A BOOK OF christian Ethics or Moral Philosophy: Containing, The true difference and opposition, of the two incompatible qualities, Virtue, and Voluptuousness. Made by William Fulbecke, master of Arts, and student of the Laws of England.  
At LONDON, ¶ Imprinted by Richard jones, dwelling at the Sign of the Rose and Crown near Holborn bridge. 1587.   

To the worshipful and virtuous Gentleman, M. George Seintpolle Esquire: William Fulbeck wisheth all prosperous events.  
THe Grecians were wont to consecrate to their several Gods, several trees: as, to Apollo the Laurel, because he was always fresh in countenance: The Oak to jupiter, as being always strong: the Olive to Minerva, as being always fruitful of some gallant inventions: the Fir tree to Neptune, as Precedent of ships, always swimming, and never sinking: the tree called Aeschylus to the three sons of Saturn, because the root is in the bottom of the earth, the trunk in the water, & the top in the clouds. It behoveth me (likewise) somewhat to the imitation of them, to yield a reason why I consecrate to your worship this Pamphlet, not as a massy Tree, but as a slender fruit of a rooted good will, though of a short travail: in it, I have given pleasure an overthrow, being not able for weakness to manage in the field, and not willing for wantonness, to give careful care to the bloody notes of the trumpet: and because it is unpossible that you should behold the face of one that flieth from you, therefore I am constrained, but not much against my will, to present to your worship, the view of pleasures back, upon which you may see engraven the picture of hell, howsoever her visage do represent the face of the firmament: but because you have expressed more in a godly life, than I have shadowed in a few godly lines, & because your zealous conversation is the image which my thoughts have in this discourse imagined: therefore, I judged it most convenient to submit this book to your favourable construction, not as a monument of my victory, but as a memorial of your singular modesty: nor as a sufficient counterpain of your good behaviour, but as a short abridgement of your ample virtues: the friendly countenance wherewith you have always cheered my drooping fancies, was the lodestar that drew me on, to sail so far in this boisterous Sea: where, if the winds do threaten me above, and the water below, yet as long as the star shineth, the stern shall not fail. Leander lost his anchorhold for lack of light, and the Tunnies dare not swim but when the moon doth shine: the light that I crave is your favour, the extinguishing that I am afraid of, is mine own fear: wherefore, changing fear with hope, I change words with silence: beseeching God that your virtue may be extended with your life, and your life counterpaized with your happiness.  
Yours to the uttermost of his power. William Fulbecke   

To the courteous Reader.  
IT is reported of the Eagle, that she opposeth her younglings against the face of the Sun, meaning thereby, to make trial, and have certain knowledge, which be natural Eagles, and which be bastardly branches: they that can look directly against the Sun, she admitteth for her own, those that are constrained to wink, she extrudeth out of her nest. Her in I may resemble myself to the Eagle, who being the inventor of this treatise, have laid it open to the eyes of alimen: that is, to the eyes of the world: which Ovid in his metamorphosis apply to the Sun: 
Sol oculi Mundi.  now if it be endued with this felicity, that it can abide the stern visage of severe sages, the piercing eyes of curious Gentlemen, & the critical censures of the learned Academics, I will challenge and cherish it as a fortunate issue: otherwise refuse and reject it, as misbegotten: having more of Amphitryo, then of jupiter: of fancy then of reason. I have long time sacrificed my studies to Angerona, the Goddess of silence, laying my finger on my lips, and saying nothing: foreseeing that if I should rub the gall, rip the impostume, ransack the kannell of worldly opinions, (worldly I term them, as being bred in the world, received of the world, and practised by worldlings: by worldlings, I mean the most and the worst, most fond and worst minded), I should stir up Wasps, and have my words entertained with nipping gloss, and returned home with a bitter farewell: but sith it is no shame to write against such, against whom not to write is a great shame: I have taken courage unto me, and brought against them a complete legion. If I should have inveighed by Satyrs, I should have seemed too curious: if I should have jested by Epigrams, I might seem too captious: if by Comedies. I should copy out their lives, they would account me too scurrilous: if by tragedies I should lament their manners, they would judge me too scrupulous: therefore using the name of Christian Philosophy, I do mean neither to fray them, with the title, nor to flatter them with the treatise: but mine endeavour is specially bend, to allure them by lenity, to win them by parley, and to convince them rather by confession, then by confusion: but if this first trumpet which I have sounded against them do give me a sign of their obstinate resistance after this legion displayed, I will encounter them (by the grace of God) with a whole army of reasons: setting thee courteous Reader on the top of Tarpey, where thou mayst easily behold the conflict and warfare of the Romans & Sabines, fight in the valleys of Hetruria: neither bend thy body to the one side nor wag thy hand to the other: but with both eyes behold both, so shall we both be beholden to thee, and being justified by a righteous sentence, give thee the commendation of an upright judge. Farewell & be not partial.  
Thine in Christ. W. Fulbecke.   

The true difference between Virtue, and Voluptuousness.  
THere be seven Arts whose Principles are principally learned and practised of voluptuous livers: the art of dissembling, the Art of blaspheming: the art of deceiving: the art of flattering: the art of disdaining: the art of loving: the art of dicing: seven heads of Hydra, seven lewd sisters, and seven illiberal arts, not worthy the name of arts, sith their best professors are the baddest men: & they are so much better in their arts, by how much they are worse in their manners: being therefore impudent, because in vanity they are arteficial: and therefore vain, because in their arts they are impudent. These be not the Muse's inventions, because they are conjoined with great dishonesty, & have a rank smell of a loathsome impiety: these be the daughters of lady pleasure, nestled in Pandora's box, and sent● like Harpays over the face of the earth, to take away from us our wholesome food, and with their own dung to defile ●ur trenchers, being thoroughly instructed of Circe to change men into beasts, men's minds into brutish appetites, men's inventions into foolish dreams, and the reason of man into a brutish passion. Circe drinketh of these pots to the worldlings, that thirst after pleasures: but virtue hath made a wall of partition betwixt the pots of Circe, & the mouths of the virtuous: betwixt these Panther-like odours, and the nostrils of her followers: betwixt these Cupid's counterfeiting Ascanius, and the closette of their minds in whom virtue is resident. There is great difference betwixt Apollo his School, & an old wives Cottage, between the Temple of virtue, & the Theatre of pleasure. Pleasure hath sent abroad not long ago thr●● precious works, and three delightful comments: the court of Venus, the Castle of fancy, & the Paradise of pleasure: books in which, there is much wit, and little virtue: whose ripeness heretofore, the frequent use in former times, did sufficiently argue: whose rottenness at this present, is by the universal loathing and surfeit of those that before were delighted with them abundantly testified. This is the property of a voluptuous mind, when it is full gorged with honey, to cast it up like gall: & therefore it seemeth that pleasures junkets would not have turned into any good blood, or wholesome nourishment. divers Poets have written for delight, but they have also written for profit: but many of their readers being enchanted by pleasures, have from their flowers gathered poison like the spider, not honey like the Bee: whereas contrariwise, the well meaning minds have of these flowers made sovereign preservatives: let the Trojan history be delivered to a sober, wise, & discreet scholar, he reaps much honey, much delight, much commodity by the reading thereof: if he be examined what is the sentence, substance, marrow, & juice of that history? he will answer wisely & sincerely.  
The story which reports the Graekish wa● 'gainst Barbary, 
Horat. Epistolarum. Lib. 1.  for Paris love uneleane:  
Doth strange events of Trojan folly show, and fruits of ulyssean policy contain.  
But if the sense and signification of that history be demanded of some delicate stripling, of some Ovidian Acontius, an intemperate youngman, an impure spider, 
Ovid in Epi. Acont. Non sum qui soleam paridi● reprehendere factum. Nec quemque qui vir possit ut esse fuit.  & a second Catiline: he will answer boldly, briefly, & badly.  
I am not wont sir Paris to reprove,  
Or any man that plays the man in love.  
Behold what abundance of poison, what store of gall, what dregs of filthiness this spider sucketh out of the flowers of this history, with greedy & vnconsecrate lips. First, he gathereth that the love of Paris was not to be reprehended: next, that all they which imitate the woeing of Paris are men: they are men I grant in name, but in nature, they are lecherous goats, and rutting Leopards: But as Alexander the great, did then most of all term himself a God, when he was most estranged from God, namely when he was drunken: so these Acontij, these s●ctators of Paris, these men do then especially boast of their manhood, when they become most brutish: what thanks therefore, and what sufficient glory can be rendered to virtue, that preserveth her scholars from such pestilent poisons, and such froth of vices, by godly admonitions, grave precepts, and solemn institutes? persuading them by sound reasons, whereof every one is as strong as Achilles, that an history is not as it is taken of the voluptuous, the trumpet of Cupid, and the calendar of Venus: but the library of knowledge, the unsouldresse of treachery, the lantern of policy, the doctress of behaviour, the register of antiquity, the glass of justice: But when the voluptuous know the bent of pleasures bow, her brow I would say, they are ready with full sail, & swift course to try these ways that pleasure hath chalked out & prescribed unto them, spending all their rents, revenues & reversions upon the servants of Bacchus, upon purpled Apes, painted beggars, counterfeiting R●scij Graduates in the Epicures School, horseleeches of money, the dogs of Verres, the bloodhounds of Fortune, which ransack every corner for coin, having apt noses for the smelling of Gold and Silver, and when they are instructed and lessoned by such hungry Gnatoes, professors of all impudency, and practisers of all impiety, they are matriculated, and nursed in these delights, in which, none are conversant but Venuses pullets and Nero's whelps, politic, delicate, gallant tenderlings, which are fast linked to pleasure, and use her at their lust, but they know not her disease, they know not her companion, they know not her sauce. Her disease is impurity, her companion is penalty, her sauce is sorrow: they may for a while sing those Caroles that Penelope's wooers did sing, wresting the sweetness of their Cytharne, to the loss of their time, & their own disprofit: as Horace reporteth of certain young men which were wont to sleep till midday, and Ad strepitum cytharae cessatum ducere curam. By sound of harp, to bring their cares to rest.  
But this ditty will be closed up with a dump.  Nocet empta dolore voluptas. 
The pleasure is nought that is bought with pain. 
Horat. Epistola●. lib. 1.  This I do not speak to disprove the delightful harmony of music, which I account most commendable, but to glance at the idle life of luxurious persons, whose ears are continually fed with the hearing of such sounds. Orpheus' his harp is not to be dispraised, which did draw men from death to life, but the fowlers whistle is not to be heard, which allureth the hearers to the snares of death, & the pit of destruction: Euterpes' pipe deserveth audience, because it is the pipe of one of the Muses: but the pipe of Leucosia is to be debarred from our ears, because the piper is a Siren: the harp of Achilles sounded with gravity, and was a kind of motive to the warlike courage: but on the effeminate harp of Paris, nothing was played but amatorious sonnets, and ridiculous jigs. Poetry in former times made a progress through the world, being desirous to hear the sounds of the Instruments, that in those days were used, and being accompanied with the nine Muses, she listened to their melody, she heard Pan puffing on a reed: the Arcadians creaking with whistles: Triton roaring with a shell, in steed of a trumpette: the shepherds of Scythia, winding an oaten straw: she heard the Coribants tinkling on their brazen Basins: she heard the Moenades shouting in the air with a clamorous bellowing: Poetry partly taking pity, & partly being ashamed of this deformed and barbarous music, gave to mankind, for the pipe of Pan, the histories of Clio: for the whistles of the Arcadians, the tragedies of Melpomene: for Triton's shell, the Comedies of Thalia: for the shepherds oaten straw, the pipe of Euterpe: for the brass of the Coribants, the harp of Therpsicore: for the howling of the Moenades, the verses of Calliope: which she did not bestow in consideration of the Epicures fancy, neither to enchant the minds of lascivious persons with a senseless security, neither did she make them the idle man's Ephemerides, whereby he might deceive the long & irksome time, the redemption of which, cannot by any value be procured.  
Nulla coelum reparabile gazâ.  
No gold can time reverse.  
The loss of which, if it were thoroughly considered, would make us loathe our stolen music in comparison of the sweet sounding melody of time: which is the reporter of things most desired, the Corner of truth, whose descant, though it be somewhat crabbed, yet, that to which we apply our attendance, we wish should rather be true, then forged: rather a matter of certainty, than a flying fable. But the secure & voluptuous Epicure careth not for this advantage of time, so he may rest himself in his Lady's lap, and have his ears thoroughly tickled with a musical concordance: he is content that the circle of the Sun should be rolled backward & forward, so that he continue still in jollity, without any interruption of his pleasures: Scilicet hoc est vivere: but when the date of his time is almost expired, & arrived at the point, from which it took the beginning, than he standeth bowed before the tribunal seat of time, and he thus accuseth him: unfruitful sluggard didst thou wake or sleep all thy life time? If thou didst wake, what work hast thou left behind thee either visible to the eye or memorable to the mind? where be the monuments of thy labours? where be the gains of thy travails? where are the fruits of thy life? If thou didst sleep, and thy actions were only a dream, that dream was a passion but of action: thou hast not a print to show, but that thou mayest see the bounty and riches of time: awake out of thy sleep, wash thine eyes, and thou shalt clearly behold what opportunities have escaped thee. Thou seest on thy right hand, the fields into the which thou didst wander sometime, but I always presuppose as in a dream: thou didst there only survey the colours of flowers, thinking perhaps of the transmutation of them into flowers, whom the pangs of love did consume: thou didst rest on the green grass as on a cushion, having a mind so dead and destitute of the intellectual faculty, that thou didst hide and bury thyself under the shadows of trees: not knowing that the green Liceum was the School of the Peripatetikes, and Vmbrifera Academia, the School of the academics: but thou, wishing that all thy body were changed into an eye, like Argus, that thou mightest all thy life time, have nothing else but colours in view, or else wishing that all thy body were made a nose, as Catullus desired, that thou mightest spender all thy days in smelling to the fragrant flowers, and perfuming herbs, didst make a pause in these fancies: if thou hadst bended thine eyes but a little from these these things, thou mightest have espied the silly Ant or Pismire, of which thou mightest have learned to have taken pains, to have lived by thy pains, to have rejoiced after thy pains: to have taken pains by seeing them march in the pathway to the fields for their sustenance, carrying their burdens on their shoulders, hastening & returning with great speed, notwithstanding the great weight: to have lived by thy pains, by seeing them to be so careful of the nipping winter, hurding up the corn in the graniers, piling it in the barns, cutting it into parts, that it maynot grow: to have rejoiced after thy pains, in that thou hast prevented the sharpness of hunger and in that thou hast sufficient to satisfy natures demand: but look what shineth over thy head, the glistering heaven, the starry firmament, which thou didst gather to be nothing else then the candlestick of the world, made to none other end, then to give light, & to discover the dens of Moldwarpes in the earth: not considering that by the access, & departure of the Sun, things increase and decrease: that by the wain and full of the Moon, the Sea ebbs and flows: that by the particular influence of particular Stars, such and such alterations are framed in the earth: the divers motions and effects of those causes, might have led thee by the hand, to the first mover, in whose ample government of all things, thou mightest have had a bottomless consideration of peerless value, that would have stirred up an admiration in thy mind, admiration would have caused inquisition, & inquisition would have engendered knowledge: which would have been a great ornament unto thee, and a great furtherance to further matters: but now that thou art ignorant, blame not me, wrich have often given thee warning to call thy wits together: When thou wast tending from youth to manhood, ● drew lines in thy visage, which signified, that thy life did waste: and by them I writ upon thy face, the second age: when, from manhood thou wast twining to old age, thy den●s and riveled cheeks, thy toothless chaps, thy white and hoary hears▪ I sent as messengers unto thee, whereby I foreshowed the third age, that was approaching: now therefore, blush at thine own sluggishness, be ashamed of thy lingering, and sith there be no signs or lineaments, of former knowledge in thee, I propose thy dotage as a spectacle to be laughed at. This sharp reprehension may perhaps, leave prickles in the minds of sluggards, but the remorse quickly vanisheth. Icarus doth not fear his fall, till the greatest part of his wings be melted, and his body do kiss the face of the water: but of all the knowledge that overpass them, the mystical knowledge of their salvation being hidden from their eyes, & debarred from their hearts: is with a whole Ocean of tears to be lamented, if out of a Flint any water may be wrested. It may be comprehended in two lines, and yet the fleshly Epicure could not afford half an hours study to the repetition and rehearsal of it in his mind, 
1 Timoth. cap. 3.  that it might be a perpetual monument imprinted in his memory: God did appear in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, was seen of Angels, was preached to nations, was believed in the world, was received in glory. This being perfectly had without book, would have been a sovereign retentive from the lusts of the flesh: but pleasure, being a sweet & flattering Enchantress, doth smoothly insinuate herself into the minds of men, & there dwelleth as Helena dwelled in the City of Troy: who pleased the Trojans but to their misery: who sung delightfully, but was too delightfully hard: for the honey of words, is a poison to the heart: & a sweet sound in the a●re, is a Siren in the ear: Thus it is evident that the study or exercise whereunto voluptutuous & effeminate persons, do wholly addict themselves, is nothing else but the whetstone of vanity, the mistress of misdemenour, & cousin german to idleness. Now it remaineth to be discussed, what other abuses they have in the common course of their life. 
Sallust in coniur.  Sallust did generally describe the gluttony of delicate trenchermen, when he did particularly decipher the inordinate appetite of the Romans: the Romans (saith he) to satisfy their bellies, sought out all things that could be found either in sea, or on the earth: they did not tarry till hunger or thirst overtook them, but they did prevent these by an arteficial appetite: before the deluge, the only treasure on the earth was wine, the people did eat and drink, married & gave in marriage, rise up to play, and used all kind of dalliance even until the day wherein the windows of Heaven were opened upon them, till the waters had oveflowed and disfigured the earth, that the very shared of a drinking cup could not be seen in the world: It is a very unnatural thing that the belly being made by nature, a place of excrements, should be made an Idol: but it is a greater shame that the Idol of the beastly Cyclops should be made a God to Christians, which the true GOD will at the length confound, together with all them also that make it a God.  
It is strange to see the appetite of man: that whereas beasts are contented with that food which nature hath appointed for them, and take no more thereof, than that quantity which nature hath allotted unto them: man should so far surpass the limits of reason, and reverence due to nature: that with an unsatiable desire he followeth those things, which are discommodious, pernicious, and pestilent unto him. And although in the kind of beasts, the Lion is most incontinent, most ravenous, and greedy of his prey: and be ●ide this, 
Aristot. lib de Histor. animalium. 8. cap. 5.  hath Turrian excessive appetite, which cannot be staunched without great superfluity of nourishment: yet for the space of three days, or at the least two two days after, he is fully satisfied: & the Wolves when they are gaunted with hunger, do eat rather earth and clay, than they will violently rush upon the beasts of their own kind. 
joseph Ben Gord.  This abstinence is greater than Mirianis, who though she were of singular behaviour amongst the jews, yet could not abstain from gnawing the bones of her own child: and man to augment the greedy worm whereof he is possessed, doth invent and use daily, sauces, sirupes, broths, mixtures: that may prick his stomach forward, to crave more than it may well contain, 
john Baptist Gello incite●  whereby there ariseth such superfluity, and such superabundance of naughty humours in the body, that there be more than fifty kinds of diseases engendered in the eyes: and by such variety of tastes, we are provoked to drink so much, that a great number of diseases: as Catarrhs, rheums, swellings, gouts, dropsies, do shake the foundation of our health, and the whole frame of our body, and if the body were only cloyed with the inconveniencies that arise of surfeiting, the riot of banquets, were more tolerable and less reprovable: but sith Corpus onustum Hesternis vitijs, 
Horat.  animum quòque praegravat ipsum. The body stuffed with hosterne cates, doth overcharge the mind.  
Our trenchers are to be washed with our tears, our tables whereat we sit drinking, beluing, and carousing, are to be accounted engines and snares, laid by the devils subtlety, to entrap our souls: our costly viands are to be accounted the lures of gluttony: our musical and sweet sounding instruments which are prepared to make the mind more cheerful and frolic: are no better to be esteemed then alluring Sirens, which eat them whom they delight, and kill them with their teeth, whom they have called with their tongues. It were infinite to number the great mishap that hath chanced, & the outrageous cruelty that hath been committed, after that the mind hath been overcast with the mist or exhalation that riseth from the stomach surcharged with delicates. The City of the Trojans was drowned in wine, before it was burnt by fire: Jerusalem was overflown of gluttony and drunkenness, before it was overrun of the Romans and Turks: the Egyptians were not so much overcomed by armed men, 
●irgil aeneid▪ 1  as by the banquets of Cleopatra: Catiline did besiege Rome with a troup of pleasures, before he did threaten it with an army of soldiers: Dido was first enchanted of Liber Pater, before she was bewitched of the boy Cupid: Nero was filled with the wines of Campania before he was poisoned with the counsel of Anicetus, & there was in his stomach a flood of Nectar, before there was Furor in mente or Ferrun in manu: the principal cause why the Persians were enemies to the Lydians, was because of the good cheer that they found in Lydia. 
Herod o●. lib. 1.  Now if any man think that the mind being a substance immaterial cannot be infected by any contagion proceeding from the body, he shall perceive his judgement to be erroneous, both by cause, & by example: the soul I grant might live-like an angel in the body, & it doth as yet shine in the corporal lump, but tanquam coelum in coeno. Like an heaven in a dunghill. It is so nigh the banks and borders of this earthly Tabernacle: nay, it is so enclosed within the walls & gates thereof that it must of necessity be defiled with the dust that ariseth within the walls: but to find out the reason I will use a very briese discourse, which notwithstanding, shall carry some taste of Philosophy. There be some things that belong to the soul alone, as reason, meditation, reminiscence: some things to the body alone, as heaviness, augmentation, diminution, and that strength which the Latins call Robur, the Grecians Ischus One thing there is which is common both to the soul and the body, and that is, Appetitus or vis concupiscentiae, The appetite or force of concupiscence which being an ambidexter or parasite both to the soul & body, inueagleth the soul by the senses of the body, & deceiveth the body by the liking of the soul: for, when the mind hath made the maior proposition of the syllogism: Whatsoever is pleasant and sweet, is to be liked of: the body by the force & virtue of the senses, maketh the minor proposition: (Dainty cheer is pleasant and sweet,) the appetite doth straightway conclude: Ergo, Dainty cheer is to be liked off. the natural & carnal man, having learned this lesson, triumpheth in his own conceit, & is both ways bend, either to confute the Stoic, or defend the Epicure. but the modest & well judging mind, can make a distinction of pleasant things, as also of pleasure: there is a pleasure that is, Dulcis & decocta, Sweet and liquid, which melteth as soon as it feeleth the heat of the mouth, & is digested as soon as it is devoured: so that being not able to abide the stamp of the teeth, it is rather to be accounted superfluous dross, than substantial metal. There is another pleasure: that is, Austera & solida, Sincere and sound: which though it be not as pleasant as spice, yet it is as necessary as salt, & though it do not slide through the body as through a conduit, yet it descendeth into the mind as the evening shower into the caves of the earth: the true pleasure is neither painted with colours, nor blanched with cookery, neither sod in a pot, nor roasted on a spit, but the dew thereof droppeth from heaven, & the fruitful effects thereof are evident to the view of every Christian cogitation. Now that we have showed the reason of this Sympathy: it remaineth that some examples be sent for to illustrate this treatise: to know therefore, that the diet of the body doth leave some colour, & impression in the mind, consider the diet and disposition of the Goths, & Tartarians, who because they are ●ed with man's blood, & drink the gore of their ancestors, in the skulls of their ancestors: are therefore cruel, unmerciful, & savage: thirsting after man's blood, and sucking at the skin for blood, as the child at his mother's dugs for milk. The Parthians that lick water like dogs, are courageous in warfare, & no whit effeminate: the Turks measuring, & dividing their commons by weight and balance, have their wit and magnanimity fresh against the fury of the enemies▪ but the Indians because they are continually nourished with spires, which kind of nourishment▪ is very slender: therefore they are melsh hearted, fearful, & fugitive, to whom I may rightly compare the men of Saba, which country is very fruitful of sumptuous delicates, but very barren of good soldiers: like unto these are the Agrigutini, whose minds, whether prosperity flatter, or adversity threaten, are continually in Patinis: the ancient Britons are reported to have been very valiant & victorious, 
●ion in vita Neronis  but they are also reported to have lived very hardly, to have used roots for their bread, herbs for their meat, the raw juice of wild fruits for their oil, water for wine, trees for houses, & the foggy vapours of fennish grounds, for the smell of perfumes. And geverally it is always seen that in the coldest Climates & frozen Alps which afford no banqueting cheer, the best soldiers have given a notice of their valiant courage. Now when the belly is well warmed with sweet junkets, than Venus spreadeth a delightful carpet, unto which the eye and affection give a diligent attendance, the mind beginneth to burn in lust▪ & to make excursion beyond the limits of reason: Solomon who had had experience of both, affirmeth the same. Look not upon wine (saith he) when it glittereth and the colour thereof shineth in a glass: 
Proverb. 23.  it goeth in with delight, but in the end it will bite like a snake, & like the●cockatrice it will sprinkle poison Thus far of gluttony: but how doth Venery follow, Thine eyes (saith Solomon) shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things, thou shalt be like one that sleepeth in the midst of the sea, and like a sleepy governor having lost the helm. Sith therefore by the judgement of this King, whose mind was full fraught with wisdom: these two instruments, made of the devil to seduce men from good behaviour to Epicurism, are linked & conjoined. Miserable is the state of these, that make pleasure the mother of these two) their Goddess, 〈◊〉 think no life happy, unless it be swéet●ed with the sugured juice of a carnal delegation, the seek for heaven in the centre of ●ell, & care not how brutish they become, ●o they be not covered with the hides & ●orns of beasts: but let him that mindeth ●o see good days, & follow Christ (which ought to be the principal profession of christians) make a covenant with his eyes & ears from beholding & hearing of vanity: when the epicures banquet is as bitter to our taste as gall, & the sweet savour of fragrant powders as loathsome as the henlock, then is an arrival made at the haven of christian security, them are we entered into the strait way which is indeed a large field of happiness. But yet when we have attained this many encumbrances will be opposed against our quietness, and the better our states is, the more is the devils envy and hatred: but this must not discomfort us. None can climb to the top of heaven without sweeting: & God (as Plato saith) selleth his benefits for labour and travail. We must consider that the world will never cease to be deceitful, the devil never to be malicious, and the flesh will never intermit his combat & conflict with the spirit, as long as we are in this painful pilgrimage. We must suffer the blustering tempest of adversity, the sharp edge of temptation, and the fiery darts of the devil, we fight against powers and principalities, and therefore may be wounded, if not overcome. Our affections may become perfidious unto us, betraying us to our enemies, and therefore being in danger both of foreign and of domestical foes: we had need to be very vigilant & circumspect, lest conspiracy accoomplish that, which violence could not bring to pass When a Christian is besieged with temptation, 
jacob. 1.  let him rejoice, for the Lord proveth before he approveth, and trieth before he trusteth, whom he loveth them he chastiseth, and his gold is tried in the midst of the furnace. If we may obtain glory by victory, than we must fight to obtain the victory. No man is crowned before he overcometh, and no man overcometh but he that lawfully striveth, let him think as he is provoked to fight, so he may be provoked to a crown of glory. Yea, one can not miss of the promotion, unless he willingly forsake it: his heart cannot faint, his strength cannot fail, except he will. To be willing to fight, is to fight courageously, and as long as that will continueth, God will countenance that courage. O the exceeding felicity of a Christian man, whose only will being directed by God's will, is more pearceable than steel, and more impenetrable than the strong Rock, whose wish achieveth the victory, and whose victory is far beyond his wish. If we survey the affairs of the world, we shall find that there is no lucre so vile, nor any gain so gross, but ere we can compass it, we must stretch joints and sinews, we must sweat and breath, use restless and endless labour, which when it is purchased, vanisheth like a smoky exhalation, and like a bubble in the water, riseth and falleth in an instant. The Merchant man thinketh himself a Monarch, and vaunteth of his increase, when after a ten years navigation after a thousand discommodities, dangers and disadvantages, he hath gotten a little more treasure than he had before.  
The Soldier when he hath tasted the bitter fruits of warfare, when he hath worn his body, altered his complexion, diminished his health, lost some principal member of his body, how large soever his stipend be, yet he is like a dead Trunk that hath lost the bravery of his boughs. In seeking the favour of noble men, in getting and retaining the friendship of equals, in the ambitious labouring for honours and dignities, in the whording of coin, and scraping of commodity, in closing and disclosing, digging and delving, turning arable into pasturable, and pasturable into arable, woods into wastes, and wastes into woods, in building and battering, in turning square into round, and triangles into quadrangles, is such an infinite labour, and a world of business, that he which weigheth in a balance both the care and the commodity, shall find an ounce of commodity for a pound of care, and he that putteth these things in practice, shall like a perverse Alchemist, distill a penny out of a portague. Therefore let him that mindeth to be a true Christian, despise these transitory, corruptible and contemptible things, for which the worldly myzer giveth no trust to his eyes, hath the birds of the air in suspicion, feareth lest his own behaviour do bewray his base and barbarous affections. Let him erect and life up his mind to the celestial and divine solaces, which neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor the heart of man is able to imagine, to the pursuing of which, the minds of worldly Mammonistes are slow footed, drooping and continually dreaming of the eternity of their barns, when the very Weasels before their eyes do devour their corn, and even against their wills they are drawn of God to heavenly and spiritual things: upon which they look as Cerberus looked upon the sun, when he was drawn out of hell, very strangely & vn●●thly: and in deed their blea●ed eyes cannot long behold the brightness of the divine Majesty. Now if the worldly felicity could be attained without labour, as it were in a trance, & as if we should let it in at a window: or if Fortune would throw into our nets ourselves sleeping, as she is feigned to have dealt with her love Polycrates, then there might be a kind of reason framed by our fancy, and it might perhaps be believed with an uncircumcised credulity, that it were a great deal better to serve the world than God: but if there be more weariness in walking, as a worldling, them labouring as a Christian, if to be choked and strangled with the cares of this world, be an infinite torment: if to see the conscience besieged with an hundred hells, and to feel the racking and renting thereof, as it were with a thousand fleshhooks, be an intolerable grief, then happy and thrice happy is the mortified Christian that is satisfied with the sweet content of a mean estate, and the moderate portion that God hath allotted him. If we be no where less troubled then in the ways of God, and no where more wearied then in the way of sinners, as that voice of damned persons beareth witness: Lassati sumus in via iniquitatis, 
Sapi. 5.  we were wearied in the way of wickedness: is it not an extreme madness, rather to bestow our labours, lands and life upon those things from which we must very shortly departed, not into a new Paradise, but into an eternal dungeon, where there is continual gnashing of teeth, and the worm never dieth, then to consecrate our lives and livings unto the Lord, and for his sake to abide the uttermost brunt of tribulation, when for our pains we shall have a surpassing reward: for the honour that we here lost, an unchangeable honour, for the pleasure that here we forsake, an inestimable felicity? beside all this, what a singular peace, and what a delicate banquet is a good conscience, not waxing pale with villainous cogitations, which is better than all the Epicures delights, than all transitory pleasures, than all curious & exquisite enticements, wherewith the juggling world doth sophistically delude us. What pleasure can there be in the riches of this world, which before they are purchased, do weary us, when they are possessed, do infatuate us, and when they are lost, do excruciate us. Without question, the souls of the wicked are tossed hither and thither, with perpetual cares, with most intricate perplexities, and griefs innumerable. This the Lord hath affirmed, who as he cannot deceive, so he cannot be deceived, 
●say, 57,  Cor impii quasi mare feruens, the heart of a wicked man is like a raging Sea, that can take no rest: Nothing is quiet unto them, nothing peaceable, the trenchers whereon t●ey cut their meat with trembling hands can bear witness, the meat that stayeth in●theyr chaps whilst they are thinking mischief, can bear witness, their slow & imperfect digestion may bear witness: the leans, paleness, and wannes of their cheeks may bear witness. They are afraid of all things, suspect all things, and every thing is a messenger of death unto them. Who would therefore emulate them, or imitate their manners. Who having forgotten their dignity, their heroical nature, and their heavenly Monarch, being made free men are become bondslaves to the world, living miserably, dying more miserably, and most miserably like to be afflicted with eternal flames. There is none, but he seethe these things, as clearly as he beholdeth the Meridian Sun: but there is not one amongst a thousand that doth these things, which he knoweth are to be practised, but we cleave as yet to the dirt, wallow in the mire, and though the loathsome satiety of pleasures do breed a surfeit unto us, yet cure we the poison of pleasures with the hemlock of obstinacy, and though our minds do sometime reclaim us from such vanities, or rather impieties, yet such cogitations are soon extinet. We assign the regiment of our minds to a foolish Phaeton, namely to the secure sensuality of an appetite charmed with pleasures. Let a Christian man consider, what a dangerous thing it is, to live amongst them day and night, whose life is not only an enticement to sin, a wicked May-game and a most pernicious example, but doth with all endeavour, bend itself to the overthrow of virtue, under the Emperor belial, under the standard of death, and under the stipend of hell, wageing battle against heaven, against the Lord and against his anointed.  
These are they whom God hath delivered into passions of ignominy, into a reprobate sense, to do those things which are undecent, 
Rom, 1,  full of all iniquity full of envy, hatred, deceit, malignity, poysenfull, blasphemers of God, contumelious, proud, disdainful. inventors of mischief, unwise, dissolute, disorderly without affection, without mercy, who though they see the justice of God, yet will not acknowledge it being so far from excuse, that they which seek to cloak and colour their impurity, are the seavenfolde sons of the devil, & are worthy to be racked with wild horses till they confess the truth. And therefore let them which are zealous in the lords ways, separate themselves from the company of such to whom the name of God is odious, virtue unpleasant, Religion a base profession, godliness a simple gift, honesty a strange monster, and charity a foolish affection. Let a certain holy ambition possess our minds, and let us disdain to take precepts of them, which therefore offend because they lack the use of godly precepts. It were better far that they taking example of the godly, by living well, may learn to be Christians, then that the godly omitting their good purpose should by living as they do, be transformed to beasts. Let them be assured, that pleasure when it most delighteth is at an end, that it falleth headlong into the bosom of sorrow, and that the greatest pleasures will at the last be turned into sharpest torments. Gluttony is the mother of crudity in the stomach, drunkenness breedeth the ache of the sinews venereous practices breed palsies, stiffness of joints, and a roaring ventosity in the entrails. Pleasures are not sound nor faithful, they salute us with a fair face, but behind their backs is a grim desolation. And therefore let them be shaken off in time: they embrace friendly, that they may strangle traitorously, and whosoever performeth this admonition, let him bethink himself to what a number of bad companions he hath given a farewell. His body is free from ugly diseases, his mind is delivered from ignorance, his appetite from sensuality, his estate from danger, his house from discord, his soul from the secret pang of a griping conscience, all things shall then turn to the best unto him, his afflictions to preservatives, his sorrows and brinish tears, to an acceptable sacrifice: and the great unconstancy of friends, to a great confidence in God. I am plunged in a deep and unspeakable sorrow, when I think upon the fancies, or rather furies of men, which I can better deplore, then describe, and rather marvel at then amend. Is it not a great madness, not to believe the word of God, whose truth is published by the blood of Martyrs, resounded by the voice of the Apostles proved by miracles, confirmed by reason, witnessed by counsels, by the heavens declared, and by the devils confesed. But is it not an exceeding madness, for a man not to doubt of the truth of the Gospel, and yet so to live as though there were no doubt, but it were false? If that be true which is said in the Gospel. It is harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, 
Math, 19  than it is for a Camel to pass through a needle's eye, why do we so gape for richeses, why do we dedicate all our labour to unjust Mammon, making gold our patron and protector, as though life & death were in the veins of that vile metal: but here some professors of cavils will take this exception. riches are in the number of good things, and are the blessings of God, and therefore there can be no excess of them, because there is no excess of a good thing. This reason because it is so well pytcht on the heads of worldly cormorants, that they take it for a helmet, must be with great consideration confuted. riches I grant are the blessings of God, and a clear light of his favourable countenance, neither is there any excess in the Lords bestowing, who dealeth unto every one according to weight and measure: but the excess of riches proceedeth from the outrageous appetite of man, as the heathens did prefigure by the covetous desire of Midas: by the infinite desire of Alexander Magnus, who imagined a plurality of worlds, for the better instructing of whom I am of opinion that Aristotle did especially write his first Book de caelo. It is (I say) of the inordinate appetite of man, which because it is excessive, it must of force prosecute an excess of riches. And thus it may be proved, that it hath such an object to work upon. Every thing when it hath gotten a sufficient and proper matter to work upon, employeth his force to that thing only, as having a task prescribed to it of nature. Therefore if riches were the proper object and matter of worldly desire, then having gotten the wealth that it first desired, and fully proposed, as a contentation till the end of life, it would rest in that as in an haven & be contented with that only was sought for contentation: but we see the contrary, for it flieth from sufficiency to superfluity, in such fugitive manner, that it seemeth nothing will satisfy it, but excess of riches, and to that (indeed) all the cogitations of the covetous are bended, ever labouring, longing and compassing, till they have aspired to an excessive substance: Overmatching him whom the Romans thought matchless in his kind, the wealthy M. Crassus. Much like to these ravening affections were the changeable imaginations of the Heathens, who placed at first in their Olympus but a few Gods, yet when they wext so haughty that every one would have a God, for himself, and himself a God, their heaven wext so full of he Gods and she Gods, that as Juvenal saith, 
Juvenal Satyr. 3.  Atlas hath a heavy burden, or to make his meaning more plain, a knavish load. Now if excess be the object of covetousness, covetousness must of necessity be a vice, for all excess and defect properly taken is a vice, and all excess and defert as Aristotle saith, 
Aristo. Libro, 2 ●●hicor cap. 2,  is to be shunned. riches therefore are abused by the untamed concupiscence of man, and are often wrested by a sinister interpretation to abuse.  
It is not to be doubted, but the riches, wherewith God advanced job, were very singular, and the rare blessings of the Almighty, but the devil that erroneous Serpent, used them as a bait and snare to entrap the soul of job. For he imagining that his riches, had lulled him in security, and entangled his conscience, thought that the spoil of job his riches, would have been the sacking of the soul. So riches were an instrument of abuse to the father of lies. And though the patrimony of Naboth, were the ordinary mean of God to serve the use of Naboth, yet the same was an instrument of abuse to the devil against the soul of Achab. So likewise riches were used of God for the allurement of Nabuchadnozer, to the acknowledging of of his mercies, but the devil wrought in him a discontented desire, & brought him to this absurdity, that he thought Babylon was a Heaven, and himself a God.  
There is nothing in the world so precious, but it may be abused, as a glistering Pearl, may be placed in a Swine's snout: the abuse of riches, is the excess of riches in man's mind, which because it is an abuse, it must not be used, and because it is an excess, it must not be coveted, least swelling with Esop's Frog, to become as big as a Bull, we burst at length with desire, and vanish into nothing. The like may be spoken touching the abuse of honours.  
It is no doubt, but they are the Ensigns of justice, and the honourable rewards of virtue, but yet we see how by ambition they have been abused, and how by corrival passions of mighty men, common. Weals have been brought to great wrack. Was not the grievous distress of Thebes to be lamented, 
Seneca in Thebay,  when Eteocles & Polynices issuing out of the same womb, did violently rush into the bowels of their Country, as a Lion and leopard: when they, which by birth were equal: by blood, were brethren: neither distant by womb, nor dissevered by Country: they against the prescript of nature, whose sinewous persuasion doth exceed all the bravery of Rhetoric against the Law of Nations, against the law of Arms, against all right and reason: chose rather mutually to afflict themselves, than not to despise one another, as though contempt had been the crown of Princes, and as though to despise had been as much as to touch Heaven with their fingers.  
If ye will have a witness more nigh unto your memory, look upon Rome: which was so wasted and consumed by the immoderate contempt of equals, and did so languish by the excessive conflict of noble Peers, that it seemed rather to be a shamble to the carcases of virtuous Citizens, them a prison to the voluptuous, and a grave to the riotous. Pompeie did pleasantly jest at Caesar, Caesar did more esteem the paring of his nails, than the honour of Pompeie, both their sword were drawn against the naked common Weal, one Sheep was committed to two Wolves, and the final end of their contempt, was the funeral of their common Weal. These actions did follow and imitate the contentions of Marius and Sylla. Marius made little estimation of all the Nobility, Sylla did take Marius for a vile & base borne creature, as an abject or forlorn person: but this light contempt was of great weight, and the scalefire of pride could not be extinguished or repressed without the downfall of the common Weal. 
Villeius Pater cull.  Marius' being constrained fled to Carthage, in whose ruins and relics whilst he lodged, Marius beholding, defaced Carthage, Carthage beholding, disgraced Marius, one of them might have been a comfort to the other.  
Thus were honours perversely drawn from their proper end, to the pursuing of an unlawful tyranny, and yet it is most certain, that they be God his special benefits and signs of his just approbation. Saul was invested of God with most excellent honour, but the devil racked the power of Saul to the tyrannical persecution of David. It is best therefore to seek the glory that is of God, and not that which is of men. Why do we hang so upon the estimation of man? Why do we fashion ourselves to this world? Why do we seek to be commended for rich and wealthy, howsoever we be dyscommended as ignorant and wayward? In nakedness we appeared at first, and our last appearance shall be in nakedness: therefore to care for the morrow, which perhaps we shall not see, or cram our Barns, of whose fatness we shall not eat, is it not a folly, a misery, and a madness? If it be true, 
Prou, 2,  that the righteous shall inhabit the earth, and the simple minded shall continue in it. If the ungodly shall be wiped from the face of the earth, and they that work wickedness shall be taken from thence. Why do we live in pleasures, sith we cannot continue in them, because we live in pleasures. If we have any faith in us, why do we not believe that the Lord will sometime say: go ye cursed into everlasting fire, and contrariwise, Come ye blessed, possess the kingdom that was prepared for you, from the beginning of the world? Why do we fear nothing less than hell? And why do we hope for nothing less than the kingdom of God? Why are we in name Christians & not indeed? Why cry we Lord, Lord, but do him no service? Awake worldlings, cast the foggy mist from your eyes, see and say the truth, give pleasures their passport if they fawn upon you, believe them not they are the forerunners of death, and they have clapped hands with destruction. Endeavour to enter at the narrow Gate, be not obstinate, because ye are many. Know that but a few shallbe crowned, and it is as great a glory to be crowned with few, as it is a shame to be condemned with many. But that they may the better be persuaded by me, and give more credit to these assertions which I have set down, I will by the grace of God, unfold the sweet treasures of a solitary life, joining thereunto an exhortation, whereby they may be moved, though not mended, & loathe their vices though not leave them: But here at my first entrance, they will trip me with this objection. Would you have us go into the Wilderness, that is a place for hermits: to the Forest, where Palmers do macerate themselves: to the Hills and Valleys, where solitary Sheep herds do abide: or to the Woods and Groves, where Outlaws hide their heads? Their patience in such sort I mean not to offend, because I will not touch that string whereon they harp so much.  
The continuance of this discourse shall make manifest, that as I aim at a fairer mark, so I mean to take my standing on a better ground. But for the excusing of the hermits life, thus much I do answer: 
Prou, 26  not as greatly urging it, but as answering fools according to their folly. The Hermit having nothing, hath nothing to be rob of, is not with cares over priest, nor with the multitude of the unjust overcrowded. The rich personages, in whose houses swarm troops of friends and servants, have so many moths commonly feeding upon their bags, unless they be altogether expenceles Eoclioes, that the silver falleth out of them before it can well be spared. And in such variety of friends, whereof some be choleric, some melancholic, some sage, some voluptuous, some humble, some proud, some merciless, some pitiful, some envious, some faithful, and this last some is the least some: in such discord of affections, disagreement of inclinations, descent of motions, contrariety of humores, whether or whom will he please that hath shuffled himself with so many: and entered into a league with men so diversly disposed. If he be a dancer, his Stoical friends are at his elbow, with a pair of pinsors to keep him in tune. If he be no dancer, his Epicureall friends think strait way that he is in a trance, that he is dyspossest of his lively spirits, that he is inflamed with a foolish zeal, that he is alured by Pulpit persuasions, as if they should say, that he were tempted of God: and when he is thus estranged from their fashions, they are ready to be at defiance with his friendship.  
Charus erit Verri, qui Verrem tempore quo vult,  
Accusare potest.  
junenall, satire, 3,  
Verres amongst his friends doth only him recite  
That being his confederate may him of crimes indite.  
Now there is an other sort which be of the mean pitch, and they allow to their friend some kind of dancing, but some they abiudicate, having that saying of Aristotle for a principle: Omnis saltatio non est illicita, 
Arist. in art poetica.  quemadmodum nec omnis motus. All dancing is not unlawful, no more than every motion. There is a fourth sort, and they can not abide their friend to give his mind to any thing, to which they do not addict themselves, though they do not mislike the quality wherein he delighteth, saying that a friend must be alter idem, so like, that if he spit after an other sort, he is to be accounted a Schismatic. Amongst so many heads, senses, and sentences, such change and mutability doth ensue, that every morning, wherein a man so distracted by divers persuasions ariseth out of his bed, he ariseth with an other mind, and as an other man like to these animatio diaria, 
Cicero.  and horaria which continue in their estate but for an hour or a day: or like to Heraclitus his horse, 
Arist. Metaphisi. 3, c. 5  which going into a river, did never return out of the river, the same horse that he was when he went in Though this be an inconvenience, yet it is seasoned with this commodity, that a man in company is merry, and passeth away the time by some recreation or other. See how we triumph in our folly. We laugh as loud as jupiter did, 
Valer. Flaccus argonautic. Lib. 6.  when he was heard to laugh from the heaven to the earth: but it is unpossible that our mirth should not be overcast, with a cloud of sorrow. Every foresight of some mischief being at the door ready to arrest us, or remembrance of some sorrow, having lately passed by, and frozen our hearts with his stormy countenance, daunteth our cheer, interrupteth our mirth, changeth our Comedy into a Tragedy, and our laughter into lamentation. Every doubtful rumour of a perilous thing, maketh our heart to sob, our mind to fear, and smiteth the whole man with such an universal ecstasy, that we feel as it were a worm, feeding on our hearts, and a threatening that maketh us to shake, and all our joints to tremble. How soon might a man discharge himself of this burden, if he would profess a solitary and chaste life: which I will first illustrate by a similitude, and afterward by reasons and examples. When a man maketh his Testament, he renounceth the world, and in a little paper he doth orderly and conveniently dispose every thing. When he is dead, he is never more likely to be troubled again with such cares, or with any worldly business, which is the fountain of sorrow, of which, as often as we think, we cannot choose but sigh. If a man would ordain his will, take his leave of his carnal friends, bid the worldly cares and cogitations adieu, and betake him self to a solitary or sober life, I mean amongst men, not amongst beasts: amongst men also, not as separated from their company, but as sequestered from their contagion, he should not in any wise enjoy less quietness and tranquillity, then if he were in his grave, the door whereof is always shut, that no evil tidings may enter. He that sitteth on the throne of wealth, compassed with a large circle of friends, hath (as long as the sun-shyne of Fortune doth warm his bags, and as long as his glistering substance, maketh every man to cast up his eyes) a great multitude of friends, but when Fortune beginneth to wage battle with him, when his riches be melted, and his authority eclipsed, than every friend flincheth from him, and then he is as willing for shame and sorrow to forsake his friends, being then by compulsion enforced to lead a solitary life. And hard he not been better to have chosen a solitary life at the first, that is, not to have reposed his confidence in friends, but to have wholly relied upon his God, trusting friends as mistrusting them, and so determining of them, as having a doubt of them? To be chained to a friend, is a servitude, and to follow him in all things, is to leap beyond the line, to range out of the way, and to leave God for man. Now, when after our pleasures cometh a change, and after the dawning of our joy, ensueth a black and gloomy night of care and sorrow, than we wish for death: but that desire which encroacheth upon us, by the violence of adversity, is nothing so welcome unto us, as that we willingly admit. If the man so debased, and thrown from the top of a prosperous estate, had at the first given himself to solitariness, he had wanted, I grant many pleasures, but he had lacked also many sorrows, and he had escaped that extreme sorrow, into the bottom of which, adversity hath thrown him, and how can it be, but that such a life should be better, than a life led in pleasures, when he wisheth after the end of his delights, never to have enjoyed them, 
Augustus  saying some time as Augustus said: O utinam caelebs vixissem, orbusque periissem. I would I had never been a husband, I would I had never been a father: sometime with a tragical tune lamenting, 
Senec●  durum est servire, cum didiceris dominari: It is an hard thing to learn servitude after sovereignty. Sometime with dyscontented Cicero exclaiming: 
Cicero.  Cum non sis qui fueris, non est cur velis vivere. Sith thou canst not enjoy thy living, why wouldst thou enjoy thy life? If thou hadst been solitary Cicero, thou hadst not drunk of the poisonful cup of envy, thou hadst escaped the sword of Antonius and Herennius, carrying thy head upon the point of his sword, should not have made the Romans to have gazed upon it, as Children stand wondering at a Puppet erected on a pinnacle. Much eloquence we had lacked, if thou hadst not been in Fortune's favour: but yet many honour thy eloquence, that care not for thy fortune. If thou hadst declaimed against a Pillar of thine own house, within thy private walls, and hadst imagined it to have been Antony, and hadst engraven thereupon, thy philippical Orations, neither had we lost the eloquence which we contained in them, nor thou the dignity in which thou didst pronounce them. Let every one consider, to what course of life he committeth himself. If he make pleasures his companions, his money cannot long keep him company: if he make money his companion he shall not lack copartners. His Penelope can not be without fifty wooers, a company of good fellows, commonly called thieves, will be ready ad conciliandam benevolentiam, of his argenteall assembly, gathered together from divers coasts and quarters of the world. If he seek one lie to have the applause and approbation of the common people, as a perpetual Pirithous unto him, he followeth after flying Birds, and beateth the wind with his breath. The people is a changeable society, and he must be a perfitt chameleon that retaineth their favour. Demosthenes did think that the Athenians good will, had been for his singular eloquence in the highest degree toward him, and I think it was: but as it is the use of humane things, which fall when they are at the highest. Diogenes holding up his scrip on his staff, whilst Demosthenes did with an oratorical discourse allure the ears of the Athenians, withdrew from Demosthenes all his auditors, and turned all their eyes to a vain spectacle, verifying that which he did before speak of them, that they were Bellua multorum capitum, A beast of many heads, to use a more civil interpretation, men of many minds. Now he that ●ancieth so much the people's favour, must either serve their humours, or else they will utterly reject him: if he follow their affections, he must be a slave to their wills, and so not be led by his own reason, which is proper to man: and in him contrary winds must blow at the same time, which combat is against nature. He must hold with some of the people one thing, and with other some the contrary: and so in inward affection. He shall fight for himself against himself, being diversly distracted, 
Li●ius, Lib, 1  making a Met●us Suffetius of his own mind, plunged in the hell of doubts, and a galla-mafrie of his conscience, which if he wound, that is an other hell, and if he die without repentance, he must look for the third hell. But he will so provide, that he be in great favour with some honourable parsonage, and so having gotten a golden vizard to a bad face, he thinketh he may mask in all kind of pleasures, without any staining of his credit: for as for conscience, that is the least question, he thinketh his estimation can never be impaired by any change of fortune, imagining that he is secundus a jove, 
De moribus ultima fiet quaestio Juvenal.  the next to jupiter, and like a foolish Weathercock, turneth to every proud imagination, as his fancy windeth him, but he must not think, that his mind can be faber fortunae suae, the carpenter of his own fortune. He may imagine that he hath golden Mountains, that he is a Citizen of the silver world, that he is the son of the white Hen, and many such gloss he may make upon a fantastical text. But Fortune cannot be faithful, she is only steadfast in unsteadfastness, rolling continually hither and thither, according to the circute of her wheel. Plautianus was in high favour with Severus, 
Dion in vit. Sever.  but his estimation was nothing so great as his ruin, his adversity by many degrees exceeded his authority: if he had not been known too many, many had not known his fall: if the light of the Moon were not very great, who would watch half a night to behold the eclipse. To lose at one clap the credit which he did purchase by so great service, and so continual attendance, that he did even serve out a servitude to purchase a kingdom, which both to obtain and lose, almost in one moment, to change his honey for poison, and his bliss for bale, must of force be a great anguish to Plautianus. A whetstone to his miseries, a wormwood to his remembrance, and a canker to his heart. If he had dwelled in a mean Village, under the name of a poor Gentleman, he should have been loved of his neigh bours, but not envied: and though he had been a scandal unto his enemies, yet he should not have been unto them a ridiculous spectacle. It is not my meaning, to persuade any man to dwell in Diogenes his Tub, or Clearchus his Trunk, to live only by eating the air, or to repose his chiefest delight in the buzzing of a be, but to exhort every one, that he single and severre his desire from the worldly delicates, to estrange his cogitations from the allurements of the eye, to restrain his appetite from the devils triangle, Bacchus, Cupid, and Venus. That is, not to be accounted a chaste and contemplative life, which is consumed in corners upon a melancholic passion, or continued in deserts upon an amorous desperation, or which is spent to loathing the society of men, but not in forsaking and renouncing the company of vices. They which so pass the time, that the print of their footsteps cannot be perceived, to tend either toward the Court of Virtue, or to the Court of Venus, but stand still in the meeting of these two ways, are rather to be accounted Neutralles than Christians, rather sluggish drones, than either godly Eremites, or celestial eunuchs, or solitary Virgins, hating rather men with Timon, than the sin of Man with S. Augustine. The popish Monks make a goodly show every one of them living solus cum sola, I would have said solo, but that they serve not Bona Dea, and therefore they use not her precept.  Non intret faemina limen. 
These are not the true professors of a solitary and virtuous life, being nothing else but the Pope's Adamant, not to draw iron, but coin unto him. But they only are accounted the perfect Solitaria●ns, and they only are precious in the sight of God, which behave themselves in this world like Strangers and Pilgrims, being as it were ●ncarnate Angels, having their minds fixed on the heavenly delights, and on the heavenly knowledge: which are base in the sight of Men, fools to the stoics, blocks to the Epicures, cast aways to the contemptuous, and to express all in one word, worms and not men. They are like Beacons upon hills, which stand in a solitary place, and yet give light to the whole Country round about, at whom every worldling doth gaze, as at a Stranger, or outlandish person, marveling whence he came, whether he will, or what course he meaneth to take: but these strangers of the world, stand at a bay with pleasures, at a defiance with the devil: having crucified themselves to the world, and the world unto them, they put a great distinction between the Harp of Paris, and the Harp of David, betwixt the dancing of Deborah, and the jewish women, 
Statius in Achilie id,  and the dancing of Venus, and Lycomedes his Daughters, being never merry, but when it is said unto them, Come let us go into the house of the Lord, 
Psal. 22.  because their feet shall stand within the gates of jerusalem, never delighted to throng with the multitude, but when they go ad domum dei cum frequentia, 
Psal, 55.  to the house of the Lord with a great assembly.  
They seek not to have their names blazed by the Trumpet of the common people, they do not watch, nor care, nor travail for a popular friendship, they do not hawk nor hunt for lucre and gain, but if it please the Lord to place them in seats of honour, they take it as a free gift, not as a merited reward, using their honour to the lords honour, ready at all times to resign it, when it shall please him to remove it: and if it please the Lord to keep them in a low estate, & to bar them from the weight of honours, they are contented with his grace, and making friends of the wicked Mammon, upon whom they do not rely, because they must not make such a base matter their Bulwark, but charitably dispensing their substance, to the use of their needy Brethren, to the discharge of their own want, and to the glory of God: they so use the world as not abusing the world. But in these days, unless a man be frolic, and dissolute, he is accounted melancholic: unless he have a round invention to return a quip, he is accounted lunatic: if he cannot cousin, he is a sot: if he be simple, he is a fool: if he be solitary, he is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but if he be a familiar companion, one that is taught to the game, and a confederate in venereous practices, 
Ovid.  such a one, as Ovid describeth. Qui canit arte canat, qui bibit arte bibat: he is accounted immediately a good fellow, a flower of this age, and he is invested with such sible titles, that he followeth the race of them that praise him, as the Ape doth the steps of them that trace him. The solitary man hath few friends, and therefore few enemies: he taketh no parts▪ and therefore is partaker of no harms. Cicero was once determined to prosecute his study, and not to meddle in the civil war, betwixt Caesar and Pompeie, but alas he drew his feet too late out of the mire, wherein so long he had bedawbed them: for showing before a friendly countenance to Caesar, and professing great friendship to Pompeie, such like affections to persons so diversly affectioned, he was looked for of the one, and longed for of the other: the one claimed him, the other challenged him: Caesar was jealous of him, and set Scouts to pry whether he applied himself any way to the pleasuring of Pompey, and Pompey also watched him very narrowly, with an attentive heed, examining his proceedings, and doubting that he did more esteem of Caesar then of him: so that Cicero then beginning to be solitary, was debarred from his intent, and the more close and solitary that he was▪ the more diligently and circumspectly was he watched: so that it is not enough to shake of partiality and affection, and go to his study, & there betrothe himself to his Minerva, having the world before him, in a Cosmographical Map, and the state of the common Weal in the parliament of his cogitations, but he must set upon his door in the first year of his Man hood: Hic situs est Vasias: Vasias lieth buried here: as though he had lost his life, and had entered into a new world. For if a man be half alive and half dead, to this wicked world, full of contentions and cares, he purchaseth to himself the name of Amphibion, a beast that liveth both on water and on land, and such a monk is like to the bare scalp of a Monks head, that is half an head, and half a skull: such demi-worldlinges should be used like the Bat, which was thrust both from beasts and birds, and have a garment shaped after two fashions, that he may learn of his coat what deformity there is in his mind, but the linges are so charmed with the sweet conjuration of pleasure, that they think their delights shall never have an ebb, that there shallbe no intermixion of sorrow, no change of fortune: that they shall entreat age with a congee, death with a kiss, the hellish tyranny with a devout placebo, and the God that maketh the Temples of Heaven to shake with thunder, by pouring out a few words in form of a prayer. Sith they have abundance of all things, ioculiaritie at will, pleasure in their hands, poverty under their feet, wealth in a chain, which they pluck in, or let out, as it shall please their fancies: they are fully persuaded, that they shall never taste the cup of sorrow, that they shall never be pricked with thorns: that they shall never behold the sword of vengeance. These voluptuous Thrasoes, think that they shine like the greater stars, which obscure the less. And indeed they shine in a kind of bravery: but how? Even as the glimmering of a glassy substance, which is darkened as soon as it appeareth, and from the Orient to the Occident thereof is a very short space, and a little distance. In the dark clouds of misery, in the ruin of prosperity, in the wain of fortune, in the confusion of states, and the conversion of times: where be these sparkling stars Hector, Troilus, Deiphobus, Paris, and Priamus? where is the pomp & majesty of that great kingdom? where be these gorgeous Women, Andromache, and Hecuba? where be these divine walls, built, erected, & established, by the hands of Neptune & Apollo? where is there a monument, print or sign of the large and famous region, which was called Dardania? Troy is not in so good case that it is turned into standing Corn, as the Poet imagined, when he said jam seges est ubi Troia fuit: 
Ovid in Epistol.  but the corn is cut, and the stubble remaineth. These same stars have now lost their light, and are covered with the mantle of darkness. They may say, we were Troyans', but now are ashes: we were stars, but now are carcases: we were Grapes, but now are dregs: we were the honour of Troy, but now are the footstool of the Grecians. O wonderful change, importunate times, and crooked fortune. The Shepherds do sing in the field, the conquest of the Troyans', and the Trojan war is the Shepherds carol. O slippery dignities, headlong honour, fugitive glory: which in one moment lighted upon them and rebounded from them. But these were mighty men that bore too high a sail, and therefore had justly such a stripe given them, and such a penalty inflicted, let it be so: But shall Hector die, and Astyanax live? Shall the thunderbolt of jove strike down the Giants, and shall Phaeton that proud boy scape the force thereof? Shall the trees fall, and shall not the leaves be moved? Shall Cities be shaken with earthquakes, and shall cottages stand, it is impossible, and incredible: but what is this against the voluptuous? Troy was deceitfully overcome by the Greekish craft, & perjury: but Troy was first bathed in Wine, before it was circumvented by fraud, 
Virgil.  and drenched in blood.  Inuadunt urbem vino somnoque sepultam. 
The Greeks invade a careless drunken Town.  
When I call to mind, how the sumptuous buildings, which the Romans did consecrate to pleasure, are turned to nothing, how their theatres, amphitheatres, Circi & delightful baths are withered with a light dryness, dissolved with a little blast, and rowlde down as it were with Fortune's dalliance. I marvel that the Epicures are so secure, that they think their joys shall always continue, or if they think on death, yet they imagine, that after their death they shall be renowned for some rare Trophy of pleasure: when death hath once seized upon them, all such things are discontinued, neither can they look back to their former pastimes: the Idols of of their Epicurism shall be thrown down by the breath of his mouth, before whose face, the Idols of the Gentles were dissundered into dust, and now in dust are they buried. Let them therefore before their death think of their death, let them before they be embarked, meditate both of the Haven, which is the port of happiness, and of the Rock, which is the receptacle of the unhappy: and let them in mind foresee the grim and blustering countenance of the terrible and threatening day, in which the Axletrées of the world shall fly in sunder, the stars shall fall from the heavens, when the Sun shall be overcast with an iron colour, hiding his head because he hath lost his light, and the moon being deprived of her light, shall stand astonished, when the revenging fire shall drop from Heaven, and the sparks of the lightning shall kindle in the stony Rocks: when the Seas and fountains shall burn, when the air shall be inflamed with burning clouds: when this ancient form of the world shall be changed. Let them think of the miserable Dungeon, which containeth the powers of darkness, that loathsome lake of hell, where the devils are plunged, as in a swallowing gulf, out of which there is no egress, buried in the bottom of a vast furnace, and breathing out of their nostrils the smoke of vengeance, out of their mouths an eternal fire, to torment the distressed: with one hand they stretch out bright firebrands, in the other they hold their three forked fuskins, both of them as fit instruments of their tyrannous cruelty. There is continual gnashing of teeth, sighing and sorrowing, both of the devil himself, and those whom he scourgeth, with whips that will never be worn, scorcheth with fire that will never be extinguished, fettereth with chains that will never be loosed, and teareth with wild Bulls that will never be wearied, consumeth with a worm that will never be filled, dysjointeth with racks which will never be broken. The Prince of darkness howleth, because he hath lost the heavenly mansion, wherein before he had the use of inestimable joys. And they because they left the happiness, that was offered unto them, if they would have left the ways that led to destruction. Let them to whom God permitteth the fruition of this vital air, think of these things, and lay them up deeply in their hearts, let them lift up their eyes to heaven, and their hearts to the heavenly comforts, let them long to be placed in the paradise of bliss, and to be clad with the robes of glory, to be crowned with the garland of victory, to be initiated into the mysteries, and admitted into the secret treasure of that divine contemplation, which is not by any man's speech, or thought countervailable, by the benefit of which they shall behold the shining gates of the heavenly jerusalem, the walls streets, and dwellings thereof, the troup of Citizens and their mighty Monarch: whose Towers are of precious stones, whose buildings are adorned with sapphire and Smaragdi: Then they shall see the Sacrifice of their redemption, the pure, holy, and immaculate Lamb, with the choir of Angels, they shall glorify God, amidst the blessed number of Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, & Confessors, with the righteous Men and Matrons, with the innocent Virgins and Children. Wherefore let them desire to be delivered from these fleshly bonds, let them be willingly content to leave their Tents of Cedar, that dwelling with Cherubins and Seraphins, and the happy souls of the Saints, they may triumphantly sing these hymns unto the Lord, which are used in Zion. Let them add to these three, three other contemplations, very necessary and convenient, let them deeply I say deliberate of these three things: First, how base our estate is in this life. Secondly, how discommodious this world is unto us. thirdly, how short and momentary this life is. For the first, let them enter into the consideration of man's original, who when he cometh into the world, doth with great weakness, imbecility, fear and trembling, enjoy the earth▪ and receive the air: he shrinketh, quaketh, and quavereth, stagereth and starteth back, as though he would gladly return, and re-enter into the closette of his mother's womb. And for the evident demonstration of his mysliking of this world, he beginneth to weep, and cry out in most rueful and pitiful manner, with a skréeking and doleful gen●thliacon, which ●s so proper to the nature of man, when it first sprouteth in this world, that the learned Mirandula not unwisely said, 
joan. Pic. Mirand. lib. 7, in Astro.  that a Child as soon as he is borne, giveth out no sign, which is proper to man, but only weeping: and hath he not good cause of weeping, when he cometh into the Theatre wherein Maliciousness playeth her prize, when he cometh into a veil of miseries, into a desert full of unclean byrddes, into the world (I mean) possessed of white devils and black devils, into a place that received him being actually innocent, but will send him back, being overflown of vices, and when he groweth in age, he groweth like a tender herb, unto which he hath often been, and may well be compared, not for any internal power, wherein he resembleth the herbs of the field, but for an internal impotency, for his fraltie, tenderness and weakness, for his great need of underpropping, cherishing and defending, subject to the coldness of the air, subject to the parching of the Sun, subject to rage and violence, and when he is even at the top of his perfection, how far is he excelled in many things of the brute beasts, which he taketh upon him to manage, to use at his pleasure, and with a lion-like look to despise. 
Aristot. Rhetoric. 1. cap. 11.  All temporal and worldly delight, consisteth in three things: in perceiving things present, which are delightful unto us: in remembering things past, which have been pleasant unto us: and in hoping for things to come, which may be pleasant unto us. In these three things, Man may challenge the victory: but quietness consisteth in three other things. In perceiving things pleasant, without hurt: in remembering things past, without grief: in looking for things to come, without fear. And in these three things, Man is overcomed of the brutish creatures. Variety likewise consisteth in three things: in enjoying many things: answering to many affections: in finding out helps to nature: in knowing many things: in those three, Man is the victor. But contentation is reposed in three other things: in being fre● from mutability of desires, in being satisfied with that which natures bounty doth exhibit, in knowing nothing that might be wished to be known: and herein the savage beasts have pre-eminence. There be four small things in the earth saith Solomon, and yet they are wiser than men that be wise. 
Prou. 30  The Ants a people not strong, yet prepare they their meat in the Summer. The Coneys, a people not mighty, yet make they their houses in the Rocks. The grasshoppers have no kings, and yet they go all forth by bands. The Spider holdeth with her hand, and is in kings palaces. So the Lord that he might show how weak man's power is, being compared to other creatures, that his own power might clearly shine in the creation and government of them, doth thus expostulate with job. 
job, 39,  Who hath set the wild Ass at liberty, or who hath loosed his bands? It is I which have made the wilderness his house, and the salt places his dwellings. He mocketh the multitude of the City, he heareth not the cry of the driver. And again. Hast thou given the horse strength, or covered his neck with neyghing, he diggeth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength, he goeth forth to meet the harnessed man, he despiseth fear, and turneth not his back from the sword. job being greatly apalled and daunted, with these and such like speeches, doth confess his imbecility, acknowledgeth his baseness, and removeth from his mind all opinion of stateliness, & with great humility, meekness, and lenity of mind, frameth this answer to the Lord. Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee, I will lay my hand upon my mouth.  
This may sufficiently argue man's ignobility and contemptible estate in this life: if we rest only in the natural man, and go no further: but this notwithstanding he will scarce believe, that this world is discommodious and dangerous unto him, sith he tasteth the fruits of most acceptable friendship, and hath such a large title to so many friends. By that record I will be tried, and as the judgement of freendshypp is registered in the hearts of wise men, let definitive sentence be given. The discoloured and mutable affection of friends hath driven many to that exigent, that they have been ready to avow and betake themselves to a voluntary exile, whereof Vmbricius the Roman was one, who made this protestation.  
proponimus illuc 
Juvenal satire, 3,  Ire fatigatas ubi Daedalus exuit alas.  
Thither I mean to high Wither the wearied Dedalus constrained was to fly.  
And he giveth afterward a substantial reason.  
Quis nunc diligitur, nisi conscius, & cui feruens  
Aestuat occultis animus semperque tacendis.  
What man is now beloved,  
but he whose guilty mind  
Doth feel the flames of secret sins,  
and can no comfort find.  
Solomon did much lament the defect of charity, and the coldness thereof, when he considered that the poor and innocent man was fréendles and succourless.  
I beheld (saith Solomon) the ●eares of the innocent, and there was none to comfort him, and he could not resist the violence of adversaries, being destitute of all men's aid. Therefore I praised them that were dead, 
Eccle, 4,  more than them that were living, and happier than both did I judge him that was not yet borne. As it was in salomon's time, so is it now, and I fear worse. What cruelty is daily committed of neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, friend against friend?  
non hospes, ab hospite tutus,  
Nec socer a genero, fratrum quoque gratia rara est  
nor host his guest doth spare. Nor son in law the father in law, and brother's love is rare.  
There is nothing more common in these days, then friendly salutations, sugared speeches, large promises, fawning faces, favourable words, the fidelity of the forehead, and the charity of the countenance.  
But a friend that will take his heart out of his breast, and gauge it for thy safety, to whom thy tears be as grievous as the drops of his own blood, which accounteth thee his own dear worth, though thou be deformed by poverty: such a friend is the beauty of the world and his friendship is a rare mystery to the consideration of man. But such friend ship is the imagined friendship of Aristotle, which is (so have we corrupted & altered nature) an accident but not inhaerent in any subject: an excellent thing, & divinely described. But the good Philosopher (peace be to his cinders) could not give an instance of a perfect friend, though he gave many rules and documents, which may direct to friendship. Nothing tinckleth more in the ears of men, than the name of society, and the profession of amity, nothing seemeth more delectable unto us, than the name of friendship, nothing more detestable than the name of enmity: yet in the common practice of our life, that which by words we do so greatly dyscommend▪ by deeds we do confirm and approve, and in our hearts enimitye hath a frank tenement: friendship is tenant at will, which in every choleric fury, we are ready to extrude. This is the cause that friendship is so clouded by anger, so diminished by suspicion, so weakened by emulation, so corrupted by envy, so supplanted by treachery, so sold for commodity, so changed with novelty, so far distant from constancy, that this only remaineth to a man to beast of in fréendshyppe, that he is not deceived nor betrayed by his friends. Now if friends be so disprofitable, and fréendshyppe so dangerous a thing in this World, what are then our foes in this world our sworn foes, our bitter enemies, such as are never satisfied, till their eyes be glutted with beholding a whole Ae●na of miseries falling upon us. Let him loath therefore this world, let him loathe this life, let him desire to leave this carcase. This life is indeed a death, and this carcase but a Tomb and Sepulchre of a shrined soul. 
Phill. 1.  Let him desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, for that is the best without comparison. Let him lastly call to account the shortness of this life. Let him mark how the Feathers are almost as soon melted as they begin to grow.  
Man (saith job) is of a short continuance, and full of trouble, 
job, 14,  he buddeth as a flower, and is soon cut down▪ he vanisheth also as a shadow and continueth not. Though a man (saith David) should pass the compass of a thousand years, 
Psal, 90  they are but as yesterday with thee, and as a watch in the night. Thou takest them away, as it were in the flowing of the sea, they are as a dream. They are in the morning as grass, that vadeth away, which vadeth in the fame morning wherein it flowrisheth, in the evening it is cut up, and withereth away: all our days, pass away from us by thine anger, we spend our years, and they are like unto a tale, in the days of our life, be but seventy years, and if we be most healthful, but eyghtye years, the greatest excellency of them is troublesome and grievous, which when it passeth away we do immediately vanish. Let us therefore make great account how we spend the days of our peregrination in this world, and the longer we live, let us live the better, God will not be wanting to our will, if our will be not wanting to ourselves, let the worldling weigh in his mind, the reasons and precepts that of the sacred word of God I have borrowed. If he think them to burdenous, let him think of the reward that he shall have for the carriage. The weight wherewith he is charged, is the weight of pearls, not of quarry sins. Every ounce hath a pound of commodity: and let the godly Christian take this poetical clause, not as poetical but true, and as a friendly farewell of a contemplative Christian.  

Hîc sumus extorres, alienaque regna tenemus  
sub gravis exilii seruitiique iugo: 
Mantua   
Est illîc natale solum, sedesque penatum,  
Regnat ubi magno maximus orb pater.   

Hear under heavy yoke of servitude,  
Like banished men, we run a pilgrim's race,  
There is our Country and our only God,  
Where only God doth bear imperial mace.    

The Author's Resolution.  
Sink down into the bottom of thy grave,  
Into the dankish den of Vesta's womb  
Thou mildering lump of my despised coarse:  
With greenish 
I  Mantle let thy loins be clad,  
Bestow thine entrails on the griping worms.  
And at the dawning of that dreadful day,  
When Christ as corronell of blessed Saints,  
Shall be environed with a burning Sphere,  
A radiant Star to his triumphant Church.  
When hallowed souls shall to their bodies fly,  
And damned ghosts shall be recorporate,  
Rise thou again, and with these fleshly eyes,  
Behold the flesh of thy sweet Saviour Christ.  
Strike then thine heart, and let thy tears distill  
Strain then thy voice to hear the Echoes sound,  
Which with a cheerful chant may bid thee come:  
May bid thee come to taste the joys of Heaven,  
To bear a Crown, to take eternal rest.  
And thou my soul which wanderest here too long,  
In desert vast of worldly wilderness,  
Fly to the utmost Heaven, thy native soil,  
To take thine heritage among the Saints,  
To hold a plot of paradise for share.  
And leave the Wagon of this earthly mould,  
To be dissundered by the tools of death.  
Make heaven thy Haven, make Zion's mount thy tower.  
Make there thy nest, where Hermons' dew doth drop,  
Make there thy tents where God of hosts doth reign,  
Make him thine arm who is the God of hosts,  
Make there thy mansion where thou still must live.  
Let Salem new by thy jerusalem.  
Let Abraham's bosom be thy Palestine.  
For Milk of Canaan taste thou Angels food.  
For jordan brood let Crystal Fountain serve.  
Let mercy be thy meed: good hap thy hope:  
Nourish this hope good Lord, and grant this hap.  
FINIS.