THE Gallants Burden.  
A Sermon preached at PAUL'S CROSS, THE twenty nine of March, being the fifth Sunday in Lent. 1612.  
By THO. ADAM'S, Preacher of God's Word at Willington in Bedford-shire.  
Published by authority.  
LONDON Printed by W. W. for Clement Knight, and are to be sold at his Shop in Paul's Churchyard at the Sign of the Holy Lamb. 1612.   

TO THE HONOURABLE SIR WILLIAM GOSTWICKE Baronet, and his worthy Lady, the Lady JANE GOSTWICKE.  
Honourable Sir, I acknowledge freely that the World is oppressed with the Press, a●d the confluence of Books hath bred a confusion of errors, of Vices; so hard is it to distinguish betwixt profitable and vain writings; and having culled out the best, so easy is it with much good Meat to surfeit; yet is not therefore Meat unnecessary: It is no sober inference, because both Text and readers have been corrupted with false Glosses, to reject all Expositions, all Applications: both are fit, this latter most necessary; for our Understanding is better than our Conscience: there is some light in our Minds, little warmth in our Affections: So against Nature is it true in this, that the essential qualities of Fire, Light, and Heat, are divided; and to say, whether our light of Knowledge be more, or our heat of Devotion less, is beyond me: Let this (considered) plead for me, that I (do but) rub this swooning Knowledge in us, to bring it back to some life of Obedience: If any feel their thick eyes hence to receive any clearness, or their numbed Affections to gather (the least) Spirit, let th●m at once, give God the glory, and take to themselves the comfort. Sin hath got strength with age, and against all natural order, is more powerful, subtle, and fuller of active dexterity now in the dotage of it, than it was in the nonage: Both Pulpit & Press are weak enough to resist it. It therefore this small Arrow of Reproof can wound (but even) one of his Limbs, it shall a little enervate his tyranny. Whatsoever this Sermon is, it is wholly yours, and he that made it: whose Patronage, I could not be ambitious of, if I should only fix my eyes on my own deservings: but in the affiance of your good natures, mature judgements, and kind constructions of my weak endeavours, I have presumed to make you the Patron of my Labours, who was freely the Patron of myself. I know, that God's word can countenance itself, and needs not the shelter of an humane arm, not, though it had as many Edomites to deride it, as it hath Patrons to defend it: But I find not only the best writings of the best Men, but even some of those Holy Books, inspired from Heaven, bearing in their foreheads (as from the penmen) a dedication. I confess, it is not all for your Protection, somewhat for your use; and you are blessed in favouring that, which shallbe best able to favour you: May I therefore entreat your Honours, to give it happy entertainment to your own hearts, favourable protection to the worlds eyes; so shall that, and myself be (yet more) yours. The God of all power and mercy, be as faithful a shadow of refreshing to your souls, as your kindness hath been free to my wants, who must ever remain.  
Your Honours in all faithful observance, Tho. adam's.   

THE GALLANT'S BURDEN.  Esay 21. ver. 11. 12. The burden of Dumah. He calls unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what was in the night? Watchman, what was in the night? The Watchman said: The morning cometh, and also the night. If ye will ask, inquire: return, and come. 
QVò brevior, ●ò obscurior: the shorter this prophesy is, the more mystical. In holy Writ, these two things ever concur: (Sententia brevis▪ res ampla) a finite Sentence, an infinite Sense: As in a little Map we see a world of Countries, and what the Foot cannot measure in many days, the Eye peruseth in a moment: this is the little Map of Idumea or Edom, (wherein we may survey the state of that whole Region) not much unlike the situation of it, standing in this Chapter betwixt Chaldea and Arabia: The Burdens against them both are heavy, and the Plagues aggravated with more circumstances: The burden of Dumah, (though short) shall weigh with them grain for grain.  
As you travail with me into this Country (by the guidance of that enlightening spirit) tie your considerations to two especial things; 
Division.  the Map, the Moral. In the Map you shall find 1. an Inscription, 2. a Description: In the Inscription observe, 
Map.  1. the name of the Country: 2. the nature of the Prophecy. The Description rests itself on 3. Objects; 1. a Mountain, 2. a Watchman, 3. an Edomite: where is shadowed 1. under the Mountain, Security: 2. under the Watchman, Vigilancy: 3. under the Edomite, Scorn. Now, if you ask (as they did the Prophet Ezekil) what these things mean? 
morel.  the Moral directs you 1. by a Question, 2. by an Answer: The Question would know, what was in the Night: the Answer declares it 1. by a Resolution, 2. by an Advice: The Resolution (Venit manè et vespè) The ●●orning c●mes, and also the night: the Advice, If ye will ask, inquire: return, and come.  
In the Inscription, 
Dumah.  we propounded to be considered 1. the name of the Country, 2. the nature of the Prophecy: For the Country, there is some question what this Dumah should be: some affirm it to be the Country of the Ishmaelites, and to receive the name from Dumah, that son of Ishmaell, mentioned Gen. 25. 14. but that Dumah, with other the sons of Ishma●ll inhabited Arabia, which is burdened in the Prophecy following, distinctly severed from this: this Dumah then was the Country of the Idumeans or Edomites, the place where Esa● and his generation dwelled: this is clear by the Mount Seir, which was an Hill of the Ed●mu●s: Ezech. 35. 15.  
This Idumea is here called Dumah: 
Pearphaer●sin.  thus God insinuates his contempt of that rebellious and accursed nation, by cutting short the name, as unworthy to stand in his Book, graced with the full length: the estimation which the wicked bear with God is here expressed: he thinks the mention of them a blur to his sacred leaves: now, shall their persons sit in his Kingdom with honour, whose names may not stand in his Book without disgrace? Sometimes they are concealed, as Dives: 
Luk. 16. 19  that real Parable gives no other title to the condemned churl: 
Luk. 13. 32.  Christ allows the Tyrant Herod no other name then a Fox: Go tell that Fox, etc. God calls those Princes, 
Amos. 4. 1.  the Bulls of Bashan on the Mountains of Samaria: they would be blots to his holy Book, if they were expressly named. Sometimes they are named, (but) with abbreviations; Dumah for Id●mae●: 
Ruth. 4. 19  Thus Aram is called Ram: Ephesdam●im, a coast of the Philistines, never spoken of without contempt, is twice thus curtailed. 1. Cro. 11. 
1. Chron. 11. 13.  it is called Pasdaemmim: and 1. Sam. 17. Dammim. 
1. Sam. 〈◊〉 .1.   
Let not this Observation slip from us without our use, If God take letters from the name, he intends to take blessings from the person, 
jer. 22. 28.  when Ieconiah's curse is written in the cutting off his Posterity from the throne of David, and himself from the prosperity of the earth, he is called Co●●●h: the reason is added, He is a despised person, let him have a shortened name: a broken Idol, and an unpleasant Vessel, etc.  
Thus God crosseth the world's fashion, by putting them in his Chronicle, which are not here thought of, and leaving those out, which the world boasts of as her glory: to a soul that hath more Affection in her, than Religion, it seems a great matter of pity: that Plato, Cato, Alexander, & some of those mighty Roman Caesar's, honoured with the graces of Nature, the bounties of Fortune, & the greatest glory, the forced world could yield them, should yet want a name in God's Book, a place in his Kingdom. Greatness is the fairest object to the eye of the world, Goodness to the eye of Heaven: There is a glorious splendour in pompous Honour, to draw the eyes of admiration after it; it little affects the sight of God, if Virtue gives it not a Lustre: he that is goodness and greatness itself (when others have it in the concrete, good and great, he hath and deserves it in the abstract) is pleased (to prefer his title of Optimus, before that of Maximus) and first to be called Good, 
Exod. 14.  and then Great. His affections should be ours: he is the absolute precedent of our imitation.  
There are infinite ways that conduct to seeming Honour, excluding Virtue; the end of them all is shame: since of a natural man it is true, that (Quan●ò ornatior, tantò nequ●or) The more adorned, the more wicked: our Bonnets vail, our Knees bow to many, whom the sight of Heaven and Virtue, scorns: This imparity of men living, is made even by death, who sweeps all (Beggar and Prince) with his impartial Besom, into one Bag: and when judgement comes, they are made odd and unequal again; for then, the least in the worlds estimation, shall sit down with the blessed Kings and patriarchs in Heaven, when Kings and Patriottes without grace, shallbe excluded. If you desire your names to be registered with the pen of Eternity, write them yourselves with the pen of Charity: the Book of Grace, is the counterpane to the Book of Election: they are written in Heaven first, and there God reads them: We cannot see into this Book through the thick clouds of the Air and Sin; let us write them in the leaves of Obedience, and there read them: 
1. Tim. 2. 19  they stand sure with God before, not sure to us till now: 
2. Pet. 1. 10.  Write them in the entrails of the Poor, in the ruins of the Church, by you bettered, repaired, maintained, (Non norunt haec monumenta mor●,) and you shall one day hear the judge himself, read them in the audience of all the world, 
Math. 25.  to your joy, crown, eternity of bliss.  
Christ diverted his Apostles triumph to an other honour: they were little less than proud, 
Luke. 10. 17.  that the Devils were subdued unto them through his name whom they served: True (saith Christ) I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning; nevertheless rejoice not that the spirits obey you, but rejoice that your names are written in Heaven. 
ver. 20.  Rejoice not of your ennobled bloods, admired with living praises, & rescued from the jaws of oblivion by sumptuous sepulchres: there is small matter of joy, that the name lives in bright honour on Earth, when the Soul lies in the rusting miseries of Hell: but rejoice on your assurance of memorial with God: 
Prou. 10. 7.  The memory of the just shall be blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot. A great name commonly ariseth either from Blood, 
1. Descent.  popular applause, 
2. Ho●our  or Golden trappings: 
3. Wealth.  the last useth a man like a Counter that stands now for a Million, instantly for a Penny: The first finds Honour, perhaps deserves it not, leaves it by succession: The middlemost is unconstant, as the causes are: the vulgar opinions, whose distracted voices seldom hit on the same tune, or never keep it long. The monarchs of the world have large and tedious Titles, according to their several Dominions: good luck have they with that Honour, which the hand of God reacheth forth unto them: there is a Title that betters all theirs; those are folded up in time, that perisheth: this brings Honour without end or limits, to be a Christian; such have their names producted in God's book, to show that they stand written with Golden letters in the lambs book of Heaven: Abram shallbe called Abraham: jacob, Israel. The Hebrews well observe, that God to those he loved, added a letter of his own name (that tetragrammaton) jehovah: as the letter He, to Abraham's and Sarahs' name the letter Iod to Iehoshua's, who was before called Hoshea.  
It was happy for Mordecaj that his name stood in the Persian Chronicles, that Ahashverosh might read him: his service shallbe found out with rewards, array him with the kings rob, set him on the kings Chariot, and proclaim his name through the popular streets, This is the man, 
Ester. 6. 9  whom the King will honour. It is more blessed to stand in the Chronicles of Heaven, registered by the Pen of that eternal Spirit; we shall one sit with the King in his Throne (Vnicenti dabitur sedere, 
Revel. 3. 21.  etc.) and put on his rob of Glory; 
Philip. 3. ●1.  (Be fashioned like his glorious body, 
Psal. 149. 9 ) Such honour have all his Saints. It is the decree and promise of him, whose word is more stable than the foundations of the Earth: Those that hon●●r me, I will honour. Revolve then his sacred Name in your sanctified mouths: sing Hosannas to it here, that you may ●ing Halle●uia's hereafter: & having drunk hearty draughts of his Waters of Mercy, bless with David his great and glorious Name: the honour of your own names is attained, nay consists in this: maintain the glory of it with your strengths, sound it with your praises, and (if need be) seal it with your bloods; and God shall write your Names (not shortened like Dumah's,) but at full length, in a Book never to be blotted out.  
The nature of the Prophecy follows, being that other branch of the Inscription; 
Burden.  A Burden: a matter not easily portable, but will weigh heavy on whom soever imposed: the Burden is in 2. respects: 1. of the Prophet that bear it: 2. of the People that were to suffer it.  
1. The Word of the Lord is to the Prophets a heavy Burden till they are delivered of it: there is no rest in the bones to the surcharged Conscience, no more then to the pregnant Woman till she be eased: I confess, that Security, Vanity, abundance of Wealth, setting their shoulders to this Burden, make many a Prophet forego all sense of the weight: jonas laden with his Commission for Niniveh, lay as securely in the sides of the Ship, as if the God of Israel had laid no Burden on him: but himself was a Burden to the Ship, and the fury of the Waves, Winds, and his Anger that moves all, was not appeased, till the Ship was disburdened of jonas, that had disburdened himself of the Message of God. Let me speak it with grief and fear; We are the sons of those Prophets, (I mean) their successors in Gods Ministerial work: and the Word of the eternal God is no lighter a Burden to us than it was to them: nay let me add (that, which is not to be thought of without trembling) there is the Burden of a Curse threatened to them that neglect this Burden; Cursed is he that doth God's business negligently. Lest I should seem bitter in applying this too generally, let me freely speak what Paul applies to his own person, if he slighted this ponderous charge: A necessity (which is no less than a Burden) is laid upon me, and woe unto me, if I preach not the Gospel.  
I know that our Harvest abounds with plentiful and painful Labourers, that bear the heat and burden of the day, and according to their several offices (whether in Overseeing, Planting, or Watering) with the sweat of their brows, they labour in God's Vineyard: but to complain o● the evil that is, is no wrong to the good that is: 〈◊〉 excellent things are spoken of thee, Oh thou City of God; Oh thou Church of England: Oh might it be no wrong to thy Perfections, no stain to thy Beauty, to condole some wants in thy Sons: It is sin to be silent, where an impartial speech may take good effect: the sweet dews of holy Admonitions may from this place, (as the Liver) spread into all the Veins of the Land.  
The ministery is a matter of both Honour and Burden: Are there none, that catch at the Honour, will not meddle with the Burden? whose pined Flocks must either content themselves with a bare Pasture, or else stray forth into neighbouring Commons; whiles they forget to break their masters Bread; yea perhaps to set the whole Loaf before his guests: Are there none that load their minds with the Burden of Cares, too heavy for a Christian soul to bear? the load of Ambition, the burden of Covetousness so pressing them down, as if they were exonerated of the Burden of the Gospel: But if any soul be sensible of this Burden, (as one, into whose bowels God hath put the compassion of distressed souls,) 
Esay. 62. 1.  for Zyons' sake he will not hold his peace: yea, let me speak it of him, that job of himself; He is full of matter, and the spirit within him, compelleth him: the word is in him, 
job. 3●. 18.  like new Wine in Bottles, which must be vented, or will burst forth: And if we slip our shoulders from under this Burden, God can make the whole world too hot for us, and at last impose a Burden of another nature, on our then weaker and more unable souls (the Mountains and Rocks (if weighed in the balance) will be found lighter) the Burden of all their sins, whose souls have bled to death by our negligence: We may, through our impatience and weakness with jeremy, curse the days of our Nativity, and cry woe worth the time, 
jer. 20.  that ever we were borne, to so troublesome an Office: but a greater woe and curse attends us, if we attend it not: passive Corruptions in ourselves, active Reproaches, Injuries, Oppositions of others, impulsive temptations of the Devil, may make us weary of our callings: but his Word is in our hearts, as fire shut up in our bones, and we shall be weary of forbearing; we cannot smother the flames of it, but with terms of defiance to the stoutest that bear a forehead, we must declare it: God gives us the provision of this Burden, before hand, that we may stoop the shoulders of patience and zeal to it: Thus to Ezekiell: Son of man, 
Ezek▪ 1●  I send thee to Israel; What are they? I will not dissemble with thee: They are a rebellious house: contumelies against thyself, blasphemies against thy maker, the bitings, smitings, woundings of tongues, hands, and sword: this is the Burden thou must bear; if any lighter and better things come, let them be (praeter spem) beyond thy expectation: Thus is the Word a burden to the person that bears it.  
2. It is no less to them that must suffer it: the judgements of God are heavy on whomsoever they light: a Millstone bound to the sinner, & thrown with him into the Sea, will not sooner sink him to the bottom, than these bound to the soul, will sink it to the depth of dephtes; 
Math. 18. 6.  therefore Christ says, Better a Millstone, because lighter. The wrath of the Lamb, at the consummation of the world, is acknowledged more heavy than Rocks and Mountains; 
Revel. 6. 16.  and happy were it for those reprobates, if such intolerable pressures could dissolve them into emptiness: These on the body are more sensible, on the soul more miserable. In the infancy of the world, God's blows were most outward; in this ripe (or rather rotten) age of it, they are most inward & spiritual: We have no Bears to devour the Mockers; no fiery Serpents to strike the Murmurers: Gods punishments reach most to the Conscience: (T●●●plex circa prae●●●●a ferrum,) a sensual and senseless heart without apprehension of God's incensed anger, (Cor nuliis violabile telis) not made of penitrable stuff: if God's finger touch the body, we groan under the weight; let his whole hand lie on the soul, we feel nothing: If this be not our Burden & Misery, what is? Like curious Visitors, will ye not believe this age to labour of this Sickness, (unless you behold some Symptoms? Let your eyes take notice (and that not without grief of soul) the deadness of heart among us: We ply the World hard, dally with Religion: We serve God in jest; ourselves, with all respect & earnest: Our Devotions are like Winter, frosty, misty, & windy of many natures, none other than cold: Nothing arms, charms, and confirms our senses with attention, spirits with intention, active powers with contention, but vanity. Are not the Benches in Taverns, and theatres, often well replenished, when these Seats are thin and almost empty? Are not the Allies in this Temple often fuller of Walkers, than the Choir of Petitioners? Conference with profane ostentation of clothes; perhaps plots of mischief, as frequent, as suits to God: (making it little less than a den of thieves:) If men stumble into the Church, as company, custom, recreation, or (perchance) sleep invites many, they feed their eyes with vanities; if any drops he admitted into their ears, they are entertained under the nature of conceits: judgements (they think) be none of their lessons, they will not suffer their consciences to apply them: Mercies they challenge and own, though they have no right to them: If this estate be not a misery, judgement, burden, there is none: The fire of the Pestilence is well quenched, the rumours and storms of War are laid, the younger brother of death, Famine, doth not tyrannize over us: But here it is; our sins and God's wrath (for them) meet, and the heart is hardened: this is the sorest judgement. Let me speak a Paradox, but a truth; it is the plague of many, that they are not plagued: even this is their punishment, the want of punishment: & the hand of God is then heaviest, when it is lightest: heaviest on the Conscience, when lightest on the Carcase: it is true on them, what the Philosopher said of himself (Perieram misi perijssem) they are undone, that they are not undone: God suffers their bodies to possess, and be possessed of rest: they sing to Viols, dance to Measures: their Heads ache not, Much less their Consciences: But (as to Israel, fat with Quails) God withal, sends Leanness into their souls: the present indulgence, gives sufficient argument of future woes: they surfeit on pleasures, till death puts them out of breath: that worthy Father saw this their (selfe-commended) estate, and prayed against it; 
Aug. Domine, hic ●re, hic seca, ut in ●ternum parcas.  Lord, here plague, cut, massacre, burn me, so that for ever thou wilt spare and save me. This is (O●u● gravissimum,) the most grievous Burden. Security is the very suburbs of Hell: (Miseri●● nihil est miser●, se non miserant,) there is nothing more wretched, than a wretched man, that recks not his own miseri●: an insensible Heart is the devils anvil, he fashioneth all sins on it, and the blows are not felt.  
You wonder at the frequency of Burdens, and that the Turtles of this Land groan out of this place, the sad tunes of woe and misery. Alas, how should we sing the songs of Zion to a strange people? The Pulpit (I confess) should be the Mercy seat; but your sins have made it a Tribunal, or Bench of judgement: Nothing but the thunders of Sinaj, (and scarce those) can waken us from our dead sleep: this is (Ima S●curitas) deep Security, fitly applied to us, whose is (Sine cura aetas) an Age without care; or rather, if you will, (Se curans ●tas) that love none but ourselves, and that not enough to seek our own peace: Let me speak it in the tune of jeremy (Non habet ulterius, quod nostris moribus addat posteritas) we flow with those sins, to which no following posterity shallbe ever able to add; so spreading, an infection of sin is among us, that, as in a great Plague, we wonder not so much at them which die, as at them which scape; so there is nothing a Wonder, a Mirror, a Miracle in Nature, but he that lives unspotted of this world. If you think I speak too bitterly, I would to God, it were not worse than I speak: I would your reformation might convince our shame, and give us cause to recant this in the pulpit: this turns the Message of Edome upon us; the Burden of Dumah, the Burden of England: we cast from our shoulders the Burden of the Law, God lays on us the burden of judgement: we load God with our sins, 
Amos. 2. 13.  and press him as a Cart with Sheaves: we pack up a bundle of Lies, Blasphemies, Adulteries, Perjuries, Extortions, Frauds, and then hasten to the Cross of Christ to unload them; as if pressing our souls to Hell with wilful sins, yet Christ on the least warning, must ease us: 
Math. 11. 28.  But the Promise is not to men laden with sin, but with sorrow for sins: It is such a load as must make us weary, or we have no promise to be eased.  
But alas, sin (which is Burden enough to sink the world) is made light by custom; as if resting in man's heart, it did (Quiessere in propriam sedem) settle itself in the own natural place: It is a philosophical Axiom (Nullum elementum suo loco pondurat) no element is heavy in the proper place: Though Sin be as weighty as a Talon of Lead, 
Zachar. 5. 7.  (saith the Prophet) yet it is at the Centre, (when) got into the corrupted heart, and weighs light: and except the wrath of God fall upon the naked Conscience, Sin lies at the door, and Cain never cries, It is greater than I am able to bear. judas had Burden enough of treason, hypocrisy, malice, covetousness, to sink him down; it was no Burden, till the finger of God's wrath touched the tender heartstrings, and then it pressed him down to his own place. 
Act. 1. 25.  How many have incurvate and oppressed souls, bowed down with the spirit of infirmity (nay of rank iniquity) more than 18. years, that are not yet sensible of their own crookedness, nor the cause thereof: for it can not be, but the devoured Patrimonies of many Orphans, the ruins and depopulations of Towns, the devastation of Holy things, should be Burdens too heavy for a poor crazy Soul to stand under: Piles of Usury heavier than Ae●na, Burdens of Bribes out balancing the axle-tree, are more than the Giants, Geonaxo, Monsters of Men, and Prodigies of Nature were able to bear. We could not see a corrupted Lawyer, Citizen, Cormorant, go so nimbly, and so bolt upright under such a mass of sin, if they had not some help: here it is, the strong man Satan (so it pleaseth Christ to term him) puts under his shoulder, and makes the Vessel go tied and easy, with an equal Balance, which could not else swim upon the Waters without sinking: Pride could not else carry a whole township on his back, which his father Covetousness had (but newly) devastate, clambering up to Honour, (as jonathan to the Garrison of the Phi●istens by the raggedness of these two Rocks, Bozez and Seneh; so these) by the desolation of our two main Rocks, the Church, and Commonwealth. The unmerciful Monopolies of Courtiers, the unreasonable Prices of Merchants, the hoards (if not transportation) of Grain with Cormorantes, the advantages made of the poors necessities, unconscionable sins, and Rents, wring the last Penny from their Purses, and drop of Blood from their Hearts, (Oh durum et importabile pondus) an intolerable weight. These wretches were never able to bear it without the aid of the Devil, who, whiles they draw with him in the same yoke, is content to bear all the Burden.  
At last, when Presumption hath left the Stage, and Desperation begins to knit up all with a direful catastrophe, the Pulses beating slowly, the Head aching vehemently, Body and Soul refusing all proffered comfort, than the Devil casts the whole Load on them, that at once they may despair and die: then that which was lighter than Cork and Feathers, becomes heavier than Lead & Earth: God hath often strove with them by his Word; they would never yield (Avinces) Thou shalt overcome Oh Lord: Now (perhaps with julian too late) they pant out (〈◊〉) Thou hast overcome: Our cry in the day, could not wake them; that cry at midnight, shall fetch them up, With the Burden of Envy, Covetousness, Drunkenness, etc. And as it was doomed to Babylon; 
Reu●l. 13. 7.  Look how much her glory and pleasure hath been give be● so much torment and sorrow. Nay, than the De●ill gets up too (like a merciless lay our) with the addition of his own weight, to aggravate their woes. Strive then every one to abate the Burden of judgement, by lessening the Burden of Sin: Every repentant Tear that falls, washeth a Talon from this Burden: every remorseful sigh, and faithful Prayer, 
2. Cor. 4. 9  diminisheth the Load; that which remains, may press, shall not oppress: Christ will put under his shoulder; Come all ye laden (exonerate animas) unload your souls: he bore them on his Cross, and our believing souls shall never feel the weight of them: the Cross only is left heavy to blood and flesh, but to a heart (made) spiritual, 
Math. 11. 30.  Thy yoke, Oh Lord, is easy, and thy burden light: our own heavy, but thine light.  
We have perused the Map to the end of the Inscription, the Description stands next to our speech; where we have an Edomite standing on Mount Seir and calling to the Watchman, with the voice of derision, What he saw in the night, etc. a proud Edomite securing himself the strength of his own arms, deriding the Prophet of God, which came against him with the burden of Wars: this is the sense I fasten on. I have read other Expositions, as if it was a question of fear: I approve and dwell on the former: from the persuasion then of immunity, impunity, and safe standing out of the reach of Earth, 
Seir and Security.  of Hell, of Heaven, proceeds this Question. Edom hath shaken off the yoke of Israel, and begins to crown his days with the Rose buds of Peace, and not to fear the Sword of Egypt, nor Ashur, nor Gods himself in Heaven: their conceit was (though feignedly) as strong of this Mount Seir, as the promise of God was really true to Mount Zion, never to be moved, though the battlements of Heaven shot Thunder, and the pillars of the Earth quaked.  
There is question about the name of this Seir; 
Hierom.  some affirm it derived from Esau, 
Gen. 36. 9  as being the place where he and his generation dwelled: Indeed the nature of Esau, and the name of Seir, agrees fitly, for both signify, Brisseled, or Hairy: but it had the name of Seir, before Esau came thither. Some Hebrews think the Mountain was called Seir, from the apparition of Devils, who showed themselves in the shapes of hairy men, such as the Fawns were imagined to be: 
Mercer,  But most like to take denomination from Seir the Horite, Gen. 36. 20. who inhabited there long before Esau: 
Gen. 14. 6.  And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto the plain of Paran; it being the Country of the Ho●i●s or Horites: Esau was drawn hither for many reasons; 1. because that corner of Canaan about Hebron, 
Mercer.  where he and his brother jacob dwelled, were too scant for their Flocks: 2. because Mount Seir fitted Esau's mind, 
Perer.  being a place of excellent hunting: 3. his Wives were of that Country: 4. God's providence so disposed of Esau's removal, that jacob might live in safety: And even in this, God wrought Esau's good, by putting him out of Canaan; for then with the rest of the Canaanites they had been destroyed by Israel; 
Gen. 27. 39 40  but God made good that temporal blessing upon Esau and his seed, which his father Ish●c gave him. Indeed the Amalekites (though derived from Esau) were destroyed by Israel; but the reason may be thus gathered, because Amalek was the Son of Eliphaz (the son of Esau) by a Concubine: 
Mercer.  the Idumaeans, that were legitimate successors, were preserved: such was the different respects to the tied, and to the bastard seed; for God is said to give Mount Seir to Esau; 
Ioshuah● 4. 4  I gave unto Esau mount Seir to possess it; therefore the Israelites among their spoils of Canaan, 
Deut. 2 5.  were expressly forbidden to destroy it: Ye shall not provoke them; for I will not give you of their Land, so much as a foot breadth, because I have given mount Seir to Esau for a possession: Such was God's mercy to Esau for his Father's sake, that his posterity was made great and honourable: But if the Horites first inhabited Mount Seir, how comes the posterity of Esau to enjoy it? It is answered in the 2. of Deutr. 
Deut. 2. ●2.  The Horims dwelled in mount Seir beforetime, whom the children of Esau chased out, and destroyed them before them, and dwelled in their stead: So doth Sin quench the very cinders of natural affection, after it hath put out the flames of Religion, that the children of Esau ceased not till they had extinguished their own kindred: the respect of blood must give way to Rapine and Malice: too weak is Nature to restrain the fury of Sin, when it is stung by that fiery Serpent, the Devil. The Romish Mountain doth claim some kin of this Mount Seir, (at least in the opinion of the jews:) There is one place in Edom, called Magdiell; this the Rabbins take for Rome, and say, that of the Idumeans came the Romans: it is not so locally; it may be well spiritually; For, for persecution of the Saints, there is no such Edome in the world, as Rome: But Magdiell signifies, Praising God: Oh blessed were Rome, if in this, she could be called Magdiell. This Seir was a Mountain of great strength, not infertile; and as great probability gives it, graced with either one or many goodly Cities: Who will bring me into Edom, 
Psal.  who will lead me into the strong City? Neither may we think, that the offspring of Edom, when once made Dukes, nay Kings, contented themselves to dwell in Tents.  
But what if a Mountain, what if a City, or the strength of Edom, is it able to grapple with the Wrath of God, or buckle with his judgements? If any piece of the broad Earth were shot proof against the Anger of God (as they feign the ●arden of Hesperideses against the Planets) it would not be unsought, unbought: there have been Mountains and Cities before and after Seir, prouder and stronger than she, that have measured their length on the ground, and been dissolved to dust and rubbish; and Edom herself hath danced the same measure. The world hath gloried in her several ages of many goodly Cities; 〈◊〉 the pride of Assyria, Troy the pillar of Asia, Babylon more a Region then a City, Carthage graced with 17. tributary Kingdoms; and let not jerusalem be shut from both the glory and sadness of this relation: may we not say of them all now (Etiam periere ruinae) That little of them is dissolved to nothing. Thus God cools and damps the glory of Israel: Go you unto Calneh, and see: and from-thence go unto Hamath the great: 
Amos. 6. 2  then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these Kingdoms, or the border of their land greater than your b●rder?  
Constantius spoke of old Rome, that Nature had emptied all her forces on that one City: the time came, she was overthrown, and her Walls made even with the ground. The titles of new Rome are greater, not her Privileges: (she is called, Vrbs aeterna,) yet that Eternal Babylon shall fall, and her honour be laid in the Dust: her doom is past, and in the decree of Heaven, she is already fallen for the more sureness; and all her Merchants (petty Leases taken out of her grand Lease) shall mourn bitterly for her: she shall be made a Cage of unclean Birds, Owls and Vultures; as she is now a Den of unclean Beasts, Lions and Tigers. If any City on earth might boast her Privileges, let jerusalem speak; she was called the Holy City, and the City of God: the Temple in her, a figure of the Church militant; as Salom●n the builder of it, was a type of Christ: Behold, her House is left unto her desolate: Sin laid her Pinnacles in the dust: At the murder of his Son, God with his own hands, rend the vail, and after gave the whole Fabric a spoil to the Gentiles: They that have travailed the lower Provinces, testify, that the rude heaps of ruined Churches, Monasteries, and Religious places, are no less frequent than pitied spectacles: Devotion built them, kept them; Sin polluted them, Hostility subverted them: Sin prepared the way for Ruin and Blood: the Idolatry within overthrew the Walls without: they could plead more than Dumah, they and their pleas are perished.  
Let me not speak as a Prophet, but as an Admonisher: Is it impossible for the Sin of England, to have the like effect? We are ready to say in pride, what David spoke in the assurance of Faith, I can not fall thou oh Lord of thy goodness, hast made my Hill 〈◊〉 strong: Let us praise God for that we have, and pray that our sins avert it not: Let Dumah speak with his pride; though our Privileges be more, let our Presumption be less: it is wise and safe, to possess more than we boast of: though Nature hath bound up the loins of our Kingdom witha girdle of Waves, & Policy raised another fence of wooden Walls, yet God must put about us a third Girdle, the bands or circle of his Providence, or our strength is weaker than the waters. It is an old and sure rule against the Atheist, against the Worldling, that whole cannot be perpetual, whose parts be alterable: If the members of this great body, the World, change, faint and grow old, it argues a creeping decay to the whole: Let the Cormorant know (that would build his nest here for ever) that parts of this land are alterable, therefore the whole not permanent. If the Plague takes away men, the fields grow barren; nay, the wearied earth (after much industry) is dull in her fruits; like an unnatural Stepdame, she produceth not good things of herself: if a Deluge overrun us, we and our glory vanish: God hath more means than one, to inflict his judgements. It is with no less admiration than truth reported, that a whole field in England, is turned in one month from a fertile soil, to a most Barren waist: It lies from the danger of inundation, from the reach of the hand of war; what then can turn it to a perpetual barrenness? Thus, God raiseth a mighty wind, that uncovers a mountain of sand, which overspreads the fruitful valley to a great thickness; and it is made worse than Carmell, which God thus threatens: I will turn L●banon into Carmell, and Carmell into a Forest: 
Esay.  it lies in the power of man's sins, to make God curse his very blessings.  
The Burden of Dumah is war, Mount Seir fears it not: if the book of our hearts lay open to be read, I think our fear of war is less than theirs. God grant our presumption, our security be not as great: We sit under our own figtrees, and eat the fruits of our own Vineyards: Our Children go out by flocks and dances, and flourish like the Olive branches round about our tables: Our Oxen are strong to labour, our Sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets: There is no leading into captivity, no dashing of our Children against the stones, no complaining in our streets. If this one blessing exceed not our thankfulness for all, my observation is deceived; but what a bold inference is this? there is no war, therefore may be none, nor can we be overthrown: It is a speech as common as the stones in our streets, when consideration of war is offered: We need fear no Enemies, if we be true amongst ourselves: Vain security, that is built upon ifs and and's: Who shall make us true to ourselves, that have been false to God? Are there no sons of Behal amongst us, that curse the prosperity of Zion, and gape for the day, to cry Down with it, down with it, even to the ground? we know they have openly and privately with coat of Armour, and coat of Mail, assaulted the peace of jerusalem, but (praise to our God) received shame in putting of their Harness: Let this make us thankful, not secure; as if God could not reach his arm over our narrow Seas: Behold France made a Cock-pitte for massacres, by the uncivil civil wars thereof: Think of the unquiet bread long eaten in the Low-countries: and when thou sayest, we lay our heads on the Pillows of peace, and eat the Bread of plenty, kiss his hand with praises that feeds thee with these blessings, but let not thy own strength make thee careless. The Papists thus re-hearten themselves against all their overthrows given them by this little Island, that our time is not yet come, our sins are not yet full: That Ignatian Sectary Pererius so notes in Gen. 15. The wickedness of the Amorites is not yet full▪ etc. He gives it by way of Comment; but it is a false gloss, I trust, and carries no more truth with it, than other the fictions of Rome; his words are these: Let no man wonder why God suffers the persecution of the Catholics in England, (the sins of the Amorites are not yet full) their wickedness is not yet complete; when it is, the divine revenge shall fall: They expected this day at the last change; God changed their expectation to folly: and as it was our grief, 
Mira cano: sol occubuit, nox nulla secura est.  that (Sol o●cubuit) our Sunset, so it is our joy, wonder, (Nox nulla secuta est) no night followed. I hope his Prophecy is as false for the event, as I am sure his application is for the thing: we are neither those uncircumcised Amorites, unchristened Pagans, nor do we persecute the Catholics; except to have liberty of Law grow rich, purchase Lands, beard and brave the Ministers of God to their faces, be called Persecution: (here I cannot but mention, what is well observed by a most reverend and honoured judge of this land, 
L. Cook.  that) whereas have been 300. burnt by Q. Mary for Religion, there have scarce 30. Papists been executed by Q. Elizabeth for Treason: yet, I hope, there is some difference betwixt 300. and 30. Religion, and Treason; betwixt the five years reign of the one, and the 44. of the other. I know their rebellions, treasons, conspiracies, meet with execution, no persecution to their Religion: Happy would our Martyrs have thought themselves, if on such terms they might have redeemed their Consciences: no, the iniquities of Babel have filled up their measure rather, and their judgement long ago was not far off, and their damnation sleepeth not. Pererius is his own Prophet against us, we speak not against them of ourselves, the Holy ghost speaks for us, Who shall shortly consume that m●n of sin with the breath of his nostril's: Let their eyes stare for our overthrows, till they fall out of their unfortunate heads; 
Deut. 18. 32.  God hath blessed, and the Balaam of Rome shall never be able to curse: only let not our zeal be wanting to our God, to our Church, to ourselves, and God shall not be wanting to us, nor all the hosts, which he fights with: and once again, if need be, Coniurati venient in classica ven●●) the Winds and Seas shall take our part: Let not our Peace make us wanton, nor our Wealth, proud; our help stands, in the name of God, not in Forts and sword.  
To speak more particularly, Be not too confident (who so ever) in thy Mount Seir; every wicked soul hath her Mount Seir to trust in: they that have no assurance of rest in Heaven, have their Refuges and Mountains of help of Earth; David so returns it upon the wicked: 
Psal. 11. 1.  In the Lord put I my trust, how then say you to my soul, flee as a Bird to your Mō●taine. Why should I seek to foreign helps, that have settled myself in the bosom of Rest itself? Riches are a Mount Seir to the Covetous, they rest on them, as the Ark on the Mountains of Armenta: Honour is a Mount Seir to the Ambitious, against all the beseeginges of rivals: Sensuality to the Voluptuous, against all the disturbances of a clamorous Conscience: Pride, Fraud, Drunkenness, is a Mount Seir to the lovers; but alas, how unsafe? if stronger against, and further removed from the hand of man, yet nearer to God's hand in Heaven: though we acknowledge no place (Procul a●●o●e, or, procul a fulmine) far from God, or from his thunder: But we say, it is not safest sailing on the top of the Mast, to land on the mountainous height of a temporal estate, is neither wise nor happy: Men standing in the shade of humble Valleys, look up and wonder at the height of Hills, and think it goodly living there, as Peter thought Tabor, but when with weary limbs they have ascended, 
Bonum est esse hic.  and find the beams of the Sun melting their spirits, or the cold blasts of Wind making their Sinews stark, flashes of Lightning, or cracks of Thunder, soon endangering their advanced heads, than they confess (decking their proud Conceit,) the low valley is safest: for the fruitful Dews that fall first on the Hills, stay lest while there, but run down to the Valleys: and though on such a promontory a man further sees, and is farther seen, yet in the Valley, where he sees less, he enjoys more: Take heed then, lest to raise thy Mount Seir high, thou deiectest thy soul low: 
Am. 6. 1.  Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the Mountains of Samaria: If we build our Houses by Unrighteousness, and our Chambers without equity, though as strong as Mount Seir, they shall not be able to stand in the Earthquake of judgement: God so threatens jehoiakim: 
jer. 22, 15.  Shalt thou reign because thou closest thyself in Cedar? did not thy father eat and drink and prosper, when he executed judgement and justice. etc. Think not your Houses, Fortresses; when your Souls are unarmed of Christian weapons, Faith and Obedience: You had, and shall have peace, whiles you pursue it with righteous lives, whiles your guide all your actions by the line of the Sanctuary, and stir your Attempts by the compass of the Gospel: Plenty shall spread your Tables, whiles Charity takes away, and gives to the Poor. These holy courses, shall make you continue, in despite of Hell and Rome; your Mountain shallbe hedged about with the Mercies of God, & your Children shall defy their Enemies in the Gates.  
The Person must not be omitted, to whom this scoffing Question is moved; The Watchman. It seems the Prophet had denounced against Edom, 
Watchman, & Vigilancy.  War; they deride his message, as a leafing, and his person under the name of a Watchman: nay, therefore they scorn him, because a Watchman. I will not insist on the duties of Waich-men: every common Soldier can school the Watchman: Many presume to teach us our duties, that will be ranged within no order themselves: that which a Watchman is to the City, or Sentinel to the Leaguer; a Minister is to the People: to Watch over yourselves, is every particular man's duty; to watch over all, (Opus Ministrj) is the work of the Ministry: If our Eyes be blind in descrying Dangers, our Tongues dumb to give Warning, the City or Fort is easily taken: 
●reg.  Now, (Quam clamoris vocem daturus est praeco mutus?) What warning shall a dumb Watchman give? Some will not speak, the Fountain of their knowledge is shut up, like Laban's Well, with a great Stone of security, saturity, stateliness: others will speak too much, making the Pulpit a Pasquil, to ease their spleens, to traduce superiors: (Medio tutissimus ibis) The mean and honest way, is the safest.  
But what say we to Usurpers, Wolves, Tyrants, that call themselves Watchmen? that (Bi-nominis, bi-linguis) Double-named, double-tongued, double-sworded; and not single hearted. Demi-god of Rome, calls himself sometimes a Watchman, sometimes a King: the Servant of servants, the King of Kings: as if there was no difference betwixt the serviceable Watchman, and the commanding Prince; betwixt the Sentinel of the Leaguer, and the General of the Army, (Ad duo qui tendit, non unum, nec duo prendit) Whiles he claims both, usurps one, truth allows him neither: His actions show him no Servant, (F●riendo non ferendo agit,) He gives blows, but takes none. To be such a Watchman as he desires, possibility is denied him, since his eyes can not look so far, as he would extend his arm; not to watch over Rome only, but so far as the world is Christened: Behold, saith he, I have two Swords; one of them he lets rust, I mean, the sword of the Spirit: the other, he keeps bright with the blood of Saints, and makes it shine with the Gall of Martyrs: (Principa●is principatus a triplici corona) the principal principality is from the triple Crown: As the Sun exceeds the Earth, so the Pope all Christian Princes; other Kings are but his Bailiffs. Did you ever hear a Watchman speak thus? or arrogate to himself such a reign (In foro pol●, in foro pluij, in foro conscient●ae) In the court of Heaven, in the court of Hell, and in the court of every Conscience? If any resist his tyranny, he snacheth from Christ that his Word, 
Luk. 19 27.  and usurps it: Bring those mine enemies, that would not have mereigne over them, and slay them before me: If he can not behold it in action, he will see it in picture, as the massacre of Paris on S. Bartholomewes' night, was pictured in the Pope's Palace, to entertain his holy eye with pleasure: so would the Powder-treason have been, if the matter had hit right: as horrid, as the thought of it is to an honest mind, the hoisting up of Buildings, shivering of Bodies, tearing up of Monuments, dissipation, massacre, murder of old, young, Prince people, Senators and Senate, drawn to the life by the art of a Painter, would have been a contenting spectacle, for so holy an eye to contemplate: sure there is honesty in Hell, if this be Religion: if the Devil can devise more execrable stratagems, let him change Seats with the Pope. Christ meddled with neither Herod, nor Emperor, King nor Cesar; no Emperors held his Stirrup, no Kings kissed his blessed feet; he only fought with the weapons of the Spirit against Sin and Satan. This is a Watchman indeed; but he watcheth to invade, besieged, enter and spoil the City of God: he liath other Watchmen under him, Unclean birds, fluttring from that Vulture of Babylon, and flying like Bats and Owls under the eves of night, to vomit the poisons of Heresy and Treasons from their swollen gorges: Watchmen like the Chaplains of Mars at Rome in the days of Idolatry, that practised to toss Firebrands from Camp to Camp, to inflame evil affections; that care not whose blood they sacrifice to their Roman God, without distinction of Trojan, of Tyrian: nor out of whose sepulchres they dig themselves an estate: They watch indeed, for they keep a Register of all our proceedings against them, in these ltaleyon days of ours; and if ever the S●nne of Alteration shine on their faces, they will repay us ten blows for one upon our Burgonets: mean time (our Praises to Heaven) they watch their own bane: and (as one writes of Parry,) so I may of the end of them all (Itala gens sceleri te dedit, Angla cru●●) Italy gives them their villainy, England their Gallows; this is (their malus, but meritus sinis) the evil, but deserved end of them all: England is sinful enough, but she professeth not herself a Schoolmistress of Sin, 
This their Chamber of meditation doth testify.  as Rome doth of Treason: there it is professed, taught, learned, and (as on the sandy Theatre) exercised before it come to the fatal execution.  
The Priests of perverted Israel, 
Hos. 6. 9  were but shadows of these of apostate Rome: As thieves wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent. Hence that Proverb carries no less truth, than antiquity with it: An Englishman Italianate, is a Devil incarnate: these are those Jesuits, jebusites, Incendiaries, Traitors, and not less than Devils, but that they have bodies. God bless us from such Watchmen: if these be Watchmen, who are enemies?  
We see then the vanity of their labours, that would undertake to bring us to a composition: if Heresy can be made Sincerity, Idolatry true Religion, Treason Obedience, we may be united: but it is a sure rule, Contraries in the abstract, can never be reconciled: God put an un-appeasable Contention betwixt the two Seeds of the Woman, and Serpent, when he put Enmity between them▪ for an Enemy may be made a Friend, but Enmity can never be made Friendship: the Air that is dark, may be made Light; but Darkness cannot be made Brightness; a Papist may be converted to a Christian, but Papistry can never be made Christianity, no more than Antichrist can become Christ: our strife with them is not for the extension of Limits, but for the possession of the Inheritance, whether Grace or Nature, the Pope's Law or Gods, shall take place in the Conscience: So I have read of that audacious and sottish Hermit, that would undertake, to make God and the Devil friends: the impossibility of which attempt, the Devil could tell him; God is all Light, and I am all Darkness, that my foul nature can not be hidden: our affections, seats, persons, are so opposed, that I have no hope of peace. They will not, we may not yield; except the Sheep shall compound with the Wolf, or the Mice with the Cat; which the old tale forbids, though the Cat get on a Monks cowl, & cries demurely through the crevices, Quod fueram, non suw, fra●er, caput aspice tonsum. 
Good broth●r Mouse, creep out thy house, come forth, & let us chat:  
Behold my Crown is shaven down, I'm now a Priest, ●o Cat.  
When Cats say Mass, the mice (alas) must pray against their will:  
Kind Puzzle, your pate is smooth of late, your heart is rugged s●●ll.   
Experience would teach us the answer of the verse, though we had never read it.  V●x ti●i ●raesto fidem, cor tibi restat id●m. 
To leave the incorrigible Watchmen of Rome, since we would have cured Babel, and she would not be cured, let us look home to ourselves. The Wolves of Rome have not more honour, than the Watchmen of England scorn: the Edomites of the world can not abide Ministers: 
Heb▪ 1●.  the best is, they are but Edemites, heirs of Esau, and as profane as their Father; that make Religion their Minstrel, to give them sport and sleep, no jest in such laughter, as that which is broken on a Priest; the proof is plain on every Tavern and Theatre. We serve indeed contrary Masters; we Christ, they Lust and Satan: and (Hinc illae rixae of theirs, hinc illae laechrimae of ours,) hence their flouts, & our tears: we bite them with the salt of Reproof, hence they storm: we cast Ink and Gall on their Tetters, hence they startle: (Veritatem lucentem multi diligunt, arguentem reijciunt: dum s● ostendit columus, dum nos ostendit, odio habemus:) The truth shining▪ many love; reproving, they reject: whiles it shows itself, we embrace it; whiles it shows us, we can not endure it: even in this consists at once, our Happiness, their Damnation: our Happiness, Blessed are ye, when for me porsecuted: their Damnation, That Light being in the world, they embrace and are glad of Darkness: though their wrongs done us, be against the Law of Arms and Nature; for an Ambassador should be (Inter hostium tela incolumis) safe among the Weapons of the Enemies:  
But do the Edomites only take up these Weapons of scorn against us? No, I speak it betwixt shame and grief, even the Israelites scorn the Prophets. There are some sick of a wantonness in Religion, so hot about the question, De modo, that the Devil steals the matter of Religion from their hearts: if we cannot wrangle with Forms and Shadows, and show ourselves refractory to established Orders, we shall, Malè audire, our Sermons shall be slighted, our persons derided: thus, this is the mischief; men of name, professors of note, when they speak bitterly of us, their credit carries it strong with our scandals: one Arrow of these Israelites, wounds deeper than a hundred Canonshot of the Edomites: I confess I speak Stones, but if they hit, as they are intended, they shall heal some, hurt none: (Dicatur veritas, rumpatur invidia) Let Truth be spoken, and Envy burst her Gall: let all these Scorners remember, that the contempt done to us, redowndes to God himself: He that despiseth us, despiseth men: he that Christ, despiseth his Saviour: Is all this nothing? But he that despiseth me and you, despiseth him thot sent me and you: It comes to somewhat then, and more than ever mortal man shallbe able to answer; is it not enough for them, that they have drawn out the lifeblood of our livings, but they must expose our persons to contempt? So the jews spoiled Christ of his vestments, and then mocked him with baseness. Our poverty of flouted by them that have our livings: surely, if repentance and restitution prevent it not, they shall have a tithe one day, which they have more right to, the tenth Sheafe of that Harvest, which is reserved for Reprobates in Hell. The Turks lay it is an imputation on our Religion, that we spoil our Gods: for shame, do not the Turks, and shall the Christians? David would not have Areunah's Threshing-floore without money; if these men should have no room in the Church, but what they pay for, I think they would quietly suffer themselves to be turned forth of doors.  
The last branch of the Map, and first of the Moral, are not unfitly conjoined, the Edomite, and his Question: 
Edomite, and Question.  the Question than calls me from the Watchman, What is in the night? And to make the Derision fuller and fouler, it is doubled, like Phara●hs Dream, What is in the night? Did they seek for some prodigy or portent? Some divine Revelation, which should be received by Vision? Were the like Israel, of whom Christ thus testifies; This adulterous generation seeks for a Sign? 
Math. 12. 39  Thus Dives despaired of his brethren's belief, except one rose from the dead. I confess we have some in the world sick of this disease, a jewish infection, The jews require a sign, etc. (Plus ocu●o, quam oraculo:) 
1. Cor. 1. 22.  miseries shall work more on them then mysteries: palpable actions of God's mercy, justice, power, shall convince them, the contemplation of them all in the theory of the word moves them not: astonish them with wonders, 
S. Thomas, unless he felt.  heal their diseased, open their blind eyes, raise their dead, and they will believe: Are there none among us, that couch a willing & close ear to the charms of Rome, in admiration of their feigned miracles? lying Apostles, that work strange things by exorcisms? but our Church now is not in the Cradle of her infancy: One cup of wine brought by Christ, is worth all the cups of cold water by Moses: as S. Augustine alluding to that Marriage in Galilee, says: All the adumbrations, types, figures, signs, were but that cup of cold Water, 
joh. 2.  Christ reserved the good Wine (of the Gospel) till he came himself: and they that will not believe without a Sign, without a Sign must perish. But I travel no further in this, lest it bring me out of my way.  
It was no Sign they inquire for, no Prodigy they fear; they are only pleased to make sport with the menaces of God: You talk of a Night, and an hour of Calamity; but threatened men draw long breathes: You pretend Visions in the night, which portend our ruins; come tell us the tale of the night: What is in the night? There have been in all ages, some of these Frogs, to throat it out against God, so long as the weather was fair, as if he could not send a storm: the tempests of God's Wrath have been derided to the last moment of a calm: the venom of Prosperity so empoisons a carnal mind, (Eilia divitiarum superbia) the daughter of Riches is Pride: the Philosopher could teach us that (Faelicitas & humillitas dividuum haebent contubrinium: raro bona mens & bona fortuna homini datur,) Happiness and Humbleness are not chamber-fellows: seldom a good Mind, and a good Estate, is given to the same man: God seemed to mistrust this in Israel, that the increasing of Goods, and multiplying of Cattle, 
Deut. 8. 13. 14.  would lift up their hearts against him: The peaceable days of the Wicked, and their lucky proceedings in this world (by the testimony of job,) durageth their impudence against Heaven: 
job. 21. 15.  Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? depart from us, we will none of thy ways. That of the Psalm is of full strength to this: 
Psal. 10. 5.  His ways prosper: thy judgements are far above out of his sight: therefore defieth he all his enemies: Man only? no, God himself: I shall never be moved. 
Mal. 3. 14.  Let Malachi for all the Prophets, Peter for all the Apostles, make up this cloud of witnesses: It is in vain to serve the Lord: 
2. Pet. 3. 4.  and where is the promise of his coming? All things are still (Statu quo) continued in the same course: there is no alteration, no new thing done (Quaecunque sub axe) under Heaven. We say, (Non bonum ludere cum sanctis) it is no safe jesting with holy things: It is dangerous for an Edomite to make himself merry with God; this is the way to come short home: thou hadst better have mourned all thy life, than made God thy playfellow. When the vessel of Dust shall encounter with the arm of Omnipotence (Sive percutiat, 
Imus gradus & Limen ●nferni.  sive percutiatur, frangi necesse est) whether it smite, or be smitten, it is sure to be broken: The Chair of the Scorner, is the seat of Satan, the lowest stair and very threshold of Hell, as David describes it: 
Psal. 1. 1.  Blessed is the man that doth not walk, etc. His first plot is, to get us, to walk a turn or two with him: having persuaded this, he moves us to stand still a little; but so long as we are standing, we are going, therefore at last he entreats us (for our ease) to sit down: but if we take our seat in that enchanted Chair, we grow to that impudence to deride God, and his judgements. I will single you out four forts of these Edomites, Scorners (for I justly parallel them) and propound their natures and conditions to your pity and detestation.  
1 Atheists, such as have voluntarily, violently, extinguished to themselves, the Sun-light of the Scripture, Moonlight of the Creature; nay, the sparks and cinders of Nature, that the more securely (as unseen and unchidden of their own hearts) they might prodigally act the works of darkness; not Athenian-like, dedicating an Altar to an unknown God, but annihilating to themselves, and vilipending to others, Altar, Religion, God; and suffocating the breath of all Motions, Arguments, manifest Convictions, that heaven & earth have produced: for the reasons of Hell only shall one day evince it (Deum esse) that there is a God: they affirm it impossible, that flesh should be turned to rottenness, rottenness to dust, and dust to glory: Against whom, 
Qui potuit formare nowm, non poterit reparare mortuum? Facilior est restitutio constitutione. Sect. 9 4.  well, S. Augustine; He that could form us of nothing, can reform us decayed: it is easier to repair, then prepare. That Atheism in the days of Solomon was the same in opinion, that ours is in practice: we do (not say but) live, as if it was better to a living Dog, than a dead Lion: which I would yield true among Beasts; but among men, a dead Beast is better than a living Atheist: let them ask Nature, it will tell them, (Insculptum est omnibus esse deum) It is engraven in all hearts, that there is a Deity: let them ask the Creatures, they will witness, they had a Creator: nay, let the Devil speak, to shame and convince the Atheist, who believes a God, and trembles at his own belief: the nature of his essence proveth it: 
Qui negat esse deum, mihi negat et tibi, non sibi. etc.  to know there is a Witch, may satisfy us, that there is a God; for if the destroying power were not controlled, manacled, mastered, 
Oculos, quos culpa clausit, paena aper●et.  how stand we undevowred? Let them ask (lastly) their own dying hearts; for the eyes that sin hath shut, Damnation shall open.  
2 Epicures, that deny not a God, and a day of judgement; 
Amos. 6. 3.  but put it far off, with (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) give me the present, take thou the hope of future joys: these see a night coming, and therefore make haste to be drunk with Pleasures: Let us eat and drink, for to merrow we shall die: 
1. Cor. 15.  (Cras ridendo moriuntur, hodiè bibendo sepeliuntur) they will not die till to morrow, but be buried in Riot to day. They sleep on their Beds of Down, rise to their Tables of Surfeit, and from thence to their sports of Mischief; sleeping, playing, eating, dancing, drinking, dallying, (Motu circu●●rj) they run round in a Ring: only (Nulla interualla piando) no time must be spared from Satan: they invert the Order God hath disposed to the times preposterously, making the night day, and the day night; at midnight they revel, at noon they sleep: though the day was created for labour, the night for repose: The Sun is scarce beholding to their eyes to look upon him: the Moon and Stars have (only) their attendance; the works and the hour of darkness meet; they will be contrary to all men and all things but themselves, because they will be contrary. If ever they begin any work with the day, they dispose it on this fashion; First, they visit the Tavern, than the Ordinary, than the Theatre, and end in the Stews: from Wine to Riot, from that to Plays, from them to Harlots, Iste dies pulchro distinguitur ordine rerum. Here is a day spent in an excellent method: If they were Beasts, they could not better sensualize, it would be but lost labour to tell them, that their course shall be so proportioned below: from Snakes they shall turn upon Adders, from both to Scorpions, from all to unquenched flames; where they shall spend not hours but ages, nay that eternity of time, in wail and howlings, groans and torments; when for every ounce of Vanity, they shall receive (down weight) a whole pound of Sorrow: Smokes, blackness, boiling Cauldrons, fiery burnings of Brimstone & Sulphur, kindled and continued by the breath of an offended God, shall have their interchanged courses: oft this torment, and then that, and indeed all, that a soul & body made immortal, can suffer: Iste dies misero distinguitur ordine rerum. here is a day to be spent in a miserable method: Oh how (yet) was it some happiness, if in a day or set time, these woes could be determined: these are the Epicures, not so impudent as to deny the night, not so honest as to part with their sins.  
3 Libertines, that neither affirm no Night, nor put it far off; but only the strength of sin prevails over all: and come Sorrow, Death, Grave, Hell, they must have their pleasures: 
Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor, metam.  they have a pride in accomcomplishing their own wills, as she in the Poet; 
I see the good, and give allowance to it:  
The evil is my choice, I love and do it.  They can not be noted for Virtuous; but they will be Famous, though for Infamy: as that wicked Church-robber, that to do some memorable act, pulled all the Led off the Church's roof, and thatched it: they must be mentioned, though like a traitors name in the Chronicles. These swear away all reproofs, & drink away all the chide of their own Conscience: it shall be the worse for them, that ever they had a conscience: their Hell shallbe the hotter for the multitude of their neglected motions to good: their Mercies have not been more numerous, then shall be their Miseries: their Nurture or Learning (to omit those, that never read any other Book then Vanity) at once makes them better and worse; better in understanding, worse in manners; whiles their contemplation is a Theatre, and their study, new sports, new fashions: Oh how far better is the simple, honest, innocent Soul without knowledge, then that which is beautified with learning and debauched with vices?  
Beatus ille qui procul negotijs, 
Horace.   
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis.  
More happy are those poor wretches confined and contented with a rural charge: whiles they know not so much of good, they know less of ill: they skill not what the studying of oaths, the tricks of pride, the policy of Atheism means: they make not sense the rule of their belief with the Gallant, but their Catechism: Religion is their Queen, the Gallants drudge: they have not so much of reason, therefore abuse the less: their sins proceed most from ignorance, the Gallants from knowing wilfulness: Now, which of these shall be beaten with most stripes? they work out a poor living with the sweat of their brows and nerves, these can play out a rich one from the quickness of their wits: they know not the detractions of slander, underminings of envy, provocations, heats, enlurings of lusts: the foul secrecies of Idolatry, hypocracy, sacrilege, cleave not to their consciences: they have a kind of happiness, in that they are not so miserable: our impudent, imprudent, insolent Youngsters look on these, betwixt contempt and anger, call them Clowns, Idiots, and the dregs of Nature, and think themselves Angels, if these be men; (Quorum prae● crdia Titan de priore luto sinxit) as if God had tempered them of a base mould. But whiles Actaeon's Bondslave grinds securely (though laboriously) at the Mill, 
Hart. Hounds.  his brave riotous, gallant, Hunting-maister is turned to a beast, and for his sensuality eaten up of his own lusts: you all know the Story, this is the Moral. Thus, this is the proper cause, that the ancient Houses fall; and what the long Industry of the progenitors have gotten, the short Riot of the Gallant, wastes: We are loath to hear of this; but it is too true, he needs not drink up all the Sea, that will judge of the ●aste: hence young gentlemen by wild unthriftiness become sports to Theaters, and cannot sit on their Father's seats to do good in the Commonwealth: they abound with the gifts of Nature, but like Figtrees growing over deep Waters, full of Fruit, but the jays eat them: Ruffians, Harlots, vicious Companions enjoy those Graces, that might honour God.  
4 Common Profane persons, that will suffer themselves to wear God's Livery, though they serve the Devil: these are they, that make the profession of the Gospel have an evil name: hence that Proverb, Pater noster, set up Churches, Our Father, pulls them down. I will not favour (with a partial convivence) these Scorners, though they nuzzle themselves in the Church's bosom: nay, I will speak most plainly; these are the worst Edomites, if not to themselves, to us. Let the Atheist deny, the Epicure remove, the Libertine forget, that there is any other Day of peace or sorrow, beside or beyond the present; what is this to believers? We are reedy to brand and howte at them (as they did to the Lepers in Israel,) nay to rain them to death with a shower of Stones, (as they served Idolaters and Blasphemers:) But be our own hands undefiled, that take up these weapons of Death against others, as Christ charged the jews, that charged the adulterous Woman? If we be sick, our sickness is more dangerous than theirs: 
Interius, & in cute malum.  The other Diseases are without the body, but this comes nearer the heart of the Church: we know what it is, to have a Sickness come near the heart: there is more grief to the Mother of the Family, in the miscarrying of one of the Children, then of many Strangers, Edomites, unbelievers, or misbelievers: these have learned to speak the language, to scorn the manners of Canaan; for, their lives testify, that they believe not our report.  
We have gone the better half of our journey, 
The Answer.  let not your attentions fail to the end: We have seen the nature of Edom, and Mount Seir, Atheism, Scorn, Abomination; we are now entering an other Mountain, the Hill of Zion, the City of God. The Question of the Edomite was not more perverse, than the Answer of the Watchman is grave and sober. The Answers of God are not doubtful, like the Heathen Oracles; nor obscure and tetrical, as Mahomet's Riddles; nor ambiguous, like the mixed, the motley, epicoene, equivocating conclusions of Rome, but plain, sweet, profitable: I call therefore the first part of it, 
The Resolution.  A Resolution: They ask as if they despised to know; he resolves them justly, as if he would force them to know against their wills. They ask him what is spiritually seen in the night of Vision? He tells them, what shall really come in the night of actual Desolation: The Morning cometh, and also the Night, Let your understandings keep pace with me through these 4. Circumstances. 1. The length of their Peace; 
Finitum pro indefinito, brevitatem temporis, dies exprimit.  one whole day, the space betwixt morning and evening: a short time. 2. The Certainty of their judgement; The night (infallibly) cometh. 3. The quality of it, when it is come; (Nox dicitur) it is called, a Night. 4. The Inversion of this, to the Righteous.  
1. The Happiness of Edom is but a Day; The Morning comes, and the Night follows: It is but the distance of the Sunrising from his setting. There is to all things living, such an alternation decreed; a morn, a noon, a night: a beginning, a strong age, a declination or full point: as the Historians write of certain Flies bred by the River Hispanis, that are generated in the morning, at noon in full strength, at night make their ends, and are gone: Paul says, Our life is but a Tabernacle, it is all, if this stands a year: Esay calls it, Grass; which grows but a Summer: David, a Flower; that hath but his month: here it is called, a Day; that hath but the Sunrising and setting: Nay, job compares it to a Shadow; that hath (neither Year, nor Summer, nor month, nor Day,) but an Hour: Nay, Moses to a Thought; whereof there may be a hundred in an hour: This is none of the shortest Comparisons, (Manè et vespèrè) the measure of one day.  
What then mean those Greedy Dogs in this Prophecy, 
Esay. 56. 12.  to bark so madly, Bring more Wine, for to morrow shall be as to day, yea, much more abundant. Me thinks, I hear the gallant Epicures (the christened Atheists) of this City, knock thus in Taverns, for yet more Wine, crowning the day with Riots, and blessing the morrow with promised Surfeits, as if the Night should never come: alas (Nescis quid serus vesper ferat) thou knowest not what sad news the Evening will bring: thou braggest with Cesar, the Day is come; We tell thee, as Caesar's friend, It is come indeed and begun; it is not ended: the Lease of Vanity, is but a Day; it may be not a moment, the tenure of this world is uncertain. Medio de font leporum, surgit amari aliquid: From out of the midst of the fount of Delicacies, ariseth ever some Bitterness: when you have spent your strengths, your estates, bloods, souls, upon Vanity, all is but (unius diej hilaris insanta) the merry madness of a day; 
Non semper sequuntur viventem, mori entem nunquam.  which to buy with the eternity of insufferable Torments, is a dear purchase: If they be not short of content and satisfaction, I am sure, they are of continuance: They do not always follow a man living, ever forsake him when he dies.  
2 You have measured the shortness of their day, hear the certainty of their night: The morning comes, and (without prevention) night follows. You shall shake off the yoke of Israel, but put on you the yoke of Persia: The Edomites were long tributaries to Israel, according to Ishae's prophecy and blessing of Esau. Thou shalt be thy Brother's Servant; 
Gen. 27. 40.  but it shall come to pass, when thou shalt get the mastery, thou shalt break his yoke from thy neck: The Prophet here assures them of this mastery. (Israel rebels against God, therefore Edome against Israel.) Ishae as God's Prophet, subjects Edom to Canaan, the seed of Esau to the seed of jacob: 
Ambr.  (Intemperanti praefecit sobrium) he sets the sober man over the intemperate: and this service of the elder Brother to the younger, lasted in the posterity 700 years. Yet twice after, they shook off this servitude: the first in joram's time, which liberty they made a troublesome shift to hold till Hircanus, 
2. King. 8. 20.  who subdued them, and made them be circumcised: this slavery they overcame again, and held it, even till Herod, 
joseph.  the son of Antipater, an Idumaean borne, obtained to be King of the jews: here Edom got the full mastery. The first, was this Morning the Prophet speaks of; this Morning of freedom shall come, but last for a Day, and then be overclouded with a Night, a worse Captivity, because to a worse people, (Qui Deum et misericordi●m nesciunt) that know neither God, nor Mercy: as those privations are inseparable, there is no Mercy, where no Religion.  
Edom is but a particular instance of a general doom, which all the Sons of Adam, as the Daughters of E●e, I mean, all the Glories of this World shall bear; as sure as the Evening succeeds the Morning, Death shall seize on Life, judgement on Sin: you have the sap of Health in your Bones, the Riches of the world in your Coffers, your Life is in the Noon of pride, but (we say) praise a fair day at Night. (Happy are they, whose life is hid with Christ in God, that this Night may not find them out:) 
Col. 3. 3.  your Sun shall set, Beauty, Riches, Glory, shall decay, as by the inviolable law of Nature, night succeeds day; so by the eternal law of God, Death sin. If you could indent with the Sun to stand still, 
josh. 10. 1●.  as in the days of joshua; or to go back ten degrees, as to Hezekiah; or with his Orb to move slowly, yet it shall set: Be the day never so long, yet at last, comes evening-song. The Son of God himself, in this condition of mortal descent, was equal to his brethren. That great Sun of Righteousness, had his rising and his setting: We must all walk into the West, as well as he; and be our Day longer or shorter, Night must come, our Privileges are not beyond others.  
Hear this ye Edomites, that flout our presagings of a Night: you speak of a Night, and hour of judgement; When comes it? We tell you again, The Morning cometh, and also the Night. You have had a time of Light and delight, and what your hearts could wish; you shall have a time of Sorrow and Darkness: Your Noon shall be turned to Midnight. Tender and delicate Babylon, 
Esay. 47. 7.  that boasted herself a Queen, and free from mourning, shall weep in the wydow-hood of her glory; and hear at last, (Aduenit sinis tuus,) thy end is come. 
ver. 9  You that will not set your minds to these things, nor remember the latter end, miseries shall come on you in their perfection: so absolute as the justice of God, & the Malice of Satan can make them. So Solomon schools the artless, heartless, supine courses of vain Youth: Rejoice, O Youngman, etc. 
Eccl. 1●. 9  Rejoice in your day of Pride, let Pleasure rock you on her indulgent knee, you shall be brought to the night of judgement: The Surfeits of the old World, the Mirth of the Philistines, (when Samson was their laughing stock) the carowsinges of that Chaldean Monarch in the sacred Bowls of jerusalem, had their Night: Solomon with his 1000 Wives and Concubines, Belshazzar with his 1000 Princes, Ahashiverosh with his 127. Provinces, had their Night: High-looked Honour, and pursy Riches; the one diseased in his Eyes, the other in his Lungs, shall have their Night: The favour of Noble men, is the favour of movable men; 
favour nobilium, favour mobilium.  the Ignis fatuus of Riches is long engendering, soon extinct: let joab and job, be our precedentes in both these: the first, was great and evil, the chiefest Captain about David; yet by David designed to execution; The second was great and good; yet behold, the mightiest man of the East, 
As poor as job.  is poor to a Proverb: What ever flourished and had not this night? The rich Churl enlarging his Barns proportionably to his desires, 
Hiatu laborantes.  had his Night; he heard that soul knell, Thou fool, this Night, shall they fetch away thy soul. The World itself shall have this Evening: the Morning was in the days of the patriarchs; Christ boor the heat and Noon of the day, and we are those upon Whom the latter ends of the world are come. The World groweth old, and we grow old with it: 
2. Esd. 14. 9  the bodies of men in old age, wax cold and want the heat of Nature; the souls of men in this decrepit age, grow cold in zeal, (Deficiente feruore charitatis) the nourishment of old age turns into crudity, through want of heat to concoct, digest, and drive it into the Veins; the nourishment of our souls turns into Vanity, because we want the heat of Grace to digest it: By all these symptones, you see the Sun of this World ready to set, and the Night drawing on: the declination of Goodness, the fainting of Religion, says, that the World lies bedrid, drawing on, looking for the good hour (to some,) and fetching a thick, sick and short breath: I am no Prophet (or what if I were, yet unable) to define the time: but this I conclude (though more particularly) from the rule of my text; We had our Morning at the first preaching of the Gospel: it now flourisheth with us, as at high Noon; Who shall say, the Evening will not follow, or our Sun is without setting.  
3 That it shall come, you hear; hear shortly the quality of it, when it is come: A Night. Misery is not fitlier shadowed, then under the name of a Night: Sorrow lasts for a Night, says the Psalmist, but joy comes in the Morning. A sad, heavy, and disconsolate time, full of horror and amazement; when there is no object to withdraw the eye, thereby to divert the mind from the thought and meditation of bitterness. Satan himself is not said to be bound with any other Chains but these of Darkness: as the joys of Heaven are described by that eternal daylight of glory and Sunshine of the Lamb, 
Revel. ●1.  and it is added in express words; There shall be no Night there: So the torments of Hell are called by Christ, 
Mat. 8. 1●.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Utter Darkness: No marvel, if there ensue, weeping and gnashing of teeth, when misery shallbe extreme, and no day-hole of hope, to afford one glimpse of comfort: this is that Night of nights, 
Nox noctium. Io●l. 2. 2.  worse than the palpable Darkness of Egypt, as full of intolerable horror, as Caliginous blackness: I find not only the time of judgement general, but of temporal and particular calamities, termed by the Night of horror: the downfall of Dumah, a Night: the destruction of Israel, A season of blackness, darkness, clouds and obscurities. Therefore (as Christ to the jews, Pray that your flight be not in the Night,) pray that your departure out of this life, be not in the Night of your security and ignorance; and then fear not this Night, for you are redeemed from the land of eternal Darkness.  

* Caligula (in in ta●on of Zerxes, that passed his Army over the straight of Hellespont upon a wooden bridge) upon ships moared together with Cables & Anchors, made a bridge of boards, with so much earth on it, that it seemed firm ground, like one of the streets in Rome. Dion.  It was the foolish pride of that Roman Emperor, having made a Bridge of grappled Ships over a narrow Arm of the Sea, and triumphing at midnight with innumerable torches, to boast that he had (wrough two Miracles,) made the Sea dry Land, and the Night Day: but our Emperor of Heaven and Earth, did perform it indeed, when he dried up the Red sea of his Father's wrath, and changed our present Night of Ignonaunce, and future of torment, into the eternal daylight of his Grace and Glory.  
4 The last part to this Survey, is the inverting of this upon the Righteous: Where, behold the different beginnings and ends of both Holy, and Unholy: to the children of Disobedience, the Morning is before the Evening; and this is Dumah's woe at Sunset (Fuisse faelicem) that she had her Day: To the Faithful, the Evening is before the Morning; as at the Creation, The Evening and the Morning were the first day. 
Gen. 1.  The jews were commanded to begin their Feast of Reconciliation at Even; 
Leuit. 23. 32.  and, From Evening to Evening, shall you celebrate your Sabbath. It was Christ's comfortable Answer to his Church, intending the date when the profanation of the Temple should cease, to set the Morning of their peace, after the Evening of their troubles, by a sweet and mystical allusion: Unto the Evening, and the Morning, 
Dan. 8. 14.  two thousand, and three hundred: then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed: and the vision of the Evening and the Morning is true: 
ver. 26.  The Evening of their sorrow precedes the Morning of their joys. Our Prophet so compares the tempest of the Assyrians rage, to a Storm in the Night, which vanisheth at the rising Sun: Lo, 
Esay. 17. 14.  in the Evening there is trouble, but before the Morning it is gone. Our Night lasts during this wretched life: the troubles of Miseries, storms of Persecutions, and rage of that great Leutathan, disturbs our Air, 
Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum, tendimus in caelum.  darkens our Day, and makes it a gloomy Night; clouds, tempests, obstacles, stumbling-blockes, temptations, machinations of Enemies, deceivings of Friends, through so many dangers and difficulties sail we to our haven of Peace: our assurance is, that joy comes in the Morning, when we shall rise in the East, and behold the Son of Glory shine in our faces. The Morning of the Edomites, Atheists, Reprobates, comes first smiling on their brows; but (Nox sequitur) they have a Night behind.  
This disparity consists not only in the counterposition of their order, but in the circumstantial difference of their length and shortness: Our Night is irksome, but short; (Compensatur acerbitas brevitate) What is ill in the bitterness, is eased by the shortness: But our Day is everlasting, from new Moon to new Moon, from Saboth to Saboth, we shall praise the Lord: Myriad of years and ages, shallbe expired, and our Sun as far from setting, as at our first entrance; for time and mortality, and distinction of age, shall cease: there is nothing but eternity above: It is not more blessed in being a Day, then in being endless: Their Morning is short, their Night everlasting, their Debt never pride, their Fire never quenched: Here is their unhappiness, (Florent ad tempus, pereunt in aeternum: florent fa●sis bonis, pereunt veris tormentis:) They flourish for a time, they perish for ever: they flourish with false joys, perish with true and substantial torments: things that are soon bred, have the shortest continuance: 
Psal. 73. 18. 19  a puff of Wind raiseth the Chaff from the earth, and a puff scatters it away: the Wicked are soon raised, and with like speed depressed: How quickly is Esau's posterity advanced to a Kingdom, how immaturely cast down? The Crown is scarce warm on their temples, their eyes have scarce taken a passing glance of their glories, but all is dispersed: the Godly are long kept under covert; but when they do rise, their elevation is permanent.  
Lo, now cast a sober and intelligent eye on this strange opposition, and let the very enemy of Heaven and Grace, judge, whether the vain shadows of joy, and those for a Day, liable to true and substantial torments, and those for ever, be comparable with, or desirable before, a momentany Affliction (and that not without the best of comforts) followed with an excellent and eternal weight of glory. It's confessed; I speak for you, I think your Consciences are convinced: but (Vbi signa?) Where are the signs of it? If this be so, and you so acknowledge it, why lead you so dissonant lives? shall the voice of your own tongues, censure of your own hearts, witness against you? Tacitus reports, that in the civil Wars betwixt Vitellius and Vespasian, a Soldier had killed his own Father, which was of the enemy's Army; no sooner was this published, but every man begins to abhor, condemn, execrate that War, the cause of such an unnatural fact; yet how little effect this wrought in their proceedings, that Author describes; for their rage, rapine, cruelty, was not lessened, in spoiling Neighbour, Friend, Kinsman, Brother, Father, when they had slain them. We abhor the miseries and sins incident to this life; we love it still, nay prefer it to Heaven: our condemnation will be easy and just, what need is there of more Witnesses (Ex ore tuo) thy own lips have spoken against thee. For shame let our hearts and tongues be cut out of one piece, that what we allow in opinion, we may prosecute in practice.  
You hear how the Day slips from us, and the Night steals on; what remains, but in the Day to prepare for the Night. No marvel, if men sleep in the Night; but in the broad day, to shut our eyes (with the Dormouse) is unnatural. There is a Night, when thou shalt rest, 
Esay. 57 ●.  even on thy bed of Peace: only walk, work; loiter not in thy Day. Christ taught and observed the Rule himself, to travel his Day and all his Day; For the Night comes, wherein no man can work. There are things, which if the Night finds undone, we are undone, because we have not done them: if we defer to provide lodging, sustenance, safety, the Night finds and leaves us destitute. How mad is he, that bound to some special designment, confined to his day, and then furthered with light, aid, company, and conveniency of all things, spends one hour in catching Flies, another after Feathers, and all the rest in several toys and leasings, that on a sudden the Sun sets, and his chief work is not done, nay not begun.  
The work of our day, is the working up our salvation; it is a special work, Heaven & our Souls are upon it, and we have but our day to work it; (Tempus vitae, tempus paenitentiae) The time of life, is the time of Repentance. We spend one piece of our Day in Covetous scrapings, another in adoring that we have scraped; some hours of our Day in working vanity, and some in sleeping security; instantly the Night of death comes, & we have neglected the main chance: our Salvation is not finished like Courtiers, that having light to bring them to bed, play it out at Cards, and go to bed darkling: Woe to them that go to their last rest thus: How unworthy are we of a Day, thus to spend it? It is pity that ever the Sun of Grace shone on our faces: Quake and fear, what soever thou art, to suffer the sin of thy soul, and the end of thy life to come so near together: If men stumble in the dark, it is not strange; to fall at every stub in the day, argues wilful neglect, or want of eyes. It is enough for those poor Romanistes, that live under that Egyptian darkness of the inquisition, to fall into grievous absurdities, where the Sun shines, to see men fall in heaps, is astonishing: Oh that every bait of drunkenness, object of covetousness, presented glance of vanity, should make us wander and stumble, stumble and fall, fall and content ourselves therein without rising: What (would we? what) will we do, if our Sun sets? For shame cast away the deeds of darkness with the time: 
Ephe. 51. 4.  Awake and stand up, the light of jesus Christ shines on thy face. As men from sleep opening their eyes, and seeing day broke, cast away their clothes, wherein they were wrapped warm, and start up to their several callings; the Sins and Vanities of this world have kept us warm, as Caiphas kept Peter, whiles we were folded in them; but our main work lay dead for want of execution: Provide then for this Night, 
Psal. 118. 27.  ôh thou whose cheek the Sun of mercy and forbearance, kisseth: The sleep of him that travaileth, is sweet, 
Eccl. 5. 11.  whether he eat little or much: but the satiety of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. If the Day be well spent, the wearied bones rejoice in their earned repose; and the contented Conscience, applauds itself in the thought of her careful obedience; body and soul receives rest. Whiles the Day is slothfully spent, Night brings no reioycefull ease to either spirits or corpses: The Day of thy life worn out in the well disposed hours of a religious obedience, thy body shall rest in a perfumed Grave, and thy soul in the bosom of Abraham, when Night comes: but whiles pride, surfeits, oppressions, wantonness, have shared the Day, the Night comes with no less suddenness than sorrow; thy rest shallbe unrest, neither easier than smoke and thorns, and flames, nor shorter than the eternity of all these can make it: Oh then, what folly, madness, selfe-enmitie is this, to play out our short Day, and howl under the pressure of working torments for an everlasting Night.  
We are come to the last fruit that I shall gather you from this Tree, 
The Advice.  and it grows on three branches: the whole body of it, being applied to the manner, not the matter of the Question: the matter is first satisfied, The Morning comes, & the Night; the manner is now touched: If ye will ask, inquire, return and come. You ask in derision, keep the Cloth, but reject the Fashion: Ask still, but to repentance: Let your demands manifest your desires of resolution: If ye will ask, and needs be acquainted with your sorrows, Inquire, with humility, reverence, faith: Return from your sins, by repentance, and come home to God by obedience, (Triplex ex arbore fructus) here is a threefold fruit from this Tree; whereon let your souls feed, and then depart to refresh your bodies.  
Inquire: 
Inquire.  We must not look, that God should seek us with his blessings; as Elias was charged to run by the way of the Wilderness, 
1. king. 19 5.  in quest of Hazael to anoint him: No, Seek ye the Lord, whiles he may be found: the rule of the Prophet is just: the Rich man comes not to the Beggar's door with relief in his hand; but the Beggar to his for it: there is small reason, to expect it from God, that he should both give, and seek: I confess he doth, as Christ testifies of himself; I came to seek and to save that which was lost; 
Luk. 19 10.  but withal he conveys into our hearts, a (preventing) Grace to seek him: Hence the Condition is annexed to the Grant, by the giver himself; Ask, and you shall have: Inquire, and you shall be satisfied: But if any will be ignorant, 
Resonant responsa roganti  let them be ignorant still.  
If you ask me, 1. Where you should Inquire? Our Prophet directs you; To the Law, to the Testimony: Where should a people inquire, 
Esay. 8. 20.  but at their God? 2. If how? With Humility, Reverence, and desire of Knowledge: (Inter Iuuenile tuaicium, et senile praeiudicium multa veritas corrumpitur.) There must be in us an equal avoiding of both Rashness, and Prejudice: Young men apprehend not the necessity of Knowledge; Old men presume of a plerophory and abundance: hence neither young nor old inquire. 3. If when? The Wiseman answers; Inquire, seek; Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth: Begin this search, in the Morning of thy years: (Mane, is the lords adverb, the devils Verb:) the Lord saith, Early; the Devil saith, Tarry: to whom you hearken, judge yourselves: One thing only, take heed you stay not too long; the Devil is a false Sexton, and sets the Clock too slow, that the Night comes ere we be aware: tarry not then till your piles of Usuries, heaps of Deceits, mountains of Blasphemies, have caused God to hide himself, and will not be found. There is a (Sera nimis hora) time too late, which Esau fell unluckily into, when he sought the Blessing with tears, and could not find it. It may be the Statues, 
Word, Minister, Understanding.  or the Guides, or thy own Eyes, may be denied thee, & then too late thou inquirest. Whiles the Book of God is not perused, his Temples not frevented, nor his Throne solicited by Prayers, hard heartedness steals on us, and like Samson bound by the Philistims, we would break their Bonds, and cast their cords from us; but our Dalilah, our Folly hath beguiled us.  
Is this all? no, there is second Fruit growing on this Tree, 
Return.  of equal necessity, greater use. After inquiring, follows Returning: you are gone wrong, return into the way of Peace; Inquire it first, and having found it, Return, put your feet into it. God warns you by the revelation of his word, 
Math. ●. 12.  (as the Wisemen by the vision of a Dream) to Return into your Country, whither you would arrive, and where only is your rest, another way. If ever this exhortation was necessary for Edom, let me think it fitter for England: (as sinful as we are, let me yet say, there is more hope of our repentance, then of Edom's:) our Iniquities as great, our Instructions greater than theirs; what remains, but our Repentance? never more need: Our sins are not low, slow, few, or slightly done; negligence sins, security sins, contempt sins, presumption and hard-heartedness sins: here is the Scorners Chair, the drunkards Bench, the Idle-mans' Cushion, the usurers Study: Oh where is Repentance, to rouse these? God is angry; we have been smitten, not in the Skirts and Suburbs of our Commonwealth only, our City, Body, and whole unity hath been pierced to the soul, The whole Head hath been sick, and whole Heart heavy: Where is the physic of Repentance? I can show you many Actors presenting themselves on the Theatre of this World; I see not Repentance play her part: I can point you to Usury, robbing, grinding, sucking blood, cutting throats, whiles he sits in the Chimney corner, & hears of his Zani's, whelps, underling thieves ending their days at the Gallows. I can show you Covetousness sweeting for gain, crouching, ramping, playing Ape, Lion, or Devil, for Money: I can discover to you Drunkenness, rising early to the Wine, Malice making haste to the death of Ammon, Ambition running after Honour, faster than Peter to the Sepulchre; Pride whirling in her Chariot, Wantonness shutting up the windows; Bribery creeping in at the Keyhole, even when the door of justice is locked up against her. Among all these I see not repentance: Doth she stay till the last act? I fear the tragedy of many Souls ruin will be done first. This land is full of sins, (let me speak impartially) this City: as many Lines meet at the Centre; so all sins by a general confluence to this place: Glomerantur in unum innumerae pestes Erebj: The mischiefs of Hell are swarmed to one Crowd, and we have it. I know there are some names in Sardj, some that make Conscience of their ways: the same air is drawn by men of as contrary dispositions, as is the opposition of the two Poles: that I may say of the lives of this City, as one doth of Origen's writings: (Vbi bene, nemo melius: 
Nil fuit vnq vam sic impar sibi. Hor.  ubi male, nemo peius,) Those that are good, are exceeding good, and those that are evil, are unmeasurable evil: nothing was ever so unlike itself. You are as contrary as fire to water; but all the water of the one's devotion, will not quench the Fire of the others wickedness: This latter is so monstrously grown on us with the times, that it is all, if the Idolatry of Rome, or the Atheism of Turkey can go beyond it. They are rare hearts, that care not more to seem, then to be Holy, if perhaps, they will either seem or be: Rare hands, that are free and clean from either blood or filthiness: rare Tongues, that do not vie Oaths with Words; making scoffs, scorns, flatteries, vain speeches, the greater part of their tongues exercise; that if their Words could be weighed, their Prayers of a year, are not so substantial and ponderous, as their Oaths of one day: It were no wonder to see these abominations in Dumah, Egypt, Babylon; to find them in England is matter of amazement. It was an admirable and astonishing speech (the Prophet himself thought, by his advertisement prefixed, 
Esay. ) The virgin Israel hath done filthily. If Harlots and Brothels be unchaste, they do not degenerate from their kind; in so pure a Virgin, no imagination would have dreamt it. It is no news to find the Devil in Hell: to have him thrust into Paradise, tempting and prevailing with our first Parents, is horrible. Let Rome and Turkey swell with the poisons of Satan till they burst, who wonders? to find the sputteringes of his venom in the Church is grievous: If we be accused for accusing of sins, let the Physician be blamed for discovering Diseases in the sick body: we must speak; Oh yet— Si nostra sperem prece posse movers, that we could hope with any sayings to move you: If the worst come, I can but speed, as others before me. Be there no Usurers, that say to the Gold in secret, You are my Confidence? (Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo ipse d●mi,) 
Hor.  the world hisseth at me, but I hug & applaud my own soul, & fat my spirits in the sight of my Bags. Is there never a Broker to comfort this sin of death, in the distress of his Conscience with? Usury is no sin, many learned men are of this opinion: But I ask him, if his Conscience can be so satisfied: would he not willingly give one hundred pound bag, to be secured in this point? Sure, it is (at the least) not safe wading far in a questionable Water; if it could be safe to some, yet how many have been drowned in this Whirlpool? I confess that flesh and blood puts the Bladders of Wealth and Promotion under their Armholes, and the Devil holds them up by the Chin, till they come to the deepest, and then, as the Priests served judas, they bid them shift for themselves; and wanting the help of Repentance of swim, down they sink (In profundum inferni) to the bottomless bottom of Hell. These two, are not unfitly compared to two Millstones; the Usurer is the neither Stone, that lies still; he sits at home in his warm Furs, and spends his time in a devilish Arithmetic, in numeration of hours, days, and moneys, in substraction from others estates, and multiplication of his own, till they have divided the earth to themselves, and themselves to Hell: The Broker runs round like the upper Millstone, and betwixt both these, the poor is grinded to powder.  
Usury (you say) is exploded among saints, I would you would deal no worse with covetousness: But alas, this is too general a fault, to give any hope of amendment: He that railed on Beelsebub pulled all Ekrom about his ears: He that slighted Melchom, provoked the Ammonites: But he that condemns Mammon, speaks against all the world. This is the delight, the love, the solace of many, the God of some: poverty, sickness, age, are all the Devils they tremble at, and Beliall, Melchom, Mammon, Pleasures, Honours, Riches, all the Gods they worship: These three usurping Kings, like the three seditious Captains in jerusalem, or those three Roman Tyrants, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, have shared the world amongst them, and left God least, who owes all. Lactantius speaks of one Tullus Hostilius, that put Fear & Paleness into the number of Gods: It is pity that ever his Gods should go from him, it is (not pity, but) justice, that these Gods, and the true God too, should forsake such reprobates, that idolatrize the honour to Creatures, wherewith they should worship the Creator. But alas, how is Pharaoh's Dream verified among us? The lean Kine eat up the fat: Gods lean blessings, riches, and pleasures, devour his fat ones, Grace and Religion: How it dishonours God, disparageth ourselves, and our creation, to put Lead in a Cabinet of gold, base desires in a fair and precious soul. We never yet attained the top of Mount Zion: He that stands on the Tower of Divine meditation, will judge those Pygmies, which below he thought Giants: but we desire not Heaven, 
Ignoti nulla cupido.  because we know it not; we never look beyond our Horizon: we live in our contented slavery of Egypt, and never dream of the freedom of Canaan, (Vbi amor, ibi oculus:) where the love is, there is the eye. This S. Augustine shortly and sound reproves: (Si sursum os, cur deorsum cor?) hath Nature given us an upright ●ace, 
Preaepostera dissimili●udo vultus et animae. etc.  and a groveling heart? this is a preposterous dissimilitude of the mind and countenance: do but compare (as lifting up thy soul with thy eyes) heaven with earth, and thou wilt change thy opinion: Through want of these meditations, these earthly vanities carry away our enchanted hearts, to neglect those better things of our eternal peace: and by the testimony of our Saviour, It is hard for a rich man to get into Heaven: The Proverb saith, There is no earthly Gate, but an Ass laden with Gold can enter: and this only loading, hinders our entering the gates of Glory. A wealthy and great man, served up to God's table in his kingdom, is as rare as Venison at our Boards on earth: there are sometimes such services, not often.  
Is this all? no, 
Sen.  (Vidi Ebriosorum sitim, & vomentium famem) I have seen Drunkenness reeling from Tavern to Tavern, (and not seldom,) from thence to his Stews. It was the sin, nay the shame of Beggars; it is now the glory, the pride of Gallants: They should daily be transformed to the image of God, they come nearer and nearer to beasts, (let me say) to Devils: For Saint Bernard saith, (Ebrietas est manifestissimus Daemon) Drunkenness is a most manifest Devil: They that are possessed with Satan, or with drunkenness, fall alike into the fire, 
Math. 17. 16. 21  into the water, they gnash alike, alike they foam: And as all the Disciples could not cast out that one sort of Devils; so nor all the Preachers this.  
Gluttony is not much less general, no less evil: Drunkenness makes a man so giddy he can not stand, and Gluttony so pursy that he cannot go: That old Verse and Rule is forgotten in our Feasts: 
Too soon, too fine, too daintily:  
Too taste, too much, is gluttony.   
There is an appetite natural, when the stomach can extract no more juice from meats received, it covets more: There is an appetite sensual, when the rich says, My Soul eat, not my Body: nay, are not some in this City, like those Horace speaks of? when their estate can reach but to Herrings, 
Sed prohibent grandes patinae.  they long for fresh Salmon. We desire the strength of bodies, and the length of days; our full Dishes forbid it: If ever that Verse was true, now is the time: Non plures gladio, quam cecidere gula: The enemy's Sword kills not more, than their own Throat.  
Swearing and Whoredom I will join together, (as most sins go by couples) so the Prophet, The Land is full of Adulterers, and for Oaths the Land mourneth. Add unto Swearing, (the twin-brone brother of it) Cursing; 
Carnificem & Lictorem vindictae nostrae.  a sin that makes God (the summum bonum the base executioner of our revenge: How strange? when men grieve us, to turn our teen upon God, and rend him to pieces. Blasphemers against mortal Princes are killed with the sword, and all their estates confiscate: against the Prince of Heaven it is not regarded. 
Gladio ●eriuntur, bonis f●co datis &c.   
I must not forget my Edomite, the Gallant: If you would see an Impostume conflate and swollen up with all these rank corruptions, all the former mischiefs, reconciling themselves to a wretched unity in one soul, a pack and bundle of sins, snatched from their several owners, (Envy from the Malicious, Haughtiness from the Proud, Derision from the Scorner, etc. and engrossed to one heart, an Emblem, a Pageant, a short Commentary of all the devils proceedings, a Map of his walks, plots, and actions; behold the Gallant: I tax not the generous Spirit, whose birth and accoutrementes are worthy and high, his mind humble. Oh how comely are good clothes to a good Soul, when the Grace within, shall beautify the Attire without; and not gay Rags, impudently bear out Wicked actions: far be it from me to think these Edomites, or any other thing, than the Diamonds, that grace our Ring, no, they are the gallant Esauites, the profane Roisters, to whom I speak, and that from a text of Repentance, desiring from my soul, that they may scape the Burden of Dumah, by rejecting the manners, and make more account of their Birthright, then sell it for messes of Pottage, Lusts, and Vanities: But if they will note themselves with the Coal and Brand of profaneness, they must not look to escape our Censures: we cannot hear their Oaths, beating the unvulnerable breast of Heaven, not see their Pride, testifying to their face, if they should plead innocence; nor be unwillingly conscious of their Atheistical jests, 
Hos. 7. 10.  Libertine Feasts, worse than Pagan Adulteries, and charm our tongues with silence; when the glory of our God, the price of their Redemption, and the danger of their own souls lie at the stake.  
There are other open, and infinite secret sins, which they think no eye sees: But there are witnesses, the Angels good and bad, the Conscience of the committers, and the judge of the Conscience: Si nemo, non tamen nullus) if no man, yet not none: therefore what thou darest not to do thy fellow servant looking on thee, 
Quod non audes facere aspiciente conseruo: hoc ne cogites inspiciente deo.  that dare not to think thy heavenly Master looking in thee. I confess, we have a face of Religion, and looks of profession, making toward jerusalem; but how many make the noble Livery of our Master, a shelter to these abhorred corruptions? and till the trial comes, it is not known whom many serve: A man that follows two Gentlemen, is not discerned which to serve, till they part company: so long as wealth and religion go together, it is not apparent, to which of them most adhere, till the cross parts them, and then it is plain and easy.  
Were these the sins of Edom, and are they not the sins of England? The sins said I? nay, the Gods of England: For the Usurer adores his metals, the Epicure his junketts, the Drunkard his Gallons, the Voluptuous his Lusts, the Adulterer his harlots, the Proud and gallant Edomite his gay clothes, and studied carriage: And as the Israe●ies cried to their Calf made of golden Ear rings, These are thy Gods oh Israel: So we may speak it with horror and amazement, of these foolish, 
Exod. 3●. ●.  bestial, devilish, sins, Thesè are thy Gods oh England: weak, wretched, unhelpefull Gods: For shame, what, where are we? could Edom ever be worse? Have we devoured so many years of peace, ease, plenty, and saturity, (if I may so call it) of God's word; and are we still so lame, le●ne, and ill favoured in our lives? what shall I say? hath the sweet Gospel, and the sober preaching of it, made us sensual, senseless; impudent, frantic? as the nature of that Country is wonderful, 
Siccita● dat Lutum, imbres pulverem. Plin.  if true, that Rain causeth Dust, & Drought Dirt: Have the sweet Dews of Hermon, made the Hill of Zion more barren? Hath the Sun of Plenty, from the filth of our Security, bred monsters of sins? Have God's mercies made us worse? what shall I say?  
Fathers and brethren, help: Pity the miscarrying souls, that have no mercy on themselves: our Words are thought air, let your Hands compel them to the service of God: 
Verbum informans, virga reformans.  The word of Information hath done his best, Where is the rod of Reformation? Let Moses rod, second Aaron's Word. The loves of Sinners, the strength of Sins; nay, Principalities and Powers are against us, and we come armed with a few leaves of Paper: The keenest Sword is with us, but it is in our lips only, The sword of the Spirit; and though it can divide the Marrow and the bones, 
Heb. 4.  of an awaked Conscience, alas it moves not the stony hearts: it shall sooner double upon ourselves, then enter such Mayled Consciences: our blows are filliped back in contempt: be not wanting ye that have the ordinance of God: You are his surrogates, and the Preachers hopes: good laws are made, the lifeblood of them is the execution: the Law is else a wooden Dagger in a fair Sheath: when those that have the charge imposed, and the Sword in their hands, stand like the picture of S. George, with his hand up, but never striking: we complain not of the higher Magistrates, from the benches, of whose judgement, impiety departs not without disgrace, without strokes: the blame lies on inferior Officers, who think their office well discharged, if they threaten offenders: these see, and will not see: Hence Beggars alas themselves in the fields of idleness; hence Taverns and Tap-houses swarm with Unthrifts; of whom, whether they put more sin into their bellies, or vomit more forth, is a hard question; I mean, whether their oaths, or ebrieties exceed: Hence we look to have Vagrants suppressed, Idleness whipped, Drunkenness spoke withal; but the execution proves too often like the jugglers feast, the Guests set, the table's furnished, meat in dishes, wine in flagons; but putting forth their hands to take them, they apprehend nothing but air.  
The medicine to heal all this, both for Patient and Physician, is repentance; not a iaculatory cry of Lord forgive me, nor the flash of a melancholy passion, but a sound, serious, and substantial repentance. Rome hath an holy water of virtue, they say, to purge and wash away all her spots: England hath her holy water too, which, too many trust in for sufficient, we look up and cry, Lord thy mercy, and wipe our lips, as if we had not sinned: yet by and by to our former vomit. But the repentance, that resolves for Heaven, throws away all impediments▪ if Gold, if pleasure, if a Throne were in the way, she would fling them aside: she hath an eye bend on the Mercy-seat, and a foot that runs strait to it: she turns not into Samaria, because she is offered lodging there, nor into the Court of Egypt, to be called the Son of Phar●os Daughter: the pleasures of Babylon stay her not, the goodfellows of Sodom make her not look back: she forgets what is behind, and never rests, like the Kine that carried the Ark, till she comes to the fields of Bethshemesh, the harvest of grace and goodness; nor ceaseth lowing with sorrow till she be sped of the mercies of God: she hath felt the weight of sin and sorrow, and abhors the cause of them both: she hates not the devil worse than her former iniquities, and if it were possible, she would never more offend: Thus, this is to return; what you want of this, you come short of repentance.  
The third degree follows to make up our perfection: 
Come.  If Returning might serve as a labour of (but) indifferent trouble, we could afford it, but we must come: You have heard the Whence, 
unde & quo●  hear the Whither. Thou hast not done with inquiring, with Returning; Up and e●te Elias, thou hast a greater journey to go: strengthen thy heart, ôh Christian, R●stat tibi tertia meta) thou hast a third mark to aim at. Come, home to thy God, by a chaste and Holy life; it is not currant pay with God, to part with our Vanities, except we embrace a Religious conversation. Paul makes it as necessary a part of Christianity, to Put on the New man, as to put off the Old: It is not enough to cease doing evil, but it is damnable not to do well: He that gathers not with Christ, scattereth. It was the threatening doom in john Baptists Sermon, not to the Barren, but to the Euil-fruited Tree. Christ's speech carries the same sense and force against the pharisees, though spoken to his Disciples: Except your Righteousness, etc. he says not, Unless your righteousness be less than theirs; but, Except your righteousness be more, exceed, you shall not see heaven. He that inquires the way to Heaven, and turns toward it, hath past two degrees of my Text, and his own Pilgrimage; but he gets little of either praise or comfort, except he come home to it: here is not so much perseverance lessened, as perfection: there is extreme wrong, extreme right and mercy. The 2. first, shallbe shut out of Heaven; the last only, hath a promise of entrance. 
Summa iniuria, summum ius, et mise●cordia.  judgement without mercy, shallbe to him that shows no mercy; not to the cruel only, but to him that is but merely just: The want of ●ustice is not only damned, 
jam. 2. 13.  but the want of Mercy: the Rich Churl went to hell for not relieving Lazarus, though he wronged him not. If the usurer part with his extortions, the Wanton with his Minions, the Cheater with his Frauds, the Tradesman with his Oaths, he thinks himself by this time a high Christian, and that God must needs bless him, he is so repentant. If the long persuasions of many Sermons, can work this on us, that we abate of our former outrageous licentiousness, we strait sponge up ourselves; and with a conceit, that we have done much for God, outface all reproofs: but he that hath much forgiven him, loves much. The Prodigal does not only turn from his harlots and vices, but comes home to his Father's house: There was no stint in that sinful Woman's penitence, till she had powered ●loods of tears on the feet of our Saviour: The conscience of Zacheus was not disburdened, by ceasing his extortion, but by restitution to the wronged, commiseration to the distressed, even to one half of his goods, and these are the commended penitents.  
How sorts our practice with this Doctrine? show me a sacrilegious Patron, a Pirate of the Church, that (if his hand cease from spoiling God of his Tithes, yet) will repair the breaches, his rapine hath made: show me a Bribe-guilty Officer, seek out with wet eyes, and reward with a full hand, the wronged Suitors: how many are more cruel-hearted than judas, that neither on repentance nor despair will bring back the price of the Poors Blood, which they have sucked? Behold the earthly Churl, to make his son a Gentleman, prostituting his honesty, conscience, soul, and forsaking his own mercy: (as the Proverb is vile, if ever true, Happy is that Son, whose Father goes to the Devil:) After he hath mowed Corn, or fatted his Ox, on the very place, (〈◊〉 Trotafuit) where the Town stood; nay, kenneled his Dogs within the walls of the Sanctuary; 
Non ignota cano.  and turned the Hall of Charity into the Parlour of Pride; his Body sinks to the Grave, and (it is to be feared) his Soul to Hell, being rung thither with the peals of Bells and curses. The better instructed Heir, (to omit those that exceed the tyranny of their Fathers) seeing and detesting his dead Father's deader courses, 
Q●is talia 〈◊〉 ●mperet a lad 〈◊〉? lud. 5. 23.  withdraws his hand from extortion, from depopulation, but what reasons can make him a restorer? it is enough (he thinks) to cease wronging. But curseye Meroz, saith the Angel of the Lord, curse the inhabitants thereof, because they came not forth, to h●lp● the Lord in the day of battle: Did they fight against God? No, they helped him not: 
Math. 18.  that Servant was condemned for claiming his own debt: the Prayers and fastings of the jews were despised, for claiming their own debts; and standing upon Sacrifice with men, 
Esay. 58. 3.  Whiles they would have mercy with God. 
Neh. 5.  Nehemiah threatened the same people with a stricter taxation: They must restore the extorted Lands and Houses of their brethren; nay, remit some part of the debt, or they were cursed with that fearful sacrament, the shaking the lap of his Garment, so to be shaken out of Israel, all the congregation crying, Amen. Lastly, beyond all exception, the manner of the Lambs coming to judgement, testifies as much; Go ye Cursed: For what cause? Because ye denied the Labourer his hire, or took Bread from the hungry, etc. No, these are crying Sins, and Hasten before unto judgement: But, You gave them not, therefore, (lie maledictj) Go ye cursed; so Come ye blessed. What, because ye dealt justly, and gave every man his due? no, these virtues may be in moral men that want Faith and Christianity: But, You gave them your own bread; Hungry, and clad them Naked, with your own clothes; therefore, Come ye blessed.  
What use you will make of this, I know not; what use you should make, I know: If the Tree without good fruit shallbe burned, what shall become of the Tree that hath evil? If Barrenness be cast into the fire, what doth Rapine and Robbery deserve? If it be damnation enough to deny our own Bread, what is it to take away the only Loaf, Coat, or Cottage of our poor brother? Woe to the Back that wears the Garment, to the Bellies that devowers the Food, they never sweat for; I mean, that by force or fraud, took them from the owners. If Naball and Dives burn for not giving their own, what shall become of Ahab and jesabel, for taking away the Vineyard of Naboth? If the righteous be scarcely saved, 
1. Pet. 4. 18.  where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?  
Now if after this Physic given, I should ask many, how they feel the Pulses of their Consciences beat? I presume on this reply: (Notum loq●eris) you but gild Gold, and minister to us such Physic, as we have taken before. All this we know; (we do not evermore ply your understandings with new things; but lay old, almost dead & forgotten, fresh to the Conscience:) I ask further, how much of this have you practised? and still look for an affirmative answer, All this, have I kept from my youth.  
Let us reason & discuss this matter a little. To Inquire, is hearing, or rather hearkening to the word to Return, is repenting: to Come, is believing, or rather looking more toward perfection, proceeding into the ripeness of Faith. This latter is so necessary, that we can not come to God with his acceptance; our comfort, if we leave our Faith behind us; without this, impossible to please him, to be rewarded of him: This our Charter whereby we hold all our Privileges, our Title in Capi●e to Earth and Heaven: But (Sub ●udice Lis est) the great judge of Heaven shall one day censure it: mean time, give me leave to help thee, peruse this evidence of thy Faith, whereon thou so presumest. Christ dying, made a Will, sealed it with his own Blood, wherein he bequeathed a certain Inheritance to his brethren: the Conveyance is the Gospel, (this his Testament:) the executor of this Will, is the Holy ghost: our Tenure and Evidence, is our Faith. Now, thou layest title to jerusalem for a child's part: What's thy title? in Christ's name and right: what conveyance did Christ ever make thee of such a portion? Yees, he conveyed it to me by Will: What, by a special name? no, but by a general title to all believers: That I am one of these heirs, my evidence; my Faith. Let God alone to try thy Faith: If thou comest to me for counsel, saith S. james, thou must show me another evidence: Show me thy faith by thy works.  
If thy heart be corrupt, thy hands filthy, thy tongue false, thy evidence is but counterfeit. Christ gives not title of inheritance in Heaven, to such as have no holiness on Earth: 
●. Cor. 6. 9  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither Fornicato●s, etc. 
Reu. 21. 27.  And there shall enter into it no unclean thing, nor any thing that worketh abomination, or lies. Perhaps thou wilt yet stand upon it: produce thy witnesses: they are only two, thy Life, thy Conscience: they cannot speak with thee, against their maker and thine. Thy life speaks loud, and plain: Thy pride, drunkenness, oppression, cozenage, lusts, blasphemies, manifest thou hast but a broken title: and Paul pleads against thee, 
Tit. 3. 8.  from this clear advantage: Protest to them ye believe in God, that they be careful to show forth good works. They that have the evidence of faith, must have the witness of works: It is a poor deed, without witnesses. Thy conscience speaks plain too, that thy faith is but a carnal persuasion, bred of security; a forged Evidence, made by a false Scrivener the Devil, to deceive thy own eyes and the worlds, not Gods. Now where is thy claim? stand upon good assurance, lest when that subtle winnower Satan, comes to fifth thee grain after grain, thou provest Chaff: we may come with this carnal persuasion, little better than reprobate hope, to the Temples, to the pulpits to the Sacraments, but if we come so to the tribunal of Christ, woe unto us: the too much trusting to a verbal, lean, sick, starved faith, deceives many a Soul: whiles we covet to be solifidians in opinion, we prove nullifidians in practice: no matter for wisdom in the Soul, grace in the conscience, honesty in the life, if the profession of faith be in the tongue: but the Poor may say as he in the Comedy: (Oculatae mihi sunt manus, credunt, quod vident:) My hands have eyes, and they believe what they see: we carry the forms and outsides of Christians, and think God beholding to us, for gracing his material, earthly Temples; when in the Temples of our own hearts, we set up the Idols of our own affections, 
H●s●e Deus templis gaudet. etc.  yet are these the Temples, wherein he is best pleased to dwell: But if we be come to God by faith, 
2. Cor. 13. 5.  he is also come to us by grace: The spirit of Christ is in us, 
Rom. 8 9 10.  if we be not Reprobates. And if this spirit be in us, the body of sin is dead. At least hath his deathes-wound: But alas, in how many of us doth sin live, dwell, (I would I might stay there, nay even) reign? as if Christ had come to destroy the Devil, 
Dominandi vim.  and not the works of the Devil, to free us from the damnation and not the dominion of sin: 
Damnandi vim.  but he that took from sin the power to condemn us, took also the power to reign in our mortal Bodies. And the second, is but a consequent of the first, 
Rom. 7 25. & 8. 1.  postscribed with that word of inference, now then▪ etc. 
1. joh. 3. 8.  Thus Christ came not only to bind the Devil, but to lose and dissolve his works.  
I have read and observed in the History of Scotland, a certain controversy betwixt that Kingdom and Ireland, for a little Island that lay between them; either claims it as their due, and the strife growing hot, was falling from words to blows: but reason moderated both sides, and they put it to the decision of a Frenchman; who thus judged it: he caused lining Serpents to be put into that Island; if they lived and thrived there, he judged it Scotland's; if they pined and died, he gave it for Ireland. You can apply it easily: If the venomous Serpents, poisons, and corruptions of our natures batten and thrive in us, we are Satan's; if they languish and consume, we are Gods: thus is the title ended for the freehold of our Souls, by what sure rule we may know, whether they belong to Hell or Heaven. If our hearts be unstabled of these bestial lusts, and trimmed up with Sanctimony to entertain our holy Guest, there shall be a reciprocal and interchangeable coming of us to Christ, and Christ to us: and we shall as surely sup with him in his Court of glory, 
Reu. 3. 20.  as he hath supped with us, in our house of Obedience.  
Let us only fear, lest our want of Repentance hinder this. I should have erst observed it, as a material instruction from this place, I could not find a fitter time to insert it, than here, to draw your coming with more alacrity. There is a reservation to repentance, even to abhorred Edom: let the sons of the profanest Esau repent, and they shall not be forsaken of mercy: Return and come, and your night threatened, shall be made a joyful warning, though it had as certain & defined a time, as ever had jonas doom against Niniveh, the set bounds of 40. days, with a Non ultra: yet be you humbled and this judgement shall be dispensed with: If there be such mercy to Edom, let me say boldly, repenting Israel shall not fail of it: the night shall linger, and the Sun be kept from setting, if we will return in our day: the threatenings of God have a condition included; that general, that promised, that never refused interposition of repentance. As absolute as the speech might seem to Abimelech, withholding Abraham's wife, thou art but a dead man, yet it had an implicit condition, except thou restore her undefiled, as appears by the sequel. It is a common Fountain where at every repentant soul may drink, at what time soever, what sinner soever, repent of what sin soever, etc. And if yet any feel themselves thirsty, weak, and not thoroughly resolved, let him for ever confute the distrust of his own heart▪ the malice of Satan, the present difficulties, 
jer. 18 7.  with that of jeremiah, Where in express words, our repentance is said to make GOD repent, even of his threatened, and intended Plagues.  
God hath threatened to all sinners, a Night of sorrow, and it shall as surely come, as ever Evening succeeded day: but there is an Except, that shall save us, a seasonable and substantial repentance: if we turn from those winding Labyrinths of sin, and come home to God, he will save us from this Night, that we perish not: there is no coming to God, but in & by jesus Christ; through his Son must God look at us, and we at him; that he may be merciful, we hopeful.  
Come then beloved, to jesus Christ: behold him with the eyes of Faith, standing on the Battlements of Heaven, and wafting you to him: come freely, come merrily, come with speed; come betimes, lest when you would, you cannot for want of direction, dare not for want of acquaintance with him: he that comes not till the last gasp of extremity, knows not how to come, because he begins but then. How prone are our feet to forbidden paths? the Flesh calls, we come▪ Vanity calls, we flock: the World calls, we fly: Let Christ call early and late, and either we not come, or unwillingly, or late, or with no purpose to stay. How justly may he take up that complaint against us, that against the jews: after all my Promises, assurances, real performances of Mercies; 
joh. 5. 40.  You will not come unto me, that you might have life: Perhaps, when we are weary of sin and sin of us, then let God take us; he will none of the Devils leavings. Some would come, but for some impediments; that either Child's Portion to be made up; such a House to be builded, such a Ground to be purchased: this same But, mars their coming, as he in the Gospel, But for burying his Father; and that other, But for bidding his Friends farewell: so, But for Mammon, and that we cannot be rich with a good Conscience; But for Pleasures, that we cannot be wanton, yet nourish the hope of salvation: But for these (veruntamen) But's, they would come, (S●d uox sunt usi, qui carnere nisi,) we have all one But, one exception or other, to keep us from our Christ: yet Paul counts all these but dross, but dung: And if any thing seem fairer in thine eye then Christ, (Detur digniori) give thy soul to the worthier: We can extremely affect no earthly thing▪ but the Devil (at one time or other) will bring it into opposition with Christ, as the Moon and the Sun, to see which of them shallbe eclipsed. Alas, how ordinary (yet how vile is it (Postponere Christum bonibus, qui nos ●qua●it angelis;) to set Christ after our Oxen, that hath made us equal to the Angels: yet all those Friends, whom we so trust, shall soon fail us, and at our most need run from us, as Vermins from an house on fire. Give me lea●e to show you this indignity offered to Christ by a metaphor; familiar comparisons give the quickest touch, to both understanding and conscience.  
A certain Gallant had three Friends: two of them flattered him in his loose humours; if in this, I may not rather call them Enemies: The third, lovingly desswaded him from his follies: on the two flatterers, he spent his Patrimony; the third he casts off with contempt: his riot and wealth gone, his Friends went too; for they were friends to the Riches, not to the Rich man: Debt was required, he arrested, and the Prison not to be avoided: in this calamity, he studies refuge; hence bethinks himself of his two Friends, of whom he desires relief: the first's answer is cold and short, Alas, I can not spare it, you should have prevented this erst: The other speaks a little more comfort; I have no Money to help you, yet I will bear you company to the Prison-doare, and there leave you: The distressed man finds small satisfaction in all this; therefore as his last refuge, he calls to mind his third Friend, whom he had ever scorned, wronged; and after much wrestling betwixt shame and necessity, he sends to him, with no less earnestness, than humility, discovers his exigents, requires help: the Message scarce delivered, he comes with speed, pays the Debt, sets him at liberty, nay repairs the ruins of his estate. The Rioter, is Man; the two flattering Friends, are Riches and Pleasures; these the soul of man embraceth, spends her strength and time, most precious Riches, on them: The third Friend, that rebukes his sins, is Christ; this because distasteful to blood and flesh, without regard to his saving health, is rejected: at last, all the time of Grace spent, the soul (so far) in God's debt, is arrested by one of God's sergeant, Sickness, or Calamity, or an afflicted Conscience; then those Friends begin to slink; Pleasure is gone suddenly, so soon as the Head begins to ache: Riches (perhaps) will offer to go with him to the Prison door the gates of Death, the preparation to the Grave: the fainting Soul foreseeing their falsehood, weakness, aggravation of his miseries; with an humbled Heart, remorseful Conscience, Tears in his eyes, Prayers and Cries in his tongue, solicits his neglected Saviour, to pity his distress, and have mercy upon him: these Messengers have no sooner pierced the Heavens, but down comes the spirit of Grace and Mercy, with Pardon and free Remission, payment of all Debts, & discharge of all Sorrows.  
If ever you meet with Friend more able, more willing, more certain, to do you good, reject this counsel; The breath of all men is in their nostrils, and there is no help in them, 
Psal. 146.  though they were Princes; when not only their material parts, Flesh, Blood, Bones, and Marrow, but even part of the inward man, so far as their worldly intendementes went, Their Thoughts perish. But GOD was, is, and is to come; not only in Power, 
Heb. 13. 8.  but in Mercy, Sweetness, Protection. jesus Christ yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever.  
That jesus Christ put into our mouths a tongue to Inquire, into our hearts a purpose to Return, into our lives a grace to Come home to holiness, and himself.  
This God grant for his mercy's sake, jesus Christ for his merits sake, the Holy ghost for his name's sake, to whom be ascribed all honour and praise, for ever and ever. Amen.  
FINIS.