THIS Worlds Folly. OR A Warning-piece discharged upon the Wickedness thereof. Hor. Sat. 3. Lib. I. Et qui nocturnus diuûm sacra legerit; adsit Regula, peccatis qua poenas irroget aquas. By I. H. HEB DDIM HEB DDIEV London Printed by William jaggard for Nicholas Bourne, and are to be sold at his shop at the South entry of the Royal Exchange. 1615. To the more judicious Reader. NOt to affront a little structure with too large a portal; briefly, let me thus far insinuate myself into thy favourable acceptance: That without squint-eye, thou wilt supravise this my hasty, and artless homespun web, (the rapted Corrolarie of my more busy hours) and silently suspend thy Cryticke censure; seeing it was (from th' Exordium to th' Exodium) warped and woven in some few sad minutes, softly stolen from the humid bosom of the silent Night, and suddenly endured the pitiful pain of Pressing, without my knowledge or perusal: and the rather I woo thee hereunto, for that the intercedency of more weighty occurrences (from whence my shallow rivulets of life draw head and issue) thwarts and repelles the deeper current of my more studious designs. What errors therefore are obvious, either of commission or omission, rather attribute them to the Time's brevity, than the Author's fatuity; albeit, the subsequent matter in part, be out of my garb and element; who is (being most unworthy) neither approved nor professed Divine. Praecedentis Contractio. AN quispiam (quaeso) est, qui si justa lance illarii regionum vitia & noeuos trutinet, in quibus evangelii professio floret ac viget, non ad ipsum penè peccat: apicem ascendisse illas & cuectas esse dicat. Si vnd●que circumspiciat, si nobiles, infimos, opulentos, egenos, eruditos, imperatos ob oculos ponat, singulos deform: & prodig osos suae libidinis foetus parere & parturire, non animo fingens concipiet, sed reipsa id probans experietur. Si aulicae vitae primò te speculatorem constituas, anlicorum luxum & del cias, sat scio, criminaberis: omnes ibi splendido vestitu & peregr no amictu volitant, nitidè compti, concinnè et molliter composit● ambulant, in Gallos, Italos, tanquam nova induta forma transmutati incedunt, qui mollitiem plusquam muliebrem nimium effoeminata imitatione exprimunt: Isto ferè nomine à Propheta ol●m taxati Israeliti sunt, Amos. 6.6. Accumbunt (inquit) in lectis eburneis, b●bunt in crateribus vini, & praestantissimo vnguento ungunt se, neque afficiuntur aegritudine propter confractionem josephi: Si ad rusticam vitam contemplandam descendas ibi sordida omnia & agrestia occurrent: inter rusticos fraudem, dolum, avaritiam dominari, atque aratrum ipsum comitari conspicies: Istòs Propheta sic increpat: Dicunt, Amos 8.4. quando transiverit hoc novilunium vel Sabbatum, ut vendamus comeatum, & apperiamus frumenti horrea, minuendo Epsa, & maius faciendo pondus ac pervertendo lancibus dolosis. Si ad divites te convertas, illis foenerandi, & quacunque iniuria opes congerendi & cumulandi cupidinem amicam admodum & familiarem esse tibi compertum erit: In quos sic denunciat Esaias: Vae coniungentibus domum domui, Isa. 5 8.9. agrum agro adhibentibus, etc. domus vestrae desolationicrunt (iuravit Deus) magnae & p●aestantes. Si panperum tecta intrare digneris, & cor●ns moribus te assuefeceris, nihil praeter querelas, turgia, vociserationes andias fu●t ● etiam rapinas, inimicitias deprehendes: de qu●hus vere prae●●xit vates: Ne creditore amico, ab ●a, quae cubat in sinu tuo, obserua fores oris tui. Micah. 7.5 Nam filius turpitudine afficit patrem, filia insurgit in matrem suam, ●urus in socrum suam, i●inuci cuiusque sunt domestici ipsius. Si doctorum & literatorum classem speculari cupias, legisperitos nummorum plus, quam turis studiosos, avaritiae magis quàm justitiae min strosdices: neque hic silet idem Propheta, ita in judices innectus: Vtmalefaciant ambae manus strenue, Princeps poscit et judex pro retributione, Micah 7.3. etc. Theologos praetereà osc●tanter victitantes, multos gregem non pascentes quip quod pluribus praeficiantur, vel ineptiad docendum sint, sed in decimis tamen suis colligendis mirè astutos & providos reperies: De quibus Zachariam sic loquentem audiamus: Oues erraticas non visitant, Zach. 11 aetate teneras non requirunt, et fractas non curant, sed carnem pinguioris comedunt, et ungulas earum perrumpunt. Si postremò imperitam & rudem plebeculam adeas, monstritibi & prod gi● loco erit, si resciveris, quàm rudis ea sacrarum literarum sit quàm divini cultus ignara, quàm porrò versata & petulans, quàm ad iniurias proclovis, ad rixas parata, ad p●etatis edendos fructus indocilis & infrugifera: ut olim jeremias de populo conquestus est: A minimo corum usque ad maximum, quisquis est, de ditus est quaesturi, jerem. 13. etiam à Propheta usque ad Sacerdotem, quisquis est, agit falsò: Quis ergo est, qui isto modo per corruptos temporum nostrorum mores animo discurrens, poenam illam gravem & acerbam praesag●re non possit, quam nobis minatur Ichovah, nist divinae vindictae cursus nostra pietate sistatur? FINIS. This worlds a Foole. OR A warning-piece discharged upon the wickedness thereof. WHen I but seriously consider this besotted World, how (like a turbulent torrent) it is inundate with all sorts of execrable sins, a trembling horror unties my body's Ligatures, my very knees beat together; and I could unfeignedly wish my sinewy Structure to be transformed into a lump of Snow, that the ardour of my soul's vexation might dissolve it into penitential tears. Do not men act sin with an avaricious appetite? Are not all varieties of abominations lifted to their verticke point? Is not Satan, that subtle Impostor, put to his Nil ultra in coining them, so fast, as men would willingly put them in practice? Did Pride ever so strut it upon the Tiptoes as now it doth? Doth not Sir jaques-scabdhams (sole heir to some drivelling and gouty Usurer, who to gain one single denier to the number of multiplication, would suck Figs out of an Ass' fundament) bestow more on a pair of spangled Shoo-tyers, than some of our ancient Kings have done of a whole garment? But Olim haec meminisse, nocebit. Can the devil out of his shop of Fashions, lay open more anticklike Forms than are forged on the Anvil of man's fantastic Invention? In Court, the Nobility are hardly distinguished from their followers: in City, the Merchant is not known from his Factor: in Country, the Gentry cannot be descried or described from the Bacon-eating, brawny-handed Rustic: and in general, the Body-publicke is so ore-spredde with the leprosy of that garish Strumpet, PRIDE, as there is scarce any difference betwixt Countess and Courtesan, Lady and Chambermaid, Mistress and greasy Kitchenwench, Gentleman and Mechanic; as for Knight and Taylor, there goes but a pair of shears betwixt them. How many misspend and profusely lavish their forenoon's hours in the curious pranking of their sinne-polluted bodies, but how few reserve one poor brace of minutes wherein to provide spiritual induments to house their naked sinful souls? Never was that Apoththegme of old Bias the Philosopher more verified (Omnia mea mecum porto) then in these our frantic Times: most men carry their wealth about with them, (not as Bias did, in Learning and Virtue) but upon their backs in gorgeous apparel: women do so commonly sophisticate their beauties, that one (though Linceus-sighted) can hardly judge whether they possess their own faces or no: and which is more than most lamentabl, every snowy-headed Matron, every toothless * An abuse much complained of by the Company of Painters. Mumpsimus, that one may see the sun go to bed through the furrows of her forehead, must have her box of odoriferous pomatum, and glittering Stybium wherewithal to parget, white-lime, and complexionate her rumpled cheeks, till she look as smug as an handsome painted close-stool or rotten post. But as for those that lap up their bodies in the pleasant mists of aromatic perfumes, let them withal swallow the Poet's pill: Nevole, nonbenè olet, qui benè semper olet. Martial. Within a sweet and Civet-lurking body, often is imprisoned a loathsome stinking soul. Murder is accounted but Manly revenge, & the desperate stabber cares no more to kill a man then to crack a Flea. Usury and Extortion are held Laudable vocations; Covetousness is styled Thrift; Luxury and Whoredom are reputed but youthful tricks. And as for Drunkenness, why that's a tolerable recreation: do not men pursue it with such inordinate affection, that they oft neglect their functions, bid farewell to that domestic care they ought to entertain, dislodge that human providence which should be shut up in the cabinet of their reasonable part, and solely prostitute themselves to quotidian carousing, till their breaths smell no sweeter than a Brewer's Apron? whilst their families are wrung and gripped in the clutches of Poverty, locked up and imprisoned from those necessary supplements, which should keep both breath and body together at union. This is a worthy * S. Gregory. Father's opinion, That a manpossessed with a devil may be thought to be in a more hopeful state than a Drunkard: for albeit he be possessed, yet is it compulsively, and against his will; but the Drunkard wholly adopts and dedicates himself with all the powerful faculties of his soul, voluntarily to the service of Satan. S. Augustine likewise descries three fearful properties in a Drunkard: S. Augustine. It confounds Nature, (saith he) loseth Grace, and consequently incurs Gods wrathful indignation to be powered out upon the embracer thereof. Swearing and blaspheming Gods great and glorious name, is reckoned for a Moral virtue, the grace of Birth and Honour, the cognisance of an highbred spirit. What Christian can refrain (that hath any spark of divine intellect in him) to unsluce the floodgates of his eyes, and let his melting heart gush through in tears, when in the streets he shall hear little children scarce able to go, or speak to be understood, volley forth most fearful oaths, and with such proclivity, as if they had been tutored in their mother's womb? whilst their parents standing by, offer not to check them with so much as a sour reproof, but seeming rather rather to solace themselves in their children's sins, and delight in their own damnations, like those who die of a Sardinian laughter. If the penal Law of Ludovicus were put in practice, (who hearing one swear, seared up his lips with an hot iron) scarce ten in as many parishes, but would be glad to be in league with the Apothecary's Lipsalve. How many miraculous judgements hath God shot out against the blasphemers of his sacred Name? (whose instances would be too prolixious:) what sin can be more damnable, and yet what more practised? none can sooner plunge the soul into the implacable gulf of perdition, and yet no sin (by intentive endeavour) so easy to be cropped off, and weeded up; for that it is no incidental issue of natural corruption, but an accidental Monster engendered of corrupted custom. A learned * August. Father confesseth, That at every other word, he once used to swear, but at length endeavouring to lock up the door of his lips, to set watch before his tongue, imploring divine assistance therein, and entreating moreover his friends to smite him with the rod of reprehension; in forty days, he utterly lost the abusive use thereof: so that now (saith he) Nihil mihi facilius, quàm non jurare, Nothing is more easy unto me than not to swear at all. * French Inventory. It is recorded, that Lewis the 7. King of France divulged an Edict, that whosoever was known to war against heaven with oaths, should be branded in the forehead as a Capital offender: should not then every Christian labour to set a watch before his mouth and keep the door of his lips, that no rebellious words sally forth against his Creator? if not for the fear of temporal justice, yet lest the God of justice should brand his soul with the dreadful stigme of eternal damnation, which no salve can heal, Haliacmons' flood wash out, nor length of time wear off. O lamentable! when the Turks and Ethnics outstrip us in their cloudy and ignorant zeal: they will dispute in the heart of their highest streets about their Alcoran and Mahometish Religion, with holy intended devotion: But what voice is heard in our streets? Nought but the squeaking out of those a Lascivi contus quibus Satyri gaudent. Achan var. ●●st. gen. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, obscene and light jigs, stuffed with loathsome and unheard-of Ribaldry, sucked from the poisonous dugs of Sinne-sweld theatres; controversal conferences about richest Beer, neatest Wine, or strongest Tobacco, wherein to drown their souls, and draw meager diseases upon their distempered bodies. Therefore let them be patiented, if I rip up their impostumded ulcers (as b Erasm. Apophthegm. Diogenes did the luxurious scape-thrifts) with the Poets lancer: — c Homer. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Fond youth, thy vital Twist will soon be cracked. And tell them moreover, that by their nocturnal superfluities, and insatiable quaffings, they set but feathers in Times wings, and (as a worthy homebred Author saith) spur but the galloping horse, hasten on their speedy deaths, and dig their own untimely graves. More have: recourse to Playing houses, then to Praying houses, where they set open their cares & eyes to suck up variety of abominations, bewitching their minds with extravagant thoughts, & benumbing their souls with insensibility, where by fin is become so customary to them, as, That to sin, with them is deemed no sin at all; consonant to that Theological Maxim, Consuetude peceandi, tollit peccati sensum; and semblable to Pythager as his conceit of the spherical Harmony: Because (saith he) we ever hear it, we never hear it. I will not particularise those d Of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsaucuty hea● be, in English called Beets. Erasm. Apophthegm. Blite a dramata (as Laberius terms another sort) those Fortune-fatted fools, and Times I deots, whose garb is the toothache of wit, the Plague-sore of judgement, the Common-sewer of Obscaenities, and the very Traine-powder that dischargeth the roaring Meg (not Moll) of all scurrile villainies upon the City's face; who are feign to produce blind * Garlic. Impudence, to personate himself upon their stage, behung with chains of Garlic, as an Antidote against their own infectious breaths, lest it should kill their Oyster-crying Audience. * Or, Tu quoque. Vos quoque, and you also, who with Scylla-barking, Stentor-throated bellow, flashchoaking squibbes of absurd vanities into the nostrils of your spectators; barbarously diverting Nature, and defacing Gods own image, by metamorphising human * Green's Baboon. shape into bestial form. Those also stand within the stroke of my pen, who were wont to Curtain over their defects with knavish conveyances, and scum off the froth of all wanton vanity, to qualify the eager appetite of their slapping Favourites. In fine, these are the Masters of those Mint-houses, wherein are coined all kinds of Atheistical profanations: these are they, who by their wantonizing Stage-gestures, can ingle and seduce men to heave up their hearts and affections, as a voluntary sacrifice to that exulcerated Fiend * The spirit of Lechery. Asmodeus, and all other abominable Idoll-sinnes, obstinately alienating and tearing their selves and souls from the spirit of Grace; and by how much more exact these are in their mimic venerean action, by so much more highly are they seated in the Monster-headed Multitudes estimation: notwithstanding one might thus gleek them, (as Diagenes did the fellow that exercised the Play called * A foolish game used by lovers, Erasin. Apophthegm. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) The better they do, the more it is. He therefore, who (by the assidual drinking up the loathsome Lectures) with avaricious delectation whiffs down the muddy lees of their damnable doctrine, false par into the paws of the Poets tart invective: Ridiculus tot as simul absorbere placentas, Horat. lib. 1. Sat. 8. — In am of delicies, The wit-blinde gull will swallow guilded Flies. These are they, whose exemplary lascinious subiect-matter, leave behind it (like the snail) a slimy tracked, in which many of their Sectaries insensibly post on so fast, till they plunge themselves precipitate into the Charybdis of incuitable destruction, and contemned beggary. O then let the honest heart lay fast hold of the Poet's counsel, who being hoode-winkt with the condensate and cloudy night of ignorance, could by natural instinct discern this light, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Theognis. Keep and converse with honest company, For still from them, thou mayst glean honesty. Can not the impetuous storms be quieted, the foaming billows calmed, nor the ship preserved, till jonas was hurled overboard? Then surely neither can God's wrath be qualified, nor his pestilential arrows, which fly amongst us by day, & lethally wound us by night, be quivered up, till these Menstruous * Bawdy Players. Rags be torn off (by the hand of Authority) from the City's skirts, which so besoyle and coinquinate her whole vesture. The Primum mobile which gives motion to these under-turning wheels of wickedness, are (those mercenary Squitter-wits miscalled Poets, whose illiterate and pickpocket Inventions, can Emungere plebes argento, slily nip the bunges of the base troops, and cut the reputations' throat of the more eminent rank of Citizens with corroding scandals: these are they, who by dipping their Goose quills in the puddle of mischief, with wild and uncollected spirits make them desperately drunk, to strike at the head of Nobility, Authority, and high- seated Greatness. And all this they do, but only to purchase the fee-simple of a Long-lane Suit, to entail a Punk in some new-stript Petticoat, and to cancel the Tavern-bill for two Bacchanal Suppers: albeit, for the whole next-ensuing quarter, they be feign to live by the denariall lines drawn from the Centre of an Essex Cheese; and be glad sneakingly to suck up the bottoms of gamesters leavings, or young Prodigals superfluities, (to whom they stick as fast as a kibe to a Boy's heel) as Flies do in summer the drunkard's spillings. Oh! how their teeth will stand wet-shodde at the presence of a brace of black Puddings? and think themselves as brave men as a new chosen Scavenger, if they be but preferred to the carving up of a twopenny Custard. With reucrence notwithstanding, must my petulant Muse stoop low to those wit-wonders of our age, whose Inventions sphere moves in a mystic orb beyond the common Intellect. But without farther evasion, I will return into the path of my intended purpose. Many set fair outside colours upon their profession of Religious honesty, but being strictly looked into by the penetrating eye of Practice & Performance, prove seldom died in grain. Some glitter like Gold in their conversation, but put once to the touch, are found but counterfeit Alchemy: Others will needs seem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a substantial body, in integrity of life; but shaken and fisted with the hand of Trial, become but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an Anatomy of bones. To give Alms is thought but a fantastic Ceremony, and to refresh the comfortless Lazarus, is deemed but the maintenance of idle and exorbitant vagabonds. O where is Charity fled? Is she not whipped and foisted out of great men's Kitchens, glad to keep sanctuary in straw-cloathd Cottages? Are not larger benevolences often distributed at the door of one Russet-clad Farmer, then at ten mighty men's gates? The Magnificoes of this world rear up sumptuous buildings only for show & ostentation; whiffing more smoke out of their Noses then their Chimneys: & it begets more wonder to see them shake down their bounty into the poor man's lap, then to see a Court Lady unpainted, or to find an open-fisted Lawyer, that without a * Vulgarly termed bribe. newyears gift will faithfully prosecute his Client's cause. Notwithstanding all this, so parsimonious are they in their domestic provision, that not a Rat of any good education, but scorns to keep house with them. In those Golden Times of yore, Charity was the rich man's Idol: for they did emulate each other, in supplying the widows wants, in comforting the orphans miseries, and in refreshing the travelers weariness; and it was their earthly Sammum bonam to be open hearted and handed to each hungry stranger; this Inscription commonly engraved upon the front of their gates: Porta patens esto, nulli clauderis honesto, O gate, stand to all, be shut 'gainst none: But in these our modern days, they can cunningly transpose the point, and thus pervert the sense: Porta patens esto nulli, clauderis honesto, Stand open (Gate) to none, be shut 'gainst all. Do not these Heaven-tempting Nimrods' depopulate & level with the ground whole Towns, crowd and justle many honest and ancient Farmers out of their demesnes, devastate their possessions, and expose them, with their wives, children, and families, to be Comrades with palefaced beggary? only to lay the Basis of their Babell-out-braving Palaces, abillimented with Punkish outsides, to cheat the speedy-approaching traveler of his hungry hopes, as Zeuxis did the silly Birds with his lively-limbed Grapes: and if they be in-lined with acquaint garnishings, shing, and costly furniture, and beautified with curious-pencild pieces, whereon thy eye may glut itself by gazing, yet perhaps mayst thou be Chap-fallen for want of victuals. These glittering objects are the Medusa's that enchant, the violent instigations that spur on young luxurious heirs, to hurl out their angle to catch their Father's lives, and languishingly to long, till they see their mossy bearded Sires topple up their heels. Never could the Poet's tristall song be better adapted, then to these our degenerate times: ovid. Filius ante diem patries inquirit in anuos. And when their Fathers surrender up their breaths to him from whom it was first diffused, then do they mourn (forsooth) though ceremonially, not for that they are dead, but because they died no sooner. The premises preconsidered, what can be expected then but an imminent desolation, or conclusive dissolution of this foolish doting world, since universally it is but an indigested Châos of outrageous enormities? Religion is made the Canopy to shroud the putrefaction of Hypocrisy; and it's grown the highest Maxim in mundane policies, to seem (not be) religions: equall-handed justice is rushed aside by stubborn Authority, and all moral Virtues, embraced in their Contraries. How long then (most mild, and more merciful God) wilt thou forget to be just? Oh, how long wilt thou shut up the vessels of thy wrath, and protract revenge? Art thou not the powerful God of justice? how canst thou then be any thing but thyself? what infiniteness of sins are shot up to heaven against thee? yet still, and still, thou wooest us with the humble and heavenly breath of thy holy Gospel, uncovering those unexpressible wounds thou receivedst for our redemption, from sin and Satan, that we might with pitiful commiseration behold them: and uncessantly crying out unto us, How oft (O my dear children, whom I have bought with the price of my most precious blood) would I have gathered you together, even as an Hen doth her Chickens, and yet, nor yet, will you be collected? How oft hath he thundered and knocked at the doors of our hearts with the power of his spirit, to wake us from the profound Ecstasin of Soul-killing sins, yet still lie we snorting on the bed of Security, and cannot be roused? How often, O how often, hath he outstretched his all-saving hand, to heave and help us out of the slimy mud of our impieties, yet still lie we groveling and o'erwhelmed in the insensible Lethargy of abominable transgressions? How many warning-peeces hath he discharged upon us? how oft hath he displayed his Milk-white Ensign of Peace unto us? what devouring Plagues, what Fires, what Inundations, what unseasonable Seasons, what prodigious Births, what unnatural Meteors, what malevolent Conjunctions, what ominous Apparitions, what bloody assassinations of mighty Kings, what Rapes, what Murders, what fraudulencies betwixt Brother and Brother? what horrible Conspiracies by Sons against Fathers; all these sent as Heralds to denounce Gods just judgements against us, yet will we not come in and be reconciled. These prodigious precursions, or precursive prodigies, should deter each human creature from spurning against his Creator; these premonitions should instruct us, that God's dreadful vengeance waits at our doors, and like a starved Tiger gapes for our destruction; and notwithstanding he do for a while foreslow to let fall his flaming rod of fiery indignation upon us, yet is the axe already laid to the root of the tree, and God must and will assuredly come to judgement, seeing that now, not any of those ancient predictions, mystically pointed out unto us in the soul-saving WRIT, by the holy Prophets, remain unfinished, but only the final destruction of that Romish seven headed Monster, together with the recollection of the vagabundiall Jews into the sheepfold of jesus Christ. Doth not an uncouth terror seize upon a man, when in the depth or noon of night this sudden & unthought-of outcry of Fire, Fire, shall fill his affrighted ears, and chase him out of his soft and quiet slumbers; whereat, skipping from his easeful bed, and distractedly gazing through the casement, shall behold his own house o'erspread with a bright-butning flame, & himself, together with his wife, children, servants, goods, and all, most liable to the devouring rapacity of imminent danger? O consider than thou wicked man, how thy soul will be beleaguered with anguish & horror, when in that last and terrible Day, thou shalt behold with thy mortal eyes the Cataracts of Heaven unsluiced, & hushing showers of sulphureous fires disperse themselves through all the corners of the earth and air, the whole Universe ore-canoped with a remorseless flame: when thou shalt see the worlds great and glorious judge appear triumphantly in the skies, whilst mighty winged clouds of devouring flames fly before him, as ushers to his powerful and terrible Majesty; attended with countless multitudes of beauteous Angels, golden-winged Cherubims and Seraphims sounding their Trumpets, whose clamorous tongues shall affright the empty air, and call and awake the drowsy dead from their dark and dusky Cabins: when thou shalt see the dissipated bones of all Mortals since the Creation (concatenate & knit in their proper and peculiar form) amazedly start up, and in numberless troops flock together, all turning up their wondering eyes to gaze upon their high and mighty Creator. Then, o then will thy Conscience recommemorate afresh thy past-committed sins, & with the corroding sting of guilt will stab through thy perplexed soul; then, o then will it be too late to wish the mountains to fall upon thee; for they themselves for fear would shrink into their centre: alas, it cannot then be available to woo the waters to swallow thee; for they would be glad to disclaim their liquid substance and be reduced to a nullity: what will it boot thee then, to entreat the earth to entomb thee in her dankish womb, when she herself will struggle to remove from her local residence, and to fly from the presence of the great judge: the air cannot muffle thee in her foggy vastiry, for that will be clearly refined with celestial flames, before contaminated with human pollution. In fine, how will thy soul tremblingly howl out, and break forth into bitter exclamations, when thou shalt hear that definitive, or rather infinitive sentence denounced against thee, Non novi, diseede, ito in Gehennam, I know thee not, depart, and go into everlasting torment; whilst Legions of devils with horrid vociferations muster about thee, like croaking Ravens about some dead carcase, waiting to carry thee. O than thou Usurer, and thou that grindest the Faces of the poor, thy gold cannot ransom thee: then, thou mighty man that wrackest the widow, and circumuents the orphan of his successive right, thy honour cannot privilege thee: then thou murderer, adulterer, and blasphemer, thy colourable excuses will not purge thee: then, o thou uncharitable churl who never knewest, that Nile dives habet de divitijs, nisi quod ab illo postulat pauper, A rich man treafures up no more of his riches, then that he contributes in alms: thou, that never imbracedst the counsel of that reverend * Ambrose. Father, who cries, Pasce fame morientem: quisquis pascendo servare poteris: si non paucris, fame occidisti: Feed him that dies for hunger, whosoever thou art that canst preserve and wilt not, thou standest guilty of famishing: then I say, in that day shalt thou pine in perdition: then, o thou luxurious Epicure, that through the five senses, which are the Cinque-ports, or rather sinneports of thy soul, gulpest down delightful sin, like water, they will be to thee like the Angel's book, sweet in thy mouth, but bitter in thy bowels: then, o thou (gorbellied Mammonist) that piles up and congesteth huge masses of refulgent earth, purchased by all unconscionable courses, yet carriest nothing with thee, Nisiparna quod urna capit, but a Coffin and a Winding-sheet; thy fair pretences will be like characters drawn upon the sands, or arrows shot up to heavenward, they cannot release thee from Satan's inexpiable servitude: Then, o thou canker-worm of Commonwealths, thou monster of man, thou that puttest out the eye of justice with bribes, or so closely shuts it, that the clamorous cry of the poor man's case cannot open it; thou that makest the Law a nose of wax to turn and fashion it to thine own private end, to the utter disgrace of conscionable justice, and to the lamentable subversion of many an honest and upright cause, thy quirks, dilatory demurs, conveyances and connivences cannot acquit thee: but thou shalt be removed with the Writ Corpus cum causa, into the lowest and darkest dungeon of damnation. No, no, the Lord of heaven and earth (who is good in infiniteness, and infinite in goodness) will winnow, garble, and sanne his corn, the choice wheat he will treasure up in the garners of eternal felicity, but the chaff and darnel must be burnt with unquenchable fire: There must you languish in torments unrelaxable: there must you fry and fieeze in one self-furnace: there must you live in implacable and tenebrous fire which (as 2 August. de ciu. t●dei. Austin defines) shall give no light to comfort you. Then will you wish (though then too late) that you had been created loathsome Toads, or abhorred Serpents, that your miseries might have closed up with your lives: but you must be dying perpetually, yet never die; and (which environs me with a trembling terror) when you have languished in unexpressible agonies, tortures, gnash, and horrid howl ten thousand millions of years, yet shall you be as far from the end of your torments, as you were at the beginning. A confused model & misty figure of hell have we conglomerate in our fancy, drowsily dreaming that it is a place under earth, uncessantly (Aetna-like) vomiting sulphureous flames, but we never pursue the meditation thereof so close as to consider what a thing it is to live there eternally: for this adjunct Eternal intimates such infiniteness, as neither thought can attract or supposition apprehend: and further to amplify it with the words of a worthy writer: Though all the men that ever have or shall be created, were (Briareus like) hundred-handed, and should all at once take pens in their hundred hands, and should do nothing else in ten hundred thousand millions of years but sum up in figures as many hundred thousand millions as they could, yet never could they reduce to a total, or confine within number, this tri-sillabled word Eternal. Can any Christian then (upon due consideration hereof) forbear to prostrate himself with flexible humility before the glorious throne of grace, & there with floods of unfeigned tears, repentantly abjure and disclaim the allurements of carnal corruption, the painted pleasures of the world, and the bitter-sweetnesse of sin, which is the deaths-wound of his soul: for Peccatum in animo, quasi vulnus in corpore, a weapon wounds the body, and sin the soul: for what profits it a man to win the whole world, and lose his own soul: The soundest method therefore to prevent our exclusion from the throne of God's mercy is to imagine we still see him in his justice present, whatsoever or whensoever we intent or attempt any black design; let us but adumbragiously fancy (as one hath it) the firmament to be his face, the all-seeing Sun his right eye, the Moon his left, the winds the breath of his Nostrils, the Lightning and Tempests, the troubled action of his ire, the Frost and Snow his frowns, that the heaven is his Throne, the earth his Footstool; that he is all in all things, that his omnipresence fills all the vacuities of heaven, earth, and sea: that by his power he can ungirdle and let loose the seas impetuous waves, to o'erwhelm and bury this lower Universe in their vast wombs in a moment: that he can let drop the blue Canopy (which hath nothing above it whereto it is perpendicularly knit) or hurl thunderbolts through the tumerous clouds, to pash us precipitate through the centre into the lowest dungeon of hell. These allusive cogitations of Gods omnipotent majesty will curb in and snafflle us from rushing into damnable actions, if we unremovably seat them in our memories. Make then a covenant with thine eyes and heart o man, lest they dote on earthly dross, surfeit on the sugared pills of poisonous vanities, and so insensibly hurl down thy better part into the gulf of irrevocable damnation: if not for thyself sake, yet injure not thy Creator, who hath drawn thee by his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Pattern, moulded thee in his own form, and to make thee eternally happy, hath infused his own essence into thee. For thy Soul (by the * Aristotle. Philosopher's confession) is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an Infusion Celestial, no Natural traduction: and in that respect, * Philo. another calls it Coeli apopasma, an arrachment, or cantle pulled from the Celestial substance, which cannot terminate itself within a lump of flesh; even as the beams of the Sun, though they touch the earth, and give life to these inferior creatures, yet still reside in the body of the Sun, whence they are darted: so thy Soul, though it be seated either within the film of the brain, or confined in the centre of the heart, and converseth with the Senses: yet, Haeret origini suae, (sayeth * Seneca. one) It will still there have being, whence it hath its beginning. Remember then thy Creator in the days of thy youth; call upon him, while it is called to day, opportunely: for as the Poet no less sweetly, then discreetly sung: Quis scit, Horat. lib. ●. Ode. 7. an adijciant hodiernae crastina summae Tempora di superi? Who knows o'ernight, that he next morn shall breathe? Then take David's Manè, early in the morn, not the devils Mane, stay till to morrow: for thou knowest he will bring thee to judgement, yet thou knowest not when, nor in what year, nor in what month of the year, nor in what week of the month, nor in what day of the week, nor in what hour of the day, nor in what minute of the hour, nor in what moment of that minute: for he will come Sicut fur in nocte, like a thief in the night, suddenly, before with a wink thou canst lock up thine eye, or in thy brain create the nimblest thought. Canst thou then hope to stand justified in thy Maker's presence, when thou hast crammed the devil with thy sap of strength, and full-gorged him with the purest acorne-mast of thy sinowey virility, if at last thou come limping on Times tottering crutches, to present unto him the offal, husks, and morosity of thy doting decrepit age? What thank it is to pardon our enemies when we cannot hurt them? to give away our goods when we can enjoy them no longer? to abandon our pleasures, when we cannot use them? to forsake sin, when it bids farewell to us? and at last only to surcease to offend, when ability of offending is taken from us? No, no, he will then parallel thee with the sluggard, that never would acquire food till he was first starved, and rank thee with the sottish Idiot, that could not learn to know a fish, till he was already stung with a Scorpion: thy palsey-shaken prayers will be like cain's oblation, unacceptable to the Lord and noisome to his nostrils. Thinkest thou to expiate God's justice when thou hast prodigally swealed out the blazing lamp of thy brightest days in the devils Chapel, if at last thou come creeping (when thy breath lies twinkling in the socket of thy nostrils) to set it up in God's Sanctuary, hoping then and there to have it replenished with his all-saving Grace and Mercy? O mock not thy soul with these deluding Phantasma's: for as a Plut. in. vit. Alex. Alexander seeing one of his soldiers whetting his dart, when others his fellows went forth to fight, cashiered him, saying, Inutilis act, qui pararet arma tune cum ●s utendum, he's unfit to bear arms that has them to make ready when he should skirmish: so will God send thee packing (as he did the foolish virgins) with this retorsion; Thou comest disfurnished with no oil in thy lamp, and thou desern'st no mercy, that never desirdst it till now in misery. Gather thyself betimes then, within the weapons of Faith, Hope, Charity, Repentance, and Perseverance, and let Prayer stand perpetual Sentinel: for if the devil once get footing within thee, he will hardly be ejected, so wily is he in perventing thee, that thou canst not be too wary in preventing him. For as b Plutark. Iphicrates answered his General (who asked him, why he surrounded his soldiers with a wall, when there was no fear of foe-men's approach) Abundans cautela non nocet, A man cannot be too provident in preventing obvious and occurrent dangers: so canst thou not be too cautelous in repelling the perilous stratagems of the devils assaults; therefore may I close up the precedency, with that worthy saving of a more worthy * Owen. Epigr. Epigrammatist, Nemo cavenda timet, qui metuenda canet. No man needs fear, that fears before he needs. O cleanse and purify thy heart then by earnest prayer and powerful ejaculations, which is made the loathsome cage of sin, the silent receptacle of all diabolical cogitations, and the dismal dungeon of malignant motions; that the Spirit of grace may there find harbour, and take delight to be thy Inmate. Remember, o thou mighty man, that swelling titles of Honour are but folia vanitatis, the leaves of vanity, a Gnathonical puff, and a blast of the chaps: Remember, o thou rich man, that terrene & transitory pleasures are like the Bee, though they yield honey, yet carry they a sting, and are but Lilia terrae, more delectable in show, then durable incontinuance: Remember, o thou Extortioner, thou cruel man, thou murderer, thou adulterer, thou deceitful man, thou that unconscionably detainest the hirelings wages, and thou that actest inexorable villainies secretly in the darlie, imprisoned from the worlds dull eye; that if the Eagle can discern, Sub frutice Leporem, sub fluctibus piscem (as c Augustm. one hath it) the Hare under the bush ᵒ, and the Fish under the waves; much more can God, who is the Creator of creatures, penetrate the closet of thy heart with his all-seeing eye, and discern thy clandestine sinful practices, before, and in their very conception, and for them he will bring thee to judgement. Remember, o thou that swayst the sword of justice, to strike or save, as thou art suggested by thine own ends, profits, or affections, that though thy covert projects be not envulgared to the world's general eye, yet a day of Revelation will come, that Nihil occultum quod non revelabitur, when all thy partial and private practices shall be stripped, eviscerate and laid as apparently open, as the Sheep upon the gambrel. But now with reverence, and dove-like humility, to you (which are jehovahs' Ambassadors, the Light of the world, and Salt of the earth,) do I address my speech, mustered up in the meanest & mildest rank of words: O I could wish, that all of you stood without the list of that reprehension of vices, which once an ancient and honest a Guil. Malm. de Pont ficibus. Historian twitted the Monks of Canterbury with: Monachi Cantuartenses (saith he) secularibus haud absimiles erant, canum cursibus avocari: aui●m praedam raptu aliorumque valucrum per mane sequi: spumantis equi tergum premere: tesser as quatere, etc. Some rise early in the morning to see their hounds pursue the prey, but not to pray: some delight to catch fowls, but not souls: some take pleasure to cast a die well, but not cast to die well. Doth the wild Ass bray, saith job, when he hath grass, or loweth the Ox when he hath fodder? but I dare not say, no more do some of you preach when you have once got a Benefice. If there be any that entertain Religion with their Lord, preach the praise of their Patrons; Preachers in the Pulpits, chatters in their chambers, suiting their linsey-woolsey professions with their several ends; O let those remember how God met with a mischief that notorious * Cassiodorus, lib 12. cap. 4. Nicephoru●. lib. 14. cap. 31. Nestorius, who, for his temporising inconstancy set worms a work to eat out his tongue: O let them look into the story of one Hecebolus a * Socrat. Tripartit. l●b. cap. 38. Sophister, who accommodating his profession to the fashions of the Emperors, feigned himself in the days of Constantius, to be a most fervent Christian; But when julian the Apostata was ruler, presently he turned Paynime, and in his orations proclaimed julian a God; and when julian was dead, in Iouinians time, he would have turned back to Christianity; whereupon, for his mutability and lightness in his Religion, his horrid conscience drove him to the Church gates, & there hurling himself flat, cried and bellowed with a loud voice, Conculcate me shall infatuatum; trample me under your feet, unsavoury salt that I am, entirely wishing out of his soul's agony, that he had never seen the light, or●t his Conception his tongue had been riveted to the roof of his mouth. Lastly, and indefinitely to all, remember so to live, as you still may be prepared for the stab of death: then will you desire to sing your Requiem, and Quousque Demine? longing to be dissolved and to sleep in peace, reclusively from the turbulent sea of earthy careful miseries; discerning clearly by the spiritual eye of understanding, that man's life is a wayfare, and a warfare; a wayfare, because it is short, and a warfare, for that it is sharp; and that worldly delights are deceitful, and of no durability; like the water-serpent ᵈ Ephemeron, simu● oritur, moritur, no sooner bred, but dead: collecting likewise out of human experience, that the best life, is but a weary and tedious pilgrimage, and feels no touch of true solace, till at the evening of his days, he lodge at the Inn of death; for Death is the path to Life, a Gaoledelivery of the Soul, a perfect health, the haven of heaven, the final victory of terrestrial troubles, an eternal sleep, a dissolution of the body, a terror to the rich, a desire of the poor, a pilgrimage uncertain, a thief of men, a shadow of life, a rest from travel, an epilogue to vain delight, a consumption of idle desires, a scourge for evil, a guerdon for good; it disburdens us of all care, unmannicles and frees us from vexation, solicitude, & sorrow. Of all those numberless numbers that are dead, never any one returned to complain of Death, but of those few that live, most complain of Life: on earth Nemo suâ sort contentus, every man grumbles at his best estate. The very Elements whereby our Ens (as the secondary cause) is preserved, conspire against us: the fire burns us, the water drowns us, the earth annoys us, and the air infects us: our days are laborious, our nights comfortless: the heat scorcheth us, the cold benumbs us: health swells us with Pride, sickness empaleth our beauties; friends turn Swallows, they will sing with us in the Summer of prosperity, out in the Winter of trial, they will take wing and be gone: Enemies brand our reputations with depraving imputations; and the envious man hurleth abroad his grins to ensnare our lives: who would then desire to live where there is nothing that begets content? For this world is a Theatre of vanities, a Chaos of confusions, an Ambassador of mischief, a tyrant to virtue, a breaker of peace, a favourite of war, a sweet of vices, a coiner of lies, an anvil of Novelties, a table of Epicurism, a furnace of lust, a pit fall to the rich, a burden to the poor, a Cell of Pilgrims, a den of thieves, a calumniator of the good, a renowner of the wicked, a cunning impostor, and a deceiver of all. How is the progress of poore-proud-mans' life violently agitated (like the river Eurypus) with contrarious motions? The pleasure of the wily world thus inveagles him, Veni ad me, ego reficiam, Come unto me and I will drown thee in delight: the corruption of the luxurious flesh thus ingles him, Veni ad me, ego inficiam, Come unto me, and I will infect thee, the devil he whispers this in his ear, veni ad me, ego decipiam, Come unto me, and I will cheat and deceive thee: but our sweet and sacred Saviour jesus Christ, with persuasive inducements, thus entreats him, Veni 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 add me, ego retipiam, Come unto me (I pray thee) that are heavy laden, and I will receive, and exonerate thee, and with the mighty arm of my mercy and compassion, lift off that insupportable load, which crusheth down to hell thy groaning soul. Study then to live, as dead to the world, that thou-maist live with God: for the just man is said, nunquam, sed post mortem vivere, never to live till after death. Endeavour thyself to march fair through this world's labyrinth: not to squander and look asquint upon the Cyrcean allurements thereof: but without turning either to the right or left hand, run strait on in that Eclipiticke line, which will conduct thee to that Celestial jerusalem, where (with that immaculate Lamb Christ jesus) thou shalt enjoy, pleasure without pain, wealth without want, rest without labour, joy without grief, and immensive felicity without end. Therefore I will bind up the premises with this conclusive exhortation of the Apostles, Repent, and amend your lines, Math. 4.17. for the Kingdom of God is at hand. Proh dolour! hinc Lachrymae. Fair Honour feet it: squalid Glow-worms ride, And dart false splendours from unpaid-for Pride: I'th' best Religion true, none truly knows; In such deformed conformity she goes. Lust's a tired jade, and waits for whom will mounther The Lord with's Laundress, Countess, with Page encounter. Hymen, tread out thy torch; Plate's concession, Omnia communia, is the C profession. Full beams of Grace beguiled th'obsequious Groom, Who'l kiss the ground with's knee: But there's no room For high-born Merit: he i'th' shadow stands, far out o'th' Margin of great-base Commands: sleek Flatteries cups replenished to the brim: But swollen Promotion looks asquint on him, Who hoards more treasures in's volumnious brain, Then all those earthbred stars, Pride's gaudy train. Peace, moyst-eyed Muse, thy best Inventions poor, Thy tongue's portcullist, but thy thoughts speak more. The Author's Character. IN hope of guerdonile Epistle none: with O my thrice honoured Lord, your worth alone, etc. Nor blow the bellows to Ambition's fire: With Eaglet-ayres make Butterflies mount higher Than their own Natural pitch: nor with filled phrase, Base-temperd Birth, will burnish, scour, or glaze: No Popiniey shall wear worths livery, Emblazed with word-embroderie by me. Let envies womb be my eternal grave, If I turn Sycophant, or unseasoned slave: To furnish spangled-Fooles with what they want: Make th' Ass believe he carries th' Elephant, Crawl int'a great-man's bosom by some icast, Like a starved Louse upon a tailors breast; Or cloth the fatal strumpet Helena, With th'attributes of chaste Andromeda: Nor squint I after praise, or plausive grace: Man's honest plainness needs fear no man's face. Insta, non magna vole.