continue by being destroyed itself, and destroys us too, if it be taken in excess, & though it be never so often used, yet soon after we shall hunger again, and thirst again: neither can it repair our nature in the headlong ruins of age, so fast but that we must every day forfeit a little spoil to mortality which it can no way possibly recover, and in conclusion, unable to hold out any longer, it must yield up the whole body as a pray to death. But we cannot drink too much of our spiritual rock, nor eat too much of our heavenly Manna, which after we have feasted our hearts with, we shall find no more hunger, or thirst; feel no more injuries of age, or time; fear no more spoils of mortality, or death. Neither is the soul nourished by this divine food, as the body is, by wasting that whereby itself is preserved, and consuming that to maintain itself, whereby itself is kept from corruption: but as the sight of all eyes is preserved and perfected by the light of the Sun, whose beams can never be exhausted, so our spiritual life is nourished by the participation of the life of Christ, which is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, annona cali, the flower of heaven, never engrossed by possessing, nor lost by using, nor wasted by nourishing nor spent by enjoying but hath that heavenly, and unconsumable nature in it( being to nourish immortal souls) that it preserves, all without decaying itself, it divides itself to all without loss or diminution of itself; it is imparted to all, and not impaired by any of those replenished souls, that banquet upon it.  
Now if the quaere be made how our souls are thus by Christ preserved from their own corruption, and beyond their own natural life, to a life Celestial & divine, there can be no other answer given, but by being implanted into the life of righteousness which fontally is in him. As if the branches of a wild olive being cut off from the real stock where it grew naturally, should be kept from withering and corruption by engraffing it into the stock of a sweet and flourishing Olive-tree. So our souls being created in natural righteousness and holyliness by God, and being soon after by our fall cut off from that life, and so remaining in the state of corruption and decay, would soon wither and dye totally, were they not eftsoons reimbarked and stocked again into the Tree of life, from whence they suck a more divine life of righteousness, then that they were created, or now live in. For the natural righteousness though it were in the kind of it perfect, yet it was of a short continuance,( as nature left to itself always is) and our habitual righteousness, though it continue for ever, yet it is very imperfect, like the twilight of an evening, or the first break of day in which the shadows of earth, and the light of heaven are confused; and therefore the soul of man unable to live perpetually by any of these lives which were defective, could have no way been preserved from his own corruption, but by the participation of this divine Righteousness of Christ, which is infinitely more durable than Adam's natural, and more perfect than our poor habitual righteousness either is, or ever could have been Neither let it seem strange to any that the Soul which dies by unrighteousness and sin, should be said by grace only and righteousness to receive again life, and preservation.  
Hence are those scripture phrases so frequent You are dead in your sins, ye are strangers from the life of God, & of the wanton and sinful widow, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she was dead being alive, that is, dead to God, and the righteousness of Christ, and alive only to nature, and the corruption of it. Hence again on the contrary the Just man is said to live by the righteousness of faith, ( Hab. 2. 4. Heb. 10. 37.) and therefore this life, which we could not acquire by our nature, because it is eternal; God is said in he first Epistle of Sa. john 5. 11. to have given it to us; and lest we should trouble ourselves to know where this life was found out for us, it is added in the same place. And this life is in his Son. Thus Saint Paul speaks Col. 3. 3. that ●ur life is hid in Christ, and that it was no more he that lived but Christ that lived in him, Galat. 2. 20. thus he tells the Corinthians that we were made the Righteousness of God in Christ. 2. Cor. 5. 21. and 1 Cor. the 1. the 30. that Christ was made of God unto us, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption, and therefore twice the Prophet jeremy tells us that, This is his name whereby he shall be called. JEHOVAH- tsidkenu, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. je. 23. 6. and 33. 16. For as verily as our sins took away his life, so assuredly shall his righteousness preserve ours, in which because we have 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 said to be blessed only in their hunger, but hereafter they shallbe happy in their fullness, here God only feeds them with a sufficiency of grace, there he fills them with such a satiety of glory in which their souls, with the greatest excess, without the least surfeit, shall be feasted for ever. For God is not like old Isaac, that hath but one blessing for his sons, and therefore as we must learn of S. Paul, with our sufficiency to be content, My grace is sufficient for thee: so let us with him strive, at least in our most heavenly thoughts, get awing and ravished into the third heaven, then to behold   

III. What is the fullness wherewith those Souls that hunger after Righteousness shallbe satisfied.  
THE fullness here meant is nothing else but a perfect expletion of all the natural desires of Soul, Body and Person, according to the uttermost receptivity of them all, which their own proper and most agreeable objects, wherein every desire rests itself wholly acquitted, and filled. For instance nothing can arrest the understanding of man, but that which is absolutely true, or rather Truth itself. For that is the most proper and agreeable object to our understanding: and who is that but Christ our Lord? I am the Truth says our Saviour: Nothing can satisfy the reasonable will of man, but only that which is perfectly good, or rather goodness itself: and who is that but only God? For as our Saviour speaks, there is none good but God; nothing can fill the restless affections of man, but only those fountains of pleasure, that have in them neither defect nor end, such as can be found no where here. And where are they, but at the right hand of God only? Psalm. 16. 11. In thy presence is fullness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore: the first takes away all defect. In thy presence is fullness of joy: and the second admits of no end: at thy right hand are pleasures for ever.  
And this is the first fullness or saturity of the soul: the second is of the body. And the natural desires of the body are life, health, and beauty. Now where can we find life, but in that Country which is the land of the living, whether no death is suffered to approach; or whether should we go to meet with indeflowrishing and unattainted health, but where there is no sorrow, no pain, no sickness at all? And that is no where, but only in the Holy City, which S. john calls the new Jerusalem, Reuel. 21. 4. There shall be no more death neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, but as the two glories of the Old and New Testaments, David and S. Paul speak, God shall deck his Saints with health and we shall put on incorruption and immortality in those Courts of Honour.  
And thus as the soul and body have their natural desires: so the whole person of man desires naturally as close an union with the Divine being, as it is possibly capable of: secondly it desires glory and honour, being one of the beams of GOD'S countenance, which he casts upon his most noble creatures. For there is a spark of Divinity in Glory, which makes all men, I had almost said all creatures naturally appetent of it, according to the size they have measured them out by God, to vessel it up in. Cupido gloriae novissimè exuitur etiam a sapiente, says the wise Historian, many to give life to their Honour, having lost their own. And this holy Ambition, as it derives itself to another world, so it is in man both a natural and lawful desire, within the expectation of which, the whole creature stretching out the neck of it,( as S. Paul most significantly speaks, waits for, and sighs for, and( like a woman) is in a dolorous travail for to be delivered, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, into the free liberty of glory, granted to the sons of God. The last hunger both of soul and body as they are united, is of divine society and friendship, and therefore as the Philosopher calls man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sociable Creature, so the Apostle would have us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to associate ourselves( at least in our travelling thoughts) with the Citizens of Heaven, who as for number they are infinitely more, so for nature are far more illustrious and blessed, than our under companions that live here below, centred with ourselves in this little point of earth are. For God himself being a Divine Spirit, and those Palaces of glory being far more extensive and spacious, than our narrow regions, how can there but be, as David and Daniel both witness, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousand thousands of ministering Spirits to wait upon their high and transcendent Sovereign, the King of Spirits Royal: and therefore S. Paul reckoning up our heavenly companions, Hebr. 12. 22. begins with an innumerable company of Angels, so that this desire shall abundantly be satiated and content.  
But of heaven we that are on earth cannot say much. For though Satan took our Saviour up into a high mountain, and thence showed him all the Kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them in a moment of time, Luk. 4. 5. which shows of how small moment they are, that in one short instant and article of time could suddenly give a blaze, and so vanish: yet there is no mountain high enough, nor any time long enough, but eternity to unveil the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven, which God purposely( no doubt) hath concealed, that he might know who would love him for himself, because all men could not but love him for his glory, if he should let it fall upon our eyes, and display itself in the divine beams of it. Yet as far as the eye of right reason, guided▪( like the wise men in the search of our Saviour) by the heavenly stars of light that shine every where in God's word, may discover this holy land, let us not wrong our sacred hunger of knowledge, as blindly to wrap up all in a cloud, and to deny it this just satisfaction: which especially consists in a threefold glorious union, wherewith God hath promised in his Word to unite the persons of the Elect to himself: which close with the Divine Being I mentioned before to be the most ardent and natural desire of our whole person, and that wherewith the whole man is most delighted, satisfied, and filled.  
First therefore we are united unto Christ as unto our Head, and so we make but one body with him; and this is a closer union than either children can be united to Parents, for they are divided parts from their Father, but we are united parts to Christ our Lord; or married couples can be united each to other. For they being divers bodies, are united but into one flesh, but we to Christ are united into one body, and one flesh, as the Apostle speaks, we are all set into his body, and are flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as he with a most significant elegancy speaks in the 4. and 6. to the Ephesians. And this is the first union of our persons with God by his Son jesus Christ, which makes us way and entrance to the two remanent.  
The second union is whereby our persons are spiritually united to God by the very Divine and Holy Spirit of God himself: so that this infinite, and glorious, and everliving Spirit diffusing itself through every member of Christ's mystical body, makes us of one spirit, and one soul, as it were, with the Divine being; not by the union of essence and information, but of inhabitant and participation.  
The last union is that whereby the Divinity of God dwelling in us after an unspeakable gracious manner, unites himself whole, although not wholly to us, far beyond the possibility of any other creature in the World. For other creatures have no power of uniting themselves so as God hath. The reason is, cause they are of so gross and if not corporeal, yet material being, that it is impossible for them to make us partakers of their Essences, which have all of them certain Characteristical, and individual differences, whereby they are incommunicable in their Natures to any other beside themselves. But we are made( as S. Peter tells us) partakers of the Divine Nature after an eminent manner; which though it cannot be plenarily expressed, yet it may be shadowed by some weak resemblances.  
The Rule whereby we may conceive of this union is, that Every thing the more subtle and pure, and immaterial it is, the more closely it may unite itself to another Creature. So the water will soak thorough another body, and unite itself into every part of it by insinuating his supple joints into every empty place and overture of the body, upon which it is infused, that it will seem to make but one body with it: as in a vessel full of ashes; which earth, being a grosser body cannot do. Again, the Fire being a more subtle and refined body then the water will unite itself to the most churlish and impenetrable body, after a very close and pervious manner; as to a stone, iron, steel, or gold, which the water, being a more condensed, and less fine body, can never pierce or soak into. Again, a spiritual substance will yet more closely unite itself to a body, than this finest and most subtle of corporeal beings: And therefore we may remember that Satan tells our Saviour, that a Legion of them, that is six thousand eight hundred and thirty( for the Roman Legion consisted of 6100. foot, and 730. horse, though here I think not this precise number but a great multitude is meant) did all couch and lodge together in one poor possessed man. Wherefore, as we see if a hundred candles were lighted up in a room, all the beams of them would be in the same place united together, at least locally, though not essentially( which those that are skilful in the Optics demonstrate by the several irradiations of Light wherewith each of them unconfusedly pass through one another) so it is with spirits, a thousand of them may be locally united together without any consequent absurdity, because their follows no penetration of dimensions, and therefore filling no place at all, they cannot exclude one another from the same place they are in, as bodies do.  
Again, it must needs be confessed, that the Divine Nature of our Lord God may yet more nearly close with his creature▪ in a straighter union, than any other, because his essence is not only more good, & so more communicative of itself, but incomparably more immixed and pure, than any creatures( besides himself) can be. This being the prerogative royal of Divinity, to consist not of Act and Power, or to be something after, which before it was not( as longer lived, or wiser, or better, or more glorious) but to be Actus Purus, All Act and Essence without any reference of time, or difference of quality. That is, God is not as Man or an Angel may be; good, and true, and wise, and living; but he is wisdom itself, truth itself, self-goodness, and self-life. Now we know in formal Unions, that is always the closest that is most communicable of itself, and of which the subject whereunto it is united, is most capable. And therefore it must needs be, that God who is Truth, may unite himself to the understanding, more closely, than a thing that is true: because the proper object of the understanding is Truth, not a true thing; and so to the will, because he is goodness itself, and life itself, & the will is a more proper subject of life and goodness, than it is of a thing that is good and living.  
This is a retruse, and hidden, but in truth a very divine motion of the gracious and formal union, whereby God pleases to impart his Divinity to his Creature. For look as we see in the eye of a man the lively Image & form of the thing it sees,( which makes me call this a formal union) shining evidently in it, without which the eye could never see the thing: so it is in the intellectual part of the soul. The thing which is understood must have the image of it as clearly represented, and united to the understanding, as the visible object is to the eye: and therefore it is a Truth famous in the schools, Intellectus est omnia. The understanding 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 spiritual things, as long as we live in our Bodies, our understanding is so childish and Infant-like; because in this blind and corporeal world, all Spiritual Essences are represented to it forma tantum disparata, in some desperate, that is, unlike and different form & shape, to that which indeed and in truth they are of( as if a Painter should express the Sun by a spot of guilt, and should draw the Stars with a little yellow Ochre, in his draught of the heavenly body) we cannot see their own faces, nor get the true image of themselves into the eye of our understanding. It was God's speech to Moses, who had better eyes then any that ever lived after him. Thou canst not see my face, For there shall no man see me, and live, Exo. 33. 20. Isay 64. And therefore as when the Angels of the Lord have been seen among us, they appeared sometimes like beautiful young men, as to Lot and the Sodomites; sometimes like Chariots of fire, as to Elishaes' servant; sometime with countenances shooting like lightning, Mat. 28. 3. so when God himself pleased to descend upon Mount Sinai, or upon our Saviour his son, his spiritual Essence, could never be seen, but himself came riding down in the similitude of a Dove, & himself came down so clouded, and guarded about with fire, that neither the persons, nor the eyes of the Israelites could come near him. But when the morning of glory shall arise, wherein our souls shall awaken from the heavy eyelid of our flesh, and the veil of our body shall first be removed, and after being depured from his dross, be refined into a bright and spiritual body, we shall then see God as he is, we shall see him face to face, we shall know him, as we are known of him: Which nevertheless is not to be understood extensively, as if we should comprehend God in the whole extent of his Divinity, but distinctly only and truly: as when we see the Sea, we see so much of it, as can fall into our sight truly, and know it distinctly from all other bodies, to be the sea: but we cannot see all the Sea at once, because the object is of too large a breadth and extension.  
This whole discourse drives only to this issue. There is a union of blood between Parents & Children, and this is a remote and very separable union. And there is an union of one flesh between Man and Wife, and this union is of a short continuance, and is soon parted by death. And there is an union of Place, and thus Spirits may be locally united, who yet may be at extreme odds and difference one with another. And there is an union of affection, & this Friends are united with, and it is ( alas too soon) alterable upon the change of either. And beside all these there is a mystical, or virtual Union of the members with the head, and this the Church is united to Christ by, from whom it receives the divine influences of all grace and favour. And there is a Spiritual Union, whereby all th' Elect souls and bodies are not only inspired, and I may so speak, Spirited with the Holy Ghost, who rules and sways all the thoughts and actions of the soul, as the soul doth all the parts and affections of the body. And last of all, there is a gracious and admirable Union of similitude, whereby we are made wholly conformable, and alike to the Divine being, which is the most desirable & accumulate blessedness of our Nature.  
So that look as you see the very bright image of the Sun so reflected upon the water sometimes, that the dull Element seems to have caught down the very glorious body itself, to paint her watery face with, and looks more like a part of heaven, then like itself; who in the absence of the Sun, is all fabled with blackness, and darkness, and sad obscurity; but upon the first beams of the heavenly body, is glazed with a most noble & illustrious brightness; so is it with our whole man. For when God shall thus imprint and strike himself into our dark being, O how beautiful shall the feet of God's Saints be? Esay 52. 7. What a Diadem of stars shall crown their glorious heads? Revelat. 12. How shall their amiable bodies shine in Sunlike Majesty? Mat. 13. 4. Neither let it be thought a vain audacity of speech, to say that the countenance and face of God's children shall break forth into beams of more celestial glory, than the midday sun ever yet sent abroad into the World. For as S. Paul tells us, they shall be conformed to the Image of his glorious body; so he tells Agrippa, Acts 26. 13. At midday. O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the Sun, shining round about me: which was no other than the Light of the countenance of our Lord jesus, which sight as it struck blindness into the face, and thick scales into the eyes of persecuting Saul, so it dressed the whole countenance of suffering Stephen with a most Divine and Angelical glory: and had not the Light in reason been greater than the Suns, it would have been like the Moon and Stars at midday, wholly extinguished and invisible.  
Neither let any man amaze his understanding with the manner how a Spiritual substance can so sparkle, and be, as it were visible in the body. Saint Augustine's comparison hath life in it, in the expression of that point. Life in itself is invisible, and cannot be seen, yet it so freshes the countenance, and beautifies the eyes, that when the body wants it, and is dead, nothing looks more dreary and ghastly than a Corpse doth: We see not life in itself( says the Father) but we see it shining in the brightness of the eyes, and smiling in the livelihood and cheerfulness of the countenance. And so it is with a glorious body. God is Life, and, like Life, cannot be seen in himself by any ocular aspect, but as Life in a Natural, so God in a glorious body is most apparent, and plainly visible, and conspicuous, even unto our eyes.  
But some perhaps will think this discourse of spiritual satiety( I call it spiritual, not excluding the Body, but because our Bodies themselves shall be then spiritual, as now our very spirits are in a manner carnal) to be fetched rather out of the schools of Reason, then of God's Word, and to have more ground in Philosophy then Faith. For where in Scripture shall we read of any such image of God to satisfy our Natures with? If we turn to the 17. Psalm and the 15. verse, we shall there find the portion of the righteous excellently described by David: who having before set out the men of this world( who have their portion in this life) their dimensum, which is their belly full of Treasures, abundance of Children, and their happiness to leave their substance to their Babes, verse 14. he reflects his thoughts into his own breast, and sings, As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy Image. This made David's heart pant after the sight of God's face( for so the words originally signify,) Psalm. 42. 1. This made him pray, Lighten mine eyes that I sleep not in death, and needs must the eyes of the righteous be lightened, and then awaken,( when the wicked shall have theirs shut up in eternal darkness) when they shall behold the face of God, and shall satisfy with his Image their evigilant souls. We shall find in Scripture besides this Image of God, that for aye blesses the souls of the righteous, two other Images of the wicked world, and of wicked men, wherewith the wicked strive to satisfy their souls; but as S. Paul 〈◊〉 us the image of the world does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lose continually his form and fashion: so David tells us, Psalm the 73. the 20. that when God awakes, he shall despise their image. The image of God satisfies the righteous, when they awake to their reward; because there is substance, and truth, and goodness 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 judgement of God himself( who cannot but judge most uprightly) it is full of shame, most ignoble, and worthy to be despised, having no substance, but only shadow; no truth, but only appearance, no ground but only opinion to paint itself with: and therefore look what difference of things there is in the sound judgement of one waking, and the skipping and dancing fancies of a dreaming brain, so much & more is there between the swelling images of secular glory, and the divine image of God, when we shall awaken from those dreams, which the world, as long as she can keep us in the cradle of our flesh, rocks, and pleasantly sings us a-sleep in. And therefore David, having spoken of the death of the wicked, in the former verse of the forecited Psalm, O how suddenly do they consume and perish, and come to a fearful end! presently annexes: As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. But let us leave this golden Image with all the dreaming World( with Nebuchadnezar) is troubled with in their sleep, and is angry with all that will not fall down to worship it; and return to that Image that deludes not dreaming, but satisfies our awaking spirits.  
As David speaks of his own, so S. Paul speaks of all the Elect souls of God, Rom. 8. 29. that they were predestinated to be conformed to this Divine image, and therefore in the 2. to the Corinthians, the 3. 13. 14. etc. he makes his difference between the obstinate jew▪ and the believing Christian, that their hearts was still veiled, and blinded with their old Mosaical shadows, and ceremonies; but we all( says the Apostle) having the veil done away in Christ, with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, or changed into the same Image from glory to glory, even as of the spirit of the Lord. So that as the Moon and the Stars, that having no inborn or inherent Light streaming from themselves, and yet gathering together into their burning faces the beams of the Sun, freely sent abroad, and bestowed amongst them, appear like so many little images of the great Lamp of day. So all the Holy Lamps of Heaven, made for God's service, have only the Light of God's countenance to kindle themselves with, which he out of his bounty casts abroad amongst them, and they according to their several capacities, to fill up their measures of glory, most ambitiously vessel up.  
This being the Royalty of the Divine Nature, who is the spiritual son of eternal Essences, that he, beyond all other, is most emissive and communicative of himself: For as Light is more visible than any colour, and sends out in the tradition of it, a more full and luminous species of itself, than 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 in himself be most visible, though neither it to the eye of an Owl, nor God to the sight of our understanding, yet beetle-browed, can so appear. But when( as David sings) our souls shall awaken, and the youth of our bodies shall be renewed as the Eagles; both they with the Divinity, and these with the Divine humanity shall be transformed into the same image of glory which they shall behold in him. And though now they blink at Sunshine, yet then where the body of glory is, thither shall the spiritual Eagles be all gathered together, and there feed, and fill the righteous hunger, and thirst of theirs.  
And this is the fullness of glory our Saviour means to satisfy them in heaven with, who on earth nourish in themselves the righteous hunger after Grace. When the understanding shall be filled with truth, in which is no shadow of error, the will with goodness, in which is no mixture of evil, the affections with joy and delight in which shall be neither defect nor end; when the body shall be satisfied with Life that knows no dying, shall be quickened with health, that fears no sickness, shall be embrightened with beauty, that can neither be impaired with disease, nor impaled by death; when the whole person shall be crowned with honour & glory, shall be leagued in friendship with Angels and Saints, shall be united to Christ in body, to the holy Ghost in Spirit, to God in a bright similitude, and likeness of his Divine nature: in a word, when they shall enjoy( which this world is out of hope of) honour without ambition, beauty without pollution, glory without pride, power without injury, riches without oppression, all good without any end of possessing, fear of losing, or sin in spending. Let us therefore quicken our drowsy spirits with   

FOUR A short incitement to the heavenly ambition of God's Saints.  
IT was a speech of the most ambitious Spirit in the world, in the excuse of his high swelling thoughts, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. If a man would do injury, it should be for a Kingdom, piety was to be observed in less matters; as he thought: but the truth is, he needed not have supposed it to be such a difficult thing to be persuaded to do injury. For as the Philosopher speaks, Nothing is more easy then to do another man wrong, and he giveth the Reason why justice although it be so beautiful a Light in the world, that as he says of it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, neither the morning, nor the evening star is half so Oriently beautiful, yet so few men are in love with it, because it is the good of another, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we are all naturally engrossers of goods for ourselves, but we are loath, though justly, to divide or part them with any other; and therefore with more reason the religious man, who is the most ambitious creature under heaven, may whet and edge his flaming desires to go through all the sweat and labour of righteousness with the same speech inverted. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ If a Kingdom be the reward of Piety, who would not be religious? But it is a miracle in reason to see, that when there are three sorts of ambitious in the world: Sinful, Natural, and Religious: how many, and those of the choicest wits, offer their hearts, and sacrifice themselves, as whole burnt offerings to the ambition of sin, and how few set their thoughts on fire with the holy ambition of God's Saints. And yet there is no difference between sinful, and saintly ambition( for both would be like God) but that the first would be like him without dependence, and would be proud in being so, affecting a divine similitude beside the right means, and beyond the due measure; and the other is content to climb by the valley of Christ's humility to this mountain of holiness.  
The sinfully ambitious would have God's glory, but not his goodness, his power, but not his justice, the Majesty of his Kingdom, but not the manner of his government. And therefore all those Angelical stars of Light, whom God in the Morning of his Works made Heaven shine with, are now become through this sinful ambition, wand'ring Stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. And this was it, that smote not only so many stars out of heaven, but would have struck into hell the whole posterity of Adam, had not our Saviour snatched up some few of us into heaven with him: and yet how many souls still scourse themselves in these flames? It was the imperious speech of the Assyrian, Tyrian, and Roman Princes. I will be like the most high, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, Esay 14. I am God, Ezech 28. I sit a Queen( meaning as the Lady and Commandress of the whole World) and shall see no sorrow, etc. Alas, how high this sinful ambition would climb 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 down into the sides of the pit. It would ascend into Heaven, verse the 14. and in the next it is brought down to hell. It fancies to itself a high flight among the stars and Angels of God. And lo the shadows of darkness are moved from beneath, to meet it, and the dead ghosts are stirred up to salute it with this derisory taunt. Art thou become like unto us? How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the Morning. And these, perhaps great princely and honourable Devils of Ambition may seem in comparison of the lesser, to delude their followers with a kind of brave and royal misery. But in very truth it is a sight full of wonder to observe the children of this generation, at how small game in their spiritual riots, they will play away the salvation of their souls. O the cheap damnation of sinners! With how silly baits their souls are angled into eternal perdition! A mess of pottage will buy away Esau's birthright: A small vineyard will make Ahab sell himself to work sin, and forfeit his kingdom and all his posterity to the wrath of God. A fayre-looked apple, pleasant to taste, will hook into the Lake of brimstone, a whole world of beguiled souls. The Harlot's beggarly bread and water, Prou. 9 17. will get more followers than Wisdoms costly banquet & choicest wines, though the bread be stolen and the waters hid. If GOD should live amongst us, thirty pence would buy him. A cup of fornication is enough to make all the Kings of the Earth wait upon the Whore, & the Beast. And can it, can it be, Satan should hire us to be the servants of sin with such small wages, and God with a Kingdom should not move us to be his sons.  
O let not Nature in wicked, and profane, & unreasonable Creatures go beyond Grace in professed Christians. Balaam the Sorcerer would dye the death of the righteous, the natural good will he bore himself, taught him to wish it. And it is the observation of the Philosopher: That all Creatures naturally desire to draw and assemble themselves as close to the divine Being, as possibly they can, which he makes to be the Reason why there is in them all, so vehement a desire( which he calls of all other the most natural) of begetting another like unto themselves; because not being able in their own bodies to be everliving, they derive themselves to eternity by their issues, thereby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as he says, partaker of the Divine being, as far as they are able. This is therefore the reason why there is sown in our Nature, Tantus amor prolis, & generandi gloria: but this natural and lawful ambition of glory in the Creature is most lively expressed in the eight to the Romans, of which I spoke in the former section. Let us therefore if the wicked desire the death, endeavour to obtain the life of the righteous: if the whole creation groan and sigh, and travel to be delivered from the corruption, whereunto our sin hath embondaged it, into the glorious liberty of the children of God, at least, as S. Paul speaks in the same chapter, groan with them, and within ourselves, to be delivered from our own sin, and to be made partakers of that glory which God divides among his saints.  
Let us set before our eyes those Noble examples which the Scripture hath lighted up for us to look upon. For this is that heavenly Country which Gods sojourners and Pilgrims here on earth seeing a far off, sweetly saluted, Heb. 11. 13. and travelling as strangers through the world, esteemed only worthy of their ambition. Thus Enoch walked with God before his death, and therefore without death was translated to him: being, as S. jude speaks, the seventh from Adam, whom God, happily sanctified to himself with eternal rest, because he was the Sabbaoth of Men. Thus Moses preferred the naked and solitary wilderness, before the delights and treasures of Pharaohs Court; and was not this the cause, because he looked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the great recompense of the Reward, by Faith seeing him, who is invisible, Heb. 11. 27. This made Daniel esteem the Lion's Den better than Darius' Palace, and the three children adventure to meet heaven in hell, God in the midst of a furnace infernally heated. This made not valiant men only, but weak women, fearful by nature, but resolute by faith, in the midst of all their tortures not accept deliverance, but making their way through all the cruel mockings & scourge, and bonds, and prisons, and stones, and saws, & swords of wild persecuting Tyrants, pass on to the Land of promise, without desire of living, or fear of dying, Heb. 11. 36. This made the old Ancient-bearer of Valens the Emperor, and elder Soldier 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 should be greater than his torment, and when the Emperor promised him very great matters, to ask him smiling, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: Whether he had any thing to give him more worth than the Kingdom of heaven? In a word, this carried the heart of old Simeon into such a holy ecstasy of religious delight, that earth could hold him no longer, but he must needs, as it were, break prison, and leap out of his old body into heaven. O what a desire of departure to it, doth a true sight of this salvation kindle! Lord, says he, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, etc. for mine eyes bane seen thy salvation: As if he should say, Lord, now the child is borne, let the old man die, now thy son is come, let thy servant depart, now I have seen thy salvation, O let me go to enjoy it. Now I have beheld the humanity of thy son, what is worth the looking upon, but the divinity of such a person, which is able to make my young Lord here even proud of his Humility. For so great a joy of spirit can never be thrust up into so small a Vessel, as an old shrunke-up body of earth is. Since therefore I have testified of thy Christ, since I have made an end of my dying note. and sung thee my Christmas song; since I have seen thee, O thou holy one of Israel, whom no flesh can see & live, what have I to do to live, O Lord? What should I wear this old garment of flesh any more? Thou hast left thy fatness off, O thou fair Olive Tree, and the oil of it hath made me have a cheerful countenance: thou hast forsaken thy sweetness, O thou beautiful Vine, and thy fruit hath warmed thine old Servant at the very heart. Now therefore being thou hast poured thy new wine into this old vessel, O give the old bottle leave to break, O let me depart in peace; for I have enough, I have seen, mine eyes have seen thy salvation.  
These are high-winged ambitious indeed, whose thoughts creep not upon the earth, nor whose Honours shall be ever laid in the dust: but that fly among the Stars and Angels of GOD: that boast of their kindred with the Almighty, and call themselves the Sons of God, Wisd. 2. whom our Saviour hath made the favourites of Heaven, companions for his Angels, coheirs with himself, Temples for his Spirit; Parts of his Bodily and partakers of his Divine Nature; whose kingdoms end not with their lives, but begin with their deaths; whose pleasures, unlike to Jonathan's honey, kill not with tasting; whose gains have no firebrands like Sampsons' Foxes, no hell in their tales; whose celestial banquets are like the feasts of Cana, where their water is turned into wine, & all their tears into joy, not like fair Absalon's( a Type of worldly courtesy) to his Brother Amnon, who when his heart was merry with wine, slew him, and filled his wine-bowl up again with his own blood, ending all the joy of the feast in tears and lamentation. Indeed as long as they live here in their mortified flesh, especially if the times be cloudy, the world would think their high minds and abject bodies very un-even matches. For who if he had met with the ancient Citizens of Heaven, wand'ring about in sheeps-skins, & goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented( as the Apostle speaks, Hebr. 11. would not have thought them the poorest snakes alive? But greatest spirits wear not always gayest Arms, nor the best Soldier the highest Crest. And therefore although a man would think the kingdom of Heaven much dishonoured by our Saviour, when he aviles, humbles it in the comparison of a small Pearl, and a little grain of mustardseed, yet indeed it is not discountenanced, but discovered by the resemblance. For though the seed be the smallest, yet the plant is the tallest of all the herbs that grow, such a vital flourish is there in the little heart of it, that what Virgil speaks of the Bee, may well be applied to this vigorous grain, Ingentes animos angusto in corpore voluit. Neither hath the richest pearl of the Orient any better outside than the dirty shell of an Oyster, which perhaps S. Paul alluded unto in the 2. Cor. 4. 7. wheres speaking of God's Saints, and this heavenly treasure in them he tells us we have this pearl, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in no better than scallopshells.  
Clean opposite are these glories, & delights, & this ambition to those of our under-world. Gather all the roses of pleasure that grow upon the earth, says not the Greek Epigram truly of them: 

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   

The Rose is fair & fading, short and sweet,  
Pass softly by her:  
And in a moment you shall see her fleet,  
And turn a briar.    
They look fairly, but they are suddenly despoiled; whereas, contrary all the flowers of Paradise( like the Church, Cant. 1. 5. 6.) sunburnt & frosted with the heat and cold of this tempestuous world, look black and homely, but flourish inwardly with divine beauty, and are all glorious within. So that we may well say of the Church as the Poet sings. 

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   

She's black: what then? so are dead coals, 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, lest we should rely upon her Egyptian reeds) those two main jets, to sustain her crazy buildings with which the Courts of GOD'S house are most gracefully pillared & upheld, Selfe-sufficiency and Perpetuity. For who ever saw all the goods even of this world meet together in one person, & constantly attend him to his grave, Moral Virtue, and Knowledge, & Honour, Friends, Riches, & Pleasure, Health, Strength, and Beauty, Which are therefore insufficient, both because they are commonly sejoined one from another, and have in themselves no satisfying nature. For what rich man desires not more wealth? or what great man thirsts not after more honour? or what scholar studies not for more knowledge. But let us grant what no man shall ever find, Knowledge, Virtuous; Virtue, Honourable; Honour, Healthful; Health, Strong; Strength, Beautiful; Beauty, befriended, rich, & pleasant; all these met together to bless one subject. Yet because the Measure of them all is our Life, and that is of so short a size as David speaks, Behold, thou hast made my life as it were a span long, and my days are even as nothing:( he says not indeed they are nothing at all, but they are as near it as may be, they are even as nothing, neither doth he say, his life is a whole span-long, but as it were a span long, the word in the original, signifies but a handbreadth) how can they but, for want of perpetuity, fall all upon our heads, & without the great grace of God; make us so much the more miserable by their loss, as before in their possession we thought ourselves more happy than other men. Seek we, seek we therefore the sufficiency of Grace here, and hereafter the perpetuity & fullness of glory will succeed. For as David speaketh, Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. The seeds of them both are sown in our corruptible state, but in the state of incorruption we shall reap the harvest. What if these joys cannot smile upon as with their own faces, but are as S. Paul speaks( who had seen them) unutterable in their natures;( as what tongues of Men and Angels can express musical sounds to a deaf man? or describe the glorious Light, or divine Beauty, the visible and celestial body's flame with to him that is blind) yet let us assure ourselves the honour of our faith is so much the greater, by how much the less we see to cause our belief, and though Thomas was blessed in his seeing, yet he was chid for not believing but upon sight, with this comfortable reprehension to us. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. For sure as I said before, if the glory of GOD were not concealed, it would never be known who would love him for himself, because all men would love him for his glory.    
GENES. 26. 12. Then Isaac sowed in that Land, and received the same year, an hundred fold. 
LEt us go on now from the spiritual harvest of our souls, wherein God grant us to be all sharers, because heaven is the field: and the fruit we shall thereby reap, will be eternal glory, to the harvest whereby our bodies are sustained, and which maintains our life here: that if we be still earthly minded men, and plow in all our hopes into these sandy furrows, yet when we see in this story of Isaac, that it is God's blessing only that clothes the valleys so thick with corn, that they laugh and sing for joy( as David sings of them, Ps. 65. 13.) we may, if not because he will banquet & replenish our souls with Divine satiety that flourishes in heaven, yet even in mere good husbandry that he may feed & preserve our bodies with the food that grows out of the earth, become religious men, & such as wait upon God's blessings in the improvement of all the labours & sweat of our several callings. It will be a good fruit of the earth, if we use it to carry our thoughts up into heaven, there to honour God with praise, and thanksgiving for his blessing us here.  
In the general survey of which words, after we have divided them into Isaac's labour, Then Isaac sowed in that Land, & his reward, and received the same year an hundred fold, we will take hold first of this one observation.  

I. That every Creature which would be preserved in his Calling by the blessing of God, must labour for it.  
FOr as GOD would have the World cost himself six days labour( though in one moment he could have finished it) so he sets us to task, by his own example, to our weekly stint: Six days shalt thou labour, Exod. 20. 9 and do all that thou hast to do. Which is not to be understood as a Permission, but as a Precept: as though God gave us only leave, & not charge to labour. For he says not, six days thou Mayst labour, but six days thou Shalt labour. If our mouths will eat( as Solomon tells us, All the labour of a man is for his Mouth, Eccles. 6. 7.) our brows must sweat for it. For as the Heathen had a Proverb among them, Dij venaunt omnia laboribus. Their Gods, they said sold all for labour: so we may truly say of GOD indeed: he hath set the price of all his earthly blessings to be sweat. In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread all the days of thy life, Genesis 3. Neither let the Master think to wipe off all his sweat to the brow of his servant, as though( like our Gallants) he were borne only to disport & pleasure, and his servants to labour and toil for him. No, every Man is God's Taskeman, and it is as natural for us to labour, as it is for flame to ascend: so Eliphaz speaks of us, job. 5. ver. 7. Man is borne to labour, as a spark to fly upwards, Indeed the labours of men are different, some of mind, and some of body, some in the field, some in the City, some abroad at Sea, and some at home: but labour will meet a man every where, be he where he will. It is our portion under the Sun, as Solomon tells us: Behold that which I have seen, says the wise man, Eccles. 5. 18. It is good for a man to eat, and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour, which he taketh under the Sun, for it is his portion. So that every one that would enjoy the good creatures of GOD( this subcelestial happiness which flourishes under the Sun) if he would eat and drink, or enjoy any good, it must be of his labour, his own labour, not another man's; for that is to steal another man's goods, and with his sweat to warm our own brows. And so severe was the holy Apostle of Christ in this point( that Golden and Elect instrument of God's grace to us) who in labours excelled them all that were hired into Christ's vineyard to work, that he would have him starved to death, that to maintain his life would not labour: He that will not labour, let him not eat, says the Apostle, 2 Thes. 3. 10.  
It were unnecessary to add more out of the word of God, to acquaint us with our duty of labour, the places to this purpose, and the Scripture in this argument is prodigal. Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hands, Ps. 128. 2. Ephes. 4. 28. Let him that stole▪ steal no more but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Where we see the Apostle ties not only every man to his work, but would have him, though he labour with his own hands to get his living, yet to give something to him that needeth, & wants hands or feet, or health, or strength, or liberty, whereby to labour. Look then as we see a field, as long as it hath any heart in it, if it be manured, and tilled, & sown, and weeded, and well husbanded in every part, never deceives the hopes of the greedy husbandman, but pays him in his own seed with the most lawful usury of natural, and very plentiful increase: which if it be never wrought upon with the labour of man, but falls perhaps into the hands of the sluggard, grows presently full of nothing but thistles and thorns, rank hurtful weeds, as Solomon tells us Prou 24. 30. I went by the field of the sluggard, and by the vineyard of the slothful man, and lo it was all overgrown with thorns and nettles had covered the face thereof: so is it with the body of man: If it be well and faithfully laboured, it is fruitful both to himself, his family, and the whole Commonwealth: but if it sleep away all his time in idleness. he grows not only unprofitable, but full of noisome vices, and is as the Poet calls him only, fruges consumere natus, a hurtful Vermin, good for nothing but to live upon the spoil. Are not all things embrightened with use, and rustied with lying still? Let but the little Bee become our mistress.  
Is she not always out of her artificial Nature, either building her waxen Cabinet, or flying abroad into the flowery Meadows, or sucking honey from the sweet plants, or loading her weak thighs with wax to build with, or stinging away the thievish Drone that would feign hive itself among her labours, and live upon her sweet sweat? Ignawm, fucos, pecus a praesepibus arcent. And shall this Little creature, this Natural good-houswife thus set herself to her business? and shall we drone away our time in idleness, and which always follows it, vicious living? Shall our fields labour so faithfully to reward us, and shall we betray our whole lives to idleness and sloth. Find me but one example in the World to countenance, and sample a man in his idleness.  
GOD himself is the watchman of Israel, that never slumbers & sleeps. My Father works( says our Saviour) and I work. The holy Angels are always either ascending up unto God( as we may see in Jacob's ladder) that is, lifting their thoughts upwards to honour him in their eternal song, Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord GOD of Sabbaoth, etc. or descending from God to Men with his blessings, as being his Ministering Spirits sent for the good of the Elect to pitch their pavilions round about, and defend us from many spiritual and blind dangers, which, alas, our souls never see. Not one of them all was seen to be idle, or stand still.  
Man himself( which is worthy our observing) even then, when he was first paradised in the Garden of pleasure, yet had something to do in it, and was not suffered to walk idly up & down like a Loiterer, or Idlesbye that had nothing at all to do: but was set to keep it & dress it, Gen. 2. Labour he must though sweat he should not, and business he had to do, though sweat he should not, and business he had to do, though in the doing of it he felt no weariness or toil.  
And as these most noble creatures of God Angels and man were not suffered to be idle, so if we look up to the heavens themselves, we shall there see there that mighty body in continual motion, never standing still, but flying about the world with incredible swiftness, that David's great Giant, who every morning like a Bridegroom comes out of his Eastern chamber, & delights to run the heavenly razes God hath set him, with all the less stars of the glorious body, might shed their beams upon the Earth in the seasons of it, & so bring forth herbs and fruits for the service of man and beast.  
It is indeed a natural Truth, Omne Corpus naturale quiescit in loco proprio. Every natural body is quiescent in his own proper place: and yet we see though all gladly rest in their own regions, and invade not the confines of their neighbour Elements, yet they are always moving and coasting about in their own orbs and circuits, thereby teaching us to labour every man in the circle of his own calling, and not to busybody out abroad with other new works. The Air breaks not into the quarters of Heaven, and yet, we see, it is always fanned from place to place, and never sleeps idly in his own regions: the reason is, because otherwise it would soon putrify itself and poison us all with the stinking breath of it, did not the divine providence of God drive it about the World, with his Winds, that so it might both preserve itself, and serve to preserve us, which otherwise it could never do.  
And truly whether we ascend up into Heaven, or descend with David into the deep, we may discern the whole Ocean, which is a far more sluggish element than the Air, never rest, but ever moved either by the Winds, or by a proper motion, whereby naturally it ebbs and flows to preserve itself sweet and wholesome for those creatures that live in it, and withal that it might by such inter-tides be the more serviceable to the use of man in the conveyance of commodities from shore to shore. So that in a word, every thing moves for man, & should man only himself be idle & stand still.  
Give me but one example in the whole World of sloth, and restive idleness, but one, and I will give thee leave to keep Holiday, and play away all thy life without sweat or labour: only perhaps of a standing pool, and that grows noisome that no man can endure it: or of some deformed Toad, and that is full swollen with rancour and poison; or it may be of an idle Drone, and that because it plays in Summer, dies in Winter: But if we look up to Heaven, that will teach us to run the razes God sets before us with joy and gladness; if the holy Angels may instruct us, they will take us out a lesson of faithful labour, both in our thoughts to God, and actions to men. All the Creatures of God will set us a work by their examples. Choose therefore whether thou wilt with thy vicious idleness be of a corrupted, and venomous nature, and so die; or exercise thyself in the holy labours thy vocation calls thee to, like the blessed Angels, and all other the more noble Creatures of God.  
And that we may see reason why we should labour, we must know that it is both a Divine and natural Truth, Deus & Natura nihil faciunt frustra: God and Nature made nothing idle. It is for us the herds of the field, and the fowls of Heaven, and the fish in the Seas labour to bring forth their young. It is for us the weary Ox is yoked to labour, and the Horse takes the bridle into his mouth to ease us by his travail. It is for us the poor Silkworm spins her clew, and the thrifty Bee gathers her honey to the comb: but as all these labour for us, so it is our labour that orders and guides them, and sets them all a work first. Indeed God hath of his goodness made them our servants, and put our fear upon them. The fear of you shall be upon all Creatures, Gen. 9 2. But it is not our parts to use their labours to make ourselves idle, but if we would have them labour for us, we must be fellow-labourers with them for ourselves. And indeed two special reasons would God have us labour for; one to keep us from the green-sickness of Idleness, which in truth is the immediate mother of all Sin, as we may see by David's Tower-walk; and the other for the more full enjoying of our life and health. For as it is labour that procures all things necessary for our life and health, as meats and drink. clothing & housing: so it is labour that preserves our health, by warming our blood, that it be not gelid with unkindly colds into rheums and dispersing those ill humours which with idleness would grow upon us, and by prepuring the body more delightfully both to receive nourishment without surfeit, and without disquiet, rest, & sleep.  
Ye see therefore there is both great reason for us to labour if we would enjoy our health, and necessity if we would supply the wants of our own lives and example, if we would follow either the command of God, or the pattern of other the most honourable creatures God hath made.  
Now let not here the good husbandman because( he as Isaac) tills his ground and sows it, engross all labour into his own calling, and so thinking himself only the true labourer, quarrel with all other professions as more idle, and less necessary. Let the good husbandman have always his due honour reserved him; but let not the good husbandman think all other men bad-husbands because he is good, for he may be a bad man, though he be a good husbandman, in so thinking. For as man himself is divided into several respects of body and soul, estate and person; so every calling that is lawfully employed in the providing for any of these, hath in it true labouring men. The husbandman indeed he sees the body, the shepherd clothes it, the Architect houses it, and the Physician cures it. It were a labour but to reckon up the several calling that labour about the body, and indeed would pass my skill to name them: so about the estates of men, judges and Lawyers, and Notaries and Officers labour: and about the persons of men, Princes and Magistrates labour, to keep them in civil order and government; and about the soul of man the Minister of God labours. I cannot stand to evidence the labour of all these callings: I will only make it plain because the calling of a Minister is by some slighted, as a matter of no great pains and sweat. That   

II. A faithful Minister is a great labourer.  
I Would not willingly make comparisons between him and the husbandman, and say his labour is beyond theirs: but this I may safely say, that God himself compares him not only to a husbandman, but to show the greatness of his labour, to every calling indeed that is most sweated with industry and toil.  
I know all men think their own callings most laborious, but whether think you it easier to plow upon hard ground, or upon hard stones? whether to commit your seed; to those furrows that will return you fruitful thanks; or those, that for your labour will spoil your seed, & requite you with reproach and slander? whether to such ground as is good, and naturally opens her bosom to drink in the dews of heaven that fall upon her, and gladly receives the Sun beams shed from God to warm and make fruitful the seed credited to her womb, or such ground as never thirsts after the watering of Apollo's, though as Moses speaks ( Deut. 32. 2.) his words drop as the rain, and his speech distil as the dew; never can endure the light of heaven to shine upon it, but lies always in darkness, and in the shadows of death? yet such ground( stones I should have said) did the divine courage of Stephen meet with in jerusalem ( Act. 7. 59) such S. Paul wrought on at Lystra( Act. 14. 19) such Moses and Aaron and josua toiled upon in the wilderness ( Num. 14. 10.) such the Prophets ( Matt. 21, 25.) such the Prince of the Prophets found in his own inheritance, though he had before( as we see in Esay 5. 2.) picked all the stones himself out of it. ( john 8. 59).  
What one difficulty or danger is the roughest calling assaulted with, that his is not. Does the ploughman's labour know no end, but is it as the Poet speaks of it: Labour actus in orbem, Quique in se sua per vestigia voluitur? So is his. Does the Shepherd, the sunburnt and frosted shepherd, watch over his flocks by night, strengthen the diseased, set apart the sound, bind up the bruised, seek out the lost, rescue those that are preyed upon? so does he. Marches the soldier before the face of death? lives he among the pikes of a thousand dangers? walks he through his own wounds and blood? So does he: but as the ground this spiritual ploughman tills is harder, so the wolves & Lions this Shepherd watches against are fiercer, and the Armies he grapples with of another temper then such as are made like himself of flesh and blood; being Powers and Principalities, spiritual wickednesses, & worldly governors, one of whom could in a night's space strikes dead the lives of a hundred fourscore and five thousand soldiers at once, all armed and embattled together. Isay 37. 36.  
Let all the Princes of valour that ever lived, bring into the field their most tried and signal warrior, whose face and breast stand thickest with the hononourable stars of brave adventures; if I do not single out to encounter him one soldier that bears in his body the marks of the Lord jesus, who shall have broken through an Iliad of more dangers and perils, than he, let Gath and Ascalon triumph over Zion once again, & let it be said that a second and more noble Saul is fall'n upon his high places, than ever yet fell before. For we shall find him all the world over in labours more abundant, in journeys more often, in more perils in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea, more often in watchings, and fastings, in hunger and thirst, in cold & nakedness, in prison more frequent, and ofter in weariness and death. 2. Cor. 11. 23. etc. Let not him therefore that sows the earth with his labour, slander the spiritual tilth of our souls with lazy thoughts, alas! in the times of peace, contempt is the greatest harvest we reap and in the tempests of persecution, our blood is the first seed is sown in the Church. But enough of this general theme of labour, Let us now go on to   

III. The several parts of Isaac's 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 sows; the next of Time, he sows in a time of famine and dearth; the last of place, it is the ground of strangers, the the land of the Philistines he sows in. His Reward follows his labour, wherein we look first upon Isaac, in the manner of the benefit, which is by Receipt: he does not take it as a due, but receives it as a reward, he makes not himself the Lord, but the Steward of God's gift: and then we cast our eyes upon God( as the eyes of all things look upon thee O Lord) who commends the benefit by his celerity in giving which was in the same year. Secondly, by Isaac's necessity of receiving, it being now a needful time of Famine; and last by the measure and size of returning his seed, which was not thirty, nor sixty, but a hundred fold.  
Now if we regard either the substance or the circumstances of the words, a man would think( as the world now goes) that Isaac had neither reason, or need to sow in such a Land and at such a time, as he did. For that he was exceeding rich, is confessed of all, both by the gifts of Abimelech the King of the Philistines which he gave him, and by the inheritance of his Father Abraham which he left him: and therefore what need had he to labour?  
We know it is the order of many men, if they have lived long in the Country and by their labours have enriched themselves, they forsake the fields, and betake themselves to the delights, and ease of the City: and again Citizens when they are well feathered by their trades, they fly abroad strait to purchase something in the Country, that they may there summer themselves in their bowers and arbours of pleasure: they are all soon weary of their labour, even as soon as they are enriched by it. Which though it be allowable in men ancient, as the Poet advices: Solve senescentem mature sanus equum; Especially if not only Age, but some disease and weakness of their bodies requires it: for so God dismissed the Levites at 50. years old from their service at his Altar, yet it is not so in men, either able to labour, or without labour unable to live. For here we see Isaac a rich man, and now past threescore years old( as we may gather from the 25. verse of the former Chapter) yet still labours and sows his ground.  
Again, let a man be but indifferently left by his Friends, though he do live in the Country, yet he will( as he out of his young gentility will please to boast) scorn to follow the Blow; he will keep perhaps a Cast of Hawks, or a Kennel of Hounds, and he will call them and follow them day by day; but that's all the calling he will follow. Questionless, Hawking and Hunting are both lawful; but only to make recreations of, not to make callings of. For he that makes the following of such sports his only calling, inverts and turns the order of God upside down. For whereas God made all beasts naturally to serve man, he spends his life in serving and following of beasts, and so makes himself the servant of those creatures, of which God hath made him the Lord: weakly esteeming that the privilege of his estate and his blessing above others, which Noah wisely laid upon Canaan as of all other the greatest curse. A servant of servants shall he be: but Isaac thinks it no disparagement to his Gentility to till the Earth: nor jacob that was his heir to follow Sheep, though perhaps my Lord Esau go a hunting every day an end. Yet I think not Isaac was a Ploughman, but I think he followed his servants that were so, and in such labour there is no man, but shall find as much wisdom as delight, and health.  
Besides, if a man would labour upon the ground, one would suppose, being rich, the ground should be his own, not another's: what would one of our small heirs say, should I now turn farmer. I thank God I have been brought up after another fashion, and have ground enough of mine own to live upon by other men's labours. Well I make no question but Isaac was as well brought up as such idle, out of calling Gentlemen, and yet he ploughs, and sows, not only another man's ground, but the ground of strangers, where he could expect nothing but hard dealing, which indeed he found.  
The last circumstance is of the time, which was a time of Famine; wherein all men are most discouraged to sow, both because of their present want of that seed they cast into the ground which might serve themselves, and because they fear the year to come may prove as barren, as that which was passed: Yet for all this, Isaac though rich, neither thinks it too mean a calling for him to till the ground, neither is discouraged from labouring, though he spent his sweat upon the ground of strangers, and sowed in a most unseasonable time, and what might the reason of this be?  
First, Isaac was a religious person, and looked assuredly for God's blessing, which he found and therefore sowed. From whence we gather this instruction. 'tis good husbandry to be a religious man, and one of the children of Abraham, that is, a faithful man.  
Secondly, Isaac knew that he who meant to reap the fruit of God's blessing, must sow the seed of his own labour, in some lawful and honest course, and therefore he sowed, whence arises this Observation, That as every man must use the means, that would be profited by God's blessings: so that Husbandry hath been an ancient and honourable means of life.  
Thirdly, Isaac had God's promise to bless him in the third verse of this Chapter, even in this unlikely place, and therefore sowed among strangers, and from hence we may borrow this direction. A Child of God makes God's will the rule of all his actions, though it seem never so repugnant to his reason.  
And to conclude, Isaac had learned by experience, that God was not ruled by nature, but was the Overruler of it, and therefore though Famine should have eaten up all the Land beside, yet he was sure God could preserve him, and bless his seed, when the the fields of other men languished with desolation, and waste, and therefore he sowed then in the time of Famine, from whence we we will learn this last instruction. God always glorifies himself in preserving his Children by taking advantage of the most unlikely time that may be to preserve them in. Let us now begin with the first.   

FOUR It is good husbandry to be a Religious man, and one of the Children of Abraham.  
FOr though the wicked Moles of the Commonwealth, that are always rooting in the earth after profit, suppose they should lose much if they were troubled in their bargains with the scrupulous vice of Religion( as they think it) yet by their leaves, Godliness is great gain, as the Apostle tells us, and is instated in a double portion by Gods own promise both of the things of this life, and of the life to come. He giveth meat to them that fear him, and is ever mindful of his promise, sings David, Psal. 111. 5. His are no Court-promises prodigally made, and purposely forgotten; but so careful is God after an especial manner to be out of debt to those that rely upon his word, that in the times of dearth and famine, when all other are lanked, and shrunk up with the leanness of the Earth; yet then( as it is in the fifth of job, the 20. and 22.) God shall redeem thee from death, so as thou shalt laugh at destruction and famine. What though a man begin with little, as jacob did, Yet if thou seek to God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty, though thy beginning be small, yet thy latter end shall greatly increase, as one of jobs false friends truly prophesied at random of God's purpose toward jobs estate. No matter therefore how wicked men are opinioned of Godliness, who account it a very unprofitable, and most unthrifty virtue: the truth is, it is far otherwise.  
For Godliness is not only a gain without loss, but a great gain without the least loss: but wicked gains are all like Samsons Foxes, they have fire brands in their tails, that consume all their Masters good husbandry: For they gain a little part of the world, and lose that in the end which is more worth than the whole world, and such gains will profit little. For as our Saviour says, What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? So that indeed a wicked man gains only for other, but gets loss for himself: for whilst he loses himself, his heirs enter upon all his gains, and such are but silly gains God knows, and I would they knew so to: but the gettings of a Religious man brings no such after-claps of grief and sorrow with them, as Solomon tells us in 10. of the Prou. 22. The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it: but how hurtful, and full of irremediable sorrow the goods are of unrighteous 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 hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction, and perdition. A man would have thought Temptations, and Snares, and Folly, and hurtful Lusts, and Destructions, and Perdition had been misery, and sorrow enough for a Covetous heart, a heart that will be rich, Quasi nolente Deo, to be drowned in. But as Solomon says, God adds no sorrows to the riches he gives, so Saint Paul adds more to those the world gives. For the lone of money( says the same Apostle in the same place) is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the Faith, and pierced themselves thorough and thorough with many sorrows.  
All these mischiefs happen not to rich men, but to men that will be rich, not to men that have money, but to men that love money, and set their heart upon it. If riches increase, set not thy heart upon it, says David. A man may have riches, but riches must not have the man, as Aristippus said of Lais the Harlot, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, otherwise they should not be God's blessing, which they are, Deut. 28. they would not be rewards of obedience, Psal. 128. they would never make us friends in Heaven, Luke 16. 9 we should never see poor Lazarus landed by the Angels in the bosom of rich Abraham, Luc. 16. 22. Our Saviour would never have sent out his thunder of impossibility against them, with this lightning, How hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of God, we should have seen Abraham, Isaac, jacob, joseph, job, David, Hezechiah, the rich Arimathaean, etc. either less religious, or more poor.  
Look then as good ground to the Seedsman; so the honest heart when the seed of God's benefits are committed to him, puts out all the grace of God to the greatest advantage of his glory that he can, and is neither idle nor unprofitable in his fruit-seasons. For he knows he must give account of every idle word, how much more of many talents, or a whole life misspent in idleness: but God's seed brings forth in him either 30. or 60. or 100 fold, and Gods talents are restored for two, five; for five, ten. Neither can it be otherwise; for he is Gods own husbandry, and therefore to be a religious man, and a child of Abraham, must needs be good husbandry, because it is Gods, who will always bless his own grounds, and be sure to let his Sun shine, and rain fall upon them, and water them, except sometime, that they may be more fruitful after, he lets them for a while lie fallow, and for a year or so, as David did, lie spared and broken up, without any outward show of fruit at all.  
Now because all men are reasonable, though some be not religious, let us see whether there be not great reason for it; that Religion should be thought good husbandry, and should enrich the man, that is a faithful practiser of it. I am persuaded there is none but will confess, that he which is the best disposed to get and to keep; & the least inclined to misspend goods well gotten, is most likely to prove a rich man: the Poet joins both the ways of thriving in one verse: Non minor est virtus, quam quaerere, parta tueri.  
Now if we would know what are the getting virtues, they are agreed upon to be Labour and Diligence. Salomon's little Ant will tell us how much is got by Labour, if we go to her. Go to the Ant thou Sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise. Prou. 6. 6. And Salomon's self will tell us what is the fruit 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, pars agmina cogunt,  
Castigantque. moras: Opere omnis semita ferret.   
So the diligent hand loves to labour, and goes willingly through all the up-hils of thrift, as Solomon speaks of his good housewife. She perceiveth her merchandise is good, therefore she worketh willingly with her hands: she is early up at it. And is a wicked man of this disposition? It may be is laborious, by reason of the nenecessity of his estate, and the strength of his body: but is he constant in his labour, does he love it? Nay, will he not presently break out into some excess or other, and so soon 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 have some one secret or known vice, that like a wicked vermin consumes all his labours? but an honest & religious hand as it sets itself to work in obedience to God's command, and so gains his blessing: So is it both constant in his labour, and provident to avoid the mispences other men fall into. For as he is not drowsy in getting his living: so is he neither drunken nor greed to spend it. He remembers Salomon's counsel in the 23. of the Prover. 20. Be not among wine-bibbers among riotous eaters of flesh; for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Does not our experience teach us( as the French Proverbes goes) That more men dig their graves with their teeth, then are slain with the sword: that is, with their over greedy cramming themselves: but a religious man is taught to satisfy his body with moderate, not to surfeit his body with excessiive diet. Do not we see many a labouring man boil his whole body in sweat all the day long, only to quench the dropsy of his throat at night with unreasonable swilling in his day labour turned into drink? but a religious man as his hand are laborious, so he hath a sober throat, drinking only to refresh his body, not so, till the drink comes up where it went down: the grape of necessity he freely takes always, and sometimes, but seldom the second grape of delight, but the third of excess & luxry he never touches or tastes of.  
Besides, how many great estates and rich patrimonies may we observe by often resorting to the house of an harlot, to have gone down into the chambers of death, as the wise man speaks, and never to have seen any resurrection: but the body of a religious man is a member of Christ, & therefore cannot be made the member of an harlot, thereby to consume both himself and his estate. what should we be tedious in reporting what we cannot not but know; That by gaming, and pride in apparel, and haunt of ill company, many a rich heir leaves his son a poor child, as he makes himself a poor man? All which rocks of danger & ill hushandry Religion( the holy guide of our lives) never suffers any that sail in Noah's Ark, I mean in God's church for want of a right steering their vessels to run foul upon. And therefore it must needs be( Religion being the mother of frugality) good husbandry to be a religious man both because the blessing of God is upon him, as we are taught by Scripture, and because he is furnished with the virtue of honest getting, & kept by it from the vice of unprofitable spending.  
But perhaps a weak Christian will be ready to quarrel with this truth & to object, That although Isaac, it may be had some thing left him of his father; yet his father Abraham himself was but a poor man, being stripped of all his friends, and the hopes of his own inheritance, and called out by God into a strange country, when he was now seventy years old: & his son jacob no more worth than his poor staff. And that David was poor, & needy himself, says as much in plain terms, I am poor & needy, being forsaken of father & mother, till God took him up & forced, though after the best sort, to beg maintenance of the rich churl Nabal; and though God himself say of job, that he was an upright man, and there was none like him in all the earth, yet is it not a proverb as poor as job. Besides, Matthew and Zachaeus & joseph of Arimathaea were all before rich men, but as soon as they followed Christ, their riches left them, and they became poor & religious men together; Again was it not David's complaint 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 fatness, & they have more th●n heart can wish. And the prophet jer. as he succeeded him in time, so he followed him in his complaint. jer. 12. 1. Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee, yet let me talk with thee of thy judgements. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper: wherefore are they happy that deal very deceit fully? That we may the better know then.   

V. Why the godly are many times poor, & how the wicked are often rich in this world.  
WE must learn to distinguish rightly of the times when the children of God are poor, and of the persons of wicked men, how they are rich. There is a time of poverty, and a time of riches, and to say true, except God's children were first poor, how could Gods blessing enrich them after? So Abraham and David and jacob had their times of poverty, they were poor at first, but their end was rich, and full of God's blessing; where contrary, the wicked man is never rich in the conclusion. So David tells us in the 37. and 73. Psalms, when he went into the Sanctuary to see the end of these men, he saw the end of the upright to be peace. Mark the upright man, for the end of that man is peace, says the Prophet: but what says he of the wicked? The end of the wicked shall be cut off. So was the end of Dives in the 12. of Luke. He had no sooner sung the merry Carol to his soul of Soul eat, drink, and be merry, etc. he had no sooner ended his Anthem, but the same night his soul was begged from him and he could not get a drop of drink for it, he had provided much for his soul, but he had not provided his soul a whit for God, & the therefore spiritual furies did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 soon begged away his soul from all the pleasures he had loaded his new built Repositaries to banquet it with, and in a moment engulfed it into perpetual torment: for as job speaks of the wicked Momento descendunt in infernum; Philosophy teaches us, that there can be no motion in an instant: but sin lies so heavy upon the soul 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 said of Lazarus; and the Beggar died, and was carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom, yet it is no sooner said, The rich man died also, but as if there had been no time between his dying, and being in hell, it straight follows. And in hell lift up hiss eyes, etc. O how suddenly( sings the Psalmist) do they consume, perish, and come to a fearful end. Psal. 73 18. The new translation turns it, how as in a moment, and indeed the original is, Be-raga, in momento. So David's green Bay-tree, Psal. 3. 35.( a tree that ever bears leaves but never fruit, & therefore fit to shadow under the laws of it a a fruitless professor) though he flourished it for awhile, yet suddenly David did but turn him about, and he could not find so much as the place where he stood.  
But let us grant Dives the happiness to die a rich man, which he shall never do( for as the heathen sings of death, 

I ●uoluit humile pariter & celsum caput.  
Aequatque summis infirna.   

Death and the Grave, make even all estates.  
There, high, and low, & rich, & poor are mates.   Yet the riches they have, are not like Wisdoms durable riches, but God blows upon them, not only cutting off themselves, and their remembrance as sparks from the earth; but scattering their estates, and blasting their seed and posterity: so that he perisheth both sooner and oftener than other men. He spends his days in wealth( job 21. 13.) and in a moment descends into hell; there how soon is his soul lost? His body is as chaff, that the storm carries away( ver. 17. 18.) there he loseth his body as soon. And what pleasure hath he in his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off in the midst,( ver. 21.) there perisheth his estate. And to conclude, God lays up the punishment of his iniquity for his children( ver. 19) there he dies in his posterity. So that, although he flatter himself with an opinion of his riches, that it will keep him alive in his name, and memory, and posterity, and houses, and lands, beyond the condition of other men( as David tells us, Psal. 49. 11.) that this is his very thought) yet to speak sooth, as the last of the best, and the best of the last, Poets says of all moral helps which Fabricius, and Cato, and Brutus, three of the most famous of the Roman Worthies thought to eternize themselves by, 
Cume sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies,  
jam vos secunda mors manet:  So may the ungodly rich more truly say of himself, and all worldly means, whereby he hoped to perpetrate his life, and memory. 
The poor man dies but once: but O that I  
Already dead, have yet three deaths to die.  For, being dead in his body, he still remains alive in his soul, estate, and posterity to suffer death, and therefore death is said to gnaw, and feed upon him, Psal. 49. 14. And it is worth the observing how soon his name rots, which that it might fly into eternity beyond the names of poorer men, he so feathered himself with houses, and lands, and children, and called them all by his own name. And therefore our Saviour in the Story of Lazarus, and Dives, keeps the poor man's name alive to the world's end, but industriously leaves the rich man's name at uncertainty, with There was a certain rich man.  
This is the first and main 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 Thriver, we mean in the time of peace, when God blesses the Land he lives in with quiet, and lets the beams of his Gospel freely display themselves: but in the times of persecution, when clouds, and storms arise; when the Ark of God is tempested about, and fails as it were in the blood of his Children, it is contrary. For as before, the poor religious man grows rich, with Abraham, and jacob, and David, and Isaac; so in the times of bloody persecution, the rich man, that is truly religious, voluntarily grows poor, as Matthew, and Barnabas, and Zachaeus did. But their riches then left not them for want of God's blessing, but they to get a blessing of God, left their riches to supply the wants of others. There is a time of War, and a time of Peace, saith the Preacher, Eccl. 3. a time to get, and a time to cast away. Now it pleased God Isaac should live in a time of peace, and so should have a time to get: but Matthew and Zachaeus, etc. were to live in a time, when the whole world was at war with God, and that was a time to cast away. And as God gets himself honour in enriching his Children in the times of peace; so it is his good pleasure, that his Children by being poor sometime for his sake, should get themselves glory from him.  
I but will a poor Christian say. Now are peaceable times: and yet there are still many rich wicked men, and more godly that are poor. So questionless, there are many rich godly men, and more poor that are wicked. But to satisfy this doubt also. I told you there is a second distinction to be used of the persons of rich, & poor men. It may be thou art godly and poor. 'tis well: but canst thou tell whether, if thou wert not poor, thou wouldst be godly? Sure God knows us better than we ourselves do, and therefore can best fit the estate to the person. Why shouldest thou think much to see Lazarus by Dives his gates; God knows that was the way he was to ascend to heaven by, and it may be he had never been comforted in Abraham's bosom, if God had not brought him thither by affection, and by Dives his gate.  
Rest therefore thyself content with that estate God hath set thee in, that is best for thee, if thou be'st a child of God, and it is not God's order to give thee his blessings to hurt thee with.  
If I should see my child dissolutely affected to gaming, should I give him a patrimony to dice away, or think it a kindness in me to nourish a vice in him? If I had an ungracious brother, whose heart I should perceive so leagued with some harlot, that he would lose his honesty, and spend his estate upon her; should I not rather keep him honestly poor, then send him to perish with my benefit, and make my purse his bane? What if he should weary me with entreaty, and for the time think unnaturally of me, as foolish children that have knives denied them, will cry; and a man in a burning fever, think much when he is denied cold drink? Might he not think more hardly of me after, when he comes to judge rightly, If I should have helped him then to have destroyed himself? Exorari in perniciem rogantium saeva bonitas est. It is unkind mercy to be entreated of any man to his undoing. And although this benefit of God be something more obscure to the because, thou seest not thine own future wickedness, yet it is no whit the less benefit in itself, except thou thinkest it a less benefit for a man sleeping to be saved from a wild Beast, that would devour him in the dark, than it is to be so rescued in the day, and when he now sees it, and is awake. Certainly God sees something more than thou dost, either for thy glory, or his own, or for the example of others, why he denies thee riches, which if thou shouldest enjoy, thou mightst have cause after to complain of his goodness. For what a Heathen man in the like case says of himself, and his Friend, may be more truly said of God, and his children. Non committam ut possit quandoque dicere, Ille amando me occidit. I will never give him cause to say one day of me, He killed me with kindness.  
But yet though I be poor, wilt thou say, why should a wicked man be rich? why it may be( for aught we know) God may make him a good man before his death; as he did Matthew and Zachaeus, the two rich Publicans, and great sinners; And wilt thou child with God's Providence for giving him his temporal blessings, upon whom he means to bestow his eternal: but if not: we know not whether by riot, or mispence he may become poor before he die, and so God will punish his sins with the loss of his goods.  
But say he be not a rich man only, but a covetous man, and lives thrivingly all his life, and dies in as great plenty as the most religious thriver, why should God suffer him to be rich by raking to himself other men's goods? Why dost not thou yet, being a Christian known that a covetous man, is the poorest man alive. For must not he needs be poor, whom God himself doth not satisfy? do not envy him, he punishes himself with his riches sufficiently, in thinking himself to be still and still in want. Yes, but we, thou wilt say that judge rightly of him by his estate, think him all a rich man. ay, but thou dost him the more wrong. For that which God makes his just punishment, his riches, thou thinkest to be his happiness, and God's blessing upon him. Hear not therefore what we or the world talk of him, but what the Wiseman, and the Wisdom of God himself, speaks Eccles. 6. 1. for our judgement is many times out of weakness, and the Worlds always out of opinion, but God judges ever out of truth, and that when all men's shall fail, and heaven and earth must pass away, shall, and must stand for ever. There is an evil which I have seen under the Sun, and it is common among men. A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof but a stranger eateth it. Does not God now most grievosly punish this man with riches? were it not a lamentable sight, and almost a cruel part of a Prince, if he should make a covetous rich Miser spread a large Table for others, and should there make him sit at it, till he were pined to death himself? This is the very state of every covetous soul.  
But indeed to say true. A covetous man that ravines and snatches at other men's goods, is no more properly in God's sight a rich man, than we would call him that had stolen a great sum of money from another man, rich. We shall do him no wrong if we call him a rich thief. For ye know we never reckon the goods of thieves their own goods, because as soon as they are taken notice of, their goods are all seized upon to the King's use: And so many times as soon as God sends out his pale Pursuivant to attach this covetous wretch, the goods presently are disposed of all God will have them: some times it may be to his honest heir, or perhaps to the destruction of such as inherit with his sin his substance, as the rich Epuloes' Brothers: but many times to the building of Hospitals, or the erecting of Grammar Schools, or putting out of Prentices, or redeeming of Prisoners, or founding of Colleges, or relieving of maimed Soldiers, or making of good ways, such as himself never walked in( or which now is a rare point of piety) in doing some good to the Church of God, by restoring to the right use, usurped and impropriate tithes, or buying them from the dead hands they lie in, and laying them upon God's Altar, that feeds not under the Gospel any mortmains, such as were the hands of the Roman Clergy; but such as are more free, and active in the service of the Prince, & Commonwealth, than any in the whole body politic of double their ability, and strength. And truly the want of doing good in this one kind is the very blush of our profession, most rich men never dreaming upon their deathbeds of any such strain of piety, as being long dead in their minds to the Church, before their dead bodies come to rest in it: Or releasing of captives, or helping poor Ministers, or maintaining in the University poor Scholars, or setting up in their honest Trade new beginners, or some other such good and pious uses; and so they come all in conclusion to God's Exchequer.  
Leave then to slander the divine Providence of God in the dispensation of these movables( as we truly call them) by supposing them blessings to the wicked, when in their needy superfluity, they want what they have, or when the religious man is made better by their want, by thinking their want to him any punishment at all. Be not envious with David, to see the ungodly man prosper a while: but if Dives have a short and small portion in this life, as Abraham tells him: let him have it; Alas! he hath no other▪ Only wait thou upon the Lord, and verily thou shalt have enough.  
Having now endeavoured to heal the lame hands of such as are shrunk up and withered with idleness and sloth, as our Saviour himself when he came into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, and found there one with a withered arm, begun his Sabbath days work 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 or doing naught: Let us go on to the following observation which is.   

VI That as God will have his children( though never so religious and rich,) use the means as well as others to obtain his blessing; so that husbandry hath always been an ancient and honourable means of life.  
I Know it is an usual quarrel with such persons whose ignorance & profaneness are quarrel, to fall out with God's justice, because it hath not made them so rich as other men, and because they suppose all their happiness 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 themselues here with the great men of the world; or hereafter for glorifying themselues with the felicity of God's Saints in heaven. If God please to enrich them, he can do it they say without their labour, as he did job in the evening of his day: And if he have ordained them to poverty, all their labour they say can never enrich them, though they rise early, and go to bed late, and eat the bread of carefulness. For except God build the house, the labour of the workman is but in vain. Psal. 127.  
Again, if they shall be saved, let them live how they will, they know God will save them, but if he means not to have them, all the means they can use, they think but idle, and so they lie down in the secret decree of God which being imbrested in Gods own bosom thoughts, they cannot possibly dive into; and never look to the execution of God's decree, which they may find in the use of the means & in themselves, if by them the means be wisely applied, and faithfully practised.  
This argument was very ancient, and first invented by heathen men, who thought all things ruled by a fatal and stoical necessity, which was wholly unalterable, and never to be changed by any contrary endeavours, or by living never so religiously & well. Which reason the wiser sort of men did ordinarily style 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the idle reason. And thus as when they are idle they would have God do them good, so when they are evil they would have God bear them harmless by making himself some cause him some cause of their sin.  
Thus the Grecian harlot cast her adultery upon Venus and jupiter in Euripides, but was well schooled for it presently by Hecuba, in these words 
— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc.  Never honour your adultery so much, as to make the Gods the simple fathers of it: no, no; my son Paris was the only jupiter, and your own inflamed mind the Venus that brought you to this shame, and us to this misery. Neither did simple women only, but the wisest of the heathen Governors' load their Gods with their proper crimes: 
— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Says great Agamemnon, alas! 
It was not he that did them injury.  
But jove and Fate, and the night Fury.   
But jupiters' answer is recorded by the same Poet: 

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,   

Men say their faults are ours when their own wills  
Beyond their fate, are authors of their ills.   But how God in the comproduction of an action, that is evil; for the evil in it does no way casually concur, or by way of efficiency: but only by way of directing, ordering, & limiting the pravity of it: so that the most wicked is beholding to God( whom he foolishly indicts as guilty, for limiting his sin, and so lessening his punishment is a discourse something straggling from our purpose, who are to inquire the means how to obtain his benefits by our labour, and not the manner how he works in us, when we use his benefits against himself, and by his goodness make ourselves the more evil.  
Let us know then that the wisdom of GOD doth not bring in the end without the appointed means, he hath fore-determined. If the Decree of God have measured thee out a fair portion in this life, he hath set out means whereby thou shalt attain this inheritance, either by thy kindred, and so he blessed Isaac; or by thy labour, and so he blessed jacob; or by thy service and the favour of great persons, and so he blessed joseph; or by thy learning and his blessing of thy studies, and so he honoured Daniel. God ordinarily never breaks off the end from the means, and therefore if thou think GOD will bring about the end, though thou never use the means to attain it, thou deceivest thyself. For God, as in his goodness he ordains the end, so in his wisdom he appoints the means to bring the end to pass. Reason not therefore so simply as to say; Whom God will enrich, though he be never so careless, wealth shall be cast upon him; for that is a most inconsequent speech, and savours too much of the idle Proverb, Give a man luck and cast him into the Sea: but if thou wouldst reason rightly, say; Whom God will enrich, he will make him careful to use the means, whereby he may be enriched. For, although sometime the means may be used without achieving the end, God, it may be, for the punishment of the wicked, or the trial of his children, making the means ineffectual: yet the end cannot be attained without the appointed means, it being a certain Rule both in Nature and Religion. Deus & Natura non faciunt saltum. God and Nature make no Leaps: they leap not from the beginning to the end, but by middle, and so so pass to the end.  
We may evidepce this truth by diverse Scriptures. See it first in our heavenly inheritance▪ Rom. 8. 29. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate; and whom he did predestinate, them also he called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. And Rom. 10. the 14. How then shall they call upon him, says the Apostle, on whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a Preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent? So then before thou canst be purpled in glory by the blood royal of our dear Lord, thou must go through all these means, correquisite for thy salvation.  
Indeed God's love is the beginning, and thy glory is the last end, the love of God will bring thee to: but there be many means between the beginning and the end, his love and thy glory. First, God's love elects thee to be justified, and to work thy justification he calls thee, and that thou mayest be called, he infuses into thy heart faith in Christ, and that thou mightst believe, he causes thee to hear the word, that thou mightst hear, his Prophets must preach it to thee, before they can preach, they must be sent: So that in brief, The Minister is sent to preach, he preaches that thou mayst hear, thou hearest, that thou mightst be called, thou art called to believe in Christ, thou believest that thou mayest be justified, being justified, thou art sure of thy Crown of Glory, and this glory the love of God by all these means sets as it were upon thy head. Between therefore our glory which is the end, & God's love which is the beginning and cause of it, many interjacent means, you see, are cast between.  
And shall God himself, that he may bestow upon us the exceeding riches of his glory, go through so many means with us, and shall we think to grow rich hereby doing nothing, without any means at all? Nay certainly, as Christ would have the treasures of heaven, which he purchased for us, cost himself so much labour; being excruciated with so many dolorous agonies, and such a bloody sweat as to any other Creature in Heaven or Earth had been impossible to have waded through: so he would have us purchase our temporal riches with our personal labour.  
No man is so simple as to think he shall make a good voyage, and have his vessel return well fraughted, if he never set out at all any ship to Sea: no man looks for a harvest that sows no seed: none that keeps not a flock, or plants not a Vine, to grow rich by his vintage, or to increase by his Lamb and Wool. What is the Reason? Is it not because he knows the means that brings about the end, and if one be wanting, the other cannot without folly be expected. Why then should we not be as wise in all things, as we are in some? or why should our folly look for God's benefits, without the means used, when God's wisdom hath appointed us only the use of the means to obtain his benefits by? If there-therefore thou neither ask God's blessing by prayer, nor art laborious and diligent to make way for it by thy industry, nor waitest upon his providence, and usest thy own to obtain it, nor dost by Faith receive them as the goods of God, nor canst retain by sobriety and temperance what thou hast received; never look that God's blessing as long as thou sleepest away the seedtime of thy youth in sluggish and ungodly idleness, should bring thee forth a harvest of his benefits in thine age: but expect, because thou dost not know that it is He that giveth thee Corn and Wine, and Oil, and multiplies thy Silver and Gold; but with the grosse-hearted Israelites offerest sacrifice to thy Yearn, or committest adultery with thy ground, and so thinkest the fruit of her Womb the cause of thy wealth, or kissest thine own hand, or applaudest thine own wisdom, as the Wise Stewards, or rather sole Lords of all the goods, that God will return and take away thy corn in the time thereof, and thy wine in the season thereof, and will recover his Wool, and his Flax given to cover thy nakedness, as he said he would do, and did to the ungrateful Israelites, Hos. 2. 8. 9 So for thy future estate, which I mention only by way of digression, know assuredly,   

VII. God never bestows upon any the rest of glory, that takes no pains to make it sure to himself by the means of Grace.  
Never let any use that idle sophistry against his own soul, as to say; I know what God hath appointed shall be done. If he will save me, he will give me grace to use the means: if not, all my labour is but in vain. For all be this Reason for the substance of it, in itself, be true, yet in regard of him it is both idle & preposterous. It is idle, because the very dissolute manner of such as thus reason, proves them altogether unholy and profane; such as would fain put God to all the labour of saving them, whether they would or no, without any consequent labour of their own. And if God will not take so much pains with them, as in spite of their own idle dispositions, to work out all their salvation, himself, than it secretly accuses him as a cause of their perishing, when indeed it is their idleness, which will not undergo the labour of living well, that makes them unfit, & indisposed to receive grace, and their own wicked and ill life, which is the cause of their eternal punishment & death.  
It becometh not us therefore to look first to God's secret will( like the overcurious inhabitants of Bethshemesh, whose irreverent boldness 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 God's grace, which is the means of our salvation, and our own vicious and impenitent courses which are the means of our perishing. For this is preposterous; & by the wicked figure of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confounds the sight of our understanding: but if we would deal wisely with our souls, we must look to see that which is secret, by that which is revealed, and that which is hid, by that which is manifest: Now the Grace of God, if it be in us, reveals & manifests itself. 
— Quis enim celaverat ignem  
Lumine qui semper prodigitur ipse suo!  And our own desperate and impenitent life is known to ourselves and others sufficiently. If the Sun be risen, we shall find him sooner by his beams upon the tops of the Mountains, then in the Orient of Heaven itself; and so the Love of God is sooner discovered to rise in thy heart by the beams of Grace it there shows abroad, then by the flame of itself that shines in his own breast in Heaven. If then Grace imbrighten thy heart, thou mayst from Grace assure thyself of God's love, and thine own glory: but if thou findest in thyself an impenitent & incorrigible heart, thou mayst then justly work upon thyself a sense of thy misery: I dare not say thou art sure of GOD'S wrath, but I must say, except thou repent, & God change thy heart, thou art yet in a fearful and lost estate; say not therefore thus. God hath cast me out from his favour, therefore my heart is obdurate, impenitent, incorrigible. For this is to argue from that thou knowest not; whether God favours thee or no: but thus rather. My heart is obdurate, impenitent, incorrigible, therefore if I so continue, God will surely cast me out from his favour and presence. And this thou mayst securely do, because thine own conscience is both a witness and a judge of thy life, whether it be impenitent or not: Again, never argue thus; God will save me, therefore I shall be sure to use the means; for that is to dispute, ab ignoto: For who knows the will of God? but thus rather I will be sure to use the means, therefore I am sure God will save me, and this is to dispute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from things known. For who knows not whether he use the means God hath appointed him in his word to work out his salvation by? which that thou mayst be sure of, he hath given thee his promise, his word, his oath, ( Heb. 6. 17. 18.) his writings by his Secretaries the Prophets, which are the conveyances of thy heavenly inheritance; he hath signed them with two indelible seals imprinted into thy flesh by baptism, and into his own by his Passion and death, the appointed infallible witnesses to testify his deed. His spirit & thine own, thy faith and thy love ( Rom. 8. 16. 1 john. 3. 14. and 1 john 5. 10.) so that although thou be'st now on earth, yet when thou hast thy evidence for heaven so surely made over to thee, thou canst not but be most secure and sure of thy right and title, if thou hast once received them, and still keepest them in thine heart, being regenerate and borne anew. Use therefore the means GOD hath appointed thee, and then attend assuredly his promised blessing. For all such promises of GOD have some condition or other always either implied, or expressed. If thou labour, God will prosper thee, if thou use the right means God appoints, he will enrich thee; only the difference between the conditions of spiritual and temporal blessings is, that he hath given many wicked men▪ pour in themselves to perform the condition required for these under-benefits, but the conditions of glory, which are the graces of Repentance; Faith and Love he reserves in his own power, to bestow upon whom only it pleaseth him: being not the Steward of other men's goods, as Man is, but the Lord of his own. Sow therefore the seeds of Labour, and of Grace in thy Youth, and look for a harvest in thine age of sufficiency and glory.  
But to return to the labour which Isaac employed his time in, which was Sowing the ground, we may from thence learn, that   

VIII. Husbandry hath been an ancient and honourable means of life.  
LET not good husbandry sowing the ground, and pasturage of cattle be counted an abject and reproachful course of life, which hath always been so ancient and honourable a means to keep life in the world. It is true indeed, Man in the nobility of his birth was not borne at first to this serviceable attendance upon the earth: for both the heathen people had this tradition among them as the Poet sings: — nec non ullis Saucia vomeribus per se dabat omnia tellus: And the word of God tells us as much in the first of Genesis, that the earth of itself brought forth every seed after her kind, without the labour and industry of man, and till for our sin it was accursed by God still continued to be self-fertile and to feed her children without their labour. Man's special vocation then being the study of the creatures, wherein he might behold, as in so many small mirrors, the wisdom and power, and glory, and goodness of God, which kind of divine meditations David's Psalms are every where sweetly tuning to his Harp, as in the 104. & 19 Psalms etc. We were all borne in our innocence students of divinity. 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 heir of the world, that was a Ruler over his brethren( as God himself calls him. Gen. 4. 7.) was a manner of the earth, and his brother Abel a shepherd to feed his flocks.  
Neither did the world many thousand years after shake off this honourable simplicity of life. If we look into the 13. and 8. of Genesis, we shall there find Abraham a great herdsman, to live after that fashion of life, although his house were more like a Court then a Family, having 318. trained servants, all men of arms to attend him, ( Gen. 14. 14.) and being in the estimation of those among whom he dwelled a great Lord, and mighty Prince, Genes. 23. 6. Not long after, job( an Ismaelit as some of the Ancient think, but as others with more ground of Scripture. 1. Chro. 1. Gen. 25. one of his seed 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 men's daughters( unacquainted with new tires, and most fashionable dresses) busy themselues in laborious( and not curious needle) work but it was ordinary in that old world to meet young and beautiful Rahel tending her father's sheep, and watering the flock, and Rebecca with a pitcher upon her shoulder, drawing water both for her own use, and to water the Camels of Abraham's servant, an office that our nice virgins, who dress up themselves like so many gay silkworms would think scorn of: and in the second of Exodus, the 16. and 17. verses, we shall find in the field seven daughters of the Prince of Midian filling the troughs to water their father's flocks, whereof Zippora, Moses wife was one. It was the answer of the Patriarches to Pharaoh( Gen. the 47. Thy servants are shepherds both we, and all our fathers. Where we may see that Pharaoh himself had his herds and flocks of cattle to feed abroad in his own crown lands, and royal inheritance. And among the Princes of Israel was not Gedeon taken from the threshing floor judg. 6. 11. Moses & David from the Ewes great with young to feed Israel God's people, and jacob his inheritance ( Exodus 3. & 1. Sam. 16. 11.) may we not meet Saul after he was anointed king over Israel following his Oxen. 1. Sam. 11. 5 and therefore the ancient phrase of the world, for kings was the shepherds of people; so Homer usually styles 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 plough to be the Consuls and Dictator's of Rome, which was then the Queen of Nations, and the Lady of the world. And this not so much the necessity of their estates drove them, as the honesty, delight, and natural sweetness of these country and fieldlabours wooed them unto. And therefore old Cato, after he had out of his censorious gravity well rated, and scolded withal other pleasures, as the lascivious Mistress of lewd youth, and the only harlots of the whole world, cannot in conclusion dissemble his love to this same country Galatea( as Virgil calls this field-life) but as soon as he begins to speak of it, Redeamus in gratiam cum voluptate, says the rough Censor of the world, Let us be friends again with pleasure; as confessing it to be, not so much a clownish labour, as the most natural, and therefore lawful delight allowed a wise man. And therefore in the youthful flourish of Rome we shall find it observed by Columella, that their fairs which the Romans call Nundinae( quasi nono die habitae) were kept once only in nine days, because they would not leave their country houses to be drawn into the idle troubles of the city more than needs must, and if they were by exigence called to the Senate house for their advice, they had public officers, whom they called Viatores, their country posts attending such occasions: and when they gave any man extraordinary commendation, ita laudabant( says the first Latin writer de re rustica) Bonum agricolam, bonumque colonum, as for the general Trade( some fewer then, but now so many deal with) of usury, the Roman Law was, says the same Cato, Furem dupli condemnari, foeneratorem quadrupli, and with good reason is this Art of getting by our money, not by our labour inveighed against of all such as commend husbandry, as most unnatural husbandry, and contrary to the life they write of being, as M. Varro speaks of it, most hated of those, who are beholding to it: but for the certainty of gain, and the piety of the getter, and the safety and health of him that uses it, and the apting the bodies of men military services in the defence of the commonwealth those have everbin accounted most happy, says the same Author, Qui in eo study, occupati sunt. By all which it sufficiently appears that husbandry hath been both an ancient and honourable means of life, before pride and the fashion began to be virtues of so special request in the world, as they are now thought: and that all be in the glory of Nature before sin had blemished the world, we were by creation all divines and Priests of God, not to offer bloody sacrifices, but of praise and obedience,( which should make us think honourably of that calling, which we were all born to, except we would cast dirt in the face of our innocent nature) yet presently after the soil of our sin had struck barrenness into the womb of our mother, & her breasts were dried up that suckled us, husbandry succeeded to be the next vocation. The first call was of the mind: the second of the body: the first of heaven, the second of the earth: the first to the glory of God; the second for the necessity of man: and yet I think both of them may make the same complaint for themselves, which junius, Moderatus Columela, does for them, Sola res rustica quae sine dubitatione, proxima, & quasi consanguinea sapientia est, tam discentibus egeat quam ma gistris. Only the Art of husbandry, which doubtless is next and nearest a kin to wisdom, wants both scholars and teachers, meeting very seldom with such religious votaries towards them as the Prince of the Latin Poets was, who in his Georgics, or poetical Husbandry, breaks out into this godly wish. 

Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae  
( Quarun sacra fero ingenti percislsus amore)  
Accipiant, caelique vias & sidera monstrent:  
Sin has non possim Naturae accedere parts, etc.  
Rura mihi, & rigui placeant in vallibus amnes.  
Flumina amen, syluasque inglorias.   

No, first of all O let the Muse's wings  
Whose sacred fountain in my bosom springs,  
Receive, and landing me above the stars,  
Show me the ways of heaven: but if the bars  
Of unkind Nature stop 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 only most men count Husbandry a base and sordid business, unfit to soil their hands with: but some, who thinks his breast tempered of finer clay than ours of the vulgar sort, call such as have spent their times in the studies of Divinity, no better than rixosum disputatorum genus quorum vix in coquendis oleribus consilium admittit. It is the speech of one Bartaeus, a German disclaimer, who was better borne than taught, & more eloquent than learned, against the Divines of his Country, too busily wrangling as he thought, about the Paradoxes of Arminius, who I fear will change, if not his false opinion of the cause, yet his profane censure of the men, nisi ipse forte inter olera sit, quae in inferno sint conquenda. Before our bodies were only instruments to serve our souls, and we delighted ourselves in the study of heavenly & divine knowledge; now our soul's drudges only upon the body's service, runs only upon the flesh's errands, neither is any thing more wearisome to itself, or more out of credit in the world, than a soul walking & climbing up the holy mountains, from whence cometh our salvation, till it be out of breath after the knowledge of heavenly things: before our labour for the body was soon dispatched, when we all went naked, and the ground seeded itself, & brought forth a voluntary harvest to feed us: but now all our labour is for food & clothing( as the wise man tells us in his Proverbes) our nakedness was then our glory, it is now our shame: it was a curse to till the earth then, it is now a blessing to have earth to till: so that we have learned to turn by the corruption of our nature, our apparel that should cover our shame, to proclaim our pride: & our Lands that should feed us by our labour, to the food of our luxury: In a word, Religion was once the Lord of our Reason, and our Reason the director of our understanding, and our understanding the guider of our will, and our wills the commanders of our affections, and the affections( which the Philosopher calls material reasons, because by them the soul rules our body) the governors of our bodies, and our bodies the controllers of our desires and lusts: but now Lust hath snatched the reynes into his own blind government, and mad with jehu, drives on the body, and the body the affections, and they the will, and that the understanding to all unreasonable and irreligious excesses: so that poor Reason carried headlong to the ruin of itself, sits like a Waggoner, or rather like unhappy Hupolitus without his reynes, and is hurried by his wild horses whither soever they please: 
— & frustra retinacula tendens  
Fertur equis auriga, nee audit currus habenas.   
And from this disorder of man's nature comes it to pass, that in the yearly fruits of the earth which wicked men reap, all the pains of Nature serve them only to maintain the pleasures of their lust, who are always either misdoing, or doing naught. Let us leave therefore the Commendation of Husbandry, and end with▪   

IX. A just reprehension of ill husbands, who either straggle out of their own Callings, or have unlawful, unprofitable, or no Callings at all.  
IF therefore thou wouldst call down Gods rich blessing upon thy estate, rest thyself in that vocation God hath set thee( as a Soldier maintains the station his General places him in) and breaks not over the hedges, either to idle courses or other folk's business. When God meant to enrich jacob, he made him vigilant and laborious: when he meant to honour Daniel, he made him studious and wise: when he purposed to crown David, he sowed in his Youth the seeds of Religion, and Valour. God hath always set the right means before the end: do not thou therefore grudge and repine against God, and set up sails to carry thee to some other coast than GOD hath appointed. Delight not thyself in planetary motions, but move constantly in thine sphere. It is indeed the nature of all men to think other men's lives more happy than their own, 

Optat ephippia Bos piger, optat are ace Caballus.   

fain would the Ox the horses trappings wear;  
And fain the Horse the Ox's yoke would bear.   The Country man admires the bravery of the Court, and the Courtier the content of the Country. But take heed of this levity of mind, go thou always on in the known road God hath set thee, otherwise though thou strive never so much and( with the two lowing Heifers that carried the Ark, 1. Sam. 6.) goest on complaining unchearfully in the way of thy calling, if thou bearest God's Covenant with thee, God will carry thee thither, and thou shalt endure much misery by the way.  
jonas, we know was sent by God to Ninive, but he, because he knew God was merciful, and feared more his own shame in being counted a false Prophet, than favoured God's honour in sparing the Ninivites, when he should have gone to Ninive, set up his sails for Tarshish, thinking most foolishly to fly him that was every where; but God had soon sent his winds after him, to drive him thither, whither he denied to go, and when they were not strong enough, but he chose rather to lose his life, then to be thought, though for God's honour, a false Prophet, & would needs be cast into the Sea from his obedience to God, GOD had provided a strong pursuivant to waft him thither with incredible speed, & to land him, whether he would or no, upon the shores he fled from. The Prophet thought he had been in the belly of hell, as he speaketh of himself in the 2. and 2. of his Prophecy, when he lay stewing in the stomach of the Fish, and sailing under water to the coast God had sent him. Follow therefore thou the vocation God hath set thee in.  
Only take heed that it be a lawful, profitable, and honest Calling. For some there are, like the smoothe-tongued Parasite in the Comedy, that get their living by flattering and lying lips, that traffic with their tongues for their belly in spending their whole lives to find out merry tales and beyond-Sea news to feed his ears that feeds them; and these with their Attic dialects do so sleek and smooth him up they live upon, that they make the rich fool half besides himself with an opinion of his singular goodness, and rare virtue; and so continue to blanche his fowl life spent in riot and gaming, and prodigious luxury, till they have made him as poor in his estate at length, as before he was proud in his expense, and such harlotry the young prodigal in the Gospel met with; but such callings are neither lawful for him that lives by them, nor profitable for him that is fed upon, nor honest before God or men. And therefore these voces ad placitum, that were all borne in the Family of Gnatho must take heed lest their merry laughing and lying trade of flattery, though it were always quaestus multo uberimus, since the beginning of the world, when Pride first infected our souls to these later times wherein it is prophesied, that men should be more than ordinary lovers of themselves, and proud, & boasters, be not only in conclusion punished with Severus his smoke, that stifled a Flatterer to death with this derisory motto, Fumo perijt, qui fumos vendidit, but with God's fire to, which will reward it with the same fire it was kindled with, james 3. 6. Others spend their lives in Callings civilly lawful, but such as are neither profitable for the Commonwealth, nor before God just and honest. Such was the Trade of Demetrius the silver-smith, in the 19 of the Acts that made silver shrines for the worship of the goddess Diana, that is, Little temples of silver, in which the image of Diana sat, as it did in the great Temple: and such are all those curious & puppet-dressing trades that serve for nothing else but young Ladies, & Gallants to dress and pride themselves up in the superfluous vanity of over-rich and fashionable apparel, fit indeed for the corruption of the time, but unfit for uncorrupted persons; contrary to the Apostolical Canon, 1. Tim. 2. 9 and the will of God, Zephany 1. 8. And among the crowd of this rank, we may thrust in our idle Pamphleteers, & loose Poets, no better than the Priests of Venus, with the rabble of Stage-players and Balleters, and circumferaneous Fiddlers and Brokers: all which, if they were clean taken out of the world, there would be little miss of them.  
Others bestow their time in Legal, and Callings useful to the Commonwealth, but as they abuse them, neither honest, nor justifiable before God. Such are our Tap-houses, & Gaming Inns, I mean not harbouring and viatory Inns, which questionless, in fit places, and where justice is near at hand, if rightly used, are not only lawful and profitable, but necessary and honest: for to lodge weary Travellers, as Rahab did the Spies of Israel, or to let the poor labouring man to have just allowance of bread and drink for his money can be accounted no other then necessary relief: but for our Tippling Inns in small & untract Hamlets, without which our Country-divels of drunkenness, Blasphemy, Gaming, Lying, and Queaning, could amongst us find no harbour( though perhaps in places of more resort they have credit enough to be entertained in fairer lodgings) they are either the Devil's unclean Warehouses for his spiritual wickednesses to trade in; or in our plain world he hath no traffic at all.  
The last sort of offenders against the virtue of honest Labour, are our Out-of-Calling Gentlemen, who in husbanding their Lands, and overseeing their servants, and governing their families, and in relieving, advising and quieting their neighbours, & in giving good and religious examples themselves, may find employment enough for Gods many talents, he hath trusted them with. But they, never thinking why they came into the world, when they should warm their bodies with wholesome labour, take thought only how they shall boil them in unclean lusts: when they should wash them with the sweat of some honest Calling, they with unwashed and dirty affections, swinishly wallow themselves in unchaste & intemperate vices; making their Lands, given them to set them awork, the maintainers of their idleness; & their bodies, as Seneca speaks of them, Cribra tantum Ciboru● & po●uum: S●●es only to strain meats & drinks through, and their servants, for want of skill, to command them, Lords to dispose all their Lands as they please themselves. Such the Roman Commonwealth was full of, in the declining periods of it, as all the stories tell us: such the pride of Israel nourished just before the captivity of the ten Tribes; Amos the 6. the 4. 5. & 6. verses; such the kingdom of judah unhappily swarmed with, immediately before Jerusalem was set down weeping by the waters of Babylon, jerem. 5. the 7. 8. Such always the body of every Commonwealth( like ill-humours) is surcharged with( for the Divine patience commonly waits for his size, till sin hath filled up her measure) before he giveth it a purge, either by water, as when he baptised the whole world from their lascivious running after strange flesh, or by fire, as when he sent hell out of heaven against Sodom and Gomorrha: or before he lets out the inflamed blood to quench the malignant heat of it, as we see in the Tribe of Benjamin, judg. 20. and after in both the Lands of Israel and judah, in the forementioned Prophets.  
A rugged fellow and unmannerly would our Gallants, I dare say, think him, that with the angry Roman writing in commendation of these country labours, should chide them as he does, to their work, and upbraiding their luxurious pains to wait upon sin, after the vomit of much indignation, tell them, that they would when they had sucked out all health and vital sap from their languished bodies, bring themselves to that pass, ut in iis nihil, mors mutatura videatur: That they had need to be embalmed as well before, as after their deaths: or should with the Taskmasters of Pharaoh say to them as they did to straggling Israel, coasting about to gather straw and stubble for their Egyptian works: Ye are idle, idle are ye, go now therefore and work, Exod. 5. 17. Indeed they would think he knew good fashion, and civil carriage, that would advise them to travel with the Prodigal into some far Country, there to spend riotously all their goods upon Harlots, Luk. 15. 13. or if he would counsel them to live in the City, and frequent Masks and Taverns, & theatres; or if he encouraged them to the sports of hawking and hunting, and if the weather were churlish and lowering, to carding and dicing; or if he would wish them to follow the Court in the delights and revels of it, not in the honourable service and studies of one that means to fit himself for worthy employments and actions, whether in War or Peace. But thou( O man of God) fly these things, & in thy Christian Calling follow after righteousness and holiness, in thy particular vocation exercise thyself in such things as may be not only lawful in the Commonwealth, wherein thou livest, but profitable both to thyself & others, and especially in the sight of God, and his Church, just and honest; so that thou mayst( as it becometh a Noble Christian) both reprove with thy contrary practice the rich and honourable laziness which such Lords of Idleness( that keep their Christmas all the year) count the privilege of their gentility, and delight thyself with Isaac to sow the seeds of thine own labour, for the obtaining of God's blessings. And the God of Peace, if thou water the ground with thine own sweat, shall bless thy labours here a hundred fold, and hereafter shall end thy labours in Rest Eternal.  
Amen.    
ACTS 10. 43. To him give all the Prophet's witness. 

I. The wisest of the heathen, and all creatures are good witnesses.  
WHen the heavens and the earth are so far distant a sunder, who would ever suppose all things on earth should draw to themselves a vital efficacy, and heavenly fertility from those( as the Scripture calls them) kind influences, so far sent, except the whole world were campus dicendi, a large field, wherein every plant with so many sweet flowers of natural eloquence lessoned our reason by sense, and experience to believe it; upon the departure of whose Summer beams, all the fruit again, and comely flowishes of earthly profit, and pleasure, in re-interring themselves eftsoons faint, and die away. But this Annual resurrection of Nature we, therefore see in this world which we should never otherwise have believed, that we might believe that which in this world we shall never see: that God is to receive us, what heaven is to earth. For though he say of himself, Esay, 55. the 9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Yet it pleases him to descend from that height, in the 57 and 13. of the same Prophecy. Thus saith the High and lofty One that inhabits eternity. I dwell in the high and holy Place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the contrite ones. Earth hath no power to move upwards, it is beyond the sphere of her activity: Heaven therefore virtually descends: man hath no power so much as to send a good thought up to God: God therefore bows the heavens, and comes down in two special beams, one of his goodness which shines every 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 therefore called by our Saviour the light of the world.  
Now so diffusive is God of his goodness, and graciously as it were prodigal of his image, although in itself it can be seen in no place, yet he would have no place, where it should not be seen in his works, which are all weak shadows of some bright excellency, that is substantially resplendent in himself. For as the noon-sun, which then makes all things most easily seen, can then least of all be seen itself; and yet lights up innumerable stars in the night season; wherein, as in so many little sparkles of itself, it is visibly, though absent, presented to us: so our understanding in this midnight of things, may see the spiritual Sun of our souls shedding some small starlight of himself in every one of his little images his works, whose unapprocheable light in itself whosoever should hope to attain unto, should certainly never attain unto his hope.  
Thus in his works the wisest of the heathen beheld, and admired, the goodness, and glory, & power of God. The Heavens declare the glory of God, says David, Coelum homini praebet spectaculum says Tully. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works, says David. Terra foeta frugibus eidem fundit nutrimentum says Tully. Thou hast set all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field says David: Bestiae ipsae hominum causa sunt generatae says Tully. He opened the windows of heaven, and reigned down Manna the flower of heaven, and bread of Angels, and feathered fowls, like the sand of the Sea, says David, so that well might the Orator conclude. Neque necessitatibus tantummodo nostris provisum est, usque in delicias amamur.  
It were ambitious but to name the speeches of heathen Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch, and the rest in this Argument, whose mouths tasting, their tongues could not but be singing of this rank and commendable luxury of Nature, which God with his open hand hath poured out every where in his works. Wherein justin Martyr, and diverse of the fathers within the first four centuries have so throughly sweated their studious thoughts, and as it is said of Caesar, stirred up a desire in all, but taken away all hope of commendation from any that should write after them: I will only add to theirs the religious song of Epictetus, whose lamp-shell, whereby he studied was sold after his death( such estimation was there of the worth not of the thing, but of the man) for above 100 Sest●rties, who after he had began many a sentence with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he shuts up his song in these words. If I were a Nightingale( says he) I would sing to the honour of my Maker as a Nightingale does; and how is that? Siquis adest auditor( says Pliny) Lusciniae prius animus, quam cantus deficiet. The Nightingale, if any will give him the hearing, will sing himself sooner out of breath, than out of tunes; But now I am reasonable man, I will sing praises to God with understanding, never cease to praise him, and I would to God( says he) all men would do as I  
But these Sermons which the Creatures preach out of the great book of God's works, though they have wide mouths, and loud voices, and Stentorian like will be hard through the whole Host of heaven; yet they can but show us the outside of God's Temple, and bring us to the Porch door; here they meet with their Hercules pillars, the great veil of heaven, through which our Saviour is entered into the Holy of Holies, keeps them out. They bring God to us, but they cannot bring us to God, they tell us the true God is to be worshipped but how to worship him truly they cannot tell. Besides this natural divinity taught by the creature, if it be seioygnd from the word had, as S. Paul tells us it hath a certain windy and puffing nature in it, to swell & bladder up the soul of the wisest heathen, with a kind of Satanical pride, and self-worthiness. As knowing thereby all things to be made for them, and themselves only for God; and so thinking themselves as it were vulgus deorum, semigods in comparison both of their Creatures, I and other men. But we( right dear beloved in our Lord and Saviour) must have a feeling as well of our own misery, as a knowledge of the Majesty of God, joining our wants to his abundance, and to his goodness our evil. Not like the Heathen of all, whom we may say as Eunapius did of Oribasius, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, They were Larks indeed, and with epictetus, sung sweetly to Heaven: but they were crested Larks, and thought too highly of themselves: believing God to be, but not knowing what, confessing he should be worshipped, but not knowing how. And therefore the Lady of all their Sciences Athens, when she built God an Altar, sacrificed all her offerings upon it only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to the unknown God. But what says our Saviour to this woman of Samaria, that never came up to Jerusalem to learn how to worship. Ye worship ye know not what, we know what we worship. And though, Bias when a Profane 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 he asked about a matter he had nothing to do with: yet let us assure ourselves, that Religion so nearly touches us all, that we must not only know what we worship, as our Saviour says, but as his Apostle tells us, be able and ready to give a reason of our faith, why we thus worship GOD: which that we may do, there is correquisite to the loud voice of God's works, the soft voice of God's word.  
For as we can no way know the mind of another man, except it first open itself, because it is manifest, as Solon's Proverb goes, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, words are the only pictures of thoughts: so much less can any man ascend up to the mind of God, except he climb to it by his word, which it therefore standeth with God's honour to reveal; because he is no less gracious than just, and his justice exacting of us the duty of Worship, his Grace will not but give us a possibility to know how to perform our duties. And thus far the whole world of understanding men have gone, the very Heathen themselves. But in this question lies all the sweat of religious quarrels.   

II. How we should infallibly find out the true Word of God, which may lead us to the knowledge of him, ourselves, and our supreme happiness.  
Here the way breaks into four paths in the search of this perfect witness of God, his Word and Truth. In the first and broadest walks, the heathen Idolater. For divide the World into thirty parts, and he takes up( as is observed by a judicious Mathematician) ninteen of them: but we must understand his Observation 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 Mahometan, who dispreads himself into six parts of the thirty. In the third, the straggling jew wanders, who is discoasted into the bounds of all the rest. And the Christian impaths himself in the last, and least, and narrowest tract, holding but the proportion of five parts in the thirty parts.  
The Heathen anciently mistook the Oracles of the Devil himself for the word of God, and in a manner is blinded in that error to this very day, either by the illusion of Satan himself, or the collusion of his Priests. The Mahometan embraces the Alcoron for the undoubted word of God, and esteemeth that of Divine and oracular authority. The jews retain still the ancient word of God, but they all reject the New, and are therefore called by the Fathers Archiva Christianorum, The old Records of the Christians being differenced among themselves into three Sects; the first whereof are called Charraim, and allow all, and only the old Testament. The second sew to the Bible all their fabulous Talmud, & make that of Scripture-authority, and are therefore called the Talmudists. The third defalk as much from God's word, as the second crowded to it, & leave only the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses for self-credible, named by the rest Samaritans.  
Neither can the little flock of Christ, the Catholic Church, now professant in the world, go peaceably in their narrow path together, but with abraham's and Lot's Herdsmen, or Jacob's brethren, they will wrangling and scolding as they go: being dissundered into thirteen small, or five main different sects. Protestants, Latins, Grecians, Nestorians, jacobites: whereof most of them darken that word of God that should enlighten themselves, by carrying the Sun in a cloud, & reading the Scripture in an unknown tongue, either of Latin, Greek or Syriac, and so traducing all the authority of God's Word from itself to the golden and empty Title, of The Church. As the Latins, Nestorians, Indians, jacobites, the Cophtis, and the Mannites. Some of these again spanging out of the Canon of the New Testament, all the Revelation of S. john, the Epistle of S. jude, the second Epistle of S. Peter, the second and third Epistles of S. john: others farsing into the Canonical writings, Apocryphal and unknown Authors, the Gospel of Nicodemus, etc. with a world of rotten and unwritten Traditions. To omit the populous Churches at this day of the Nestorians and jacobites, who commit the like error concerning the Living word, as they do about the written; the first dividing Christ into two Persons by a separation; the second confounding him into one Nature by the Adunation of his Humanity, and divinity.  
Now all these selfe-arrogating to themselves the word of God, either by oracular Revelation, as the Heathen or written Tradition, as the Mahometan, jew, and Christian, how in such a world of open War, and civil mutiny about GOD'S Word, should blind souls( such as we all come into the World with) be ever able to centre themselves immoveably in the Divine Truth of God, and not be carried about with some one wind or other of these erroneous doctrines?  
Give me leave with the mighty Angel, that held open in his hand the little book of Prophecies, Reuel. 10. to swear by him that liveth for ever, and ever. Either the means how to effect this is here set down. To him give all the Prophet's witness, or there is none in the earth, or under heaven. For as in itself the least tittle of God's word is more firmly pillared, and less passable, than the whole fabric of heaven and earth. Heaven and earth shall pass, etc. So to us this certainty can no way be more infallibly evident, then by the Prophecies, that are storied in it. And as the Prophecies are the greatest argument of all the rest: so this is the greatest of all the rest of the Prophecies to argue by. For here both God's words are met together. The dead word hath met with the living, the old Testament kisses the New, & either to other, one by foretelling, the other by fulfilling give mutual witness of their irrepugnable Truths. Since therefore there is so great unity in the words, and the Prophets are all joined in one witness, & Christ to whom they witness is undivided, I industriously spare to make any division either of the words, or among the Prophets. Only I will set this one truth in the Light. That Christ is the Centre to whom all of them standing round about him as a compassing cloud of witnesses, draw all the lines of their Prophecies, & then briefly gather such Instructions as shall be thence deducible.  
We might see this golden circle of all the Prophets geaphically described by the last of the Prophets himself, Reuel. 4. and 5. chapters, where in the midst of 4. Beasts, and 24. Elders, a glorious Lamb standeth, and sends forth the 7. Spirits of God into all the Earth. That Christ is the Lamb himself the Passeover of the jews will tell us. And that the four Evangelists are the four beasts, their even number; and their standing nearest the Throne; as waiting immediately on the Lamb of God our Saviour, and the strict keeping of decorum, in figuring them like beasts, such as the Lamb himself is, sufficiently proves. And doubtless the 24. Elders can be no other than the 24. Prophets of the Old Testament, both because they are called Elders; being more ancient than the four Evangelists, and stand in a greater distance, & farther off from Christ, their number being just the very same as S. Hierome observes: And because as themselves sing to their golden Harps, the Lamb had made them Kings in matters of Life, & Priests in Points of Doctrine to rule the Earth, having before redeemed them to God by his blood, which is not appliable to the steadfast Angels, but only to such who had been young sinners, before they became saintly Elders. And to conclude, the seven spirits sent forth into all the Earth, must needs be the seven gifts of God's Spirit, precisely set down by S. Paul, 1. Cor. 12. 28. Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, Miracles, Gifts of healing, Helps in government, Diversities of tongues, which are therefore named by Saint john in the very same place seven Lamps, and the seven horns and eyes of the Lamb; because by them Christ gives Light to his Church, and exerciseth a visible power in all the Earth.  
And here we see all our Saviour's witnesses are met together. The twenty four Prophets hold out the first Lights to discover the Lamb of God, & lest they should be obscure, the Evangelists sets the truth of the story by the words of their Prophecy; and that Christ's Church may see this truth, Christ sends out into the whole earth, these seven gifts of his Spirit, as Lamps to give Light both to his Prophets and Apostles: So that if any Spirit of Antichrist obtrude upon the Catholic Church any other witnesses, or blind Light of government, & interpretation besides these, or think that Christ sent his seven 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 up this general shadow of the Prophets,( which I have unawares unfolded beyond my first purpose) and to open the particular substance of their several Prophecies, we shall find them all so signally point at our Saviour, that if Moses veil were not taken from his face, and laid upon their hearts, if they did not by a wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the old Prophecies set the last coming of our Saviour in glory before his first in humility, that so they might grow proud by him, who would first learn them to be humble, Learn of me for I am humble, they could not but now at length see him to be the Glory of Israel, who hath been so long a time already the Light of the Gentiles, all the Circumstances of his Birth; the Miracles, Offices, Doctrine, and Humility of his life; the causes, manner, and other concurrences of his death; the Place of his burial, and the assurance of his rising again, being so clearly praeassigned by their own former Prophets, living so long before. Let us therefore diligently search into   

III. The several Prophecies concerning the Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection of the Saviour of the world.  
FIrst, that his Mother should be a Virgin, was foretold, Isay 7. 14. and we shall find it Mat. 1. 18. fulfilled. Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, which the jews most sillily translate a young woman, as Trypho the jew in his disputation with justin Martyr, and Aquila and Theodotion, both jewish Proselytes in their Translations. But as justin replies, it were no wonder for a young woman to conceive, whereas the Prophet speaks of it as a wonder. Behold, the Lord himself will give you a sign, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as your ancient Septuagint, saith the Father, reads it, and not as your idle Rabbis newly translate it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Behold, a young woman shall conceive, making that a very strange wonder, than which nothing is more common and usual. Besides, to speak in grammar property, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alma signifieth neither a Virgin simply, nor yet a young woman, but one between both, a Virgin already espoused, but not married, such as Mary was to joseph, such as Rebecca was to Isaac, when she veiled her face at his sight, Gen. 24. 65. and is therefore derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to veil or hide. This being the maiden ceremony of the old world, for Virgins after they had once made choice of their husband, to cover their faces, & to be Nuptae, before they were Maritae, veiled from all other before they married their own man. The husbands being to become the veil of her eyes, as Abimelech speaketh of Abraham to Sarah, Behold he is the veil of thine eyes. And this was Gods own Argument, to prove our Saviour his Son the Messias, Gen. 3. 15. jer. 31. 22. and in the place now cited.  
And as the person of his Mother, so the person of his Messenger was as disertly foretell by the Prophets, Esay 40. 3. Malach the 3. & 4. chapters, and fulfilled by john the Baptist, Luke the 4. who is therefore called Eliah, not because he was to be person aeliter, but only personate, being to come in the spirit of Eliah, and in the manner of his life. Eliah fasted often, so did john; Eliah was girt with a leather girdle, so was john; Eliah spoke all his Prophecy, writ none, so did john; Eliah reproved the people openly to their faces, so did john; Eliah was sent to renew the worship of God, then defaced and changed, so was john; Eliah told Ahab and jesabel of their faults plainly, so did john Herod and Herodias; painted jesabel sought Eliahs' life to slay him: dancing Herodias sought and obtained the life of john, and slew him. So that in his place and apparel, in his manners and Prophecies, in the prosecution of his life, and persecution at his death, john, though he were not Eliahs' person, yet did throughly personate Eliah. And this was john's crying Argument, to prove our Saviour the Messias, The voice of a Crier in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, saith Esay; Who art thou say the jews to john? The voice of a Crier in the Wilderness, prepare ye the ways of the Lord, saith john to the jews.  
But our Saviour as he had two Natures, so he had two Messengers. john was a burning & shining Light on Earth, but the Star burned, & shined to give him Light from Heaven. A Star shall come out of jacob, saith Balaam, Num. 24. 17. Where is the King of the jews. says the Wise men, for we have seen his star, & are come to worship him, Mat. 2. 2. And this is the heathen man's argument, that so much troubled Herod, and all Jerusalem with him.  
Now if we search diligently, either the time when this star first appeared, or the place whether it led the Wise men after it had brought them out of their own Country; was it not in the time of the first Herod, Luke 3. 1. when the Sceptre was departed from judah? Gen. 49. 10. And the Land was forsaken of both her Kings, Esay 7. 16. And this was old Jacob's argument to prove judah's son the Messias. The Sceptre shall not depart from judah, till Shiloh, that is, his Son 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 Matthew interpreted by the chief Priests and Scribes, and people, all gathered together at the command of Herod to this very purpose, who making this null, Where Christ should be borne? received this answer: In Bethleem of judah. And thou Bethleem art not the least among the Princes of judah: for out of thee shall come the Governor that shall rule my people Israel. And this was the Argument of all our Saviour's enemies met together against him: Herod's, the chief Priests, the Scribes and the People's to prove him the Messias.  
We might now take our Saviour out of the Cradle of his birth, and look upon him in the Miracles, Offices, Doctrine and Humanity of his Life: all which we shall find curiously foretold by Moses, David, Esay, Zachary, and witnessed not only by the mouths of Children and Wise men; but forcibly arrested by the People's & pilate's, and the voice of the very Devils themselves, crying, We know thee what thou art, even the Holy one of God: but because the great Rock of Scandal whereat both the obstinate jew stumbleth, and the wise Grecian of the world esteemeth folly, is the ignominy of the Cross, the one looking for the glory of a Crown, and therefore hating the shame of the Cross, and the other knowing God to be impassable, and therefore mocking the Christians God by calling him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Crucified God: let us see whether our Saviour may not say to these two Naturals, what he sometimes said to his own disciples travelling to Emaus, who at that time were just opinioned in every point like unto. For first, they dreamed of a temporal Redemption. Secondly, when they saw our Saviour condemned and crucified, they concluded, it could not be he that should redeem Israel. Thirdly, they talked of Christ, as of one dead & crucified, when he walked into the midst of them: and when he talked to them out of his word, their eyes were held( as these men's are) that they know him not. And therefore well may our Saviour now say to these as he did then to them. O fools and slow of heart, to believe all that the Prophets have 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 typical blood of our Saviour in his Paschall Lamb, and in all his bloody Sacrifices) & go through all the Prophets, we shall find none more punctually leveled at him, or more closely touching him to the quick, than those of his Passion.  
If GOD be to smite him, Zachary will foretell it, Awake, O Sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts, Zachar. 13. 7. If at this first blow of God, his Disciples prove all fugitives, the same Prophet in the same place foretells it. Smite the Shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. And this was our Saviour's own argument to prove himself the true Shepherd, and them his little, and fearful flock. If the jewish people and the heathen Soldiers, if the Kings of the earth, & the rulers of the jewish Synagogue gather themselves together against him, as at his death they did, and for many years after: David will not conceal it: Why did the Heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The Kings of the earth stood up, and the Rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. And this was the argument of the whole Primitive Church met together in Prayer. Acts. 4. 27. If we would know who should betray him, David tells us. He that eats bread with me. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to judas Iscariot. Says the beloved disciple joh. 13. 26. And this was judas his venturous Argument to prove our Saviour the Son of God, and himself the son of perdition. If we would know the price of his treason Zachary sets it down. They weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them to the Potter in the house of the Lord: Zach. 11. 13.  
If the time of death be doubted David will foretell us, in the 9 Chapter and 5. last verses of his Prophecy, where he reckons 70. weeks( every week standing for a Sabbaoth of years, a day for a year, which makes in all 490. years a short kind of Arithmetic usual in the Scripture.) to be determined before the cutting off of the Messias. 7 weeks whereof, that is 49. years, were to be accomplished before the building of the Temple. And 62. weeks that is 434. years before the Anointing of the most holy, which time was ended, when the heavens broke open themselves, and the Spirit of God came riding out upon the wings of a Dove, whose wings were silver, and his feathers flamed with pure gold, to anoint him to his prophetical office with the oil of gladness above all his Fellows, which holy unction St. Peter mentions in this very Sermon of his. Acts 10. 38. Now the remainent week, that contains 7. years more in the midst of which, that is after 3. years and a half the Messias by the Sacrifice, and oblation of himself was to make all other Sacrifices and Oblations to cease, we shall find exactly fulfilled in the preaching of our Saviour, who after he had preached 3. years and a half offered himself upon the Altar of his Cross. And this was the Angel Gabriels' most accurate Argument to Daniel to prove our Saviour the Messias, who here before the time, was the Prophet of his death, and the messenger of his Birth in the fullness of time after, and therefore could best acquaint us with them both.  
But if we would see the whole passion of our Lord most exquisitely drawn with the lines of his own blood, let us but join David, and Esay, and Zachary together, & you shall have it expressed with as much as death can be. If a crown of thorns tear his hair, and his whole visage should be shamefully dishonoured with his own blood, and the people's spittle, if his back should be beaten with stripes, and his cheeks buffeted, Esay will set him before our eyes in this very form, in his fifty and two and fifty Chapters. His visage shall be more deformed than any man's( says the Prophets) his form more than the Sons of men: I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked of the hair, I hid not my face from shame, and spitting.  
If his whole body should be racked, and tentered with the violent descension of every part of it upon the Cross, so that his bones should be disjointed, and might all be told: if his hands, & feet were to be nailed to it: if the people that passed by should wag their heads at him, and the Priests should mock him and say he trusted in God let him deliver him, if he will have him; if the Soldiers should cast lots for his Garments, and the standers by should give them vinegar to drink, all this will David most heavily sing in the 22. and threescore and ninth Psa. All my bones are out of joint, they pierced my hands, and my feet, I may tell all my bones. They that pass by shake their heads at me saying. He trusted in God, let him deliver him if he will have him. I was a thirst, and they gave me vinegar to drink, they parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.  
If he suffer among thieves Esay tells us He was numbered among the wicked. Esay. 53. If he pray for his enemies, Father forgive them, He prayed for the transgressors says the same verse: If they pierce his side with a spear. They shall see me whom they have pierced says our Saviour by Zachary, in the 12. Chapter and the 10. verse of his Prophecy: If all this storm fell from heaven upon him for th'iniquity of God's people, and to save us from death, Esay precisely says as much in the fore mentioned chap. For the transgression of my people was he smitten, the Lord hath laid upon him th'iniquity of us all. And this was Caiphas the High-priests blind argument to prove our Saviour the Messias. It is expedient that one man should dye for the people. john. 11. 50.  
In a word his Burial in the grave of rich joseph is foretold by Isay 53. He shall make his grave with the rich, and his Resurrection by David Psal. 16. 10. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy one to see corruption. For God before had made his soul an offering for sin, as Esay tells us 53. 10. And this was the great argument of the two great Apostles, wherewith they converted both jew and Gentil to the faith of Christ Acts. 2. and 13. Chapters, 800. at two sermons.  
I will not add to these Divine Attestations, the prophetical Acrostique of Sebyd Erythcaea cited by Constantin in his oration which he entitled ad Caetu●● sanctorum, the 18. Chapter, and translated as he says by Tully, before our Saviour was borne. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who I doubt not not but might Prophesy of Christ, as Balaam did: Nor the Egyptian cross which among their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine Hieroglyphics signified Salvation, as the heathen themselves confessed, out of Socrates in the 5. book of his Ecclesiastical story, the 17. Chapter. Nor th'illustrious report of josephus, in th' 18. of his Antiquities both of our Saviour, and john the Baptist, which the jews ignorantly slander as inserted by the Christians, mistaking this josephus, the son Matathias who writ in Greek, for another josephus of theirs, who writ in Hebrew, the son of Gorion, in whom indeed there is no such report. Nor the witty, but not so weighty Arguments of some of the Fathers. As of justin Martyr, who would needs persuade Trypho, and his two fellows, that the holding of Moses Arms in the figure of a cross, and the spitting of the Paschalll Lamb with the two shoulders passant prefigured the crucifying of our Lord: or of Irenaeus speaking of the incredulous jew, who should see our Saviour, the life of the world, hang before his eyes, and yet obstinate his heart in unbelief, out of the eight and twenty of Deut. Et erit vica ●ua pendens ante oculos tuos, & non credes vitae tuae. lib. 4. adversus Haereses cap. 23.  
But if any would lay the foundation of his faith wider, and hope to himself more Arguments to ground his belief upon: Let him but advisedly think with himself how it became the Saviour of the world to live, and what other witnesses to bear him testimony of him: and then let him add to the prophecies of his death, the innocence of his life. For never any man lived as he lived, which of you( says our Saviour as to all our enemies) can accuse me of sin: And to the innocence of his life the Authority of his Doctrine. Never man spoke as this man does, say the emissary scouts sent to apprehend him. And to the Authority of his Doctrine the power of his miracles: We never saw such things in Israel, say all the people, and to the miracles that he wrought the miseries that he suffered, Behold and see if there were ever grief like my grief, may our Saviour truly say of himself: And to the miseries that he suffered himself, the constancy of his Apostles, and Primitive Martyrs that suffered for him. Who, who ever had such witnesses, as to kindle other men into the same faith with them, would set themselves on a light fire of zeal, till they were consumed for the honour of their Lord? So that the first Imperious Persecutor of the Christians Nero▪ that in humane lump of cruelty, whom Nature for haste might seem only to have curdled up into a knot of blood, guest not much amiss when anointing their bodies of the Christians he set them burning in every street of Rome, like so many Torches, to give light to the City as Tacitus reports in the 15. of his Annals. For they gave light indeed, not for awhile only to that heathenish City, but to the whole Christian world for ever after. Never was there day kindled with half so many beams, as that night was, sure never was there night, though all the Stars in Heaven should flame out in it, to make it glorious, that shone half so brightly as did this when to meet their Bridegroom in the first watch, and morning of their Gospel, so many early Virgins had lighted their Lamps.  
And to these living Martyrs, let him add two dead witnesses, the voice of the Son from heaven at his expiration, when the whole world lost the day at Noon; & the voice of the Earth at his Resurrection, when her mouth opened, and let abroad so many Saintly bodies, that awakened, and leapt out of their graves to tell it in jerusalem, that Christ was risen. O the Divine virtue of this celestical body! If it die, heaven that enlightens all, extinguishes itself; if it revive, the dead work of the Grave, that receives the dying, excludes the living, and like the barren womb of Sarah is alust to bring forth the Children of promise, in testimony of the secret influence of life it felt, after Christ had lain with her. And thus it became the Saviour of the world to live, thus to be borne, thus to die again; these witnesses became him, & these Miracles. And therefore give me leave to use, first   

FOUR A free Reprehension of all fashionable aggrippa's in faith; and farther motives to win them to become through believers.  
AFter the voice of so many Prophecies, & witnesses, art thou yet an Infidel? O that there were not in Christ's militant Church, as there were in Othoes military Camp, so many men, so few Soldiers, so many professors, so few Christians. Let me but ask thee as St. Paul did Agrippa, Believest thou the Prophets? and I would I could say as he does. I know thou believest; but I fear I may better say, as the Prophecy itself speaks, Who hath believed our report? And what might the reason be of so much infidelity among so many believers of us; that so many with the Roman Soldiers should kneel down to Christ, and by an open profession of their mouths say to him Hail King of the jews with the smooth voice of jacob, and yet with their practice, and rough hands of Esau smite him on the head, & face, and crucify him?  
Is it not because they live neither as just men by Faith, nor as wisemen, by reason, but wholly by sense? so ignorant are they, & like bruit Beasts before God, believing only what they see, & quae sunt ante pedes, as the Orator speaks, what they must needs stumble upon with their eyes, and no more? Well: hast thou both thine eyes out of Faith, and Reason? give me thy hand( O thou reasonable Beast) and follow me with that one blind eye of Sense, that thou hast left thee. Thou wilt not believe in Christ because thou didst not see the former Prophecies foretell of him, fulfilled by him. That thou mayest see then, what thou shouldest believe now, believe those Prophecies which are yet to be seen.  
Thou sawest not perhaps, the coming of Christ in humility foretold by the foregoing Prophet; but that which was foretold by his following Apostles, thou mayst yet see●, the coming of Antichrist in pride. Thou couldst not see jerusalem destroy the Temple of Christ's Body foretold by the former Prophets, but our Saviour himself Prophesied of the destruction of jerusalem, and that is yet to be seen. Thine eyes cannot behold the spiritual Kingdom of Christ, because it is of another world, and beyond thy eye sight; but the power of this Kingdom, which was to break in pieces the former great Monarchies of the world, and itself to remain unshaken for ever, Prophesied twice by Daniel in his 2. and 7. Chapters, if thou wilt but open thine eyes, thou canst not but behold. The Divine image of the invisible God dwelling bodily in the humane Nature of our Saviour prophesied in Esays Immanuel is to divinely subtle for his owls eyes to look upon: but it is visibly to be seen by thee, that the false image of the heathen, like Dagons' Idol before the Ark, are fallen down, and by the power of Christ's Kingdom beaten to the ground, Prophesied in the second of Esay, and David, and divers of the Prophets. How the Kings of the earth, and the Rulers banded themselves together against the Lord, and against his Christ, to extinguish his Church in the very Cradle of it, Prophesied by David, 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 Nursing Fathers & Queens the Nursing Mothers of his Church Prophesied by Esay. Es. 49. 23. Thou seest not the whole world jew and Gentil forget themselves, and rebel against the Lord, denying his Kingdom, or to be governed by him: We have no King but Caesar: But thou seest now the Kingdom is the Lords, and he is the Governor among the Nations, and that all the ends of the earth hath remembered themselves, & turned unto the Lord, Prophesied by David Psa. 22. 27. Briefly thou seest not the Resurrection of our Saviour in glory among the jews Prophesied by David; but thou seest that which was immediately to follow among the Gentiles, the Resurrection of grace, foretold by all the Prophets. Neither canst thou see now the jews crying crucify him, crucify him. But thou mayst yet see that which instantly follows, His blood be upon us, and upon our Children.  
Since therefore thou hast lying before thine eyes, by the power of Christ's kingdom, the 4. great monarchs of the world broken in pieces, by the divine Image of God, the false images of Heathen beaten down, the destruction of that city that destroyed him, and the dispersion of that People that scattered his; the rebellious Gentiles his servants, and the persecuting Kings his Subjects, if thou wilt not be among those whom our Saviour blesses, Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed, be at least one of Saint Thomas his Disciples, use thine eyes as he did his fingers, and be not faithless, but believe,  
For I will not fear to say that the certainty of our faith arising from the Prophecies, is more powerable to persuade, than if it were by an ocular demonstration, now before our eyes miraculously confirmed, then if one should rise from the dead to instruct us, then if GOD himself should descend, & speak to us from heaven. A great audacity of speech will some say: I, and a proud hyperbole of Truth, but such as the Scripture uses, They have Moses and the Prophets( says Abraham) let them hear them. And though such purple-habited, and high-dieted Epicures as are already in the state of the damned, though they live in the world among us, foolishly suppose, that of one should rise and come to them from the dead, they should presently believe yet the Father of the faithful who knew better how faith was begotten, tells us plainly; if they will not hear Moses, and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.  
And what says Saint Peter, who himself heard the voice of God immediately, and gloriously speaking to him from heaven? This is my Well-beloved Son, hear him. We have ( says he) a more sure word of Prophecy, whereunto you do well, that ye take heed, 2. Pet. 1. 19  
And is it possible any word in the earth should be more certain, than word of God immediately speaking to him from heaven? Certes, not in regard of the substance of the thing delivered. For so both the word of God immediately framed by himself, & spoken from heaven, or uttered by the mouth of his Prophet, is all one, and hath the very same identical certainty: but both in regard of the manner of delivery, the Prophecies are more sure, because they are larger, and more copiously expositive of themselves, in case of doubts emergent, God speaking but awhile by a voice immediately framed by himself, but speaking by his Prophets from the beginning of the world to the end of it, which are therefore interpretative of themselves: and specially in regard of us, Because the voice of God immediately speaking from heaven to us, is more astonishing and less instructive than otherwise it would be. So we see the Children of Israel, when God spoke from heaven to them, Exodus 20. 18. 19 shaken into such an Ague of fear and trembling( as Moses himself was, Heb. 12. 21.) that they started back, and stood a far off, and cried to Moses. O let not God speak any more unto us, lest we die. Which natural fear God does not only pardon, but approve, and therefore stooping to their nature, and laying aside his own Majesty, we shall see in the 18. of Deuter. 16. verse, what he says to them, and by whose mouth he promises to speak to us. According to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the Assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my GOD, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, they have well spoken in all that they have said, I will raise them up a Prophet from among their Brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, him shall they hear, etc. Thus when the Greeks came to see our Saviour, john 12. 21. and God gave a majestical witness to him from heaven: they were all so harrowed with sudden amaze and affright, that some thought it thundered; others, that an Angel spoke from heaven to him: but what was said, none of them all knew. And thus our Apostle here himself was for the time that GOD spoke in Mount Tabor, struck half beside his understanding with fear and astonishment. Matth, 17. 6. and talked himself he knew not what. Luke 9 33.  
We see therefore, how strongly the Rock of our salvation, Christ the Cornerstone is laid by the Prophets, in the Church of God, and how mightily Christ upholds the Scriptures, that are built upon him: one by foretelling, the other, by fulfilling, the written word how the living should be borne, and live, and die, should be buried, and raised, and the Living word, by so entering the womb, and his grave, so living, dying, & rising, as was written: so that if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to those only, whose minds are blinded by the God of this world, as the Apostle speaks. But as our Christian Faith is much dishonoured by a company of rude and unsettled Professors; so it is utterly 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 just Invective against all false, blind, and dumb Prophets, who are indeed no true Witnesses of the Lord.  
LEt the jesuit now, the Sophister of Christianity, call to us to beg light and sufficiency, and auritie to God's word from their Roman Church, tell us, tell us that we must run to Rome, to their Spiritual Man to interpret the Scriptures, who commonly understands not the Tongues they were writ in: Let their Apostolical Cha●re vaunt itself, it cannot fall from the Faith, because the two noble Apostles, S. Peter, and S. Paul, sat in it by their doctrine, ymbrightened it by their example, and with their own bloods baptised it. Alas! did not our Saviour himself sow Jerusalem with his doctrine, grace it with his Miracles, shine upon it with the light of his univitable example, water it with the shower( the best shower that ever fell from heaven) of his own blood: And yet is not that Vineyard become a wilderness? hath it not loss with the leaves the fruit, with the power of Religion, the profession of it? And is it possible that God's word should be dark itself that gives light to the simple? insufficient, and unperfect in itself, that makes perfect the Man of God? that God's word should beg authorities from man's! and such a man's, who is either the man of Sin, or the Beast drunk with the blood of the Saints, and Martyrs of jesus? from such a beastly, and sinful man's word: That he should be the sole and Infallible Interpreter of God's word, and his divine Law, in whose chair-sentence all our thoughts must acquit themselves, who by his dispensatory court of Faculties, is the daily Chancellor of it, and is therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 styled by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the lawless Man? Who can make Apocryphal Authors Canonical; Humane Traditions of Divine Authority: disannulling in Princes holy Marriages, and making Legitimate amongst them incestuous Contracts: Injoining his Friars unlawful chastity, forbidding his Seculars holy Wedlock, commending in his Cardinal's royal excessive pride, commanding in his votaries abject humility; counseling in his jesuits, blind, and sinful obedience, countenancing in foreign Subjects secret and Sainctly Rebellion: creating here among us a Religious murder, and meritorious treason, and making the bulletting of a whole Commonwealth up into the air at a shot, an Action not only undiscoverable, and to be sealed up under the holy Signet of Confession, but canonising the father of the Action for a most heavenly and venerable saint. All which to the word of GOD are most repugnant, and gladiatory.  
Is this the man upon whose lip of knowledge they would have us and all the Prophets hang? to kiss whose toes, and commit idolatry, with the golden Cross upon his Pantofle, they would have us fly over the seas?  
Well, when we hear say, he is better able to make good his Interpretations by the Lights of Art, & help of Tongues, and authority of Scriptures, rightly inferred from the Collation of places, the significancy of phrases, the light of circumstances, the Aim of the words, and the Analogy of Faith, and hath joined to all these a sincere love of the Truth, without any siding, and partaking for gainful and honourable respects, and an unwearied search for it without prae-iudicating affections( all which together make up, not an infallible, but the least fallible Interpreter) we will then think, whether it be fit to put out all these Lights in other men, through the whole Church of GOD, and with the loss of our Christian liberty, to embodage ourselves to his Roman Chair.  
It is best therefore to keep on this side the seas, from the false and whorish Prophet of Babylon, that bears only false witness to Christ, and to consider those Ecclesiastical home-drones of our own, which hive themselves under the shadow of our Church( the wicked thief money, that silver dropsy, that now reigns in unconscionable Patrons, making way for them) & so bear indeed, either no witness to Christ at all, or but very slight, and rash witness.  
It was Eliahs' speech from God to Ahab. Hast thou slain, and also taken possession; and it may well be his Churches to either of theirs. Hast thou taken possession, and wilt thou slay also? not the body once, but for ever the souls, of innocent men. Let no man quarrel with me, as Ahab did with Eliah. Hast thou found me O mine Enemy? If he do, I must borrow Saint Paul's answer: Am I thine enemy, because I tell thee the Truth? No( I speak not out of rash, but charitable zeal) thou art thine own Enemy, thou art God's Enemy, thou art the enemy of his Church. For if thou didst love him, thou wouldst feed his flock, feed his Sheep, feed his Lambs. If thou didst love his Church, thou wouldst show thy love by thy obedience to it. Who enjoins every one eleven months residence upon his cure, and grants him but one months' absence, whereas it is a venture, but without long search you may find one that absents himself eleven months, and is resident but once a year, and that is perhaps at harvest, or peradventure at Easter, when his own, and not so much the Church's profit calls him to his benefit, not his Benefice. He would being resident preach every Sunday, as she commands him, in her 45. Cannon. He would labour to convince Heretics,( which now in his absence grows upon her) or see them at least censured as she bids him in her 65. and 66. Canons. He would keep the sound in safety, and visit the sick, as she directs him in her 67. Canon. Thus he would do, and not laugh at them that did thus, and would have him do so, as men more precise, than wise, of more heat than discretion. I am not so intemperate, as to rage against all Nonresidency, which in case of insufficiency of one Living, or public, and necessary employment, either in Universities, or Court, must needs be allowable: but either our Church itself is precise, that bids him do thus: or he that does the contrary without any overbalancing reason, proves himself a Bastard, and none of her Children.  
A double wound it is our church receives from these men. For as themselves have not the grace to correct their own sin, so they have commonly in their rooms certain under-curats, so grossly ignorant, as not to know theirs. They that know nothing themselues, are set by these to teach others, of whom we cannot say, dies diei, but nox nocti indicat scientiam. One night teaches another, a blind Prophet, a blind People: yet I have seen some of these not only stand high upon their bare and solitary honesty; but peremptorily censured grave and worthy Ministers, as Demosthenes an Arrian, the Cook of Valens, the Emperor's kitchen did Saint Ambrose, as men, not throughly gifted for their place, which reproach Saint Ambrose smiling, put up and off with this merry answer. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. I have met with to day a barbarous Demosthenes: but to the common virtues of a Christian upright feet, and honest hands, it were good these men would add the tongue of the learned Esay chap. 50. v. 4. else the Greek Epigram will find fault with their sermons, and tell them, sound hands and feet will not excuse lame heads and cracked brains. 
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〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   
I do not deny but that God is able to perfect his power in these men's weakness: For it is not impossible for our spiritual Samson( as he overcame his enemies, and was refreshed with a jaw of the silly beast) so to make the waters of Life spring between the teeth of these simple creatures: but these unsent Runners might do well to content themselues with one Cure, and not to be too busy in trudging between many, as some of them are( for to be so officious must needs prove offensive to the church, till they know better how to apply more seasonably, than yet they can, the sacred word of God to the precious souls of their Hearers; and to set those Apples of silver into these pictures of gold.  
Neither do I deny but that such trading Preachers may find work enough for their mouths, by making other men's labours run through them. But this is to get their Living by the sweat of other men, & to wipe it off to their own brows. And if we should see a rude Carter offer to play upon the instrument of a fine-fingered and dactrical Musician( suppose one of these Tradesmen, upon the golden Harp of the sweet Singer of Israel) who could but laugh at him, and say, as the Greek Proverb goes, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asinus ad lyram. But such derisory reproofs are too mild for such tails of jeroboam, more fit indeed to make Priests for Baal, them Prophets for God, who intrude themselves into the Ministry for mere necessity, and therefore may say indeed with St. Paul, A necessity is laid upon me. But whereas the Apostle proceeds, And woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel. How much better may they say to themselves, and woe unto me, if I preach the Gospel.  
And lest we should fear to speak against such vagabond Shepherds as are not able to feed the flocks, they are fed by, Prophesy against them( says the Lord) woe to the Shepherds that feed themselves: that is their end; but God's end in appointing Shepherds follows. Should not the shepherd's seed the flocks? Nay, what can they expect, but the double woe of jeremy and Ezekiel: woe, wo to the Shepherds that destroy and scatter my sheep. But as these blind Guides are most insensible of their own maladies, because ignorance is a disease( as the Greek Tragedian calls it) that never pains a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: so it is no less than a miracle to a man of understanding, to see the great zeal and little knowledge, some well, but weak minded people use, to defend these Tradesmen with: Was not our Saviour, say they, a Carpenter, Mark 6. 3. before he was sent to preach? S. Peter a Fisherman, Matthew a Publican, S. Paul a Tentmaker? True indeed; but our Saviour ventured not himself to preach, before the Spirit of GOD sent him, Luk. 4. 18. and laid a most district charge upon his Apostles, to tarry at Jerusalem, till by the commission of the Holy Ghost, they should be endued with power from on high, Luk. 24. 49. But these men, as they cannot arrogate the ordinary means to make their Calling justifiable: so I suppose no man ever saw the Spirit of God descending upon them, and fitting them with extraordinary and infused gifts of knowledge.  
Christ, indeed was a Carpenter, but to build heaven 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 foreskins, but their hearts, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as an ancient Father, alluding to the fifth and second of josua, where the Israelites were circumcised with knives of stone, most elogantly speaketh of him. Matthew was a Publican, but to gather the precious souls of men into the Heavenly Treasury of the King of Kings. Saint Paul was a Tentmaker, but to persuade japhet to dwell in the Tents of Sem, and to spread Christ's Tabernacle all the world over among the Gentiles. But in the great day of their Reckoning, when the Disciples of our Lord shall bring in their Accounts, and S. Paul shall say, I have gathered to the faith, all the Riches of the Gentiles; and S. Thomas, I have gained all the treasures of India; and S. Peter, I have gathered the dispersions of judah: What shall these hirelings say, but we in our little flocks have scattered so many, and we have destroyed so many, and we have wasted & preyed upon & devoured so many. And therefore as the feet of these wise Stewards shall shine like the Stars of heaven for brightness; so these had need to take heed lest their heads, for the clouds of ignorance they are wrapped up in, meet not with Marcellus his fate, apud inferos. Cui non atra caput tristi circum volat umbra.  
Pardon me( right dearly beloved in our Lord and Saviour) if when Thorns & Thistles grow upon God's Altar, as the Prophet Hosea speaks, I am forced to use a little fire of Zeal to consume them. I am sorry there is such a necessity still for God's spirit to descend in fiery Tongues. O that it might always fly down with the wings of a Dove from heaven upon us. But as long as common Customs lawfully rob the Church's Treasure, and commit open sacrilege every day more than other upon Melchisedcks Tithes, the Patrimony of Christ; insomuch, as it is verily thought, the Church within these threescore years, by concealments, encroachments, and customary thefts, hath been spoilt of no less than 40000. yearly. What hope can there be of sufficiency of the Prophets, when the insufficiency of their means will not afford it? when one Subject into whose coffers 20000 pounds: when a Lay Parson, into whose Coffers 20000. pounds annually flow in, and therefore if he were but a Pharisee in profession, should out of his abundant streams of wealth, cast in much into the common Treasury of the Church, shall taken into his own possession fifteen houses of God, and stick down but the bare feathers of ten pounds or twenty Nobles a year for the needy service of God's Altar? Can all the flourishing and pragmatical wits in the world, if they were headed in one brain, show by what just right a Say hand can invade & coast upon God's portion of Tithes, which he hath given to those that wait upon his Altar for the food of their bodies, and the poor people change with us for the food of their souls? Is not this the reason why in the great harvest there are so few Labours. For the Psalmist had no sooner said, They have sent fire into thy Sanctuary( meaning perhaps the fire of Covetousness that devours all) or as he speaks of them in another Psalm Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession; but presently it followeth, There is no more any Prophet, neither is there among us any that knows.  
But GOD persuade those whom it most concerns, to regard in time the common poverty of the Church, and to set a sea-bank against this diluviating evil of Satan, who as GOD drowned all the world in the beginning of it, and saved alive only the Ark of his Church, so now in the end of it would the Devil drown the Ark and Church of God itself, with these inundations of blind Seers, dumb Teachers, betraying Patroness, Sacrilegious Customs, Lay-parsons', thievish Tithings, and which by the abuse of them, were become so many Chappells of Satan, where many a soul turned the Sabbaoth of God into the Devil's holiday, drunken Tap-houses; under the weight of which sin, the whole Land staggered, and the Churches; of God, like poor Zion, even upon his own day, lay desolate and waste. But these gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Suburbs of Heaven, Gods sainctly Colony here on earth, and therefore we will end as David doth, Psa. 20. 9 Say Lord; Let the King hear us when we call.    
FINIS.