CHRISTIAN MODERATION. In two Books.  
By JOS: EXON.  
LONDON, Printed by MILES FLESHER, and are to be sold by NATHANIEL BUTTER. MDCXL.   

TO ALL CHRISTIAN PEOPLE WHERESOEVER: But especially to those of this WESTERN DIOCESE: AND THEREIN To the Honourable NOBILITY, the Reverend and Learned CLERGY, the Worshipful GENTRY, the honest and Faithful COMMONALTY OF The Counties of Devon and Cornwall. J. Exon Wisheth the continuance, and increase of (that whereof he treats) All CHRISTIAN MODERATION Both in Opinion, and Practice.   

THE CONTENTS.  

THE FIRST BOOK. Moderation in Practice.  
§. 1. OF the use and necessity of Moderation in general.  
§. 2. Practical Moderation in matter of pleasure. Wherein first of the pleasures of the palate. 

1. Of the excess of them.  
2. Of the other extremity of defect.    
§. 3. Of some extremities in other usages of the body.  
§. 4. Of the extremes in the cases of lust.  
§. 5. The liberty that God hath given us in the use of his creatures, both for necessity and lawful delight.  
§. 6. The just bounds of Moderation in the liberal use of God's creatures. And therein our limitation, in our respects to God.  
§. 7. The limitation of our liberty in respect of the pleasures themselves: first for the kind, then for the quantity, and quality of them.  
§. 8. The moderation of the pleasure of conjugal society.  
§. 9 The limitation of all our pleasures in the manner of using them.  
§. 10. Motives to Moderation in the use of all our pleasures.  
§. 11. Of the Moderation of our desires in matter of wealth, and honour, etc. Motives to that moderation.  
§. 12. Of the moderation of our Passions: and therein first of our sorrow. The cautions requisite thereto. Of the kinds of sorrow: and first of worldly sorrow. The temperaments thereof.  
§. 13. Of spiritual sorrow; and the moderation thereof.  
§. 14. Of the moderation of the passion of Fear. The dangerous effects of that passion. Particularly of the fear of death. Strong motives for the remedy of it.  
§. 15. Of the moderation of the passion of Anger; The ill effects of it. The distinction of Zealous and vicious anger. Arguments for the mitigation of our anger.   

The second Book. Moderation in matter of judgement.  
§. 1. OF the danger of immoderation in matter of judgement, and of the remedy in general.  
§. 2. lukewarmness to be avoided in Religion.  
§. 3. Zeal required in the matters of God, but to be tempered with discretion and charity.  
§. 4. Rules for Moderation in judgement. The first Rule: To distinguish of persons.  
persons. 5. Second Rule: To distinguish of truths and errors.  
§. 6. Third Rule: The avoidance of curiosity in the disquisition of truths. Therein of the simplicity of former times, and the over-lashing of ours.  
§. 7. Fourth Rule: To rest in those Fundamental Truths which are revealed clearly in the Scriptures.  
§. 8. Fifth Rule: To be remiss and facile in un-importing verities. First in our opinion.  
§. 9 And then also in our censure of the otherwise minded.  
§. 10. Sixth Rule: Not to rely upon the trust of an Opposite in relating the state of an opinion, or person. Examples of the injurious practices this way.  
§. 11. Seventh Rule: Not to judge of an adversaries opinion by the Inferences pretended to follow upon it; which are commonly very heinously aggravated. The ingenuous proceedings of the Ancient Churches herein.  
§. 12. Eighth Rule: To keep opinions within their own bounds; not imputing private men's conceits to whole Churches.  
§. 13. Ninth Rule: We may not draw the actions or manners of men to the prejudice of their cause.  
§. 14. Tenth Rule: That we must draw as near as we safely may to Christian adversaries in lesser differences. The cautions of complying with them.  
§. 15. Eleventh Rule: To refrain from all railing terms, and spiteful provocations of each other in differences of Religion.  
§. 16. Twelfth Rule: That however our judgements differ in lesser verities, we should compose our affections towards unity and peace.   
FINIS.   

REcensui dissertationem hanc de Moderatione Christiana, duabus partibus absolutam, quarum altera de Moribus agit, altera de Doctrina; utraque & bonis moribus, & doctrinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae consentanea.  
Octob. 4. 1639. Imprimatur. Jo: ALSOP.   
CHRISTIAN MODERATION.  

THE FIRST BOOK. Of Moderation in matter of Practice.  

§. 1. Of the use and necessity of Moderation, in general.  
I Cannot but second, & commend that great Clerk of Paris, 
Brom. sum. praedic.  who (as our witty countryman Bromiard reports) when King Lewes of France required him to write down the best word that ever he had learned, called for a fair skin of parchment, and in the midst of it, wrote this one word, MEASURE, and sent it sealed up to the King: The King opening the sheet, and finding no other inscription, thought himself mocked by his Philosopher, and calling for him, expostulated the matter; but when it was showed him that all virtues, and all religious and worthy actions were regulated by this one word, and that without this, virtue itself turned vicious, he rested well satisfied: And so he well might; for it was a word well worthy of one of the seven Sages of Greece; from whom indeed it was borrowed, 

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ne●uid nimis.  
So Pythagoras; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   and only put into a new coat. For, whiles he said of old (for his Motto) Nothing too much, he meant no other but to comprehend both extremes under the mention of one: neither in his sense is it any paradox to say, that too little is too much; for as too much bounty is prodigality, 
Non est ergo temperantia, in solis resecandis superfluis, est & in admittendis necessariis. Bern. de Consid. l. 1. c. 8.  so too much sparing is niggardliness: so as in every defect there is an excess; and both, are a transgression of Measure. Neither could ought be spoken, of more use or excellency; For, what goodness can there be in the world without Moderation, whether in the use of God's creatures, or in our own disposition and carriage? Without this, Justice is no other than cruel rigour; mercy, unjust remissness; pleasure, brutish sensuality; love, frenzy; anger, fury; sorrow, desperate mopishness; joy, distempered wildness; knowledge, saucy curiosity; piety, superstition; care, wracking distraction; courage, mad rashness; Shortly, there can be nothing under heaven, without it, but mere vice and confusion: Like as in nature, if the elements should forget the temper of their due mixture, and encroach upon each other by excess, what could follow but universal ruin? or what is it that shall put an end to this great frame of the world, but the predominancy of that last devouring fire? It is therefore Moderation, by which this inferior world stands: since that wise and great God, who hath ordained the continuance of it, hath decreed so to contemper all the parts thereof, that none of them should exceed the bounds of their own proportion, and degree, to the prejudice of the other. Yea, what is the heaven itself, but (as Gerson compares it well) as a great clock regularly moving in an equal sway of all the Orbs, without difference of poise, without variation of minutes, in a constant state of eviternall eavennesse, both of being and motion: Neither is it any other, by which this little world of ours, (whether of body or mind) is upheld in any safe, or tolerable estate; when humours pass their stint, the body sickens; when passions, the mind.  
There is nothing therefore in the world more wholesome, or more necessary for us to learn, than this gracious lesson of moderation: without which, in very truth a man is so far from being a Christian, that he is not himself. This is the centre, wherein all both divine, and moral philosophy meet; the rule of life, the governess of manners, the silken string that runs through the pearl-chain of all virtues, the very Ecliptic line, under which reason and religion moves without any deviation: and therefore most worthy of our best thoughts, of our most careful observance.   

§. II. Practical moderation in matter of the palate: And therein, first of the excess: and then, of the other extremity in defect.  
WHat then is there incident into the whole course of humane life, but matter of practice, or matter of speculation and judgement? and both these are swayed and ordered by Moderation.  
Practical Moderation shall lead the way, as that which is most worthy; and whereto the speculative is for the most part, reduced; and whereby it is mainly governed. This, howsoever it reacheth to the managing of all the inward dispositions of the soul, and all the outward carriages of life, and may therefore admit of so many severalties of discourse, as there are varieties of desires, inclinations, actions, passions of man: Yet shall, for the tractation of it, be confined to some few of those noted heads, which we meet with in every turn of this our earthly pilgrimage.  
The chief employment of Moderation is in the matter of pleasure, which like an unruly and headstrong horse is ready to run away with the rider, if the strict curb of just moderation do not hold it in; the indiscreet check whereof, also, may prove no less perilous to an unskilful manager: Pleasures, whether in matter of diet, and other appurtenances of life, or in matter of lust.  
We begin with the first; wherein the extremes of both kinds are palpable, and worthy both of our full consideration, and careful accordance.  
How prone we are to excess in these pleasures of the palate, appears too well, in that this temptation found place in paradise itself: the first motive that inclined our liquorous Grandmother Eve, was, that she saw the tree was good for food; and then follows, that it was pleasant to the eyes; her appetite betrayed her soul: and after, 
Gen. 6.  when in that first world men began to be multiplied, that Giantly brood of men-eaters (if we may believe Berosus) procured abortions, 
Beros. Baylonic.  to pamper their gluttony with tender morsels: Afterwards, even in the holy Seed, we find an Isaac apt to misplace the blessing for a dish of Venison, and his son Esau selling his birthright for a mess of broth. 
Psa. 78.29.  We find Israel tempting God in the desert, and longing to be fed with flesh, 
Num. 11.10.  and cramming it in till it came out of their nostrils. We find too many under the Gospel, whose belly is their God, and therein, their bane. By unsatiable greediness have many been dead, 
●cclus. 37. ●2.  saith Ecclesiasticus; and how many do we see daily that dig their graves with their teeth; 
Prov. 23.2.  and do therefore perish, because they do not put their knife to their throat? And as for immoderation in drinking, the first news that we hear of wine, is in Noah's drunkenness, he was the true janus, the inventor of the scruzing of the Grape to his cost; whom if the Heathens celebrated, we justly censure, as beginning this glory in shame: The next was in Lot's incest and stupidity; and ever since, wine is a mocker, 
Prov. 2.10  as wise Solomon well styles it. The Heathen have made a God of it, and give it the title of Freedom; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Liber pater  Abuse hath made it a Devil and turned that liberty into licentiousness; 
Eph. 5.18.  whereupon some foolish heretics have absurdly ascribed it to that hellish original; wine, saith the Apostle, wherein is excess; How many have our eyes been witnesses of, whom their unruly appetite, this way hath turned into beasts, how many into monsters of wickedness? Certainly, a drunkard is, in, at all. Neither is there any vice under heaven, from which he can secure himself: 
Schicard. de Jur. Reg Hebr. V. Bell. Gentilis Rex Pirg●ndicus, etc.  It is memorable that our Jewish Doctors tell us of a certain Gentile King, who lighting upon eleven of their learned, and holy Rabbins, put them to their choice, whether they would eat swine's flesh, or drink of their Ethnic wine, or lie with harlots; swine's flesh they hated, harlots they professed to abhor, wine they yield unto; but, by that time they had awhile plied that bewitching liquor, all came alike to them, both the flesh of swine, and of harlots were easily admitted. Experience yields us so woeful instances of the lamentable effects of drunkenness, every day, that we need not dwell upon particulars.  
The other extreme, is more rare, and though faulty enough, yet less brutish: How many have all ages afforded who out of a fear of complying too much with their appetite, have not stuck to offer hard measure to nature; not thinking they could be godly enough, except they were cruel to themselves. It is hard to believe the reports of the rigorous austerity of some of the ancient; One of whom, Macarius could profess to Euagrius that in twenty years he had not taken his fill of bread, or water, or sleep. Another, 
Socrat. l. 4. c. 18.  Arsenius would not give himself so much ease as to sit, or stand in taking repast, but was still wont to eat walking: professing that he would not gratify his body so much, as to yield it so much ease, and holding the time, but lost, which he bestowed in feeding. And for the quality of their sustenance; what shall we say to the diet of some votaries? 
Vita 5. Laur.  Amongst whom Laurence Bishop of Dublin was wont to eat no other bread, then that which was mixed with lie, in emulation of him that said, I have eaten ashes as bread. 
Ps. 102.10.  Friar Valentine went beyond him, 
Lib. confor. 8.  who for ten years together did eat nothing but only bread dipped in the juice of wormwood. I shall not need to press any other instance of this kind, then that which St. Jerome gives of Paul the first hermit, who living in a cave, within the desert, was beholden to a Palmtree both for his diet and clothes; whereto he adds, Quod ne cui impossibile, 
Hieron. in vit. Pauli.  etc. which that it may not seem impossible to any man, I take the Lord jesus, and all his Angels to witness, that I have seen Monks, whereof one shut up for thirty years together, that lived only with Barley bread, and muddy water. Thus he. Had not these men placed a kind of holiness in crossing their palate, they might have fared otherwise. When Francis of Assize was bidden to the great Cardinal Hostiensis to dinner, he pours down upon that curious Damask cloth (spread for better viands) before them, all those scraps of alms out of his sleeve, which his good Dames of the City had given him; 
Panis eleemosynae panis sanctus. Confor. Fruct. separatur.  and could say, that if the Cardinal's cheer were better, yet his was holier. Yet even these parcels might be delicate (panis desideriorum) in comparison of daniel's pulse, or the Baptists locusts, or the Fuilletans salads. That which Eusebius casts upon St. james, 
De se Petrus. Solo pane & olivis, raroque oleribus ator. Clem. de gestis Petri.  we see now practised by the Carthusians, and Minims, abstinence from flesh: some antiquity of tradition hath dieted St. Peter with lupins, St. Matthew with berries, and herbs; howsoever, I know those Saints had fared better; the one feasted his Master at his own house; the other fed on fish and hony-comb at his Master's last table, and saw the sheet let down with all varieties of dainties; and heard, Arise Peter, kill and eat. And if we yield so much to Baronius as to grant that St. Paul was always abstemious, (though it follows not, as Lorinus well, because for thirty days he complied with Nazarites in the Temple) it is more than we own him; since it is not like he that prescribed wine to Timothy, a younger man, would forbear it himself, upon the like or greater necessities. This we are sure of, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  that this chosen vessel was careful to beat down his body; and that many of those ancient Worthies, the great patterns of mortification, stinted their flesh with the straitest. 
Socrat. l. 4. c 18.  Good Hilarion in stead of barley, could threaten to feed this ass of his with chaff: 
Bern. Meditat. devotisses.  and devout Bernard professes how much wrong he had done to himself, by this well-meant rigour, in disabling him for better services; complaining that he had by this means turned a virtue into vice, and killed a subject, whiles he meant to subdue an enemy: 
Conform. l. 2. fruct. ●. p. 211.  And even their St. Francis himself at his death could confess too late, that he had used his brother Body too hardly. 
O quantum distamus ab his qui tempore Antonii suere Monachi! Bern. Apolog. ad Gul. Abbat.   
A faint imitation of which severity, we find in those, who now adays turn religious abstinence into change of diet; and therein place no little merit. For my part, I cannot yield there is more delicacy in flesh then in other dishes; I remember it was the word of that wise Statesman of Rome, that it was never well with them, since a fish was sold for more than an Ox; and that famous glutton could say of old; That is the best flesh, which is no flesh; and all experience shows that oil, wine, shell-fish, are more powerful to stir and inflame nature then other duller liquors; and viands of flesh, which are of more gross, and heavy nourishment; neither was it for nothing that the Mythologists feigned Venus to be bred of the Sea. 
Jesunia nostra vini copia natant, pis cium varietate carnium superant deliciat▪  The ingenuity of Lindanus can confess how little these kinds of fasts differ from the most exact gluttonies. Let the fond Ebionites, Encratites, Manichees, hate the very nature of some meats; I am sure they are all alike to their maker; 
1 Cor. 15.  There is one flesh of Fish, saith the holy Apostle: That which goes into the body defiles not the man, saith our Saviour. How ever therefore these differences are fit for civil considerations, and in that regard are in all due obedience to be strictly observed, yet in spiritual respects they come not within any view, as those which the Creator of Sea and Land hath left both in themselves, and to him equally indifferent.   

§. III. Of some extremities in other usages of the body.  
THe like austerity hath been affected of old in other usages of the body, whether in apparel, lodging, 
3. Genus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex Thalm. Drus. T●ihaeres.  restraint of recreations. It is well known how some over-devout amongst the seven kinds of Pharisees, guarded their fringes with thorns, and knocked their heads against the walls, till the blood issued forth. 
August. l. 5. contr. Faustum.  And even amongst the Manichees ●n St. Augustine's time, there were some more strict than their fellows, which called themselves Mattarios, who gloryed to lie upon hard mats, not envying Faustus his Featherbeds. 
Conform. p. 105. Vidi tunicam B. Francis. & S. Clarae, grossi●r & rudior erat tunica S. Clarae.  It was a great competition betwixt two pretended Saints, St. Francis and St. Clare, whether should have the rougher coat: Although all was one to that incurious Saint of Assize, for had his coat been better, it had gone to the next beggar; wherein I cannot but wonder at the difference of humours in two that go for their Saints: 
Socr. l. 1. c. 13.  It is spoken to the praise of Anthony the Hermit that he never saw himself naked; whereas to the wonder of the others mortification, it is said, that other forenamed Saint of theirs, stripped himself stark naked, before the Bishop of Assize, 
Conform. p. 211.  and in that form (like a Mahometan Dervis) ran through the streets. Yet these are but small self-penances in comparison of some others: 
Theod. l. 4. c. 28.  Our story tells us that the Monk Acepsemas lay threescore years close hid in a blind room, where he never spoke with any man, 
Socrat. l. 4. c. 18.  never was seen of any man. But Didymus went yet beyond him who in his whole life of ninety years never conversed with any. Yet these might pass their time with ease, in comparison of an Hilarion, 
Sozom. l. 3 c. 13.  who put himself into a little-ease; so penal a lodging that he could neither stand upright for the height, nor stretch out his legs for the length: or a simeon Stylites, that chained himself to an hollow pillar of the like in capacity. Yet all this task was tolerable, in respect of the cruel piety of those men, that stuck not to tew & lancinate their bodies; like that Superianus the Scholar of Lacharis, of whom Suidas speaks, that would scourge himself into learning; such were the famous whip-stocks in the time of Gregory the tenth, 
Binius Anno. 1275.  which out of Italy passing into Germany, astonished the beholders with their bloody shoulders, affecting glory and merit in that selfe-martyrdome.  
And though the dangerous opinions which attended this practice in the first authors, were condemned, as heretical, yet the usage itself is continued in Spain, and some other parts; and, not without a secret kind of horror, applauded by the multitude, as an undoubted argument of serious and deep mortification: And what marvel, when that which is acted in the streets but once, by a few muffled penitents, is pretended to be done in cells and closerts as in a set course of discipline, by the most of their strict votaries: But all these, and what ever acts of penance, must yield to that of Goderannus, (a soldier of Christ, 
Jo: Capgrave de S. Henrico Herem.  as our Capgrave styles him) who when the Host, given by his St. Hugh to a leprous man in the height of that loathsomeness, was rendered again, with the interest of some other odious ejections, did that, which in favour of the queasy stomach of my reader, I must conceal: Only this, that their Saint which beheld it, could say, that S. Laurence his Gridiron was far more tolerable. 
Cinore & cilicio recubabat agrotus, rogarunt discipuli ut si●eret villa stramenta supponi, respondit, Non decet christia●●m nisi in ci●ere & cilicio mori. Sever. Sulp. l. 2.  To shut up all, S. Martin would needs die in sackcloth and ashes. Such hard usages have some zealous self-enemies put upon their bodies; no doubt in a misgrounded conceit of greater holiness, and higher acceptance at the hands of God; from whom they shall once hear that old question in the like case to the Jews, Who required this of you? As if God took pleasure in the misery of his best creature, and had so ordered it, that Grace could not consist with prosperity and contentment.  
We have seen then both those extremities wherewith men are miscarried in matter of the palate, and some outward usages of the body.   

§. IV. Of the extremes in the cases of lust.  
AS for the delight of the marriagebed which some salacious spirits have thought fit in an eminence or propriety to call pleasure, how far it hath bewitched men it is too apparent. How many are thus drunk with their own wine! spending their bodies to satisfy those sensual desires wherewith they are impotently transported; 
Cig●lus.  like that bird of whom Suidas speaks, which dies in the very act of his feathering. Certainly, there is no such Tyrant in the world as lust, which, where it prevails enslaveth the soul, and sendeth his best subjects, not to the mill with Samson, or to the distaff with Hercules, but to the chambers of death, 
Prov. 7.27.  to the dungeon of hell. 
In tan●um Graci & Romani hoc quondam vicio labo●arun●, ut & clarissimi philosophorum Graecia haberen● publicè concubinos, etc. Hieron. in illa Es. 2. & pu●ris alienis adhaeserunt.  The witty Athenians could enact a Law for Bigamy; and Socrates himself, who was by the Oracle named for the wisest man of his time, and the greatest master of his passions, could be content to practise that, wherein he was well punished; And how their famous Philosophers were affected, I had rather S. Jerome should speak than I: And the Turks at this day, whom their Alcoran restrains from wine, yet are by their law let loose to this full scope of sensuality. What speak I of these, when the very Patriarches, and Princes of God's peculiar people were palpably exorbitant in this kind; 
2 Sam. 12.8  The man after Gods own heart (in respect of the sincerity of his soul) divided himself betwixt six partners of his bed; 
Munster in precept. Mosaica. Schicard. de Jur. Reg. Hebr.  the mistaking of which permission hath drawn the modern Jews into a false opinion of no less than eighteen wives allowed still to their Princes: But for his son Solomon (in other things the wisest under heaven) from whom the Eastern Potentates have borrowed their Seraglios, what stint was there of his bedfellows? he could not so much as know all their faces. Neither was it for nothing that the alwise God saw it fit in his royal law, to give us two Commandments against lust, and but one only against murder or theft; Doubtless (as Gerson well observes) because he saw us naturally more prone to these wanton desires, then to those violent.  
Contrarily, there have not wanted some, who out of a strong affectation of continency, & an overvaluation of the merit of virginity, have poured too much water upon the honest flames of their lawful desires, and have offered a willing violence to nature; Not to speak of Origen, and some others that have voluntarily evirated themselves (a practice justly cried down by some Counsels) such were Amnon the Eremite, and Pelagius the Monk in the Ecclesiastical history, who the first day of their marriage took up a resolution of the continuance of a virginal chastity (a fashion which some improbable legends have have cast upon S. john the beloved Disciple in his mis-imputed marriage in Cana) and retired to an agreed solitariness. Many formal votaries have made profession of no less continency, but with what success I take no pleasure to relate: 
Non 〈◊〉 adducam quanta sit turba monasteriorum 〈◊〉 quibus 〈◊〉 nulla viget disciplina pietatis, ut prae his lupanaria si●●, & magis sobri●, & magis pudica. Illustr. Ep. Grunnio.  Let an indifferent man speak; Erasmus in an Epistle to his Grunnius: who tells us of store of Monasteries, such, as in comparison whereof the stews were more sober, more modest. Out of their own ingenuous casuists, out of the woeful complaints of their Alvarez, Pelagius, S. Brigit, Gerson, others, it were easy to tell shameful tales if we made disgrace our aim; it shall be enough to desire any reader to inform himself of the reason alleged in the Council of Ments, 
Concil. Mogunt. sub Stephano. c. 10. Bin.  under Pope Stephen, of so strict an inhibition to their clergy, not to admit of so much as their sister to come within their doors; and to take notice of that old byword, 
Rivet. resp. ad Sylu. S. Petra.  In Hispania preti etc. I take no joy to discover the miserable nakedness of Christians; Inordinate minds where is no restraint of Grace, are apt to run thus wild, whether amongst them, or us; but there, so much more, as there is less allowance of lawful remedies; A point, which some of the most ingenuous spirits of the Roman correspondence have seriously wished to have recommended to wiser consideration, and redress.   

§. V. The liberty that God hath given us in the use of his creatures.  
I Meant to dwell only so long in the extremes, as to make my passage to the mean, which is the sole drift of our endeavour. There is therefore betwixt excess and defect, whereof we have spoken, a lawful and allowed latitude of just pleasure, which the bounty of our good God hath allowed to his dearest creature, man; whereof it is meet for us to take knowledge. To begin with the Palate. He who is the author of appetite, hath provided, and allowed means to satisfy it, not with asparing hand, as for mere necessity; but sometimes also liberally, for delight. I have oft wondered to see how providently the great Housekeeper of the world hath taken seasonable order for the maintenance of all his creatures; so as, their mouths are not sooner ready than their meat. Whether in man or beast, conception is immediately seconded with nourishment, neither is the issue brought forth into the light of the world, before there be bottles of milk ready prepared for the sustenance.  
The birds (except some domestic) hatch not their young in the dead of winter, but when the growing Spring hath yielded a meet means of their food. In the very silkworm I have observed, that the small, and scarce-sensible seed, which it casts, comes not to life and disclosure until the mulberry (which is the slowest of all trees) yields her lease for its necessary preservation: And the same God, who hath given the creature life, appetite, meat, hath by a secret instinct directed them to seek it; so as the whelp, even before it can see, hunts for the teat; ●nd those shell-fish to which ●ature hath denied means of ●ight or smelling, yet can follow, ●nd purchase their food. And if ●ll thy creatures, O God, wait upon thee, that thou mayst give them ●heir meat in due season; if thou openest thy hand, and they are filled with good; how much more magnificent art thou to that creature, for whom thou madest all the rest? Thou, who at the first brought'st him forth into a world furnished beforehand with all varieties, hast been graciously pleased to store him stil● with all things that might serve for the use of meat, medicine, delicacy: Hadst thou only intended our mere preservation, a little had been enough; Nature is neither wanton nor insatiable. 
Ambros.  We know what those Brachmanni are reported to have said, to the great Conqueror of the world, in shaming his conquest by their own: W● know what the Roman commander said to his Soldiers in ● just indignation at their niceness; 
Pescen. Niger.  Ye have the river Nilus running by you, and do you ask for wine? and how he upbraided them with this scornful taxation; Blush for shame, those that overcome ●ou, drink water. We know what ●he wise and just Socrates returned ●o Archelaus, tempting his fidelity with large proffers: Go, said he, ●ell your Master, that four gills of flower are sold at Athens for an halfpenny, & that our wells yield ●s water for nothing: But now, ●ince our liberal Creator hath thought good to furnish our Ta●les, with forty kinds at the least of beasts, and Fowls; with two hundred (as they are computed) of fishes, besides the rich, and dainty provenues of our gardens, and orchards, and the sweet juice of our Canes, and the Cells of our hives, what should this argue, but that he (who made nothing in vain, and all for man) intended to provide, not for our necessity only, but for our just delight? The Father of the faithful, though he promised only to comfort the hearts of his great, and divine guests with a morsel of bread, 
Gen. 18.5.  yet he entertains them with a tender and fat calf, with butter and milk, the delicates of those homelyer times. But this, in all likelihood, 
Gen. 21.8.  was but small cheer in comparison of that which he prepared for the celebrity of his son Isaac's weaning, which is by Moses styled a great Feast: 
Viz. Abimelec. Gen. 26.30  After this, when his son Isaac feasted a King, do we not think there were all the choice services, the times would afford? Samson, 
Jud. 14.17  though by God's destination a Nazarite, yet kept his wedding Feast seven days long: Samuel, a Prophet of God, feasted thirty persons, and reserved a choice bit for his best guest: What speak I of this? 
1 Sam. 9.22.  When every new moon was wont to be celebrated with a solemn feast by God's people: and David shelters himself under this excuse, for his absence from the Table of Saul. I might well have silenced all the rest, if I had only mentioned Great solomon's both practice, 
Eccles. 2.24, 25.  and counsel. There is nothing better (saith he) for a man, then that he should eat and drink; and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour; This also I saw that it was from the hand of God; for who can eat? or who can hasten hereunto more than I? Certainly this challenge is unanswerable; Neither hath the Spirit of God thought it unfit to give us a Bill-of-fare of that mighty King; and to record in those holy Archives, the particulars of his daily expenses of Meal, flower, oxen, sheep, besides Hearts, Roe-bucks, falo-deer, and fatted fowls, which the monarchs of all ages may admire, none can emulate.  
What speak I yet of this, when he that was greater than Solomon, sanctified feasting by his own blessed example? He, the Lord of glory that took up wi●h a manger for his cradle, and (after the Carpenter's cottage) owned no house but heaven, is invited to a Bridal feast, (the jolliest commonly of all meetings) carries his train with him, helps on the cheer by turning water into the richest wine. Had he been so sour, as some sullen Hypochondriaques (who place holiness in a dull austerity) would fancy him, it had been an easy answer, They want wine; all the better, water is more fit; this safe liquor will send the guests home coolly tempered; but now, as one that would be known to be a favourer of honest and moderate delight, he bids, Fill the water-pots with (that which he would make better) Wine. Neither was it any rare or strange matter for our Saviour to honour, and bless other feasts with his presence; Matthew the Publican, 
Mat. 9.10.  when he was called from his Tole-booth to a Discipleship, and was now to be matriculated into the family of Christ, entertained his new Master with a sumptuous banquet; 
Luk. 5.29.  himself (now an Evangelist) speaks modestly of his own cheer, as if it had been but common fare, but S. Luke tells us, It was a great feast. What should I speak of the Tables of Zacheus, of Simon the Pharisee, of Martha and Mary? so did our Saviour in a sweet sociableness of carriage, apply himself to a free conversation with men, in the cheerful use of God's good creatures, that his envious maligners took occasion hereupon to slander him with the unjust and blasphemous imputation of (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) a wine-bibber, a friend to Publicans and sinners. He that made the creatures, can best tell how to use them; his practice is more than all laws; Those men therefore are not more injurious to themselves, then to the divine beneficence, who in an opinion of greater sanctity, abridge themselves of a moderate participation of those comfortable helps, God hath allowed them; and sit sullenly at a liberal board with their hat pulled over their eyes, not so much as removing their napkin from their trencher, unjustly scrupling their conscience with Touch not, taste not, handle not. There are times of abstinence; and not of a private fast only, 
Concil. Salegunstad. Anno 1022.  but much more of a Bannitum j●junium, as that Council styled it; solemn and sacred; There are out of civil grounds, wholesome laws for either forbearance, or change of diet; far be it from us to detract our strict obedience to these. Surely, unless we will take up that lawless resolution of Disrumpamus vincula, (Let us break their bonds, & cast their cords from us) we must be content to be tied by the teeth; 
Sivis be●e comedere jejuns. Confor. 8.  and in these cases to determine with Friar Giles, that the best diet is to eat nothing; but where we are left open from all just restraint of divine and humane laws, to pine ourselves in an affectation of holiness, and so partially to carve unto ourselves, as if all things were not clean unto the clean: it is but a wayward and thankless austerity.  
The like may be said for other usages of the body, in matter of attire, sleep, lodging, recreation. 
Socrat. l. 6. c. 20.  Socrates the historian tells of Sisinnius the witty Bishop of the overstrait-laced sect of the Novatians, a man of singular temperance, and moderation, yet somewhat more spruce, liberal, and costly in his apparel, and more nice in his frequent bathe, then ordinary; that being asked where he found it written that a Priest for his daily array should be suited in white, answered, Yea, tell me first, where you find it written that a Bishop should be clothed in black; you cannot show me this, I can show you the other, for Solomon says, Let thy garments be white: How fitly the Text is applied, I labour not; sure I am that no wise man need to be more nice than a Novatian; and that the Kingly Preacher in that liberal concession of his gives large scope to our lawful liberty, in the use of God's blessings; he allows (within the compass of our callings) rich suits to the back, sweet oils for the head, comfortable drinks for the stomach: Neither ought we to be scant, where God meant to be bountiful. And, if he have made us the Lords of the world, why are we wilful beggars? Wherefore hath he given the warm fleece to the sheep, the rich hides to the Beaver and Ermine, the curious case to the silkworm, the soft and fair feathers to the fowls of the air, but, after their own use, for ours? Wherefore hath he clothed the trees with cotton, or the fields with flax? wherefore hath he enriched the earth with variety of sweet and delicate flowers, with precious metals, and with more precious stones, the sea with beautiful and costly pearls? why hath he treasured up such orient and pleasing colours in grains and fishes, if not for the use and behoof of man? what other creature knows wherefore they serve? or, how can our blessed Creator be any other than a greater loser by our either ignorance or willing neglect?  
As for the comfort of conjugal society, what other did our good God intent in the making of that meet helper? He that made those creatures, could have made many more, & having set this stint to his creation, he that made the woman of the man, could as well have made man of man, and could in the infiniteness of his wisdom have appointed thousands of ways for the multiplication of mankind; but now having thought meet to pitch upon the traducing of man, by this living rib of his own, he hath holily ordained that they two shall be one flesh; not only, as two bodies animated with one soul, but rather, as one body animated with two united spirits; so as it is equally lawful for them to enjoy each other in a mutual, and holy communion, and to enjoy themselves in their single and personal contentments. How safely then may we take wise Solomon's word, for this innocent and sweet conversation: Let thy fountain be blessed, 
Prov. 5.18, 19  and rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her be as the loving hind, and pleasant Roe, let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love: And when towards the latter end of his days, 
Eccl. 7.26.  he had found more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands; Yet even then, he renews this charge in the height of his mortification. 
Eccles. 9.9.  Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest, all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the Sun all the days of thy vanity; for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the Sun.   

§. VI Together with our liberty, the just bounds of our moderation, in the liberal use of God's creatures: and therein our limitation in respects to God.  
SO than that God, who hath given us meat, drink, apparel, wife, children, recreations, and what ever other conveniences of this life, intended no other, but that we should make our use, and have the fruition of these comforts; and if he meant not that we should take some pleasure in the fruition of them, wherefore are they given us as blessings? or what place is there for our thankfulness?  
If I may take no pleasure in one food above another, what use is there of my taste? what difference do I make betwixt a course crust, and the finest of the wheat? why am I more bound to God for giving me wine then water, many dishes than one, better than worse? or how can I be more sensible of my obligation?  
If I may not take contentment in the wife of my youth, wherefore is she mine? what is left to me to counterpoise those household distractions, which do unavoidably attend the state of matrimony? If I may not joy in my children, what difference is there to me betwixt my own, and other men's, save that my care is more without hope of requital? And if I may not take pleasure in my recreation, how is it such? what difference is there betwixt it and work? Yea, if I may not take pleasure in the works of my calling, what difference is there betwixt a slave and me?  
But the same God who hath allowed us to take pleasure in all these hath also thought good to set bounds, and stints to our pleasure, which we may not exceed; he hath indulged to us a lawful freedom, not a wild licentiousness: If we pass our limits, we sin. Now because in our natural proneness to excess there is nothing more difficult, then to keep within due compass, and to be at once delighted and holy, it highly concerns us to take notice of those just boundaries, within which our freest pleasure must be ranged.  
First then, we cannot offend in our delectations, if we be sure to take God with us; more plainly, we shall safely partake of our pleasures, if we receive them as from God, if we enjoy them in God, if we refer them to God: From God, as the author and giver of them; in God, as the allower and sanctifier of them; to God, as to the end, and scope of them: the least deviation from any of these, makes our delights vicious. We receive them as from God, when we know them to be allowed of him, and granted to us, by him: Herein therefore lawful pleasures differ from sinful; we have his warrant for the one, for the other his inhibition. The act may be alike in both, but differs both in the subject, and ground of it; God's institution justifies that act in a lawful conjugal society, which he abhors and condemns in a stranger: Marriage is made in heaven, adultery is brewed in hell. The teeth kept the same pace under the law in eating the clean flesh, and the unclean; and still do, in the morsels of sufficiency, and surfeit; The first draught of the wine, which is for refreshing, goes down the same way, with the lavish, and supernumerary carouses of drunkenness: That holy God, whose will is the rule of goodness, cannot give any approbation of evil; If then I can boldly present my pleasure in the face of God, and say, Lord, this is the delight thou hast allowed me, the liberty thou givest, I take; here is thy word, and my deed; my heart cannot but sit down in a comfortable assurance.  
We enjoy them in God, whiles we can enjoy God in them, not suffering ourselves so to be possessed of them, as that we should let go the sweet hold of the divine presence, and complacency: the very thought whereof must necessarily exclude all disorder, and excess. It is the brand which St. jude sets upon the sensual false-teachers of his time, 
Judas 12.  feeding without fear; and the Prophet Esay to the same purpose, 
●say. 5 12.  The Harp and the Viol, the Tabret and the Pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. If then we be so taken up with any earthly pleasures, that they do either banish God from our hearts, or steal our hearts from God; our tables are made snares to us, and our wives in stead of ribs become thorns in our sides. For me, let me rather want delights then be transported by them from better joys; they shall not pass with me for pleasures, but for torments, that shall rob me of the fruition of my God.  
We refer them to God, when we partake of them with an intuition of the glory of him, from whom we receive them, and in whom we enjoy them; not making any pleasure its own end, wherein we shall rest, but the way to a better; Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, (saith the Apostle) do all to the glory of God. We do well to look up to heaven, and to say grace at our meals, but I have read of an holy man, that was wont to give thanks for every morsel that he put into his mouth; and I could envy his holy and free thoughts; but sooner could I take up the resolution of that votary, who professed that he did in every creature of God find both edification, and matter of devotion; and when one showed him a lewd, and debauched ruffian, and asked him what good he could pick out of such a prospect? Yes, said he, I can so far enjoy his wickedness, as to be thankful to God, for giving me that grace which he wants. Shortly, let me never have any pleasure, upon which I cannot pray to God for a blessing, and for which I cannot return my thanksgiving.   

§. VII. The limitation of our liberty, in respect of the pleasures themselves, first for the kind, then for the quantity, and quality of them.  
OUr pleasures cannot be amiss, whiles they have these respects to God. There are also considerable limitations, which they have within themselves.  
The first whereof must be, that they be in their very kind lawful; for as there is no dish whereof we may warrantably surfeit; so there are some whereof we may not taste: 
Gen. 3.3.  for our first parents to but set their teeth in the forbidden fruit, yea to touch it, was not free from evil: Any morsel of an unclean meat, under the law was no less sinful, than the whole dish: The wholsomest of all foods, if taken in excess, may destroy nature; 
Melchior Suerinensis Episc. ex ducibus Brunswic. Krantz. Metrop. l. 10. c. 36.  in so much as we find one that died of strawberries, the most harmless fruit that the earth beareth; but the least measure of poison is too much: Whereto we may also add, that the same thing may be poison to one, which to another is either meat or medicine, even as it is in bodily diets: A Turk eats in one day so much opium with pleasure, as would be the bane of many western Christians; and Erasmus professes that fish was death to him, which to others is both nourishing and delicate. For a Socrates to ride upon a stick, or to learn to fiddle, or dance in his old age, was a sight as uncouth, as it was in his boys becoming, and commendable. It is said of Thales Milesius, one of the great sages of Greece, that he was pressed to death in a throng at their Gymnick sports; any wise man would presently ask, what that wise man did there? To personate an history on an Academical theatre may be a mutual delight to the actor, and beholders, but for a professed divine to do it, can be no other than unmeet, and that which is justly forbidden in some Synods. The wild Carnevalls abroad, however they may be tolerated in the young laity by their indulgent Confessors, yet for persons that profess to be Clerks, or religious votaries (what pretences soever may be set upon it by favourable Casuists) cannot but be extremely faulty.  
The kind yielded to be lawful, and meet, both in itself, and to the person using it, there must be due consideration had of the quality, quantity, manner, circumstances that are able to make even good things evil.  
For the first, Both religion and right reason require, that we should not be wanton, and over-delicate in our contentments; that our pleasures should be like ourselves, masculine, and temperate. It was a check that fell seasonably from Vespasian, and recorded to his great honour by Suetonius, that when a young man came to him curiously perfumed, I had rather (said he) thou hadst smelled of garlic: and that praise is no mean one, 
Gers. Serm de B. Ludovico.  which Gerson the Chancellor of Paris gives to King Lewis the Saint, that he regarded not of how dainty composition his excrement were made, neither meant to be a cook for the worms. Surely that curiosity of mixture, whereby not the eye and the palate, but the sent also must be feasted, is more fit for Sybarites, then for Christians; Dissolved pearls are for the draught of Aesop the Tragedians son, or Anthony's great Mistress: Let a Vitellius or Heliogobalus hunt over Seas and Lands for the dainty bit of this birds tongue, that fishes roe, or that beasts sweet bread; the Oysters of this coast, the scollops of that other, this root, that fruit: What do Christians with this vain Apician like gluttony? 
Heliogab. Aelius Lamprid.  It was a fit rule for that monster of the gut (whom even the Roman luxury censured) that those dishes please best, which cost most. I have both heard and read, that when some of our English Merchants in Germany, entertained Martin Luther with some other of his Dutch friends, at their table, when amongst other liberal dishes, he saw a Pastry at the first cutting up, reeking upwards, and filling the room with an hot and spicy steam, in stead of thanks, he frowned, and angrily said, Now woe be to them that bring these delicacies into our Germany. It is not easy to set stints to the quality or price of diets: for that which to one nation, or person may pass for mean and course, may to another be costly and delicious. If we may believe relations, 
Jo: Pory, Append. to Leo's hist. of afric.  in Angola dogs flesh is held for the daintiest meat, in so much as one mastive hath been exchanged there for twenty slaves, the price of 120▪ ducats; our Frogs, Snails, Mushrooms, would somewhere be accepted for a good service: and we know what the Tartars are wont to esteem of their Cosmo, whiles we make a face at the mention of it. Laercius tells us, that when Plato in a thrifty discourse with rich Aristippus was saying, that an halfpenny was enough to furnish a temperate man's dinner, well then, said he, and fifty drachmas are no more than so, to me. Custom of the place, care of health, regard to our ability, are fit moderators of every man's palate; but the true Christian is governed by an higher law, giving only such way to his appetite, as may well consist with due mortification. 
Cibus sit vilis Monachorum & Vespertinu●, ut & sustineat & non noceat. Reg. Columb. c. 3.  It was the rule which Columbanus (of whom there are many monuments in these Western parts) gave to his followers; Let the diet of Monks be course, and late, so as it may sustain, and not hurt. We are no Rechabites, no votaries, free from all yokes (of this kind) save the Almighty's, which is no other than an holy temperance: He hath allowed us the finest of the wheat, and wine that makes glad the heart, we are not tied to Prodicus his sauce, which is the fire; nor to Bernard's, which is salt and hunger; 
Gen. 27.4.  we may with old Isaac call for savoury meat, such as we love. 
P●●●i● est non 〈◊〉 frequenti●●●●c ga●diorum, etc. B●rn. Ep. 17●.  Happy are we, if we know how to use our blessings, and have learned so to order our appetite, as that we make it neither a slave nor a wanton.  
For the quantity, Pleasure is honey; Eat not too much honey, saith Solomon; that is to be tasted on the top of the finger, not to be scoped up with the whole hand; we may be too great niggards to ourselves this way, denying those helps to nature whereby it may be more cheerfully enabled unto good: 
1 Sam. 14.29.  jonathan complained justly that Saul's rash vow of not tasting any food, that day, had troubled the Land; See I pray you how mine eyes are enlightened, because I tasted a little honey; 
Qui carnem suam supra modum affligit, civem suum occidit: si plus quam oportet alimentis reficit, hosiem nu●rit. Hugo. Instit. Monast. in reg. D. August. c. 3.  how much more, if the people had eaten freely to day had they prevailed? It was the rule of a great potterne of strict devotion, If abstinence go beyond the bounds of a virtue, it turns vice: and our Alensis well, If our fast must be afflictive, yet with due moderation; neither is it required that a man should fast his utmost, but so much as may well stand with the conservation of nature in her meet vigour: 
Alens. To. 4. q. 28. man 6. Et si jejunium, etc.  Neither are we tied to the old man's diet in Suidas, salt and two barly-cornes; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  or to the liberal allowance which Francis of Assize made to his St. Clare, an ounce and half of bread in a day: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Suid.  neither need we be driven (as Socrates counselled poor Eschines) to borrow of ourselves: but on the other side, we may not let loose the reins of our appetite, and as gluttons are want to do, cram in so much to breakfast, that we have no stomach to supper. Not in surfeiting and drunkenness, saith the blessed Apostle. It seemed a strange thing to Anacharsis the Scythian, as Laertius observes, to see the Greeks drink in small cruzes at the beginning of their feasts, and in large bowls at the latter end, (an order ill imitated by the lavish Healthists of our time) as if they intended not satisfaction, and refreshing of nature, but wilful excess. If the bounty of God allow us to be sometimes merry, in our moderate feasts, 
Es. 5.22.  yet never mad; he is so far from crowning any man for drinking (as it is said Alexander the Great did his Promachus) that he hath passed a woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Well may we say of our cups as was wont to be said of the jonians, they are good servants, ill freemen, and masters. Too much oil puts out the lamp; both reason and health are drowned in over-deep cups: Our body is as a well-set clock which keeps good time; if it be too much or indiscreetly tampered with, the alarm runs out before the hour. The like care of avoiding extremity must be had in all other delights. The very Heathen Orator could say, He is not worthy of the name of a man, that would be a whole day in pleasure. 
Quaet. si ex toto cor de ridere non licet? Negatur. Reg. Basilii c. 32.  Sleep and recreations are as necessary as meat, but both must know their stint. If a Bear or a Dormouse grow fat with sleep, I am sure the mind of man is thus affamished: Slothfulness, saith Solomon, 
Prov. 19.15.  casteth into a deep sleep, 
Gen. 2.21. 2 Sam. 4.5 1 King. 3.20. Mat. 25.5.  and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. It was a dead sleep wherein Adam lost his rib, Ishbosheth his life, the Harlot her son, the foolish Virgins their entrance. How long then wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one that travaileth, and thy want as an armed man.  
As for sports, when they take up so much time and labour as to turn trades, they have lost themselves, and perhaps marred their Masters. It was a just exception that Salustius took to Sempronia, not that she danced, but that she danced too well: and our story tells us, when rich Clisthenes would choose a fit match for his only daughter, and amongst other suitors the son of Terpander▪ the Athenian was most likely to speed, the young man to ingratiate himself the more, after dinner danced some Attic Jigs, with much cunning and activity; Well, well, said Clisthenes, Terpander's son, you have danced away your marriage. If the Iron be blunt, the edge must be whetted, saith Solomon; but if we shall wear away all the steel with too much whetting, the tool must needs be left unprofitable.   

§. VIII. The limitation, and moderation of the pleasure of conjugal society.  
BUt the greatest danger of immoderation is in matter of lust; an impetuous passion, and that which commonly bears down reason before it; and too often even there, 

Vix ●l●qua sanctimonialium sine devoto carnali.  
Alu. Pel. de Planctu. l. 2.73.   where the strongest resolutions, and most religious vows have made head against it: Insomuch as Alvarez Pelagius sticks not to confess, that there was scarce any of the holy sisters in his time sine devoto carnali; and Dominicus a Soto professes he cannot deny, 

Curent in unaqu●que civitate locum meretricibus assignandum ab hominum frequentia, & a majoribus Ecclesiis remotum.  
In council. Mediolan. ●. habito a Carolo Boromaeo.   that their Clergy abounds with concubinaries and adulterers. What should I mention the toleration and yearly rent of public stews? these known Courtesans in Spain, and Italy, pay to their great Landlords for their lust; whereas amongst the Abassines, wages are given them out of the common purse; Yea, even those, who are allowed lawful remedies, 
Jo. Pory 〈◊〉 supra.  shall find it task enough, 
Tatianus, nihil d●fferre a ●a●rimonio Scortationem s●d idem esse. Epiph. h●eres. de Tatianis.  so to order their desires, as they may not offend in their application. To deny the lawfulness of matrimonial benevolence were to cast mire in the face of our Creator; yet there may be such deordination in the acts thereof, as may draw sin into the marriagebed; 
Facitior est saepe, etc. sicut ●●bri●, pot●s, & ignis 〈…〉 magis succenduntur. Gers. Reg. morales de Luxuria.  in so much as Gerson can tell us, there is less difficulty in forbearing these desires, then in curbing, and moderating them once admitted: For pleasure ever, as both S. Ambrose and Hierome have observed, draws on a strong appetite of itself; and (as Chrysologus well) is like a dog, beat him off, he flees away, make much of him, he follows us the more. 
Munster. in precept. Mos.  The Jews note that in four places of the law they are admonished to increase and multiply; and therefore hold, that after twenty years of age, who so finds (the jezer) in himself, is bound under pain of sin to marry; Somewhat of kin to the divinity of that old Physician at Basil, 

Erasm. Epist. Da●eli Stibaro.  
Medicus senex Basileae in publica professione docui●, etc.   of whom Erasmus speaks, who taught in his public Lecture, that this (Increase and multiply) was our Saviour's last legacy to the world, which we had thought had been (Pacem meam do vobis) My peace I give to you, and that it were pity that any fruitful soil should lie fallow; positions wildly licentious, and such as leave no place for a gracious Eunuchisme for the kingdom of heaven. Virginal chastity is a grace worthy of our fervent prayers, worthy of our best endeavours. I hear the great Apostle of the Gentiles say, He that gives his virgin in marriage doth well, 
1 Cor. 7.38.  but he that gives her not in marriage doth better; And why should not every one (where there is a difference of meliority) strive towards the best? All may strive, but all can not attain. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it, saith our Saviour. But he that cannot receive the blessing of single chastity, may receive the blessing of chaste marriage: an institution, which if it had not been pure and innocent, had never been made in Paradise, by the all-holy Maker of Paradise, both in earth, and heaven. In the managing, and fruition whereof, we may not follow brutish appetite, and lawless sensuality; but must be overruled with right reason, Christian modesty, and due respects to the ends of that blessed ordinance.  
Our strictest Casuists will grant, that for the conservation of mankind, even a votary may, yea must marry, and we have in our times known those, who for the continuation of a lineal succession of some great families, have been fetched from their cells to a Bride-chamber: As for the remedy of incontinency, 
1 Cor. 7.5.  our Apostle hath passed a plain (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) Come together again.  
As for the pleasure of conjugal society, I do not find a more clear decision, 
Salm●ron Tom. 5. Tract. 9 de temporibus luctus. Fideli, cui Christus omn●a mundavit, iila turpitudo & absorp●io non est peccatum, nam ut ait Apostolus, Omnia munda mundis u● egregiè expon●t Clem l. 3. Strom. in fine. Ad haec volupta● aut d●lectatio quae na●uraliter censequi●●a opus generationis quae omni animan●i ingenita est à Deo, nec prop●er se c●petitur, pecc●●ū ullum non est; quemad●●●dū & delecta●io quae consequ●●●● ed●ntē & biben●ē, aut somnum capien●ē non censetur illicita; Non solum erg● nuptiae non sunt peccatum, sed ille qui esset solutus & liber à vo●●, nec velle● se continere, crim●u non effugeret, si uxorem ●on quaereret, potius qu in ●ri, i. vinci a libidine, etc. Salmer. To. 5. Tract. 9 etc.  then that of the voluminous Jesuit Salmeron. To a faithful man (saith he) unto whom Christ hath made all things clean, that turpitude, and absorption (of reason) which commonly attends the act of matrimonial knowledge is not a sin; for as the Apostle teacheth, All things are clean unto the clean, as Clemens in the third book of his Stromata worthily expounds it; Moreover, that pleasure or delectation which doth naturally follow the act of generation, which is by God naturally inbred in every living creature, and is not desired merely for its own sake, is no sin at all; even as the delight which accompanieth eating, & drinking, and sleeping, is not judged unlawful: So therefore it is not only to be granted that marriage is no sin; but he that is at liberty, and free from any vow, and hath not a will to contain himself, shall not acquit himself of a grievous sin, if he seek not a wife; for of such like S. Paul saith, If they do not contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry then to burn: that is, as S. Ambrose interprets it, 
B. Ambr. To. 4.  to be overcome of lust. Thus far Salmeron. And to the same purpose the learned Chancellor of Paris determines, that however those meetings which have no other intuition but mere pleasure, cannot be free from some venial offence; yet that he who comes to the marriagebed, 
Non sine renitentia, & dolore quodam animi, quòd sine usu matrimonii vivere non possit, etc.  not without a certain renitency and regret of mind that he cannot live without the use of matrimony, offends not. Shortly then, howsoever it be difficult, if not altogether impossible to prescribe fixed limits to all ages and complexions; yet this we may undoubtedly resolve, that we must keep within the bounds of just sobriety, of the health, and continued vigour of nature, of our aptitude to God's service, of our alacrity in our vocations; not making appetite our measure, but reason; hating that Messaline-like disposition, which may be wearied, not satisfied; affecting to quench, not to solicit lust; using our pleasure as the traveller doth water, not as the drunkard, wine; whereby he is inflamed and enthirsted the more.   

§. IX. Of the limitation of our pleasures in the manner of using them.  
THus much for the just quantity of our lawful delights; the manner of our using them remains; Whether those of the board, or of the bed, or of the field; one universal rule serves for them all: we may not pursue them either over-eagerly, or indiscreetly. If we may use them, we may not set our hearts upon them; and if we give ourselves leave to enjoy them, yet we may not let ourselves loose to their fruition: Carelessness is here our best posture; 
1 Cor. 7.29, 30, 31.  They that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; they that have wives, as if they had none; they that buy, as if they possessed not; they that use the world, as if they used it not, saith the blessed Apostle. Far be it from a Christian heart so to be affected with any earthly delight, as if his felicity dwelled in it, his utter dejection and misery in the want of it: that as Phaltiel did his wife, he should follow it weeping. 
Ber●▪  It was a good charge that the holy man gave to his votary, that he should not totus comedere; 
Cant. 5.2.  and the Spouse in the Divine Marriage-song can say, I slept, but my heart waketh: thus, whiles we shall take our pleasure, our pleasure shall not take us.  
Discretion must be the second guide of our pleasure: as in other circumstances, so especially in the choice of meet places, and seasons. 
Nullo modo placuit bis in die saturum fieri. Cic. Tuscul. l. 1.  It was a shameless word of that brutish Cynic, that he would plantare hominem in foro; The Jews made it a matter of their 39 lashes, 
Schicard. de jure reg. Hebr.  for a man to lie with his own wife in the open field: and if it were notoriously filthy for Absalon, to come near to his Father's Concubines in the darkest closet, surely to set up a tent upon the roof of the house, and in the sight of the Sun, and all israel to act that wickedness, was no less than flagitious villainy. The very love-feasts of the primitive Christians were therefore cried down, by the Apostle, because they were misplaced; Have ye not houses to eat and drink in? 
●1 Cor. 11.  and so were the vigils in the succeeding ages. If markets, if sports, be never so warrantable, yet in a Church, not without a foul profanation: So likewise there are times, which do justly stave off even those carnal delights, which else would pass with allowance: The Priests under the law whiles they did eat the holy bread, (which was in their several courses twice in the year) must abstain from the society of their wives; the like charge doth the Apostle impose upon his Corinthians, Defraud not one another, 
1 Cor. 7.5.  except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. It was a commendable resolution of good Vriah, The Ark of God, and Israel, and judah abide in tents, 
2 Sam. 11.11.  and my Lord joab, and the servants of my Lord are encamped in the open fields, shall I then go in to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing. When a solemn fast is indicted, for a man to entertain his friends with a feast, is no better than an high impiety and disobedience; neither can it be worthy of less than a just mulct and censure in those, who cast their liberallest invitations upon those days which by the wholesome laws both of Church and Commonwealth are designed to abstinence; 
Alphons. Varg. stratagem. Jes. c. 11.  and it is a strange charge that Alfonsus de Vargas lays upon the Jesuits, 
Eccles. 3.4, 5.  that, upon a sleight pretence, made no bones of a fat capon on Good Friday: There is a time for all things, saith wise Solomon; there is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to mourn, and a time to dance. If then our pleasure shall be rightly differenced, for the kind, and where that is allowable, ordered aright for the measure, quality, manner of enjoying it, we shall be safely cheerful, and our life holily comfortable.   

§. X. Motives to Moderation in the use of all our pleasures.  
BUt, because it is no easy task to keep our hearts in so meet a temper, and to curb in our appetite from a lawless immoderation, it will be necessary for us seriously to consider, First, the shortness of them; They are like to that time, on whose wings they are carried, fugitive and transient; gone whiles they come, and as the Apostle speaks, in their very use perishing. Lysimachus, when in his extremity of drought he had yielded himself and his crown to the Scythians, for a draught of water, Good God (saith he) how great a felicity have I forgone for how short a pleasure? Who ever enjoyed full delight a day? or if he could, what is he the better for it to morrow? He may be worse, but who ever is the better for his yesterday feast? Sweet meats, and fat morsels glut the soon; and that which was pleasant in the palate, is noisome in the maw, and gut. As for those bodily delights wherein luxurious men place their chief felicity, alas! what poor abortions they are, dead in the very conception, not lasting out their mention, what vanishing shadows, what a short nothing? And how great a madness is it to place our contentment upon mere transitoriness, to fall in love with that face which cannot stay to be saluted?  
2 The unprofitableness of them: 
Onerat quippe talis cibus voluptatis, irritatque famem non sa●ia●. Gers. serm. ad eccles. cautelam. Paupertas nemini malum nisi repugnanti. Senec. Ep. 123. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  It is easy to name thousands that have miscarried by the use of pleasures, who, with Ulysses his companions have been turned into swinish beasts, by the cups of this Circe; but show me the man that ever was the better for them: we have known want, like to the hard soil of Ithaca, breed good wits; but what can fullness yield, save fat guts, ill humours, dull brains? The observation is as true as old, that the flesh is nourished with soft, but the mind with hard meats: The Falconer keeps his hawk sharp that would fly well; and the horses are breathed, and dieted, that would win the bell, and the wager. Samson was not so strong, nor David so holy, nor Solomon so wise, as not to be foiled with these assaults. It was one strain in Moses his song, 
Deut. 32.15.  jesurun is waxed fat and kicked; Thou didst drink of the pure blood of the grape: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness: then he forsook God that made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. How many brave hopes have we known dashed with youthly excess? how many high, and gallant spirits effeminated? Hannibal could complain that he brought men into Campania, 
Quan●o inferius delectamur, anto à supern● amore disjungimur. Bern. de inter. domo. c. 45.  but carried women out again. Who ever knew any man that by the superfluity of earthly contentments grew more wise, more learned, more virtuous, more devout? Whereas it is no rare thing to find those, whom a straight and hard hand hath improved in all these; 
Eccles. 7.2, 3.  It is better to go to the house of mourning, saith Solomon, then to go to the house of feasting: Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. If jobs children do but meet at a kind banquet, their father is fain to expiate their feast with sacrifice; for seldom is ever jollity without excess; whereas in a sad austerity there is no fear of over-lashing.  
Thirdly, as there is no profit in the immoderation of these momentany pleasures, so no little pain in the loose: This hony-bagge hath ever a sting attending it; so as we are commonly plagued (as Bernard well) in that wherein we were mis-delighted. Fishes and fowls are well pleased with their baits, but when the hook or gin seizeth them, they are too late sensible of their misery. I have known potions, that have been very pleasant in the mouth, which have wrought churlishly in the guts; such are these pleasures: What fruit have you (saith the Apostle) in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? 
Brom. sum p●aed. V. Gula.  The world deals with too many (as our Bromiard observes) like a bad neighbour, that makes a man drunk purposely, to defeat him of his purse or patrimony, when the liquor is evaporated, the man awakes, and finds himself a beggar: Could we foresee the issue of these sinful delights, we durst not but fall off. Had any man beforehand said, Death is in the pot, which of the children of the Prophets durst have been so hardy as to put in his spoon? It was a good answer of a well meaning novice, who when he was told because that he was tender and delicate, he could never endure the hardship of a strict profession, answered, Yes, I will therefore endure it the rather, for being so tender and delicate, much less shall I be able to endure the pains of hell. Could we then fore-consider the everlasting torments, which attend the momentany pleasures of sin; We would say to the best and most plausible of them, as Sir Thomas is reported to have said to his wife, 
Cambdens' remains.  Gentle Eve I will none of your apple: and would be loath (as that Philosopher said in the like case) to buy repentance (yea torment) at so dear a rate.   

§. XI. Of the moderation of our desires in matter of wealth and honour, etc.  
NExt to the moderation of our pleasures is that of our desires, if not rather before it; for whereas there are three acts of our sensitive appetite, in respect of good, loving, desiring, delight: Love makes way to our desires, and delight follows it; but because the desires we now speak of, are rather covetous, then love-some; of outward abilities, rather than bodily pleasures, we cannot repent of this order of their tractation. And surely, of the two, our desires are much more insatiable and boundless than our delights. 
Jo: de Neapoli q. 28.  A glutton's belly is much sooner filled then his eye: For that only can quiet the appetite of an intellectual nature, 
To●us iste mundus sensibilis ad animae ventrem quid est nisi b●lus exiguus, &c Ger. Serm. ad eccles. cautel.  which is all and infinitely good; all other things do rather whet then satiate our longings. All this sensible world (as Gerson well) is but as one little morsel to the stomach of the soul, and if a thousand worlds could be let down they cannot fill it; 
Cor vix ad unius milvi r●fectionem sufficere posset, & totus mundus ei non sufficit. Bern. de interiore domo. c. 63.  for the mind is by receiving enlarged to receive more; and still cries like the daughters of the horseleech, Give, Give. Every soul (as St. Austin wittily) is either Christ's spouse, 
Aug. Gun. ad literam.  or the Devil's harlot: I add, if Christ's spouse, she takes up with him, 
Phil. 3.8.  and accounts all things in the world but dung, yea but loss in comparison of him: If the Devil's harlot, she runs wild after every gaudy pleasure, and profit; like the barren womb, 
Prov. 30.16.  in Solomon, which never saith, It is enough. So then the true Christian soul, as it can say with David, 
Ps 73.25.  whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is nothing in earth that I desire besides thee; so it can say with St. Paul, 
Phil. 4.11▪ 12.  I have learned both to want and to abound, to be full and to be hungry, and in whatsoever estate to be therewith content. Our desires therefore are both the surest measures of our present estate, and the truest prognostics of our future: Upon those words of Solomon, As the tree falls so it shall lie, Bernard wittily, How the tree will fall thou shalt soon know by the store, and weight of the boughs; Our boughs are our desires, on which side soever they grow and sway most, so shall the soul fall. It was a word too good for him that sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, I have enough my brother: jacob himself could have said no more; this moderation argues a greater good than itself; for as nothing comes amiss to that man who holds nothing enough, 

Cui nihil satis est, nihil rurpe est. Timo●heus in Aristophontum prodigum. Aelian. 1 Tim. 6.10.  
Si vis cum laetitia animi vivere, nol● multa habere.  
Bern. ubi supra. c. 45.   (since the love of money is the root of all evil) so he that can stint his desires is canon-proofe against tentations; whence it is that the best and wisest men have still held themselves shortest: Even he that had more then enough, could say, Give me not overmuch. Who knows not the bare feet and patched cloaks of the famous Philosophers amongst the heathen? 
Plut. in vit. Laz. Bayf. de re vest.  Plutarch wonders at Cato, that being now old, and having passed both a Consulship and Triumph, he never wore any garment that exceeded the worth of an hundred pence. It was the wish of learned Erasmus, after the refused offers of great preferments, that he might so order his expenses, that he might make all even at his death; so as when he died, he might be out of every man's debt, and might have only so much money left, as might serve to bring him honestly to his grave: And it was little otherwise (it seems) with the painful and eminent Master Calvin, who after all his power and prevalence in his place, was found at his death to be worth some forty pounds sterling; a sum which many a Master gives his groom for a few years' service: Yea, in the very chair of Rome, 
Bin. in vita Clem. 4. Anno. 1268.  (where a man would least look to meet with moderation) we find Clement 4. when he would place out his two daughters, gave to the one thirty pounds in a Nunnery, to the other three hundred in her marriage; 
Bin. Anno. 1410.  And Alexander the 5. who was chosen Pope in the Council of Pisa, had want to say he was a rich Bishop, a poor Cardinal, 
Bin. in vita Celestini Electi. Ann. 1294.  and a beggarly Pope: The extreme lowliness of Celestine the 5. who from an Anachorets' cell was fetched into the Chair, (and gave the name to that Order) was too much noted to hold long; he that would only ride upon an ass; (whiles his successors mount on shoulders) soon walks on foot to his desert, and thence to his prison. 
Adrian 4. Nihil si●i in vita infoelicius accidisse, quam quod imperárit.  This man was of the diet of a brother of his, Pope Adrian, who caused it to be written on his grave, that nothing fell out to him in all his life more unhappily, then that he was advanced to rule: These are, I confess, mere Heteroclites of the Papacy; the common rule is otherwise; 
Henr. a Token in Sylu. loc. come. Hoppin. de Orig. Templ.  to let pass the report which the Archbishop of Lions made in the Council of Basil of those many Millions, 
Reditus Romani computati ab Henrico 3. ad tantumascenderunt quantum reditus regis, viz. l. x. millia marcarum puri reditus, praeter alia emolumenta. Florilegus. Ann. 1245.  which in the time of Pope Martin came to the Court of Rome out of France alone; and the yearly sums registered in our Acts, which out of this Island flew thither, above the King's revenues: we know in our time what millions of gold Sixtus 5. who changed a neat-heards cloak for a Franciscans cowl, 
Ciracella in ejus vit. cit. a Rivetio contr. Sylu. S. Pet●a.  (and therefore by virtue of his order might touch no silver) raked together in five years' space. The story is famous of the discourse betwixt Pope Innocent the 4. and Thomas Aquinas; When that great Clerk came to Rome, and looked somewhat amazedly upon the mass of Plate, and treasure which he there saw; Lo, said the Pope, you see, Thomas, we cannot say as S. Peter did of old, Silver and gold have I none; No, said Aquinas, neither can you command as he did, the lame man to arise and walk. There was not more difference in the wealth of the time, 
Sicut Paulus ditissimus pauper dicebat, Sicut nihil habentes, & omnia possidentes. Ambros. de vitiorum, virtutumque conflictu.  then in the virtue. It was an heroical word of S. Paul; As having all things, yet possessing nothing; and a resolution no less, that rather than he would be put down by the brag of the false-teachers among the Corinthians, he would lay his fingers to the stitching of skins for Tentmaking. What speak I of these meannesses, 
Heb. 11 37, 38.  when he tells us of holy men, that wandered about in sheepskins, and goat's skins, in deserts, and mountains, and caves of the earth? Yea what do I fall into the mention of any of these, when I hear the Lord of life, the God of glory, who had the command of earth, and heaven, say, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head? It was a base and unworthy imputation, that hath been cast upon him by some ignorant favourers of wilful poverty, that he lived upon pure alms. If our blessed Saviour, and his train had not a common stock, wherefore was judas the purse-bearer? and why in that office did he repine at the costly ointment bestowed upon his Master, as that which might have been sold for 300, pence to the use of the poor, if himself had not wont to be a receiver of the like sums in a pretence of distribution? wherein had he been a thief, if he had not both wont, and meant to lurch out of the common Treasury? Certainly, he that said, It is better to give then to receive, would not fail of the better, and take up with the worse: and he who sent his Cators to Sichem to buy meat, 
Joh. 4 8.  would not go upon trust with Samaritans: Now, he that shall ask how this stock should arise, may easily think that he who commanded the fish to bring him tribute-money, had a thousand ways to make his own provision: Amongst which, this is clear and eminent; His chosen vessel could say, 
1 Cor. 9.14.  Even so the Lord hath ordained that they which preach the Gospel, should live of the Gospel. Lo this was Christ's own ordination, was it not therefore his practice? and if any man would rather cast it upon our Saviour's care for the provision of succeeding times, he may soon learn, that when the blessed Son of God sent his Disciples as Legates from his own side, to preach the Gospel, without scrip, or money, the word was, dignus est, The labourer is worthy of his wages: he saith not, The beggar is worthy of his alms: This maintenance was not of beneficence, but duty: So as Salmeron observes well, 
Salmer. Tom. 5. tract. 5.  neither Christ nor his Apostles were in any want; they earned what they had, and they had what was sufficient: And if that gracious Messiah begged water of the Samaritan woman, at Jacob's well, it was because he thirsted after the salvation of her, and her neighbours; and would take this occasion to bestow upon them the waters of life, which they had not otherwise known, or desired; I hear where he asked for water, a common element, and that for which the giver was no whit the poorer, I would fain hear where he asked for bread, where for meat: I find where he gave bread more than once, to thousands, and fish to boot; but where ever did he ask a morsel, or fin? shortly then, he who could have commanded all the pomp and royalty of the whole world, would appear in the form of a servant, that he might sanctify a mean and moderate condition to us. It is true, there can be no certain proportion of our either having, or desiring; since the conditions of men are in a vast difference; for that coat which is too big for a dwarf, will not so much as come upon a Giant's sleeve: and it is but just and lawful for every man to affect so much, as may be sufficient, not only for the necessity of his person, but for the decency of his estate; the neglect whereof may be sordid, and deservedly taxable. It is said of Gregory the great, that he sharply reproved Paschafius Bishop of Naples; for that he used to walk down to the Seaside, attended only with one or two of his Clergy, without that meet port which his place required. Surely, he that goeth below himself, disparageth his vocation, and whiles he would seem humble, is no other than careless: But all things considered, he that can cut eavenest between want and excess, is in the safest, easiest, happiest estate: 
Senec. de Tranquillit.  A truth, which if it were duly entertained, would quit men's hearts of a world of vexation, which now they do willingly draw upon themselves; for he that resolves to be rich, and great, as he must needs fall into many snares of sin, so into manifold distractions of cares. It was a true word of wise Bion, in Laertius, who when he was asked, what man lived most unquietly, answered, He that in a great estate affects to be prosperous: In all experience, he that sets too high a pitch to his desires, lives upon the rack; neither can be loosed, till he remit of his great thoughts, and resolve to clip his wings and train, and to take up with the present. Very seasonable and witty was that answer, which Cyneas in the story gave to ambitious Pyrrhus, when that great Conqueror began speech of his designs: Well, said Cyneas, when thou hast vanquished the Romans, what wilt thou then do? I will then (said Pyrrhus) sail over to Sicily; And what wilt thou do, said Cyneas, when that is wone? then will we said Pyrrhus, subdue afric; Well, and when that is effected, what wilt thou (said Cyneas) then do? Why then, said Pyrrhus, we will sit down and spend the rest of our time merrily, and contentedly: And what hinders thee, said Cyneas, that without all this labour & peril, thou canst not now do so beforehand? Certainly, nothing lies cross the way of our contentation, but our own thoughts; and those the alwise God leaves there on purpose for the just torture of great hearts. It was a truly Apostolical, and divine counsel that the chosen vessel gives to his Hebrews; 
Heb. 13.5.  Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: which unto his Timothy he limits to food and raiment; 
1 Tim. 6.8.  and backs it irrefragably with a reason fetched from our first and last estate; 
1 Tim. 6.7  For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we shall carry nothing out. Lo, we begin and end with nothing; 
Under the Antiochi the Levites took upon them to be Kings, and turned Saducees, and died violently. B●ought. ex Fen Gers.  and no less than all can sat us while we are: Oh the infinite avarice and ambition of men! the Sea hath both bottom, and bounds, the heart of man hath neither. There are those, as our Bromiard observes, who in a fair pretence of mortification, like soaring Kites, 
Tertullus Patric us Romanus locuples, pa●rimonium dedi● Benedicto, etc. regn●● po●ius quam coenobia vir sanctus posteris 〈◊〉 Volater.  fly up from the earth, and cry, Fie, Fie, in their flight, as if they scorned these lower vanities, and yet when they have done, stoop upon the first carrion that comes in their eye: False Pharisees that under the colour of long prayers devour widow's houses; Pharisaical votaries that under colour of wilful poverty, 
Mendicantes autem fratres et si praedia non sunt iustituti habere, tamen nihil haben●es omnia possident. Krantz. Metrop. l. 7. c. 47.  sweep away whole Countries into their Corban. Amongst the very mahometans under the name of sanctity, the Scirifiis in afric, in our very age, the sons of Scirifius Hascenus, desire no more patrimony from their father, but a drum, and an ensign; and thus furnished, 
Caesar a Branchedoro Monita Polit.  (religion being their sole pretext) they run away with the large kingdoms of Fez, and Morocco. And what other spirit possessed Friar Campanella, a poor Dominican in our time, who durst think of changing his cowl for a crown, aiming at no less in his secret treaty with the Turks, than the now divided Empire of Italy? How no less rise then insatiable are these desires of men? One plots for a Lordship, another for a Coronet. One hath swallowed a crozier, another a Sceptre; a third a Monarchy, and a fourth all these: Of all the ambitions that have come to my notice, 
An. 1311. Sept. 16. ut Waremundus de Erenb●rgh in ve●isimil. de regni subsid. Idem Branchedorus ibid.  I do most wonder at that of Maximilian the first, who being Emperor affected also to be Pope; and for that purpose, in his letter written to the Baron of Lichtenstein, offered the sum of three hundred thousand Ducats, besides the pawn of four rich and preciously stuffed chests, together with the sumptuous pall of his Princely investiture; whereof (said he) after we are seized of the Papacy, we shall have no further use: Though why not (saith Waremundus) as well as Pope Boniface the eight, 

urspergen Cuspin. in vita Alberti. vide Orationem praemonitorian Caes. Branchedori.  
M●gnitudo non habet cer●um modum. Sen. Epist. 43.   who girded with his sword, and crowned with an Imperial Diadem came abroad magnificently amongst the people and could openly profess, I am both Caesar and Pope. Vain men! whither do our restless desires carry us, unless grace and wiser thoughts pineon their wings? Which if we do seriously affect; there is a double remedy of this immoderation; The first is the due consideration of our own condition, both in the shortness and fickleness of our life, and the length and weight of our reckoning. Alas, if all the world were mine, how long could I enjoy it? Thou fool, this night shall they take away thy soul, as was said to the rich projector in the parable, and then whose shall all these things be? Were I the great King of Babylon, when I see the hand writing my destiny upon the brickwall, what should I care for the massy bowls of my cupboard, or the golden roof of my Palace? what fool was ever fond of the orient colours of a bubble? who ever was at the cost to gild a mudwall? or to embroider that tent which he must remove to morrow? Such is my condition here; I must alter, it cannot. It is the best ceremony that I could note in all the pack of those Pontifical rites, that an herald burns tow before the new Pope in all the height of his pomp, and cries Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world: Thus, even thus indeed, the glory passes; the account passes not so soon: It is a long reckoning that remains to be made for great receipts: for we are not the owners; we are the bailiffs or stewards of our whole estates: In the day of our great Audit, there is not one penny but must be calculated; and what can the greatness of the sum (passed through our hands) then avail us, other then to add difficulty to the computation, and danger to the accountant? When Death shall come roughly to us in the style that Benedict did to Totilaes' servant, 
Depon● quod portas, nam non est tuum.  Lay down that thou bearest, for it is not thine own; and the great Master of the universal family of the world shall call us to a red rationem, for all that we have received; Woe is me, 
Melius est minus egg▪ e quam plus habere. una ex reg. Aug.  what pleasure shall it be to me that I had much? What is the poor horse the better for the carriage of a rich sumpter all day, when at night he shall lie down with a galled back? I hear him that wished to live Croesus, wishing to die a beggarly Cynic, that was not worth his shroud: The cheer goes down well, till it come to the shot; when that goes too deep, we quarrel at our excess. Oh our madness to dote upon our future repentance!  
The second remedy, is the due consideration of the object of our desires: Alas, what poor stuff is this wherewith we are transported? what is the most precious metal of either colour, but thick clay, 
Habac. 2.6.  as the maker himself calls it? What is the largest territory but an insensible spot of contemptible earth? what are the greatest commands, but a glorious servitude? what the highest offices, but golden fetters? what the highest titles, but air and sound? And if the fond minds of worldlings can set other glosses on these bewitching contentments, yet, as when a man that hath eaten saffron, breathes upon a painted face, he presently descries and shames the false complexion; so when the truly rational and judicious shall come to spend his thoughts upon the best, and all of these garish and glittering allurements, he shall speedily detect their vanity, and bewray their dissembled unworthiness.   

§. XII. The moderation of our passions: and therein first of our sorrow.  
THe moderation of our passions challengeth the next room; In the pursuit whereof (since their variety is great) it were easy to pass our bounds; but we shall moderate our discourse, and select some of the most impetuous: As for love and joy, they have so much affinity with pleasure and delight whereof we have already treated, that we shall spare the labour of their further mention.  
Sorrow shall take the first place; a passion that hath been guilty of much blood. We have read and heard of some few, that have died of joy; as Chilon of Sparta, when he embraced his son returning with honour; 
Tertul. de Anima. c. 52.  and Clidemus the Athenian, when he was crowned by the Players; these Tertullian instances in; So Pope Leo the tenth (if we believe jovius) is said to die for the joy of taking Milan; so Senas the General of the Turkish galleys, died for the joy of the return of that son, whom he had given for lost; It was with these, as with them, whom we have seen choked with those cordial waters, which they have received for the remedy of their qualms: But our experience tells us of a thousand for one, that have been killed with grief: Not perhaps in a sudden violence (which kind of death Caesar esteemed more easy) but in a lingering, and languishing form of murder; 
Pro 17.12  for a broken spirit drieth and bones, saith Solomon; 
Pro. 15.13.  and by the sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken. This is our child's part which was beset us in Paradise before we were: By the mother's side, In sorrow shalt thou bring forth; By the fathers, In sorrow shalt thou eat of it, all the days of thy life: Sorrow in birth, sorrow in life, and in death sorrow. The shadow doth not more inseparably follow the body, than this doth our existence; so as he that meant to say Thrice miserable, mistook not much, when he said, Thrice man. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  If we look upon those who have had the greatest share in God's love, we shall find them to have drunk deepest of this cup. The great mirror of patience can say, 
Job. 30.27 28, 29.  My bowels boiled and rested not; the days of affliction prevented me. I went mourning without the Sun; I am a brother to Dragons, and a companion to owls. And the sweet singer of Israel warbles out sad strains of complaint, 
Ps. 18.4.  in this kind; The sorrows of death compassed me about, 
Ps, 116.3.  and the pains of hell got hold on me; 
Ps. 119.28  And again, 
Es. 21.3.  My soul melts for very heaviness. 
Jer. 4.19.  Esay cries out of his loins; 
Esa. 38.14.  jeremy of his bowels; and good Ezekiah chatters like a Crane or Swallow, and mourns like a Dove. What speak I of these, when I hear the Lord of life and glory say, My soul is exceeding heavy, 
Mar. 14.34  even to the death.  
Now this sorrow is ever out of the sense of some evil: Evil, whether of sin, or of punishment; Of sin, whether of others, or our own. Punishment, as bodily sickness, death of friends, worldly losses; all these are just grounds of sorrow. 
Ps. 119.136.  Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law, saith holy David. And do we not think he sorrowed more for his own sins? 
Ps. 6.6.  There is no rest in my bones, saith he, because of my sin, And all the night long I make my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.  
Punishment doth not more necessarily follow upon sin, than sorrow follows punishment; David's eye is consumed because of his grief. 
Psal. 6.7.  Ezekiah turns him to the wall and weeps; And whiles St. Paul chargeth not to mourn immoderately for the dead, he supposeth just tears due: Garments were allowed to be torn by God's people at the death of friends; and at the Parent's death, after thirty days wearing, it was their guise to lay down those rend garments, never to be sown up again; we pity and grieve at the childishness of those innocent babes, that can play at wink and hide about their Father's hearse: And for afflictions, whether of body or estate, how are they such, if we feel them not? and how do we feel them, if we sorrow not? The sense of pain argues life, as St. Ambrose well. 
Jer. 5.3.  It is ill taken by the Almighty from his people that he had stricken them but they grieved not; this is (what lies in us) to disappoint God of his purpose; and to put ourselves into the posture of Solomon's drunkard; 
Pro. 23.2.  They have stricken me (doth he say) and I was not sick, they have beaten me, and I felt it not; we are wont to censure that child for stubborn and graceless, that sheds no tears when he is whipped: It cannot be well with us, if we sorrow not; Blessed are they that mourn. But there are certain just conditions and cautions of our grief, which we cannot exceed or neglect, without offence both to God, and to ourselves. 
1. Caution of sorrow.   
Whereof the first shall be, that the cause of our sorrow be just: not fancied, not insufficient; For we have known some that have brewed their own grief, who with Simeon Stylites have voluntarily chained up themselves in their own pillar, when they might have enjoyed free scope of comfortable liberty. How many melancholic pieces have with mere imaginations made their lives miserable, and worn out their days in the bitterness of their soul; only out of those conceits which the bystanders have hooted at, as either impossible, or ridiculous? One thinks himself loathsomely deformed, another disgraced and infamous; a third dying or dead: One thinks himself transmuted into some beast: another possessed by some ill spirit. What form cannot this humour put on? I leave these kind of complainants to good counsel and Ellebore. Others there are, who have indeed real crosses, but far below their sorrow, passionately lamenting even small afflictions: so we have seen a child, when he hath taken a heedless and harmless fall, bewray his grief with loud crying, and in a foolish anguish knocking his head against that ground, which he accuseth for his miscarriage: Thus we find certain Armenians, 
Prateol. Elench. Haeres. V. Chazinzarii.  styled of old by the name of Chazinzarii, who kept a yearly fast, called Arzibur, in the sad memory of the dog of Sergius, their Martyr, (of that name) devoured by a wolf; which attendant of his, was wont to go before his Master, and by some dumb signs, call forth the disciples to their devotions: It was an affliction to Rachel that she had no children, 
Gen. 30.  but she had no reason so to be affected with it, as to say, Give me children, or else I die: jonah had cause to be sorry for the loss of his Gourd, but he had no reason to say, It is better for me to die then to live: These dispositions are like unto a new cart, which screaks, and cries, even whiles it hath no burden but his own wheels, whereas that which is long used, and well liquored, goes silently away with an heavy load.  

2. Caution of our sorrow.  Our second caution therefore must be, that even our just sorrow be moderate; for the quantity, not more then enough. 
Ambros. de obitu Satyri fiatris.  It was a rule of the Lycians (as St. Ambrose tells us) if a man would mourn above his stint, to put him into a woman's habit; 
1 Thes. 4.13.  we may mourn for the dead, but not as men without hope: David mourns, at lest enough, 
2 Sam. 12.21.  for his sick child, but when he perceives it once dead, he riseth up, and washeth, anointeth and refresheth himself, and changeth his apparel, and comes into the Lord's house to worship. Hath good Melaina lost her husband, 
Hieron. Epist.  and her children at once? her tears are just, but she dries them up at last with this resolution, that she shall now the more freely betake herself to her devotion. Have we lost our worldly goods? they had not been goods, if they were not worth our grief for their miscarriage; if, as our riches have wings, they be flown up to heaven, (being taken away by the same hand that gave them) it is good reason our sorrow should give way to our submission and obedience: and we should say with job, The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken, blessed be the name of the Lord. As then on the one side we may not so obdure ourselves, as to be like the Spartan boys, which would not so much as change a countenance at their beating; so on the other side, we may not be like to those Antics of stone, which we see carved out under the end of great beams in vast buildings, which seem to make wry and wrenched faces, as if they were hard put to it, with the weight, when as indeed they bear little or nothing.  
Our third Caution is, that the measure of this sorrow be proportioned, whether it be more or less, according to the cause of the sorrow; for it may be so moderate, as to be unproportionable. Grief for crosses should be small, and impassionate; grief for sin can hardly be too much: and as those crosses, and those sins differ in degree, so should the degrees of our sorrow; he therefore that grieves more for a cross, then for his sin; or grieves equally for a small cross and a greater, offends in the undue proportion of his sorrow: Shortly then, there is a worldly sorrow, and there is a spiritual; both which must know their just limits; right reason and true Philosophy teaches the one, the other Divinity.  
I have lost my goods; were they mine first? perhaps I was but their keeper, or bearer, not their owner; I see the groom that keeps the horse is not much troubled to flay him; what doth he lose but his labour in tending him? What was the mule in Plutarch, after his lying down in the water, troubled with the melting of that burden of salt, which he carried? or what pains is it to the silly ass, that the treasure which he bore is taken off, and laid up in his Master's chest?  
I see many sweeting in the mint upon several employments, they have money enough under their hands, what are they the richer? or do they grieve to see it carried away in full sacks from their fingering? My goods are lost; were they not only lent me for a time, till they should be called for? were they not delivered into my hands, only to be paid back upon account? if the owner require them at his day, what harm is done? so that my reckoning be even, how can I complain to be eased of a charge?  
I have lost my goods by shipwreck; It is well that myself have escaped; how have I heard and read of Philosophers, who have voluntarily cast their gold into the Sea; the winds have done that for me, which their hands did for themselves? perhaps that very wealth had been my undoing, which at least, can do no harm where it is; why did I trust such friends as wind and water, if I did not look to be disappointed?  
I have lost my goods by casualty of fire; even that casualty was not without a providence: He that sent that fire, meant to try me by it; he had not sent it, but that he knew there was dross of worldliness and corruption to be thus purged out of me: It is a worse flame that I have deserved; and if by this lesser and momentany fire, the mercy of God hath meant to prevent that greater, and everlasting, I have reason (as the Martyrs were wont) to embrace the flame.  
I have lost my goods by robbery, cozenage, oppression; I would be loath to be in his case that hath thus found them: Let him mourn that hath thus purchased a curse: for me, I have but forceably transferred my charge, where it will be woefully audited for. It is all one to me whether it be fire, or water, or fraud, or violence that hath robbed me; there is one and the same hand of God in all these events: let me kiss that hand which strikes me with these varieties of rods, and I shall say, It is good for me that I was afflicted.  
My friend, my wife, my child is dead; say rather they are departed: I can scarce allow it to be a death, where they decease well: prosectio est, 
Non mihi peri●, sed praei●, etc. Bern. Epist 270.  quam tu putas mortem, as Tertullian of old. It is a mere departure of those partners which must once meet, and from those friends which must soon follow and overtake us. Sorrow is so proper for a funeral that the Jews were wont to hire mourners, rather than they would want them: Even our blessed Saviour bestowed tears upon the Exequys of him, whom he meant presently to raise: it is not for us to be too niggardly of this warm dew; but those tears which are shed at the decease of good souls, should be like those drops of rain which fall in a Sunshine, mixed with rays of comfort. Let them put no stint to their sorrow who think there is no rest, no happiness after death: but for us, 
Nullas habeant lachrymarum ferias, nullam ●ristitiae requiem consequantur, qui nullam putant requiem, mortuorum. Nobis vero quibus mors non na●urae sed vitae istius sinis, etc. Amb. de obitu frat. Satyri.  who know death to be only the end of our life, not of our being; yea rather the change of a better life for worse; we have reason to dry up our tears, and in some sort to imitate the pattern of those nations, which were wont to mourn at the birth of their children, and rejoice and feast at their death: a practice, which in part was taken up by the Jews themselves, 
Monumentarii Ceraulae. Apul. Mat. 9.23. Eccl. 7.1.  who with their mourners mixed also musicians in their Funeral banquets, and countenanced by great and wise Solomon, The day of death is better then ones birth day.  
Shortly then, I have parted with a good child, but to a better Father, to a more glorious patrimony: whether now is the child's gain, or the Father's loss greater? and what can it be but self-love that makes me more sensible of my own loss, 
Aut absorbendus, aut premendus omnis dolour. Ambros. ut supra.  than my child's glory? It is my weakness therefore, if I do not either swallow, or stifle my sorrow.  
I have lost my health and am seized with sickness and pain: This, this, next to death is the King of sorrows; all earthly crosses veil to it, and confess themselves trifles in comparison: 
Suidas.  what ease can I now find in good words more than Callicon found to his head in that chaff, wherewith he stuffed his earthen pitcher, which he made his pillow? while the thorn is rankling in my foot, what ease can I find in a poultesse? Know, O weak man, there is that in a Christian heart which is a more than sufficient cordial against sickness, pains, death, and that can triumph over the worst extremities. This is the victory, which overcomes a world (of miseries) even our faith. 
Rom. 5.3.  Not so only (saith the chosen vessel) but we glory or rejoice in tribulations: For, lo, our faith is it which puts true constructions upon our pains. Health itself would not be welcome to us, if we did not know it good; and if we could be persuaded that sickness were good, or better for us, why should not that be equally welcome? It was a good speech of that Hermit, who when he heard a man praying vehemently for the removal of his disease, said, (Fili, rem tibi necessariam abjicere audes?) Alas, son, you go about to be rid of a necessary commodity. The Christian heart knows it is in the hands of him who could as easily avert evil, as send it; and whose love is no less, than his power; and therefore resolves, he could not suffer, if not for the better. The parent is indulgent to his child, were his love well improved; if he would not suffer his son to be let blood in a pleurisy, whiles the Physician knows he dies if he bleed not? An ignorant peasant hath digged up a lump of precious Ore, 
Aug. in Psal. 83. Torcul●ria paran●ur avis, & olivis, nec ●va vinum, etc.  do we not smile at him, if he be unwilling the finer should put it into the fire? The press is prepared for the grapes and Olives, and (as Austin well) neither of them will yield their comfortable and wholesome juice without an hard straining; would not that fond Manichee make himself ridiculous, that should forbid to gather, much more to wring them? Shortly then, am I visited with sickness? it is not for me (like a man that is overloaded with too heavy a burden) to make ill faces; but to stir up my Christian resolution, and to possess my soul in patience, as well knowing that the vessel that would be fit for God's cupboard, must be hammered with many strokes; the corn for God's table must pass under the sickle, the flail, the mill; the spices for God's perfume must be bruised and beaten.  
In ●umme; worldly crosses cannot affect us with too deep sorrow, if we have the grace and leisure to turn them round, and view them on all sides; for if we find their face sour, and grisly, their back is comely and beautiful: No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, 
Heb. 12.11  but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby: wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees.   

§. XIII. Of spiritual sorrow and the moderation thereof.  
NOt so rise, but more painful is the spiritual sorrow, whether for the sense of sins, or the want of grace. 
2 Cor. 7.10  This is that which the Apostle styles (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) a godly sorrow, working repentance to salvation, not to be repent of: the tears whereof, the Almighty puts up in his bottle, and keeps them for most precious, it is seldom when this grief exceeds; too many are so afraid of enough, that they are willing to learn of their confessors, 
Fr● a Vict. Relect.  that a mere velleity of sorrow is sufficient to true repentance: But give me not an attrition, but a contrition of heart; give me a drooping head, red eyes, blubbered cheeks, a macerated body met with a pensive soul, give me sackcloth and ashes, fastings, watchings, prostrations, ejulations, when I have offended my God; and let me be let loose to my free sorrow: 
Zech. 12.10.  Let me be in bitterness (as Zechariah expresses it) as one that is in bitterness for his only son. Not, but that it is possible to drink too deep of this bitter cup: We have known those, who have pined themselves away, in a continual heaviness, refusing all possible means of comfort, out of a sense of their sins, whose whole life hath been like a gloomy winter's day, all overcast with clouds, without the least glimpse of a Sun shine; we have seen them that have thus lived and died disconsolate, raving, despairing: Experience makes this so true, that we may well conclude, that even the best spiritual sorrow must be moderated, the worst shunned; every sorrow for sin is not good: there is a sorrow that looks at the punishment through the sin, not regarding the offence; but the smart of evil; this would not care for the frown of God, if he would not strike, as that which indeed fears not God; but hell; as that which apprehends only lashes and torment's: this is incident even to devils, and damned souls; all which cannot but naturally abhor pain and torture: What malefactor was ever in the world, that was not troubled to think of his execution? There is a sorrow that looks not at the punishment, but the sin, regarding, not so much the deserved smart, as the offence; that is more troubled with a Father's frown, then with the whip in a stranger's hand; with the desertions of God, then with the fear of an hell: Under this sorrow, and sometimes perhaps under the mixture of both, doth God suffer his dearest ones to dwell for a time, numbering all their tears, and sighs, recording all their knocks on their breasts, and strokes on their thighs, and shake of their heads, and taking pleasure to view their profitable, and at last happy self-conflicts.  
It is said of Anthony the holy Hermit, that having been once in his desert, beaten and buffeted by Devils, he cried out to his Saviour (O bone jesu ubi eras?) O good jesus where wert thou, whil●s I was thus handled? and received answer, juxta te, sed expectavi certamen tuum: I was by thee, but stayed to see how thou wouldst behave thyself in the combat. Surely, so doth our good God to all his: 
Exod. 3.7.  he passeth a (videndo vidi) upon all their sorrows, 
1 Cor. 10.13.  and will at last give an happy issue with the temptation; In the mean time it cannot but concern us, to temper this mixed sorrow of ours with a meet moderation: Hear this than thou drooping soul, thou are dismayed with the heinousness of thy sins, and the sense of God's anger for them; dost thou know with whom thou hast to do? 
Exod. 34.6, 7.  hast thou heard him proclaim his own style? The Lord, the Lord, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquities and transgressions, and sins; and canst thou distrust that infinite goodness? Lo, if there were no mercy in heaven, thou couldst not be otherwise affected; Look up and see that glorious light that shines about thee; 
Ps. 130.7.  With the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And is there plenteous redemption for all, and none for thee? Because thou hast wronged God in his justice, wilt thou more wrong him in his mercy? and because thou hast wronged him in both, wilt thou wrong thyself in him? Know, O thou weak man, 
Ps. 36.5.  in what hands thou art. He that said, Thy mercy O Lord is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds; said also, 
Ps. 108.4.  Thy mercy is great above the heavens, and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds. It is a sure comfort to thee, that he cannot fail in his faithfulness and truth; thou art upon earth, and these reach above thee, to the clouds, but if thy sins could be so great and high, as to overlook the clouds, yet his mercy is beyond them, for it reacheth unto heaven; and if they could in an hellish presumption reach so high as heaven, yet his mercy is great above the heavens; higher than this they cannot. If now thy heinous sins could sink thee to the bottom of hell, yet that mercy which is above the heavens, can fetch thee up again: Thou art a grievous sinner; we know one that said he was the chief of sinners, who is now one of the prime Saints in heaven: Look upon those whom thou must confess worse than thyself: Cast back thine eyes but upon Manasseh, 
2 King. 21.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9.11, 16.  the lewd son of an holy Parent; See him rearing up Altars to Baal, worshipping all the host of heaven, building Altars for his new Gods, in the very courts of the house of the Lord▪ causing his sons to pass through the fire, trading with witches, and wicked spirits, seducing God's people to more than Amoritish wickedness, filling the streets of Jerusalem with innocent blood: say if thy sin can be thus crimson; yet, behold this man a no less famous example of mercy then wickedness: And what? 
Psal. 77.  
7  is the hand of God shortened that he cannot now save? Or, 
8  hath the Lord cast off for ever? 
9  and will he be favourable no more? 
10  Is his mercy clean gone for ever? 
11  hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? O man, say justly, on: This is mine infirmity; thine infirmity sure enough; and take heed, if thou persist to distrust, that it be not worse: These misprisons of God are dangerous; The honour of his mercy is justly dear to him; no marvel if he cannot endure it to be questioned; when the temptation is blown over, hear what the same tongue says, 
Ps. 103.8, 9, 10, 11.  The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever: He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us after our iniquities: For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that fear him. Oh then, lay hold on the large, and illimited mercy of thy God, and thou art safe: What cares the debtor for the length of a bill that is crossed? what cares the condemned person for the sentence of death, whiles he hath his pardon sealed in his bosom? Thou art an heinous sinner: Wherefore came thy Saviour? wherefore suffered he? If thy sin remain, wherefore serves his blood? If thy debt be still called for, wherefore was thine obligation canceled? If thou be still captive to sin and death, wherefore was that dear ransom paid? why did he stretch forth his blessed hands upon the cross, but to receive thee? why did he bow down his head but to invite thee? why was his precious side opened, but that he might take thee into his heart? Thou despisest him, if thou trustest him not; judas and thou shall sin more in despairing, then in betraying him. Oh then, gather heart to thyself, from the merits, from the mercies of thine All-sufficient Redeemer, against all thy sinfulness: For, who is it that shall be once thy Judge? before what Tribunal shalt thou appear, to receive thy sentence? Is it not thy Saviour that sits there? He that died for thee, that he might rescue thee from death; shall he, can he doom thee to that death from which he came to save thee? Comfort thyself then with these words, and if thou wouldst keep thy soul in an equal temper, as thou hast two eyes, fix the one of them upon God's justice to keep thee low and humble, and to quit thee from presumption: fix the other upon his transcendent mercy, to keep thee from the depth of sorrow and desperation.   

§. XIV. Of the moderation of the Passion of Fear.  
SOrrow is for present and felt evils; Fear is only of evils future: A passion so afflictive, that even the expectation of a doubtful mischief that may come, is more grievous to us sometimes, than the sense of that mischief, when it is come. 
Anth. Torquemade 3. journee. Sim. Gou●art hist. memorab.  That which Torquemade reports of a Spanish Lord in his knowledge, I could second with examples at home, of some, who have been thought otherwise valiant, yet, if they had been but locked up in a chamber, would either break the doors, or offer to leap out of the windows; yet not knowing of any danger imminent: And if in an imaginary, or possible evil, fear have these effects, what shall we expect from it in those which are real and certain? It is marvellous, and scarce credible, which both histories and eyes can witness in this kind; james Osorius, a young Gentleman of Spain, born of a noble Family, one of the Courtiers of Charles the fifth, being upon occasion of a wicked design of lust to an honourable Lady, imprisoned, with an intent of his execution the next day, was suddenly so changed with the fear of the arrest of death, that in the morning when he was brought forth, none of the beholders knew him; his hair was turned so white, as if he had been fourscore years old: upon sight whereof, the Emperor pardoned him, as having been enough punished with the fear of that which he should have suffered. 
Levin. Lemnius de Miraculiox  Levinus Lemnius a late Philosopher (in whom my younger age took much delight) recounts the story, and discourses probably upon the natural reasons of this alteration. The like report is made by julius Scaliger, of a Kinsman of Franciscus Gonzaga, 
Citat. 2 Simone Goulart. Hist●ire Memorab.  in his time imprisoned upon suspicion of treason, who with the fear of torture and death, was in one night's space thus changed. And Coelius Rodiginus tells us of a Falconer, who climbing up to a rocky hill for an hawks nest, was with the breaking of a rope (wherewith he was raised) so affrighted, that instantly his hair turned. What need we more instances? Myself have seen one, to whom the same accident was said to have befallen, though now the colour were (upon the fall of that weak fleece) altered. What speak we of this? Death itself hath followed sometimes, upon this very fear of death; so as some have died lest they should die. Montague gives us an instance of a Gentleman, at the siege of S. Paul, who fell down stark dead, in the breach, without any touch of stroke, save what his own heart gave him: Yea, how have we known some, that have died out of the fear of that, whereof they might have died; and yet have escaped? A passenger rideth by night over the narrow plank of an high and broken bridge, and in the morning dies to see the horror of that fall he might have had. There is no evil whether true or fancied, but may be the subject of fear: There may be a Pisander so timorous, 
Suid.  that he is afraid to see his own breath: 
Florilegus An. 1589.  and our Florilegus tells us of a Lewes King of France, so afraid of the sea, that he said it was more than an humane matter to cross the water; and durst not pass betwixt Dover and Whitsands, till he had implored the aid of St. Thomas of Canterbury: but all these fears have a relation to that utmost of all terribles; and if other evils, as displeasure, shame, pain, danger, sickness, be the usual subjects of fear also, yet Death is the King of fear: I am of the mind of Lucretius therefore, 
Lucret. Inprimis timor est Acheron●is agendus, Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo.  although to a better purpose, that if a man would see better days, he must free his heart from that slavish fear of death, wherewith it is commonly molested. In what a miserable servitude are those men, 
Ea gensita mortem horret, ut ad thuris odorem efferentur, quòd in▪ funeribus solet accendi. Erasm. Epist. Grunnio.  whereof Erasmus speaketh to his Grunnius, who so abhor the thought of death, that they cannot abide the smell of Frankincense, because it is wont to be used at funerals? They who are ready to swoon at the sight of a coffin; and (if they could otherwise choose) could be content not to lie in a sheet, because it recalls the thought of that, wherein they shall be once wrapped? It concerns a wise man to obdure himself against these weak fears, and to resolve to meet Death boldly, in the teeth: Nothing is more remarkable in all the passages of our blessed Saviour, then that which S. Luke records of him, 
Luk. 9.51.  that when he was to go up (his last) to Jerusalem, where he must die, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) he steadfastly set his face to that fatal journey: The word implies a resolution of courage against some evil to be conflicted with. Maldonate would have the Metaphor fetched from the custom of Bulls, who when they must fight, are wont to fetch up a kind of sprightly terror into their countenance; 
Vultum corrugan●es obfirmant. Mald. in loc.  at least, it imports a firm purpose of an undaunted spirit to grapple with some fore-expected evil: thus must we learn to do against our last enemy.  
Tell me then, thou weak man, thou fearest death: will it not come if thou fear it not? will it come the later for thy fear? Is not thy life thus made miserable before it come?  
Is not this the condition, upon which thou receivedst life, to part with it when it should be called for? art thou discontent at thy being? dost thou murmur that thou art a man, because therein thou art mortal? Doth any thing befall thee different from the best, and all of thy kind? Look back upon all that have been before thee, where are those innumerable numbers of men which peopled the earth but in the last century of years? see whether the great monarchs of the world speed any otherwise: & couldst thou expect less, upon the many and sensible warnings of thy mortality? what language have thy sicknesses, and decays of nature spoken to thee, but this (of a true harbingers) Death is coming? And how well shouldst thou be pleased with his approach? Say that thou were sentenced to live some hundreds of years, with thine infirmities to boot, what a burden wouldst thou be to thyself? how more discontented wouldst thou be that thou mightst not die? why art thou not as well displeased that thou must be old? And when wouldst thou part that thou mightst avoid it? Thou fearest death; How many heathens have undergone it with courage? Shall I see a bold Roman spurring his horse, to leap down into a dreadful Gulf, for the benefit of those from whom he cannot receive thanks? Shall I see a Cleombrotus, casting himself resolutely from the rock, to enjoy that separate life of the soul which Plato discoursed of? Shall I hear a Canius (of whom Seneca speaks) jeering his tyrant, and his death together, and more regarding the victory of his game, than the loss of his life? shall I hear of some Indian wives, that affect and glory to cast themselves into the fire with the carcases of their dead husbands? shall I see Turks filling up ditches with their wilfully-slaughtered bodies, for the fruition of their brutish paradise; And shall I be cowardly, where Pagans are valiant?  
Yea, how many have I known that have eagely sought for death and cannot find it? how many, who upon frivolous occasions by self-dispatches have cast away that life, which they could not otherwise be rid of? what conceit soever I have of the price of life, their undervaluation of it hath been such, that they have parted with it for nothing; they have run to meet that death, which I fly from, as formidable and ugly?  
Thou fearest death: Look upon the examples of those holy men, who have tendered themselves to the painfullest martyrdom; see Ignatius resolving to challenge the Lions; see the tender virgins, daring the worst cruelty of Tyrants, and embracing death in his worst forms; see silly Mothers, in an ambition of a crown of life, running with their children in their arms, to overtake death; see those resolute Saints that might have been loosed from their wheels, and racks, with proffers of life and honour, and scorned the exchange? Do I profess their faith, do I look for their glory, and shall I partake nothing of their courage?  
Thou art afraid of death: what a slaughter dost thou make every hour of all other creatures? what meal passeth thee, wherein some of them do not bleed for thee? yea, not for need, not for use, but for sport, for pleasure, dost thou kill them daily, without pity, without scruple: Alas, we made them not, they are our fellows; he that made us, made them too: How much are we less to God, than they are to us? Do we see so many thousands of them then die for us, and shall we think much to return our life to our Creator?  
Thou art afraid of death: Thou mistakest him; thou thinkest him an enemy, he is a friend; If his visage be sour, and hard, he is no other than the grim porter of Pararadise, which shall let thee into glory: Like unto Peter's good Angel, he may smite thee on the side, but he shall lead thee out of thy prison, through the Iron gates into the City of God. Were there an absolute perition in our dissolution, we could not fear it too much; now that it doth but part us a while for our advantage, what do we fear but our gain? The stalk and ear arises from the grain, but it must rot first: Oh our foolishness, if we be unwilling that one grain should putrify for the increase of an hundred!  
Thou art afraid of death: Hast thou well considered from how many evils it acquits thee? All the tumults of State, all the bloody cruelties of war, all the vexations of unquiet neighbours, all secret discontentments of mind, all the tormenting pains of body are hereby eased at once; thou shalt no more complain of; racking convulsions, of thy wring colicks, of the dreadful quarry that is within thy reins, and bladder, of thy belching gouts, of thy scalding fevers, of thy galling ulcers, of the threats of thine Imposthumes, the stops of thy strangury, the giddiness of thy vertigo, or any other of those kill diseases, wherewith thy life was wont to be infested: here is a full Supersedea● for them all; what reason hast thou to be afraid of ease?  
Lastly, thou fearest death; Is it not that thy Saviour underwent for thee? did thy blessed redeemer drink of this cup, and art thou no willing to pledge him? His was a bitter one in respect of thine; for it was besides, spieed with the wrath of his Father due to our sins; yet he drank it up to the very dregs for thee, and wilt thou shrink at an ordinary drought from his hand? And why did he yield to death, but to overcome him? Why was death suffered to seize upon that Lord of life, but that by dying he might pull out the sting of death? 
1 Cor. 15.56.  The sting of death is sin; So then, death hath lost his sting, now thou mayest carry it in thy bosom; it may cool thee, it cannot hurt thee. Temper then thy fear with these thoughts; and that thou mayest not be too much troubled with the sight of death, acquaint thyself with him beforehand; present him to thy thoughts, entertain him in thy holy and resolute discourses: It was good counsel that Bernard gave to his novice, that he should put himself (for his meditations) into the place where the dead body● were wont to be wash●, and to settle himself upon the bear, whereon they were wont to be carried forth: so feeling and frequent remembrances could not but make death familiar; and who can startle at the sight of a familiar acquaintance? at a stranger we do; especially if he come upon us on a sudden; but if he be a daily and entire guest, he is at all hours welcome, without our dismay, or trouble.   

§. XV. Of the moderation of the passion of anger.  
OF all the passions that are incident to a man, there is none so impetuous, or that produceth so terrible effects, as anger; for besides that intrinsical mischief, which it works upon a man's own heart, (in regard whereof Hugo said well, Pride robs me of God, envy of my neighbour, anger of myself) what bloody Tragedies doth this passion act every day in the world, making the whole earth nothing but either an Amphitheatre for fights, or a shambles for slaughter? so much the more need is there, of an effectual moderation of so turbulent an affection: Our school hath wont to distinguish it; there is a zealous anger, 
Ira per zelum, Ira per vicium.  and there is a vicious: The great Doctor of the Gentiles, when he says, Be angry, and sin not, 
Eph. 4.26.  shows there may be a sinless anger; He that knew no sin was not free from this passion, when he whipped the money-changers (twice) out of the Temple: Surely, if we be not thus angry, we shall sin. If a man can be so cool, as without any inward commotion to suffer God's honour to be trod in the dust, he shall find God justly angry with him for his want of anger. I know not whether it were a praise that was given to Theodosius, 
Socrat. l. 7. c. 22.  that never any man saw him angry; so as it may fall, an immunity from anger can be no other than a dull stupidity: Moses was a meek man, as any upon earth; yet, was he not angry when he smote the Egyptian? was he not angry, when upon the sight of Israel's Idolatry, he threw down and broke the Tables of God, which he had in his hand?  
There is so little need of quenching this holy fire, that there is more need of a bellows to blow it up, that it might flame up to that perfect height, of the Psalmist, 
Psal. 119.139.  My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words: Oh the truly heavenly fire that burned in that sacred bosom! he doth not say, my zeal hath warmed me, but hath consumed me; as if it were his highest perfection to be thus sacrificed and burnt to ashes; neither doth he say, because my friends have forgotten thy words, but, Because my enemies: Every man can be troubled with a friends miscarriage, but to be so deeply affected for an enemy, must needs be transcendently gracious. It is the vicious anger we must oppose in ourselves: In itself that passion is neither good nor evil: it is either, as it is used: Like as we are wont to say of the planet Mercury, that the influences are either good or evil, according to his conjunction with stars of either operation; our anger then proves vicious, when it offends, either in the cause, or the quantity; when the cause is unjust, or the quantity excessive: The cause is unjust, when we are angry with a man for a thing that is good, for an indifferent thing, for a thing that is trivial: Kain is angry, because his brother's sacrifice is accepted; Pharaoh was angry with Israel, because they would be devout, and go serve God in the wilderness: when the man of God reproves jeroboam and his Altar, he in a rage stretches forth his hand for a revenge; 
Jer. 36.23.  jehoiakim when he hears some lines of Ieremia●s scroll, cuts it with a penknife and casts it into the fire in a fury; and Ahab professes to hate Michaiah because he never prophesied good to him; whiles he should have hated himself, that would not deserve any news but evil: So that Tyrant Cambyses, because Praxaspes reproved him for his drunkenness, shoots his son to the heart, and says, 
Herod. Seneca.  See what a steady hand I have when I am drunk! this we feel every day; Let a man never so discreetly reprove a swearer, or drunkard, or unclean person, or any other enormous sinner, he strait flies out into a raging anger, and verifies the old word, veritas odium: Am I become your enemy, 
Gal. 4.16.  because I told you the truth? saith S. Paul to the Galathians: It may be possible (which wise Solomon observes) that he who rebukes a man, afterwards, may find more favour, than he that flattereth: but in the mean time whiles the blood is up, that anger which a man should turn inward upon himself for his sin, he spends outwardly upon his reprover: To be angry for good, is devilish; to be angry for that which is neither good nor evil, or that which is sleight and frivolous, is idle and absurd: for whereas anger is a kindling of the blood about the heart, how unfit is it that it should be set on fire with every straw? and wherefore serves our reason, if not to discern of those objects, wherewith it is, or is not, meet for us to be affected? Thus the Jewish Doctors tell us, that Pharaoh was angry with his baker and butler, for no other cause, but for that there was a fly in his cup, and a little grain of gravel in his bread: It is our Saviour's word upon the Mount, 
Mat. 5.22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  He that is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgement: the well governed heart must be like a strong oak, which is not moved but with a blustering wind; not like an aspen leaf, that shakes with the least stirring of the air. Now, even where the cause is just, yet the quantity may offend: And the quantity shall offend, if it be either too long, or too vehement. 
●lum● cas i●as g●runt. Plaut.  Those leaden angers can never be but sinful, which lie heavy, and go slowly away. What shall be done to thee, thou false tongue? 
Ps. 120.3, 4  saith the Psalmist: even sharp arrows of the mighty, with codes of juniper: And why of Juniper? S. Jerome tells us, that of all wood, that keeps fire the longest; in so much that the coals raked up in ashes, will (as he saith) hold fire for a whole year: those therefore which were formerly turned (carbones desolatorii) are now translated justly, coals of juniper. It must be only a lying, false, slanderous tongue that is a fit subject for coals of Juniper; even the same that is no less fit for the fire of hell: what should these Juniper fires do in Christian hearts, against offending brethren? I find in Suidas, certain fishes that are called (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) which carry their collar in their heads: such should Christians be, not letting it settle in their hearts, but venting it at their tongues. The charge of the Apostle is, that we should not let the Sun go down upon our anger; much less may we let it rise again: nightly anger is like the Serene in other countries, unwholesome, if not deadly; but to year and day our wrath, is more than brutish, and partakes too much of him that is a manslayer from the beginning.  
And as our anger may not be too long, so not too intense, & vehement, whiles it lasts: it is not for a Christians wrath to be like the Dog-star, which when it rises, scorches the earth, and burns up the fruits; or like a Comet, that still portends war and death: but rather, like unto one of those gliding stars, that we see in a winter's night, which, as it is, blazes not long, and hurts nothing, so ends in a cool, and not unwholesome moisture. Our anger therefore must be tempered with mercy, and charity, otherwise, it is like to a fire under an empty kettle, which burns the vessel to no purpose: 
Prov. 27.4.  Such wrath is cruel, such anger outrageous. Now, for the moderation of this dangerous passion, it is not for me to prescribe Athenodorus his Alphabet, that remedy is so poor, that the very prescription is enough to move anger; rather let me commend that of Bernard's, Consideration; and that not so much when we are once provoked, for that is too late; and the assaults of this passion are too sudden: but as wise Princes are wont in the midst of peace, to provide for war; so must we in the calmest state of our minds, prepare against this inward turbulence.  
Art thou therefore subject to choler? Look upon that passion with sober eyes; see whether it be any other but a short fit of madness: Look upon the person of a man thus transported, see his eyes red, glaring, sparkling; his cheeks now pale as ashes, then fiery and swollen up as with a poison; his head and hands shaking, his lips quivering, his mouth foaming, his tongue doubling, his feet unconstantly shifting, and the whole man (which Hypocrates notes as the effect of a most desperate disease) become utterly unlike himself: See in another, how well this form doth become thyself; Look upon thyself, be sensible of thine own distemper, thou shalt find anger justly fetched from angor, vexation: thou shalt find it (it is Augustine's comparison) like to vinegar, which discolours the vessel it stands in; thou shalt find thou canst not take up a coal to throw at another, but thou shalt burn thy own fingers; thou shalt find that, while thou stingest others, thou shalt make a drone of thyself; and that of Solomon shall be verified of thee, Anger resteth in the bosom of fools. 
Eccles. 7 9   
Look to the effects of it, thou shalt find it utterly disables thee from good; 
Jam. 1.20.  The wrath of man do●h not work the righteousness of God, as St. james: Thou shalt find it exposes thee to all mischief; 
Prov. 25.28.  for he that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a City that is broken down, and without walls, saith Solomon. What enemy may not rush into such a City at pleasure? Just such advantage doth thine anger give to thy spiritual enemies; and therefore St. Paul, 
Eph. 5.26.  when he charges us not to suffer the Sun to go down upon our anger; adds, Give no place to the Devil; as if this continuing passion did open the gates of the heart, for Satan's entrance and free possession.  
Thou shalt find this the great makebate of the world, the beginner of all quarrels; 
Pr. 30.33.  For as the churning of the milk bringeth forth butter, and the wring of the nose bringeth forth blood, so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife, saith wise Solomon. Wrath then brings forth quarrels, and quarrels bloodshed, manslaughter, murders: What is it that hath so drowned Christendom in blood, but the anger of discordant Princes? what but this is guilty of so many brutish duels, so many bloody massacres? And where thine anger shall stay when it is once broke loose, it is not in thy power to determine; I am sure if it stays not the sooner, 
Gen. 49.7.  it ends in a curse. Cursed be their anger for it was fierce, and their wrath for it was cruel.  
Look but upon the the temper of well governed Heathens, and be ashamed to hear an Archtyas say to his Bailie, I had punished thee if I had not been angry; or that Philosopher say to Xenocrates, whip this boy, for I am angry: or to see a greater Philosopher than he, who when he had discoursed against anger, and showed how unfit the passion is for a wise man; one of his auditors purposely spit in his face, from whom he received no other answer, but this, I am not angry, but I doubt whether I should not be so: or to see a Pisistratus not more troubled with railing words of an adversary, then if an hoodwinked man had reeled upon him heedlessly in his way: or to hear a Socrates profess himself no more affected with the scolding of his Xantippe, then with the creaking of a Cart▪ wheel; and when he was uncivilly washed from her chamber, to say only, After such thunder, I looked for rain: or to hear a Cato say, that he could and did pardon all offenders but himself: and when Lentulus spat in his face, to hear no other language fall from him, then, I will now say those men are deceived, that deny Lentulus to have a mouth: or to hear a Cleanthes, when one called him ass, to say only, he should be then fit to carry Zenoes' budget: or to see a Crates, when Nicodromus struck him with his fist, only to put a board before his forehead with a jeering inscription. It were easy to weary a reader with instances of this kind: And shall mere Pagans that were without God in the world, have such rule over their passions, and shall a Christian, who professeth a more divine philosophy, and whose first lesson is to deny himself, & to mortify all evil and corrupt affections, give the reins to the wild and unruly eruptions of his rage? how shall these heathens in profession, justly condemn us professed Christians, who are in practice heathenish?  
Lastly, look but upon the terms wherein thou standest with God; how grievously dost thou provoke him every day to his face? one of thy offences against that infinite Majesty, is more than thou canst be capable to receive from all thine enemies upon earth: yet, how silently doth he pass over all thy heinous affronts, and bids his sun to shine, and his rain to fall, as well upon thy ground, as the holiest owners? how graciously doth he still invite thee to repentance? how sweetly doth he labour to win thee with new mercies? and dost thou call thyself the son of that Father, whom thou wilt not imitate? Dost thou pray daily to him to forgive thee, as thou forgivest others, whiles thou resolvest to forgive none, whom thou canst plague with revenge? Look upon thy dear Redeemer, and hear him, whiles his cruel executioners were racking out his hands and feet, and nailing them to the tree of shame and curse, crying, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do; and canst thou give thyself out for a disciple to this Saviour, if for every offence of thy brother, thou break forth into raging imprecations, railing speeches, furious actions? Lay all these seriously to thy heart in the midst of thy greatest tranquillity, and have them ready before thine eyes, for the next onset of thy passion; and withal, ply thy God with thy prayers, that he who moulded thy heart at first, would be pleased to temper it aright; to cool these sinful inflammations by the power of his grace, 
Ps. 76.10.  that so he may make good in thee that happy word of the Psalmist; Surely, the wrath of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. Amen.  
FINIS.    

The second Book. Of Moderation in matter of judgement.  

§. I. Of the danger of immoderation in matter of judgement, and of the remedy in general.  
AS it would be an hard competition betwixt intellectual errors, and practical, whether are the more heinous; so would it be no less difficult to determine, whether moderation in matter of judgement, or of practice be more necessary; and whethers neglect be more dangerous; For surely, if the want of moderation in practice do most distract every man in his own particular, the want of moderation in judgement distracts the whole world from itself; whence it is, that we find so miserable divisions all the earth over; but especially, so woeful schisms and breaches in the Christian world; wherein we see one Nation is thus divided from another, 
●●ta cs● ut dic: solet differentia i●ter artifices, sicut inter Incologices doctores. G●●. de propos. ab Ep. hae r●t●candis.  and each one nation no less divided from itself. For it cannot be, since every man hath a mind of his own not less different from others, than his face, that all should jump in the same opinion; neither can it stand with that natural self-love, wherewith every one is possessed, easily to forsake the child of his own brain, and to prefer another man's conceit to his own; hereupon, therefore, it comes to pass, that whiles each man is engaged to that opinion, which either his own election, or his education hath feoffed him in, new quarrels arise, and controversies are infinitely multiplied; to the great prejudice of God's truth, 
Dispendio litis carcre non mediocre est lucrum. Amb. de Offic. l. 2. c. 21.  and to the lamentable violation of the common peace; would to God we could as well redress, as bewail this misery, wherewith Christendom is universally infested; howsoever it shall not be utterly thankless to endeavour it; The remedy must go in the same pace with the disease; Whereas therefore there are two things which are guilty of this mischief, Error in doctrine, and Distemper in affection; the former I must leave to the conviction of those polemical discourses, which have been so learnedly written of the several points of difference, as, I suppose, no humane wit or industry can give any further addition thereto; Only I shall touch some such general symptoms, as are commonly incident into these controversies of religion; My main drift is to dwell upon the latter; and to labour the reducing of men's to a wise and Christian Moderation concerning differences in judgement.   

§. II. Lukewarmenesse to be avoided in Religion.  
Fare be it from us to allow lukewarmeness in the matters of God; a disposition, which the Almighty professeth so much to hate, that he could rather be content the Angel of the Church of Laodicea should be quite cold, then in such a mambling of profession; And indeed, what temper is so offensive to the stomach as this mean? fit only for a medicinal potion (whose end is ejection) not for nourishment; Those, whose devotion is only fashionable, shall in vain hope to be accepted; It is a true word of Saint Austen, 
Non amat qu● no● Zelat Aug. contr. Adimant. c. 13.  There is no love where there is no zeal; and what cares God for heartless followers, that are led only by example and form? such there are, that yawn not out of any inward cause, but because they see others gape before them; As they say in the Abassine Churches, 
S. Por. prolegom. to the ●frian hi●t. Gerard. her. p. 1558.  if one man neese, all the rest do, and must follow. Men like unto moss, which takes still the property of the bark, it grows upon; if upon the Oak, it cools and binds, if upon the Pine and Fir, it digests and softens; or like unto the Herborists Dodder, which is no simple in itself, but takes both his name, and temper from the herb out of which it arises; if out of Time, it is Epithimium: if out of the Nettle, it is Epiurtîca; That great Lawgiver of old would have a punishment for neuters; and well are they worthy, when the division is main and essential; such men are merely for themselves, which have the truth of God in respect of persons; not caring so much what is professed as by whom; Suidas tells us of Musonius, so well reputed of; 
Suid. verbo Musonius.  that no further question was made of any man, if it appeared he was Musonius his friend; too many affect no other worth in themselves, than a dependence upon others, holding it enough that they are the clients of this famous Doctor, of that great Saint: such men like as we have heard of some Apothecaryes', which only by taking the vapour of some drug in the stamping of it, have been wrought upon, hold it sufficient for them to have received in, the very air, and empty titles of disciples, without respect to the grounds, and substance of the Doctrine.  
The rule which the blessed Apostle gave for our settlement in some cases is wont by a common misconstruction to be so expressed, as if it gave way to a loose indifferency; 
Rom. 14.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  The vulgar reads it, Let every one abound in his own sense, as leaving each man to his own liberty, in those things of middle nature; whereas his words, in their original, run contrary; Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind; requiring a plerophory of assurance, and not allowing an unsettled hesitation in what we do; and if thus, in matters of the least importance, how much more in the great affairs of Religion? 
Gal. 4.18.  Here it holds well (which is the charge of the Apostle) It is good to be zealously affected in a good thing always▪ Nothing is more easy to observe, then that, as ●t uses to be with stuffs, that in their first making, they are strongly wrought, afterwards, in process of time they grow to be slight, both in matter and work, so it falls out in religious professions; In the first breaking out of a reformation, there appears much heat and forwardness, which in time abates, and cooleth, so as the professor grows to the temper of our Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, whom Pope urban of old, greets in the style of a fervent Monkea, 
Girald. Cambrens. Itinerar.  warm Abbot, a luke warm Bishop, a Key-cold Archbishop, or like unto those kites, of whom our writers say, 
Thaum●turg. nat. c. 2●.  that in their first years they dare prey upon greater Fowls, 
Melanct. postil. de baptist. Christi, Metuendum est etiam in postrema mundi aetate magis hunc errorem grassaturum esse, quòd aut nihil sint religiones, aut differant tantum vocabulis etc.  afterwards they seize upon lesser birds, and the third year fall upon flies. Whence it is that Melancthon could fore-guesse, that the time should come wherein men should be tainted with this error, that either religion is a matter of nothing, or that the differences in religions are merely verbal; far be it from us thus to degenerate from our holy Ancestors, whose zeal made them true Holocausts to God, and sent up their souls in the smoke of that their acceptable sacrifice, into heaven, that, those truths which they held worthy bleeding for, we should slight as not worth pleading for. 
Spalat. part. 3●.  We cannot easily forgive that wrong which our late SPALATENSIS did to our freshbleeding martyrs, whom even before by revolt, he blamed of lavishness, as if they might well have spared that expense of blood; although we may well suppose he redeemed his error by dying, for the same truths, for which they fried alive, as he dead, We know what Saint BASILL answered to that great man, who would have persuaded him to let fall his holy quarrel: Those saith he, that are trained up in the Scriptures, 
Qui divinis innutriti sunt eloquiis etc.  will rather die then abate a syllable of Divine Truth. It is said of VALENTINIAN, 
Suid. v. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  that when the rude SCYTHIANS made ●n incursion into the territories of the Roman Empire, he, so ore-strayned his Lungs, in calling upon his troops, that he presently died; so vehement must we be, when any main thing is in Question, neither voice nor life must be spared, in the cause of the Almighty. The gloss that is put upon the act of Innocent, the 4. in the Council of LIONS, 
Bin. in vita Innocentii.  who graced the Dignity of Cardinall-Shippe with a red Hat, is that it was done with an intention (as MARTINUS POLONUS construes it) to signify they should be ready to shed their blood for Christ, and his Gospel, might well fit every Christian, perhaps somewhat better, than those delicate mates of Princes; whom should we imitate, but him, whose name we bear, 
Psal. 69.9. Io. 2.17.  who fulfilled that of the Psalmist his type, The zeal of thine house hath even eaten me up?   

§. III. Zeal required in the matters of GOD; but to be tempered with discretion and charity.  
WE must be zealous, we must not be furious: It is in matter of religion, as with the tending of a still; if we put in too much fire, it burns; if too little, it works not; a middle temper must be kept, an heat there must be, but a moderate one; we may not be in our profession, like a drowsy judge upon a Grecian Bench, who is fain to bite upon beans, to keep himself from sleeping; 
Suid. v. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  neither may we be like that Grecian player, who acted mad Ajax, upon the stage; but we must be soberly fervent, and discreetly active; S. Paul's spirit was stirred within him, at Athens, to see the Idol-altars amongst those learned Philosophers; & it breaks out of his mouth, in a grave reproof; I do not see him put his hand furiously to demolish them, and if a juventius and Maximinian in the heat of zeal, 
Theodor. l. 3 cap. 15.  shall rail on wicked julian at a feast, he justly casts their death not upon their religion, but their petulancy: It was a wel-made decree in the Council of Eliberis, 
Cancil. Eliber. c 60.  that if any man did take upon him to break down the idols of the heathen, 
Miles q. praesidiarius Rome▪ felem quam Aegyptii colebant. ut Deum interfecit hinc tantus exortus tumultus ut 7000 militum Praesidiariorum trucidati sint. Melanct. Postill. Fer. 2. post advent. ex Diodoro Sic.  and were slain in the place, he should not be reckoned amongst the Martyrs. There must be then, two moderators of our zeal; Discretion, and charity, without either, and both of which, it is no other than a wild distemper; and, with them, it is no less than the very life blood of a Christian, or the spirits of that blood; From the common acts of both these, joined together, shall result these following maxims, as so many useful rules of our Christian moderation.   

§. FOUR Rules for Moderation in judgement.  
THe first is, 
The first rule. To distinguish of persons.  that we must necessarily distinguish betwixt persons that are guilty of errors; 
Aug. de utilitate cred. c. 1.  for, as Saint Austen well, it is one thing to bean heretic, another thing to be misled by an heretic; and, I may well add, (according to our construction) it is one thing to be an heretic, another thing to be an Haeresiarch: these three degrees there are, even in the most dangerous errors of doctrine. There is a broacher, and deviser of that wicked opinion; There are abettors and maintainers of it once broached; There are followers of it so abetted; and all these, as they are in several degrees of mischief, so they must all undergo an answerable, whether aggravation, or mitigation of our censure; Those, who by false teachers are betrayed into that error, wherein now, either by breeding, or by misinformation they are settled, are worthy of as much pity, as dislike. Those, who out of stiffness of resolution, and stomach of side-taking, shall uphold, and diffuse a known error, are worthy of hatred and punishment; But those, who out of ambition, or other sinister respects, shall invent, and devise pernicious doctrines, and thereby pervert others, for their own advantages, are worthy of a Maranatha; and the lowest hell; we do easily observe it thus, in all real offences of an high nature; Absalon contrives the conspiracy against his father; the Captains second, and abet it; the common-people follow both of them in acting it; he should be an ill judge of men and actions; who should but equally condemn the author of the treason, and those, that follow Absalon with an honest and simple heart; neither is it otherwise in the practice of all those Princes, who would hold up the reputation of mercy and justice; whiles the heads of a sedition are hanged up, the multitude is dismissed with a general pardon: And, if in all good and commendable things, the first inventor of them is held worthy of a statue, or record, when as the following practisers are forgotten, why should there not be the like difference in evil? Those poor souls therefore, who do zealously walk in a wrong way, wherein they are set by ill guides, may not be put into the same rank with their wicked misleaders: As we have reason to hope God will be merciful to the well-meant errors of those silly ones, so must we enlarge the bowels of our compassion to their miscarriage; whiles in the mean time, we may well pray with the Psalmist, that God would not be merciful to those that offend of malicious wickedness.   

§. V. The second Rule for Moderation,  
SEcondly, 
To distinguish of truths & errors.  we must distinguish between truths necessary, and truths additional or accessary, truth's essential, and accidental truths, truth's fundamental, and truths superedified; and in them truths weighty and important, and truths slight and merely scholastical; for these are worthy of a farre-different consideration; Those truths which are of the foundation, and essence of religion are necessarily to be known, believed, embraced of all men, and the obstinate opposers of them are worthy of our careful avoidance, and hardest censure: Truths important (though not fundamental) are worthy of our serious disquisition and knowledge. All other truths are commendable, and may be of good use in their kinds and places, but so, as that he who is either ignorant of them, or otherwise minded, concerning them, hath his own freedom; and must not, (so he trouble not the common peace) forfair our charitable opinion. We see it is thus in the body; there are some vital parts; a wound received in them, is no less than mortal, there are other which, though useful and serviceable, and such as make up the integrity of the body; yet such as wherein the main for't of life doth not consist; these cannot be hurt without pain, but may be hurt without much peril; there are yet besides these, certain appendances to the outward fabric of the body, which serve both for decency and convenience; the loss whereof may be with less danger, but not with less smart than of some limb; to tear off the hair, or to beat out a tooth is far from manslaughter, yet an act of violence; and a breach of peace: it is no otherwise in the body of religion; a limb may be maimed, 
Columban. c. 5. Pauca sunt necessaria vera.  or a joint displaced, yet the heart whole, some appendance may be violated, and yet the body whole; It is a true word that of Columbanus of old, that necessary truths are but few: Not many stones need to make up the foundation of Christian faith, twelve will serve; whereas many quarreiss, perhaps may be laid in the superstructure. There are some things (saith Gerson) which are De necessitate fidei; whereof we may not doubt, other things are De pietate, vel devotione fidei, wherein there is more scope of belief; that which he speaks of historical verities, is no less true in doctrinal; I know no book so necessary for these times, as that De paucitate credendorum; nor any one Article of our belief more needful, then that we need not believe more than the Apostles; Other points may be the care of Scholars, need not be of Christians. It was the observation of wise and learned Erasmus, which hath run oftentimes in my thoughts; The Doctrine of the Church, 

Doctrina Christi quae prius nesciebat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 coep●t a Philosophy praesidiis pendere, hic erat primus, etc.  
Eras praefat. ad opera Hilarii.   saith he, which at the first was free from quarrels, began to depend upon the aids, and defences of Philosophy; this was the first degree of the Church's declination, to the worse, wealth began to come upon her, and power grew with it; the authority of Emperors, taking upon them to intermeddle in the affairs of religion, did not much help to further the sincerity of the faith; At last, it came to sophistical contentions; thousands of new Articles broke forth; From thence it grew to terrors and threats; and since to blows; Lo, the miserable degrees of the Church's disturbance; we have almost lost religion and peace in the multiplicity of opinions; It is worth observing, by what degrees it pleased God to communicate to us men, his will and our duty; At the first, we hear of no charge given to our first parents, but of refraining from the tree of knowledge: Afterwards, (as the jewish Doctors teach) there were six only precepts imposed on Adam, and his seed; The first, against Idolatry, that he should worship no other Gods: The second, of his veneration of the only true God: The third against bloodshed: The fourth against wild and incestuous lusts: The fifth, against stealth: The sixth, concerning due administration of justice.. After these, one yet more was added to Noah, and his sons of not eating flesh alive, viz. in the blood of it; yet after this, one more was given to Abraham, 
Gen. 9.4.  concerning Circumcision; At last the complete Law is given, in Ten words, to Moses in Horeb; The judicials are for commentaries upon those moral statutes.  
With these God's people contented themselves; till traditions began to be obtruded upon them, by presumptuous teachers; these, our Saviour cries down, as intolerable, insolent depravations of the Law; The Messiah is come: with how few charges doth he load his people? That they should believe, repent, deny themselves, constantly profess him, search the Scriptures; follow peace, love one another, and Communicate in his remembrance. And his Apostles with only, Go, teach and baptise; and strive who shall serve best. After his glorious Ascension into heaven, the Apostles assembled in their Council at Jerusalem, lay no other new weight upon the Gentile-Converts, but to abstain from pollutions of Idols, from fornication, things strangled, and blood; When the Church was well enlarged, and settled, what did the four General's Counsels offer to the world, 
Nunquam audivimus Petrinos aut Paulinos aut Bartholomaeanos', &c. sed ab initio una praedicatio Apostolorum. Epiph. l. 1.  but the condemnation of those four heresies, which than infested the Church? Time and busy heads drew on these varieties of conclusions, and deductions, which have bred this grievous danger, and vexation to God's people; in so much, as, it is now come to that pass, that as he said of old, it is better to live in a Commonwealth where nothing is lawful, then where every thing; so, it may no less justly be said, that it is safer to live where is no faith professed, then where every thing is made matter of faith; The remedy must be, that our judgements revert to that first simplicity of the Gospel, from which, the busy and quarrelsome spirits of men have drawn us; and that we fix and rest there.   

§. VI The third rule of Moderation, viz. The avoidance of curiosity.  
TO which end it shall be requisite, thirdly, to avoid curiosity in the search, or determination of immaterial, and superfluous truths. I know not whether the mind of man be more unsatiable in the desire of knowledge, or more unweariable in the pursuit of it; which we are all apt to affect upon several grounds; 
Bern. Serm. in Cant. 36.  for, as Bernard well, some would know that they might be known, this is vanity; others, that they might sell their knowledge, this is baseness; some, that they may edify others, this is Charity; some that they may be edified, this is wisdom; and some, lastly, would know only that they may know, this is fond curiosity; a vicious disposition of the soul, which doth not more show itself in the end, then in the object of our knowledge; for surely, to seek after the knowledge of those things, which are necessary or useful, 
Aug. de utilitat. Cred. c. 11.  can be no other than praiseworthy; There are (saith Saint Austen) two kinds of persons very commendable in religion: the former, those who have found the truth, the latter, those who do studiously inquire for it: It is most true of those truths which are important, and essential; 
Nesciunt necessaria, quia superflua did●erunt. F. Senec. Gars de neglig. Pra●latorum.  but to spend our se●ves in the search of those truths, which are either unrevealed, or unprofitable, it is no other than a labour ill lost; yet alas, these are they which commonly take up the thoughts of men; 
Alens. Tom. 2. q. 86. m. 3.  How busily have some disputed whether Adam if he had continued in his innocence, should have slept, or no; or whether he would have needed that repose? Others, 
Ibid. q. 88  whether if Adam in his innocency had known his wife, after she was conceived of child, he had in this sinned; or no: Others, 
Ibid. q. 89.  if he had begotten children in the state of innocence, 
Ibid. q. 89.  whether they should immediately upon their birth, have had the use of their limbs, and members, for their present provision, as other creatures have? Others; whether in that first estate there should have been more males or females, borne? Others what space there was betwixt the Creation of Angels and man, 

Ibid. memb. 11.  
Am●s. ●e resist. gratia. c. 8. Mela●ct. ●polog. advers. P●ri●. Sophi●l.   and their fall? Thus a Peter Lombard is devising a distinction betwixt mo●o quodam, and quodam modo; and a Io: Maior disputed whether a man may equitare fine equo; 
Suid. v. Matreas.  and Matreas (as Suidas hath it) in a Poem that he frames of Aristotle's doubts; makes this one, How the Sun should in his setting go down into the Ocean, and not swim. Thus an overleasured Italian hath made a long discourse; 
Gers. Epist. ad quendam fratrem minorem. Quis non horreat profanas not itates & verbo●um & sensuum? Bern. Epist. 190.  how a man may walk all day through the streets of Rome in the shade: Thus, a Licentiate of Paris takes upon him to defend, That there is something God really, which is not formally God; Another, that there are other priorities and posteriorities in the divine Persons, besides those of their origination; Another, that the divine Persons are distinguished per absoluta: Another, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ut de nugatore Hermippus.  as our Bradwardine and Io. Maior and Vasquez, that God is in vacuo: And, in our days, Hurtado de Mendoza, a Spaniard, strains his wit to prove the possibility of an infinity of magnitude; and what subtle disquisitions, and long volumes are spent upon a certain middle knowledge in God, between his knowledge of simple intelligence, 
D. Twiss de S●t●ntia media, etc.  (which is of what may be or is fit to be) and that of vision (which is his knowledge of what shall be) Betwixt which two some have placed a third, a mid-knowledge of future-conditionate-Contingents. And lastly, what a world of work is on foot, betwixt the Scotists on the one side, and the Thomists and Dominicans on the other, concerning God's foreknowledge of Evil; and concerning the real existence of future things in eternity, and other the like sut●leties. Good Lord! where will the mind of man take up? how restless, how boundless, are the brains of curious men? and especially in this last age; for, surely, it is a true word of Gerson, 
Gers. contra superstitiosos. q. observ.  Mundus senescens patitur phantasias; the world now in his old age is full of fancies; It is with it, as it is with u●; the sleep of the aged must needs be so much fuller of imaginations, as they have lived to see more objects to furnish them; 
Non est s●●ens hodie qui novitates n●n inv●nit. De planct. Eccl. l. 2.  justly may we take up that complaint of Alvarez Pelag●us: He is nobody for knowledge now a days that devices not s●me novelty: Festus sclandered Saint Paul, when he said, too much learning had made him mad: certainly, it is no slander to say of too many, that too much learning (as it is used) hath made them foolish and wanton in their speculations; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  there cannot be a truer sentence than that of the Grecians (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) Wisdom consists not in the knowledge of many things, 

Praestat pro●â igno●atione d●tin●ri quam falsa opinione mancipori.  
Chrysost. in Math. 24. Hom. 76.   but of things profitable; Our forefathers, as they came short of us in knowledge, so they went beyond us in piety, and peace; The jewish Doctors say of Father Abraham, that he had no master but his own reins; those (holy David said) were his teachers also; 
Experto crede, aliquid amplius invenies, in sylvis quam i● l●bris. B●rn. Epist. He●●t●o Murdach. Epist. 106.  and devout Bernard tells his friend Murdach, with an Experto crede, that he shall find more in the woods, then in his books; the trees and stones (saith he) shall teach thee that, which thou canst not hear from thy masters, thinkst thou not, thou mayst suck hon●e from the rock, and oil out of the hardest stone? Marvellous is the improvement both of the means and measure of knowledge, in these last days, in comparison of the former; 
Erasm. Epist. l. 22. joan. Episc.  Of old (saith Erasmus) there were no schools of Divinity, and Augustine was held an invincible Logician, for that he had read Aristotle's Categories; At last, Divinity came to the height, if not beyond it; the sacred Scriptures, with the ancient authors, were laid aside, etc. The time was, when Synods were fain to enact, that none should be promoted to Ecclesiastical Benefices, 
Concil. Raven.  but those which could competently read, and sing; Nor to Canonships in Cathedrals but those which could read, 
Concil. Sabin●n, in Hisp. 1322.  sing, and competenly construe; Not to holy Order, but those that could Literaliter loqui. The world is w●ll mended with us, since our King Alured translated Gregory's Pastoral, out of Latin, into Saxon; that it might be understood of the Bishops, and Priests; 
Alured praefat adversum a se lib. Pastor. Greg. D. Henr. Spelman Volume. 1. Synod. Brit.  and in his Preface to it, writes thus: Knowledge was so utterly lost from among the English Nation, that there were very few on this side of Humber, that could so much, as understand their own common prayers, in the English tongue; or translate any writing out of Latin in●o English; surely there were so ●ew, that I do not remember one on the South-part of Thames, when ●●●gan to reign. Thus Alured: 
Anno C. 700. D. Henr. Spelm. Conc. Brit.  Before whose time, W●●●redus King of Kent was fain to su●signe his Characters, 
Episcopus ignorans Grammaticam deponatur.  wi●h a Cros●e, professing to do it pro●gror●ntia literarum; And the 〈…〉 wa●, A ●●shop that is i●●●ran● of his Grammar is to b● d●p●●●●. Now (blessed be G●d) knowledge abounds every 〈◊〉▪ The Pr●sse hath help● 〈…〉 it all the world over; whi●● whiles it was only transmitted by the labour of a single pen, must needs be more sparingly imp●rted; and as it uses to b● in other cas●s) plenty hath bred wantonness, & prodigal expense of w●●; whereby we are grown to such excess, ●hat it were happy (except men had more rule of their 〈…〉 there were less 〈…〉 the world, and 〈…〉: we have reason in this regard to envy the safe and quiet simplicity of our forefathers, who contented themselves with the honest plainsong of that, whereof we affect to run upon infinite descant; 
Gers. Tract. de Cantichordo.  It is well observed by Gerson, that it falls out oftentimes, there is more fervour of devotion, where there is less natural knowledge; whence we find great praise of sanctity given to some eminent persons, who came short even of ordinary skill: 
Bern. Serm. in cant. 26.  Bernard saith of his devout brother Gerard, that he had no learning at all; but that he had a clear understanding, and an illuminated spirit: and Sozomen, 
Sozom. l. 1. c. 13.  when he speaks of Antony the Hermit, says, he neither had any skill in learning, neither did greatly esteem it; but cared only to have a pure and holy mind, as that which was more ancient, and more worthy than any learning in the world; And Paul the simple, a man famous both for sanctimony, and miracles, had so little knowledge, as that (which I have stood amazed to read) he asked whether the Prophets were before Christ, and his Apostles, or after: The truth is, 
Gers. Tract. 8 super Magnif.  religion (as the Chancellor of Paris well) is not a school of Learning, but a discipline of living, and he is much more acceptable to God, that hath so much knowledge as doth enable him to worship and serve that Di●ine Majesty devoutly, 
Sed mu●tos videostudiosoes, paucos religiosos: amant lectionem, non religionem; imo amore lectionis in odium incidunt religionis. Hugo. l. 2. Miscel. c. 52.  and to live ●olily, than he who with Bere●g●t●u● could dispute of Omne scibt●e, 〈◊〉, with Solomon, could discourse of all things from the moss● 〈◊〉 the wall, to the highest Cedar; Gregory s●id truly, nothing can be offered to God more rich and precious than a good will: and Phocyons law is magnified for a divine one; Let virtue and goodness take place, and let all other things pass for trifles.  
That therefore which was wont to be said of Pythagoras, that h●e reduced the speculative Philosophy to use, and, that which was said of the Cynics, that without regard of Logic, and natural Philosophy, 
Tempore ●eteris Ecclesiae Romanae, populus non curs●abat ad videndum illud quod Sacerdos ostendit, sed prostratis humi corporibus, animis incoelum erectis, gratias agebaut Christo redemptori, qui nos suo san guine lavit, sua morte redemit, etc. Eras. de Amabilitate concordiae Eccles. Basil. 1596.  they were all for Morality; I could be apt to wish in our divine Philosophy; It were happy for the Church of God, if laying aside all curious disquisitions of impertinent truths, we would apply ourselves wholly to the knowledge and maintenance of those only points, which are necessary to salvation; and to the zealous practice of those things which we assuredly know; Leaving the rest to those Schoole-divines, who have both faculty, and leisure to discuss them.   

§. VII. The fourth rule of Moderation; to rest in those fundamental truths which are revealed clearly in the Scriptures.  
NOw that we be not left upon uncertainties in this quest of saving truth, it will be requisite for us to know, and resolve, fourthly, that all these fundamental verities, necessary to salvation, are clearly laid before us, in the sacred monuments of divine Scriptures: in them is the full, and easy direction of a Christians both belief, and practice; 
Vid. libr. Ordinat.  It is the question appointed by our Church to be proposed to every Candidate of holy Orders, whether he believe this truth; and his engagement thereupon punctually follows; and if here be enough to make the man of God perfect, much more an ordinary Christian; There are indeed unfadomable depths in that Ocean, wherein we shall vainly hope to pitch our anchor; but all necessary truths need not much line: In those things which are clearly laid down in Scripture, 
Aug. de doctr. Christ. l. 2. c. 9  (saith Saint Austen) are found all those points which contain faith, and rules of living, viz. Hope and Charity; And need we care for more than these? Let me believe well, & live well, let who list take thought for more: what a madness were it to forsake the living waters, and to dig for ourselves Cisterns that will hold no water? what a disease in our appetite, when we have wholesome provision laid before us, to nauseate all good dishes, and to long for mushrooms, whereof some are venomous, all unwholesome? It was the justice of Lacedaemon, 
Plut. customs of Laced.  that when Terpander the Musician added one string more to his Harp then ordinary, 
Gal. 1.8.  banished him the City; The great Doctor of the Gentiles could say; If we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel to you, let him be accursed; he doth not say a contrary Gospel, but another; such as that Evangelium aeternum of the Friars, such as that Symbol of the twelve new Articles, in Pius his profession; 
Vide relat. Colloq. Chamier.  It had some colour that Tannerus the jesuit held in the public disputation with Hunnius; who stoutly defended it to be a matter of faith that Tobye had a Dog; because it rested upon the authority of that, which he supposed Canonical scripture, the indubitate truth whereof, is the first principle of Christianity; how ever some particular clauses, in themselves considered, may carry no such weight; but to obtrude a necessity of new and traditional truths, besides those which God hath revealed, what is it but to make ourselves more wise and careful than our Maker? Woe be to those men, on whose heads lies so much innocent blood of Orthodox Christians, which hath been shed for those causes, which God never owned; Woe be to those Anathemaes which are spent upon true-beleeving souls: 
Eras. Epist. Colleg. So●bon.  such as can say in sincerity of heart and clearness of judgement with Erasmus, Either acquit me with the Apostle, or condemn the Apostle with me.   

§. VIII: The fifth rule of moderation, To be remiss and facile in unimporting verities, both in our opinion and censure.  
NOw, as we cannot be too stiff and zealous for the maintenance of those truths, which are necessary and pure De fide, as Gerson styles them; so five, it is required to Christian Moderation, that in all collateral, 
Gers. declare. defect.  and unimportant verities, we should be remiss, and easy both in our opinion, and censure; Not too peremptorily resolving, not too eagerly pressing, not too sharply judging: In main matters it is good to take up that resolution of Gregory, 

Gers. assert: ●o. Parui utilius rasci scandalum permittitur quam veriritas deseratur.  
Eras. Senatui Paris. Malui nempe solus ab utriusque partis insanioribus dilace●ari quam esse tutus in parte damnata. Aug. in Psa. 16.   commended by Gerson, that it is more profitable to endure a scandal (through breach of peace) than an abandoning of truth; and that honour of Rotterdam, I had rather be torn in pieces by the furious abettors of both sides, then be safe and quiet on the wrong part; but in points of a base alloy, Saint Austin's rule is not more wise than modest; I may think one thing, another man may think another, I do neither prescribe to him nor he to me; Learned and wise Erasmus observed well; 
Eras. l. 22 Colleg. Sorb.  there are many things which do no harm, while they are neglected, but when they are once stirred, raise up grievous Tragedies in the world; Even in the poorest matters, what broils are raised by contradiction? what fearful bloodsheds hath this Island yielded, 
Vide Act. & Mon. & Bromiard. v. Honor.  for but the carrying of a Cross? what stirs have been in the whole Christian Church for the difference of an Easter day? what broils for a few poor harmless Ceremonies? 
Io. I●slerus Scaphus de diuturnitate belli Eucharist,  As for the Sacramentarian quarrels, Lord, how bitter have they been, how frequent, how long, in six several successions of learned conflicts? 
Hospin. de sestis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  As if we Christians meant to imitate those Heathens which dwelled about the Marshes of Triton, the Auses and Machlyes, amongst whom the manner was, when they kept their anniversary feast to the honour of Minerva, that their Virgins divided themselves into troops, and entertained each other, with stones and clubs; and if any of them received a deaths-wound, in the fray, she was strait cried down, as no maid; In these cases, the very victory is miserable, and such (as Pyrrhus said of his) as is enough to undo the Conqueror; As good Physicians then, when they desire to recover their patient, labour to make peace amongst the humours, so must we do in a sick Church; and, if we cannot compose them by a discreet moderation; 
Suidas v. Hebraei.  yet, at least, it will be fit to hold off from a passionate side-taking, It is noted by Suidas, that Heber was not amongst the builders of Babel's Tower, and therefore his language was not altered; and it is worth observing, 
Num. 26.11.  that Corahs' sons perished not in the common destruction of their parents, and kinsfolks; for that they fled from the conspirators, to Moses; If we would find favour as Storks, we must not consort with Cranes.  
Now that we may be capable of this peaceable temper we must be free from these two vices, pride and pertinacy; whereof the one, forestals the heart with an overweening of ourselves, and our opinions; not enduring a contradiction; the other obdures it against any means of reformation; resolving to hold the conclusion in spite of the premises; For the first; only by pride cometh contention, 
Prov. 13.10.  saith wise Solomon; this is it, that makes a man scorn the common track; and lifts him up with the conceit of his own abilities, and of the validity of his own grounds; not without a contemptuous undervaluing of all others; we find it thus in all experience; for my part, I never met with any (as worthy Master Green-ham hath noted before me) if but a schismatical spirit, whom I have not sensibly discerned thus tainted; take but a separist, a blew-aporned man, that never knew any better school than his shop-bord; if he do not think himself more truly learned, than the deepest Doctor, and a better interpreter of Scripture, than the greatest Divine, I am no less mistaken, than he; hence it is, that they affect a singularity, and keep aloof from others, both in practice and opinion; Wherein a proud man is like unto oil, which will ever swim aloft, and will by no means mix with water; Contrarily, the only disposition that fits the heart for peace, (indeed all other graces) is humility: That cloth which the Fuller would perfectly whiten, yields itself to be trampled upon; They are low pits, wherein the stars may be seen by day; They are the valleys, and not the shelving hills that soak in the waters of heaven: The jewish Doctors say well, 
Pirke Aboth.  that in a true disciple of Abraham, there must be three things; a good eye, a meek spirit, an humble soul, the first frees him from envy, the second from impatience, and the third from pride; these two last will teach him to acknowledge, and admire other men's better faculties, and to abase his own, to be ready to submit to clearer reason, and irrefragable authority; 
Potho Prunie●sium Episcopus, 1150. i●●ib. de statu Dom. Dei Hospin. de Orig. f●st. Christ.  and modestly to distrust his own. It was a word worthily commended in Potho a good Bishop near 500 years ago. Are we more learned, and more devout than the Fathers? or do we presume proudly to determine of those things, which their wisdom thought meet to be praetermitted? Surely, he that bears this mind cannot easily err, cannot err dangerously: 
Eras. Epist. Illustr. Quantum apud alios valeat Ecclesiae authoritas nescio: Certe apud me tantum valet ut cum Arianis & Pelagianis sentire possim, si probass●t Ecclesia quod illi docuerunt, Bilibaldo.  ●t is possible I confess to go too far, in our reliance upon others judgements; I cannot like that of Erasmus, who professeth to his Bilibadus, that he ascribed so much to the authority of the Church, that if she had thought meet to have allowed the opinion of Arius, or Pelagius, he should have assented thereunto; This is too much servility; In these manifest and main truths, we have no reason to make flesh our arm. If all the world should face me down, that the Sun shines not, I would be pardoned to believe my eyes: And if all the Philosophers under heaven should with Zeno defend, that there is no motion, I would with Diogenes, 
Laert.  confute them by walking; But in all those verities which are disputable, and free for discourse, let me ever be swayed by the sacred authority of that Orthodox Church wherein I live.  
Pertinacy is the next, which indeed is the only thing that makes an heretic; Let the error be heinous, yet if there be not a perverse stiffness in the maintenance of it, it amounts not to the crime of heresy: much less is it so in case of a relenting schism; 
Eras. Ep●st. l. 22. Coll. Sorb.  It was a good speech of Erasmus: I cannot be an heretic unless I will; and since I neither am, nor will be so, I will endeavour to use the matter so, as that I may not be thought to be one. The course is preposterous, and unnatural, that is taken up by quarrelsome spirits; f●rst, they pitch their conclusion, and then, hunt about for premises to make it good, this method is for men that seek for victory, not for truth; for men, that seek not God, but themselves: whereas the well-disposed heart, being first, upon sure grounds, convinced of the truth which it must necessarily hold, cares only in essential verities, to guard itself against erroneous suggestions; and in the rest is ready to yield unto better reason; He is not fit to be a gamester, that cannot be equally content to lose and win; and in vain shall he profess morality, 
A literato quodam & experto viro accepi perniciosam esse in omni arte vel doctrina assertionem audacem & extremam Gers. de vita, spir. animae etc. lect. 4. corol. 11.  that cannot with Socrates set the same face upon all events, whether good, or evil: In all besides necessary truths, give me the man that can as well yield as fight; in matters of this nature, I cannot like the spirits of those Lacedaemonian Dames which gave the shields to their sons, with the peremptory condition of (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; 
Suidas. ) surely, he is better accepted of God, that in these frays of indifferency doth peaceably lay down the Bucklers, than he, that lays about him with the greatest ostentation of skill, and valour: In things of this kind, meekness may do God more service than courage; They say milk quenches wildfire better than any other liquor: and we find in all experience, that the pores are better opened with a gentle heat, then with a violent. The great Apostle was content to become all things to all, that he might win some: How was he all to all if he did not sometimes remit of his right to some; 
Cal. 2.  He that resisteth Peter, the Prime Apostle, to his face, in the case of a perilous temporising, yet gave way to james, and the other brethren, to purify himself, with the four votaries in the Temple: 
Act. 21.18▪ 21, 26.  shortly then as he is a wise man that knows when it is time to yield, 
Non turpe est sententiam mutare, sed in malo perseverate funestum & exitiosum. Gre Naz. orat. 32.  so is he a peaceable son of the Church, that yields when he sees it time, and by this means provides for his own comfortable discharge, and the public tranquillity: that can be in necessaries truths an Oak, and a Reed in truths indifferent.   

§. IX. Remissness in matter of Censure.  
IN matters of this nature, whereof we treat, true moderation requires the peaceable Christian to be not more yielding in his Opinion, then favourable in his Censures of the contrary-minded: for it is a fearful violation both of Charity and justice, to brand an adversary in matter of slight Opinions, with the odious note of Sect, or Heresy; and no less Presumption, to shut that man out of Heaven, whom God hath enroled in the Book of Life. 
Gerson. declare. desect.  In all other things (saith the Chancellor of Paris) besides those which are merely matters of Faith, the Church may either deceive, or be deceived, and yet hold Charity still: 
Gavant. Praxis compend. visit.  And as it is a good rule that is given to Visitors, that they should be sparing in making Decrees, lest the multitude of them should bring them into contempt; so it is a rule no less profitable to spiritual Governors, 
Ne temerè vibret fulmen excommunicationis  which Erasmus relates out of Gerson, that they should not rashly throw about the thunderbolts of their Censures. We cannot be too severe in the main matters of Religion (though not without that wise Item of Cicero, 
Nihil quod crudele, utile. Offi●. 1.3.  that nothing that is cruel can be profitable) the remissness wherein may be no other, than an injurious mercy; but in things of slighter condition, we must be wiser than to draw a Sword to kill Flies; neither is it for us to call for Scorpions, where a Rod is too much.  
It is remarkable, that of Galienus, who when his Wife had complained to him of a Cheater, that had sold Glasse-pearles to her for true, made as if he would have cast him to the Lions; the Offender looking for those fierce beasts, was only turned loose to a Cock. In some cases, shame and scorn may be a fitter punishment then extreme violence. We may not make the Tent too big for the Wound, nor the Plaster too broad for the Sore. 
Aug. Alipio, Epist. 239.   
It was grave counsel that S. Austin gave to his Alipius, that heed must be taken, lest whiles we go about to amend a doubtful complaint, we make the breach wider. And that rule was too good for the Author, 
john 22. apud Navarre. ●n Man. c 17.  john 22. that in a case uncertain, we should rather determine within the bounds, then exceed them. Even in plain convictions, violence must be the last remedy; as in outward bodily extremities (by Hypocrates his prescription) Ignis and Ferrum must be last tried; 
Erasm. Godes●cho.  for generous spirits (as Erasmus well) desire to be taught, abide not to be forced; it is for Tyrants to compel, for Asses to be compelled; and as Seneca observes, a good natured Horse will be governed by the shadow of the Wand, whereas a sullen resty jade will not be ordered by the Spur.  
S. Paul puts it to the choice of his Corinthians; Will ye that I come to you with a Rod, or with the spirit of meekness? as loath to use the Rod, unless he were constrained by their wilful disobedience. Much have they therefore to answer for, before the Tribunal of Heaven, who are apt to damn Christians better than themselves; sending all the Clients of the Northwesterne Grecian, Russian, Armenian, Ethiopic Churches, down to Hell, without redemption, for varying from them, in those Opinions, which only themselves have made fundamental. And herein are we happy, that we suffer for our Charity, rather choosing to incur the danger of a false Censure from uncharitable men, then to pass a bloody and presumptuous Censure upon those, who (how faultily soever) profess the dear name of our common Saviour. Let them, if they please, affect the glory of a Turkish justice, in killing two Innocents', 
M. blunt's observation in his journey to the Levant.  rather than sparing one Guilty; let us rather choose to answer for Mercy, and sooner take then offer an unjust or doubtful Violence.   

§. X. The sixth rule of Moderation: Not to believe an opposite, in the state of a Tenet, or person.  
Sixthly, to a man of Peace, nothing is more requisite than a charitable distrust, viz. That we should not take an adversaries word for the state of his opposite.  
They were, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Suid.  amongst the rest, two necessary charges that Erasmus gave to his Goclenius, To be sober, and incredulous: For as there is nothing that raises so deadly hostility as Religion, so no Criminations are either so rife, or so heinous, as those which are mutually cast upon the abettors of contrary opinions: We need not go far to seek for lamentable instances; Let a man believe Andrew jurgivicius, he will think the Protestants hold no one Article of the Apostles Creed; Let him believe Campian, he shall think we hold God to be the Author of Sin; That the Mediator between God and man (JESUS) died the second death; That all sins are equal; and many more of the same Bran. If he shall believe Cardinal Bellarmine, he shall condemn Erasmus as a Patron of Arrians; Luther as an enemy to the holy Trinity, and to the Consubstantiality of the Son of God; Melanctbon and Scheckius, as Fautors of the Tritheists; Calvin, as an advocate of Samosatenians; Bullinger of arianism, Beza of Nestorianisme: If he will believe our Countryman Gifford, he shall think Calvins' doctrine in no thing better, in many things worse than the Alcoran; If he will believe I. Gualterius, a jesuit Divine, he shall think never any Heresy hath, since the first noise of the Gospel, arisen in the Church of God, whereof the Reformed part is not guilty; here he shall suppose to find Simon Magus, falsely pretending the Church's reformation; Cerinthus destroying the use and utility of Baptism; Ebion impugning the integrity of the blessed Virgin; In beastly licentiousness, Nicholaitans; In mutilation of Scripture, Saturnians; In the vain jactation of Scripture, Basilides; in the contempt of the divine Law, Carpocrates; in condemning of fastings, Gnostics; in maintaining the impossibility of keeping the Law, Ptolomeus; Secundian heretics, in allowing uncleannesses; Marcosian heretics, in a proud boast of perfection; Montanists in dissolving the bonds of wedlock, and corrupting Baptism: what should I blur too mu●h paper, with the abridgement of so uncharitable a discourse; shortly he shall believe that all our learned Divines have done nothing, but patched together all those old rags of obsolete Errors, which they have raked up out of the dunghills of anciently damned heretics; and to make up his mouth, 
Vide & Martin. Cromerus de falsa relig. Luther. l. 1.  shall go away with an opinion of an hundred several foul errors in john Galvin; and seventy eight no less heinous in Martin Luther. Should a stranger come now, to take up this Book, which he supposes penned by a Christian Divine (and one therefore, which should not dare to lie) how can he conceive other, then that the Reformed Doctrine is nothing but a chimerical Monster, composed of devilish Lies and hellish Heresies? To look nearer home; what terms and imputations some rigid followers of Luther have (in imitation of their over-blunt and passionate Master) cast upon their opposers, I do purposely forbear to specify, as willing rather to lay my hand upon these scars, then to blazon the shame of Brethren. Now as it will become every man (according to S. Hierome's counsel) to be impatient in the suspicion of Heresy, if any of the parties accused shall be called forth, and charged with these prodigious Crimes of Opinion, he is straight ready to fly in the face of the Slanderer, and calls Heaven and Earth to be witness of his utter detestation of those Errors, which are maliciously affained to him; 
Whitak. respons. ad Campian.  and is ready to say as our learned whitaker's said in the same case to Campian; Nisi omnem, etc. unless thou hadst utterly cast off all, both Religion to God, and Reverence to men, and hadst long since made shipwreck of thy Conscience, and hadst put off even all humanity itself, thou wouldst neve suffer thyself to be guilty of such horrible wickedness, as to upbraid such monstrous opinions to us. It is a true word of Gerson, 
Gers. de Precept. Decalogi, c. 8.  That in a pennyworth of strife there is not an halfe-penny-worth of love; And we say truly, Ill will never said well; God forbid that the same man should be in the same cause, accuser, witness, and judge; what would become of innocence, where malice and power should be met? How short a cut is that, which the spiteful author of the war of the fifth Gospel takes, ●o convince all gainsayers: Westphalus, saith he, calls Calvin heretic, Calvin calls Westphalus heretic, therefore they are both heretics. Schlusselburgius brands the Calvines' for Sacramentarian heretics; the Calvinists brand Schlusselburgius for an Vbiquitarian heretic, therefore both are heretics: And may not any Mahometan thus refel the whole profession of Christianity? Those that style themselves Catholics, call the Reformed heretics; The Reformed call them heretics; therefore both are heretics: The Roman Christians brand the Greek Church with heresy, the Grecians equally cen●ure the Roman, therefore they are all heretics; And cannot we as easily pay him again in his own Coin: The Turkish Mahometan calls the Persian heretic, the Persian calls the Turkish so; therefore both are in their own Religion, heretics: God forbid, that a man should be ever such, as an enemy would have him seem to be: Would we think it fair and just, to be so dealt with before the awful Tribunal of Heaven? Would we have the Archenemie of Mankind believed in all his suggestions against our innocence? Why should we then admit of this wrong in each other? At a contentious Bar, where wrangling fomentors of quarrels are wont to aggravate all advantages, this liberty (I know not how justly) hath been given, that they commonly frame large bills of complaint, and suggest wrongs that were never done: but for Divines in the causes of God, who pretend to plead for truth, before God and his Angels, to be thus lavish in their Criminations, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. ●3.  it is an high violation of Christian charity, and justice. Surely this practice is no more ●e●, then justifiable; should I fetch it so far as from the times of our blessed Saviour, whose divine perfection could not free him from the imputation of a Conjurer; of a wine-bibber and glutton; of a friend to Publicans and sinners, of an enemy to Cesar; should I follow the times, and deduce it to his Proto-martyr, Saint Steven? we shall find him loaded with the accusation of blasphemy against God and Moses, against the Law and the Temple. After him we shall find the chosen vessel, Saint Paul, charged by Tertullus, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  for a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition; And even among the Christians themselves, 
Act. 24.5.  what foul charges of libertine doctrine are laid upon them by false teachers; As for the succeeding ages of the Primitive Church, had we either leisure, or will, to swell up our discourse with an abridgement of Ecclesiastical History, we might easily weary the Reader with woeful varieties in this kind: Who knows not the impossible crimes that were cast upon the Primitive Christians, of promiscuous lust, of worshipping an Ass' head, and such absurd calumniations. Amongst Christians themselves, to let go all the rest, it is memorable what quarrels there were in the Synod of Ephesus, betwixt Cyrill Bishop of Alexandria, and john of Antioch: the Church's subject to these eminent Pastors, stuck not to strike each other with mutual Anathemaes; Theodoret, something unhappily, thrusts his Sickle into the harvest of Antioch; against whom (by the instigation of Euoptius) Cyrill bitterly inveighes; Theodoret accuses Cyrill of Apollinarisme: Cyrill accuses Theodoret of Nestorianisme; this broil drew the Eastern world into parts; so as afterwards when Theodoret would have entered into the Synod of Chalcedon, the Egyptian Bishops and other reverend Prelates, cried out, we eject Cyrill, if we admit Theodoret; The Canons disclaim him, God opposes him. The same violence was again renewed in the eighth Action; the Bishops loudly crying out, he is an heretic, he is a Nestorian; away with the heretic: but at the last, when the matter was throughly scanned, and it was found that the good Bishop had subscribed both to the Orthodox Creeds, and to Leo's Epistle; with one unanimous consent they received him in▪ with this acclamation, Theodoret is worthy of his place in the Church; Let the Church receive her Orthodox Bishop.  
It is worthy of immortal memory, that we find reported of Athanasius: There was a great quarrel betwixt the Eastern, & Western Churches, about the Persons and subsistences in the Deity; each upbraided other with heresy: The Western would profess three Persons in the blessed Trinity; but would not endure to hear of three Subsistences; and were thereupon by the Eastern Churches, censured for suspicion of Sabellianisme: Contrarily, the Eastern would yield three subsistences, but would not abide three Persons, and were therefore accused by the Western Churches of Arianisme: The breach was fearful, till wise and holy Athanasius found a way to let them see they were good friends, and knew not of it. And if we should go about to instance in particular men, the Catalogue would be endless. How Chrysostome and Epiphanius, Jerome and Ruffinus, blurred each other, all the world knows: Saint Austen, besides all his other wrongs, complains that sixteen Articles were sclanderously imposed upon him, by the Pelagians, on purpose to draw envy upon the doctrine of divine Praedestination: what foul and gross opinions were by adversary pens cast upon the Waldenses, and Albigenses; and our Wicklef, and his followers, is shamefully apparent in too many Histories. And still as Satan is ever himself in these last times, (wherein by how much the more Charity freezeth, malice burns so much the more) how familiar it is, even for Christian adversaries, to speak nothing of each other, but slanders: 
Siquis a bellis quae jam seculis aliquot obres nihili, plus quam Ethnicè geruntur, deterreat, notatur à sycophantis quasi sentiat cumiis qui negant ullum b●ll●m gerendum Christianis. Eras. l. Epist. 23.  Erasmus reckons up amongst many false imputations cast upon him by some spiteful Friars, this for one, that he had said, All the miracles our Saviour did, upon earth, were done by Magic; And that (which yet Bellarmine seriously charges him withal) he held all war whatsoever absolutely unlawful; a slander which himself punctually refutes. How trivially common it is, 
Paulo Volezio.  that Luther was the son of an Incubus, the Disciple of the Devil, and that he who had been his Master, proved his executioner▪ That Calvin was stigmatised for a buggerer; Beza (upon occasion of some young Poems for mere trial of wit) a profligate lover of his Andibertus; and, at last (which he lived to confute) a revolter from his profession. Did I list to rake in the sinks of Staphilus, Surius, Bolseck, Gualterius; I could both weary, and amaze my Reader with nasty heaps of, as tedious, as false criminations of this kind.  
Amongst our own: How do the Opposites in the five Belgic Articles, cast ink in each others faces, while the one part, upbrayds the other with Manicheisme, and Stoicism, the other them again with Pelagianisme, and Socinianisme: within our own territories; one objects Arianisme perhaps too justly on some hands) to the opinion of p●rity; another (too wildly) Antichristian●sme, to the only ancient and true government of the Church. Now God forbid, that either Church, or man should be tried, and judged by his adversary: This were no other than that the arraigned innocent should be sentenced by the executioner. And if in a civil judicature there be required sworn and able judges, just Laws, clear evidence, select jurors, recorded proceedings; how much more ought this to be expected in those pleas of Religion, which concern the eternal state of the soul, the safety of the Church, and the glory of our Creator and Redeemer.  
It is the rule of the Apostle, that Charity thinks not evil: if therefore an ingenuous adversary shall out of an inward self conviction, acquit his Opposite of an unjust charge, we have reason to take it for a granted truth; and to make our advantage of it: If then, an Erasmus shall say, that it cannot be denied, that Luther hath intimated monitions of divers things, which it were happy for the Christian world to have reform, and which, indeed, were not longer to be endured; as he doth to his Laurinus: If he shall say, that many things pass currant in the ancient Fathers, which in Luther are condemned as Errors, as in his Epistle to  
If he shall say, that those things which Luther urges, if they be moderately handled, come nearer to the vigour of Evangelicall prescriptions, as he doth to his jodocus julius. If a Ferus, or Cassander; if a Cusanus, or Contarenus; if a Caietan or Montanus, or Cudsemius, or Franciscus a Sancta Clara, or any other temperate adversary, shall set favourable states to our Controversies, and give ju●tly-charicable testimonies to our personal innocences, we have no less cause to accept their suffrages, than their partners have to credit them: still waters represent any object in their bottom, clearly; those that are either troubled, or agitated, dimly and imperfectly. But as for matter of crimination, surely, an enemy's tongue is no slander; And if a cruel Inquisitor shall send a Martyr to his stake, ugly dressed, & painted over with Devils; a wise and charitable spectator thinks never the worse of the man, for a forced disguise, but sees in that heretic a Saint, and in those Devils, beautiful Angels of God; As we may not believe an adversary in reports, so not in the pretended consequences of opinion.   

§. XI. The seventh rule of Moderation, Not to judge of an adversaries opinion by the inferences pretended to follow upon it.  
SEventhly therefore, there cannot be a more useful rule for our moderation in judgement, than this, That we may not take that for a man's Opinion, which an adversary will say, doth by necessary inference follow upon it; but only that, which himself professes to maintain: It is that which, with worthy and moderate Bucer, the learned Bishop of Sarisbury hath also intimated in his grave advise concerning the Lutheran differences; And the like occurrences in the judgement o● the four learned French Divines, concerning the peace with the Lutheran Churches, and meet to be thoroughly considered. For the force of Consecutions is many times very deceitful, and such, as may easily betray our discourse. There are indeed such Consequences as are plainly necessary, and those which in their first sight, carry in them no less certainty than the principles from which they were immediately derived: Of this nature are they which are Reciprocally deduced from their certain, and intrinsecall causes, to their effects; such as, The Sun is risen, it is therefore day: He is God, therefore Omnipotent, Omniscient. There are others, which may perhaps seem to us no less necessary, as following upon some premises by an undoubted force of reason; which yet, another thinks he can by some cleanly distinction, commodiously evade, and yet hold that ground which we laid for that ratiocination; such is that of Gualterius the jesuit: Theodore Beza denies that the body of Christ can be substantially in many places at once; Therefore he denies God's Omnipotence. The Protestant ascribes to God more than a mere permission of evil, therefore he makes him the Author of sin. Contrarily, no mean one of ours, infers a Papist makes Christ a creature, therefore he is an Arrian; Makes Christ of meal, therefore not of the blessed Virgin, therefore an Apollinarist. Consequences, which the disputant thinks to make good, but the accused, on either part detests. Thus the honest and ingenuous Christian is drawn from a commendable search of necessary truths, into a wild chase of envious inferences: And now the quarrel is, indeed, fallen off from Divinity, and is removed to the Schools of Logic, natural Philosophy, Metaphysics; and not he that hath the most truth must carry it, but he that can bring the most skilful Sophistry. What is it, that distracts the Reformed Churches of Christendom, but this injurious conceit of inconsequent inferences? The humanity of Christ, saith one part, is omnipresent, therefore saith the other, no humanity at all, sith this is only proper to the Deity. The ubiquity of Christ's humane nature is denied, saith the other; therefore the personal union is destroyed. Away with these rigid illations, when we have to do with brethren; Each holdeth his own; 
Citat. a D. Davenant Sent. de pace procur.  both disclaim the inferences, and in their sense may. For as learned Bucer gravely; It is our part to see not what doth of itself follow, upon any Opinion, but what follows in the conscience of those, who hold that opinion, which we think contrary to a fundamental Article. Were this rule held, how happy were the Church, how certain our peace? when we have done our best, there will be errors enough in the Church; we need not to make them more. This was not the fashion in the plain dealing world of the first ages of Christianity; No heresy was then feoffed upon any man, but upon open and acknowledged conviction; and if he cleared himself from the main crimination, he was pronounced innocent. Look into the records of times. The contagion of Arrius, beginning at the obscure Church of Baucalis, soon reached to Alexandria, and there instantly infected seven hundred virgins, twelve Deacons, seven Priests, and offered to diffuse itself into the very Episcopal Throne; at last by Miletus his relation, the Archbishop Alexander is made acquainted with the rumour of that heresy; he presently sends for Arrius, and charges him with the crime; That impudent mouth sticks not to confess his wicked error, but there openly casts up the poison of his damnable doctrine before his Governor. The holy Bishop, no less openly reproves him; urges and aggravates the sacrilegious impiety of his opinion; And finding him to second his error with contumacies, expels him from his Church, follows him (as was meet) with seventy letters of caution to other Churches; yet still the mischief spreads: The godly Emperor Constantine is informed of the danger; he calls a Synod; Arrius with his all wicked Pamphlets, is there cried down, and condemned to banishment. I do not find those holy father's nibbling at consequences, strained out of his Thalia, or some other of his abominable papers, but charging him with the right-downe positions of heresy; such as these blasphemies, concerning Christ; Time was, when he was not; He was made of things that were not; He was not begotten of the Substance of the Father; In time, not from Eternity; not true God of God, but created of nothing. Here were no tricks of inferences, no quirks of Sophisms, no violent deduction of unyeelded sequels; the heresy proclaimed itself, and was accordingly sentenced. Such were the proceedings with the Apollinarists, in the third Council of Rome; and in the first General Council of Constantinople, with the Macedonians; and where not in the cases of heresy? And if (for all the rest) we would see a model of the old Theological simplicity, in the censures of this nature, we need but to cast our eye upon that profession of faith, and Anathemat●me, which Damasus ingeniously wrote to Paulinus, whether Bishop of Thessalonica, as Theodoret would have it, or, as others, 
●in. Council. p. 1. Rom. 3. sub Damas●.  of Antioch; we pronounce Anathema, saith he, to those who do not with full liberty proclaim the Holy Ghost to be of one power, and substance with the Father, and the Son. We pronounce Anathema to them who follow the error of Sabellius, saying, That the Father is one and the same person with the Son. We pronounce Anathema to Arrius, and Eunomius, who with a like impiety, but in a form of words unlike, affirm the Sun and the holy Spirit to be creatures. We pronounce Anathema to the Macedonians, who coming from the stock of Arrius, have not varied from his impiety, but from his name. We pronounce Anathema to Photinus, who renewing the heresy of Ebion, confesses our Lord jesus Christ made only of the Virgin Mary. We pronounce Anathema to those, that maintain two Sons, one before all worlds, the other after the assuming of flesh from the Virgin: Thus he. Is there any man here condemned for an heretic, but he who dirctly affirms, confesses, maintains opinions truly damnable? Neither indeed is it just or equal, that a man should, by the malice of an enemy, be made guilty of those crimes, which himself abhors: What I will own, is mine; what is cast upon me, is my adversaries; And if I be by deductions fetch't into such error, the fault is not in my faith, but in my Logic; my brain may err, my heart doth not. Away then, ye cruel Tortures of Opinions, Dilaters of Errors, Delators of your brethren, Incendiaries of the Church, haters of peace, Away with this unjust violence; Let no man bear more than his own burden; Press an ●●ring brother (if ye please) in way of Argument, with such odious Consectaries, as may make him weary of his Opinion; but hate to charge him with it as his own; frame not imaginary monsters of error with whom you may contend: He that makes any man worse than he is, makes himself worse than he.   

§. XII. The eighth rule of Moderation, To keep opinions within their own bounds, not imputing private men's conceits to whole Churches.  
EIghtly, it will be requisite to a peaceable moderation, 
Non debet plurimorum malum tendere in aestimationem cunctorum. Greg. Moral. l. 26.28.  that we should give to every opinion his own due extent, not casting private men's conceits upon public Churches, not fathering single fancies upon a Community; All men cannot accord in the same thoughts, there was never any Church under heaven, in which there was not some Ahimaaz, that would run alone. In all waters, lightly, there are some sorts of fish that love to swim against the stream, there is no reason that the blame of one, or few should be diffused unto all. If a Pope John the 22 shall maintain that the souls of the blessed shall sleep till the resurrection; If a Dominicus a Soto shall hold, that the whole Christian faith shall be extinguished in the persecutions of Antichrist; shall we impute these opinions to the See, or Church? If an Alphonsus a Castro shall hold heretics and Apostates, after they are once baptised, to be true members of the Catholic Church; Or a Catharinus, or Vasquez shall teach the Commandment that forbids worshipping of Images, to be merely temporary; If a Durant shall revive Pelagianisme, in denying that there is any need of the divine aid, either of general or special concourse in humane actions; If a Richardus Armachanus shall second the Novatians, in teaching that there is no pardon to be obtained by the penitent, for some heinous sins; If an Occam shall teach that the visible signs are not of the Essence of a Sacrament; Or a johannes Parisiensis, or Cornelius a Lapide (little differing from the condemned error of Rupertus Tuitiensis) shall teach, that the Sacramental bread is hypostatically assumed by the word. Is there any so unjust Arbiter of things, as to upbraid these Paradoxes to the Roman Church, who professeth their dislike? Thus if a Knox, or Buchanan, or Goodman, shall broach exorbitant and dangerous opinions, concerning the Successions and rights of Kings, and lawless power of subjects; Why should this be laid in our dish, more than a Suarez, or Mariana in theirs? If a Flaccius Illiricus shall uphold a singular error concerning Grace, and Original sin; If some ill-advised followers of Zuinglius shall hold the Sacramental elements to be only bare signs, serving merely for memory, and representation; If some Divines of ours shall defend the rigid opinions concerning Predestination; If some fantastical heads shall cry down all decent Ceremonies, and all set forms of devotion; why should the Church suffer double in those things which it bewails? Surely, as the Church is a collective body, so it hath a tongue of her own speaking by the common voice of her Synods; in her public Confessions, Articles, Constitutions, Catechisms, Liturgies; what she says in these, must pass for her own: but if any single person shall take upon him (unauthorised) to be the mouth of the Church, his insolence is justly censurable; And if an adversary shall charge that private opinion upon the Church, he shall be intolerably injurious: Indeed, as it is the best harmony where no part, or Instrument, is heard alone, but a sweet composition; and equal mixture of all, so is it the best state of the Church, where no dissenting voice is heard above, or besides his fellows; but all agree in one common sound of wholesome doctrine. But (such as man's natural self-love is) this is more fit to be expected in a Platonical speculation, then in a true reality of existence: for whiles every man is apt to have a good conceit of his own deeper insight, and thinks the praise, and use of his knowledge lost, unless he impart it; 〈◊〉 cometh to pass, that not containing themselves within their own privacies, they vent their thoughts to the world, and hold it a great glory to be the Authors of some more than common-piece of skill; And to say truth, the freedom and ●ase of the Press hath much advanced this itching, and disturbing humour of men whiles only the pen was employed, books were rare; neither was it so easy for a man either to know another's opinion, or to diffuse his own; now, one only day is enough to fill the world with a Pamphlet, and suddenly to scatter whatsoever conceit, beyond all possibility of revocation. So much the more need there is, for those that sit at the helm, 
This is seasonably and happily done by an Order of the Star-chamber lately made.  whether of Church, or State, to carry a vigilant eye, and hard hand over these Common tell-tales of the world, and so to restrain them (if it were possible) that nothing might pass their stamp, which should be prejudicial to the common peace, or varying from the received judgement of the Church. But if this task be little less than impossible, since by this means every man may have ten thousand several tongues at pleasure; how much more happy were it, that the sons of the Church could obtain of themselves so much good nature, & submissive reverence, as to speak none but their mother's tongue? The form of tongues in the first descent of the Holy Ghost, was fiery and cloven; and that was the fittest for the state of the first plantation of the Gospel, intimating that fervour, and variety, which was then both given, and requisite: Now, in the enlarged and settled estate of his Evangelicall Church, the same spirit descends, and dwells in tongues, cool and undivided, Cor unum, via una, One heart, one way, was the Motto of the Prophet, when he foretells the future coalition of God's people: And one mind, one mouth was the Apostles to his Romans. 
Rom. 15.6 2 Cor. 13.11.  Let us walk by the same Rule. Let us mind the same thing; 
Philip. 3.16.  is his charge to his Philippians. But if any wrangler affect to be singular, and will needs have a mind of his own, let him stand but for what he is, let him go only for a single figure, let him not, by a misprision, take up the place of thousands.   

thousands XIII. The ninth rule of Moderation: The actions and manners of men must not regulate our judgements concerning the cause.  
NInthly, neither doth it a little conduce to Moderation, to know, that the facts and manners of men may not be drawn to the prejudice of the cause: for, 
Sententia impia, vita luxuriosa. Non bene vivit qui non rectè credit. Calixtus. Benedict. Episc.  howsoever it commonly holds, that impious opinions and loose life go still together; yet it is no trusting to this rule, as if it did not admit of exceptions. There have been those, whose errors have been foul, and yet their conversation faultless. 
Bernard. Epist. 193.  I remember what Bernard said of Peter Abailardus, that he was john without, and Herod within: And of Arnoldus of Brixia, 
Epist. 195.  Would God his doctrine were so sound, as his life is strict: 
Epist. 196.  And elsewhere; Whose conversation is Honey, his opinion Poison; whose head is a Doves, his tail a Scorpions. Epiphanius, when he speaks of the heretic Hierax (an heretic with a witness, who denied the resurrection of the flesh, 
Epiphan. haeres. 67.  which he granted to the soul) could say, He was a man truly admirable for his exercise in piety, and such an one, as besides the governance of his own, could draw other men's souls to the practice of Godliness. And Augustine speaking somewhere of Pelagius and some others of his Sect (I remember) acknowledgeth, that the carriage of their life was fair, and unblamable: And those that are the bitterest enemies to the Waldenses, or poor men of Lions, give great testimony to the integrity and inoffensiveness of their conversation.  
So on the contrary, there are many whose Religion is sound, but their life impure. As Caesar said of old, We have enough of these Birds at home. Such, as like Ants, follow the tract of their fellows to their common hillock; going on those right ways of Opinion, whereinto example & education have put them, yet staining their profession by lewd behaviour. I have read, that a rich jew being asked why he turned Christian, 
Bromiard. V. Fides.  laid the cause upon the virtue of our Faith. And being asked, how he did so well know the virtue of such faith; because (said he) the nation of Christians could not possibly hold out so long, by virtue of their works, for they are stark naught; therefore it must needs be by the power of their Faith. Certainly it were woe with us, if lives should decide the truth of Religion, betwixt us and unbelievers, betwixt us and our ignorant forefathers: These are not therefore fit umpires betwixt Christians competitioning for the truth. The jew was the sounder for religion, yet the Samaritan was more charitable, than either the Levice, or Priest. It were strange, if in the corruptest Church, there were not some conscionable; and no less, if in the holiest, 
Nullum malum Punicum in quo non aliquod gra num supput●e.  there be not some lawless and inordinate; there is no pomegranate wherein there is not some grains rotten. The sanctity of some few cannot bolster out falsehood in the common belief; neither can the disorder of Orthodox believers, disparage that soundness of doctrine, which their life belies. And if our Saviour give us this rule for discerning of false Prophets; By their fruits you shall know them; 
Ma●. 7.17, 18, 19  doubtless, that fruit was intended chiefly for their doctrine; their lives were fair, their carriage innocent; (for they came in sheep's clothing.) What was that other then honest simplicity? yet their fruits were evil: 
Salmeron. 1. ●rolegom.  but withal, as a good and holy life is (as he said well) a good Commentary to the sacred Volume of God; so their out-breaking iniquities were a good Commentary upon their vicious doctrines; both ways were their fruits evil. And if mere outward carriage should be the sole rule of our trial, nothing could be more uncertain than our determination: How many Dunghills have we seen, which whiles they have been covered with Snow, could not be discerned from the best Gardens? How many sour Crabs, which for beauty have surpassed the best Fruit in our Orchard? As in matter of reason, experience tells us, that some falsehoods are more probable than some truths; so is it also in matter of practice; no face seems so purely fair as the painted. Truth of Doctrine is the Test whither we must bring our profession for matter of trial; and the sacred Oracles of God are the Test, whereby we must try the truth of Doctrine.   

§. XIIII. The tenth rule of Moderation: That we must draw as near as we safely may, to Christian adversaries, in cases of lesser differences.  
IT will perhaps seem a Paradox to some, which I must lay down for a tenth rule of Moderation, viz. That we must endeavour to draw as near as we may to Christian adversaries, in the differences of Religion: For some men, whose zeal ●● carries them beyond knowledge, are all for extremities, and think there can never be distance enough betwixt themselves and those that oppose them in the controversies of doctrine, or discipline. For the righting of our conceits in this point, we shall need a double distinction; one of the Persons, the other of the limits of our approach, or remoteness. Of the Persons first; for there are Hosts, and there are Inimici. The former are they, who profess open hostility to the whole cause of Christianity; as jews, and Turks: The latter are Adversaries within the Bosom of the Church; such as, according with us in the main essential Truths, maintain stiff differences in matters of great consequence, both in the judgement and practice of Religion. To the first of these, we do justly profess public and universal defiance; hating all communion with them, save that of civil commerce, which is not unlawful with the most savage Infidels. And in this name, do we deservedly cry down those favours, which these avowed enemies of Christ receive at Rome, even from the hands of him, who pretends to succeed the most fervent Apostle, that once said, Lord, thou knowest I love thee: Besides the benefit of a favourable entertainment, we know the Pope on his Coronation day vouchsafes to receive a Present from their hands; 
Lib. sacrar. ceremon.  no less than that holy Book of God, which their cursed impiety profaneth, and which, in requital, condemneth their impiety; whiles those that profess the same Creed more sincerely than himself, 
In locis Italiae & adjacentium Insularum nullus Haereticus quovis praetextu domicilium contrahere, habitare, aut morari possit. Greg. 15. Anno 1622.  are rigorously expelled, and cruelly martyred. Our stomach doth not so far exceed our Charity, but we can pray for those miscreant jews: they once for all cursed themselves, His blood be upon us and our children; we are so merciful to them, that we can bless them, in praying that his blood may be upon them for their Redemption. 
Pro Iudaeis est orare, sed non st●cten●do genua. Greg. Fer. 6. post Palman.   
And as we can pray for their Conversion, so we cannot but commend the Order, which is held in some parts of Italy, that, by the care of the Ordinary, 
Gav●nt. Enchirid. tit. Conc●o.  Sermons are made on their Sabbaths in those places, where the jews are suffered to dwell for their Conviction; but whiles we wish well to their souls, we hate their society. 
Gavant. ex Silvio. V. Haebr. ex Provinc. Mediol.   
I like well that piece of just prohibition, That Christian women should not be Nurses to the Children of jews, in their Houses; but I cannot brook the Liberty following, that out of their Houses, by Licence from the Ordinary, they may: My reason is but just, because their proud detestation goes so high, as to an absolute forbiddance of any office of respect from theirs to us, and yet allows the same from ours to them. So, by their Law, 
Munster. Precept. Mosaica negat.  a jewish woman may not be either Midwife, or Nurse to one of ours; yet giving way to our Women, to do these services to theirs. 
Ib. Munst.  Not to speak of the same fashion of Garments (which however forbidden by the Law, they have now learned for their own advantage, to dispense with) what a curiosity of hatred it is, 
Ib. Munst.  that if one of us Gentiles should make a jews fire on their Sabbath, it is not lawful for them to sit by it: And why should we be less averse from that odious generation? They have done violence to the Lord of Life, our blessed Redeemer; what have we done unto them? Blood lies still upon them; nothing upon us, but undue mercy.  
But as to the latter kind of Adversaries, we must be advised to better terms; if any of them who call themselves Christians, have gone so far, as directly and wilfully to raze the foundation of our most holy Faith; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and being selfe-condemned, through the clear evidence of truth, shall rebelliously persist in his heresy; Into the secret of such men, let not my soul come, my glory be thou not joined to their assembly. 
Gen. 49.6.  I know no reason to make more of such a one, then of a jew or Turk in a Christians skin. I cannot blame that holy man, who durst not endure to be in the Bath with such a monster; 
Theed. lib. 4. c. 14. & Cassiod. l. 7. c. 16.  or those of Samosata, who in imitation of this fact of Saint john, let forth all the water of that public Bath, wherein Eunomius had washed, and caused new to be put therein. 
Socrat. l. 7 c. 3. Islud aggressus non de more catholicae Ecclesiae.  I cannot blame Theodosius a Bishop of Phrygia, (however Socrates pleaseth to censure him) that he drove the Macedonian heretics, not out of the City only, but out of the Country too. 
Sozem. l. 7. c. 1.  I cannot blame Gratianus the Emperor, that he interdicted all assemblies to the Manichees, Photinians, Eunomians; And if he had extended his Banne against those other forenamed heretics, it had been yet better for the Church. 
Sozom. Ibid. c. 2.  Hierom's word is a good one; It is not cruelty that we thus do for God's cause, but Piety. But if there be any, who with full consent embrace all the Articles of Christian Believe, and yet err (not contumaciously) in some such dangerous consequences, as do in mine understanding (though not their own) threaten ruin to the foundation by them yielded; as I dare not exclude them from the Church of God, so I dare not profess to abhor their Communion. God forbid we should shut up Christian brotherhood in so narrow a compass, as to bar all misbelievers of this kind, out of the family of God. Do but turn over that charitable and irrefragable discourse of Christianography. Let your eyes but walk over those ample territories and large regions, which in most of the parts of the habitable world (but especially in Europe, Africa, and Asia) profess the blessed name of God, our Redeemer, and look to be saved by his blood; and then ask your heart, if you dare entertain so uncharitable a thought, as to exclude so many millions of weak, but true believers, out of the Church below, or out of heaven above: you shall there see Grecians, Russians, Georgians, Armenians, jacobites, Abassines; and many other sects serving the same God, acknowledging the same Scriptures, believing in the same Saviour, professing the same faith in all fundamental points, aspiring to the same Heaven; and like Bees, though flying several ways, and working upon several meadows, or gardens, yet in the evening, meeting together in the same hive.  
Now, if I lived in the community of any of these divers sects of Christians, I should hold it my duty to comply with them in all (not unlawful) things; and if any of them should live in the community of our Church, I should labour by all good means to reclaim him from his erroneous opinion, or superstitious practice; & when I had wrought upon him my utmost, rather than let go my hopes and interest in him, I would go as far to meet him (without any angariation, save that of charity) as the line of a good conscience would permit me; herein following the sure pattern of our blessed Apostle, 
1 Cor. 9.19.20.21.22.  whose profession it is, Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more: unto the jews I became as a jew, that I might gain the jews; And to them under the Law, as under the Law, that I might gain them that are under the Law; To them that are without Law, as without Law, (being not without Law to God, but under the Law to Christ) that I might gain them that are without Law. To the weak, I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I am made all things, to all men, that I might by all means save some.  
I do much fear the Church of Rome hath a hard answer to make one day, in this particular; Who imperiously, and unjustly challenging unto itself the title of the Church Catholic, shutteth all other Christian professions out of doors, refusing all Communion with them, and so neglecting them, as if they had no souls; or those souls cost nothing; Amongst the rest, I shall give but two instances. 
Dam. à Goes. histr. Ethiop.   
The great Prince of the Abassine Christians having heard of the fame of the European Churches, sends some of his nation, of whom he had a great opinion, to Rome, to be informed of the substance and rites of Religion there professed; Zago Zaba was one of the number; they with great labour and hazard arrived there, made known their great errand; but were so far slighted, that they were not so much as admitted to Christian society, and after many years vain hope, were turned home disregardfully, not much wiser than they came, without any other news, save of the scorn and insolence of those, who should have instructed them. A carriage much suitable to that, which they still bear to the Greek Church; a Church which, as for extent, it may compare with theirs; so for purity of doctrine, I dare say (if that be her voice, which her last Patriarch Cirill of Constantinople hath acquainted the world with all (as I was also confidently assured, by the late learned Bishop of Saribaris) as far exceeding the Roman Church, as the Roman doth the Russian, or Ethiopick, which it most contemneth: Let any the most curious eye travel over that learned confession of faith, 

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
See this question shortly but fully handled by my L. Grace of Canterb. in his late convictive answer to A. C. sect. 9 p. 24.25.26.  
And largely discussed by the Archbish. of Spalat. De Repub. Eccles. l. 7. c. 10. num. à 119. ad 187.   which after all devises, and illusions is proved sufficiently to be the genuine act of that worthy Patriarch, and by him published in the name of the whole Greek Church, and let him tell me what one blemish, or mole he can find in that fair body; save only that one clause, concerning the third person of the blessed Trinity; The holy Spirit proceeding from the Father by the Son; wherein there can be no danger, whiles he adds, in the next words, Being of the same substance with the Father and the Son; and concludes; These three Persons in one Essence we call the most holy Trinity, ever to be blessed, glorified and adored of every creature. This error of his Greek Church, as it is now minced, is rather a Problem of Scholastical Divinity, than an heresy in the Christian faith. In all the rest, show me any the most able, and sincere Divine in the whole Christian world, that can make a more clear, and absolute declaration of his faith, than that Greek Church hath done, by the hand of her worthy, and renowned Prelate; yet how uncharitably is she barred out of doors by her unkind sister of Rome? How unjustly branded with heresy? in so much, as it is absolutely forbidden to the Grecian Priests to celebrate their Masses, 
Ne Graeci Latinomore, etc. Ex Pio 5. Anno 1566. Gavant.  and divine Services, in the Roman fashion: Neither may the Romans officiate in the Grecian manner, under the pain of perpetual suspension; And if a woman of the Latin Church be given in marriage to a Greek, 
Gavant. ex Congr. Episc. 20. Febr. 1596.  she may not be suffered to live after the Grecian fashion; A solecism, much like to that of the Russian Churches, who admit none to their Communion (be he nver so good a Christian) if he do not submit himself to their matriculation, by a new Baptism. Sure, those Christians that thus carry themselves towards their dear brethren (dearer perhaps to God than they) have either no bowels, or no brains, and shall once find by the difference of the smart, whether ignorance, or hardheartedness, were guilty of this injurious measure.  
Next to the persons, the limits of this approach or remoteness are considerable, which must be proportioned according to the condition of them with whom we have to deal. If they be professed enemies to the Christian name, 
Philip. 3.2.  Beware of dogs, beware of the concision, saith the Apostle of the Gentiles. justly must we spit at these blasphemers, who say they are jews and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan. 
Revel. 2.9.  If they be coloured friends, but true heretics; such as do destroy, directly, and pertinaciously, the foundation of Christian religion; the Apostles charge is express, 
Tit. 3.10.  Haereticum hominem devita, A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition avoid and reject; and such an one as he may be, that adds blasphemy to heresy, it might be no real mistaking (though a verbal) of that wise and learned Pontifician, who misreading the vulgar, made two words of one, and turned the Verb into a Noun, De vita; Supple, Tolle: put an heretic to death: A practice so rise in the Roman Church, against those Saints, who, 
Act. 24.14.  in the way, which they call heresy, worship the Lord God of their Fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law, in the Prophets, in the Apostles, that all the world takes notice of it; seeming, with the rap't Evangelist, to hear the souls, from under the Altar, crying aloud, 
Revel. 6.9 10.  How long Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood, on them that dwell upon the earth? Surely were we such as their uncharitable 〈◊〉 misconstruction would make us, their cruelty were not excusable before God, or men: but now, as our innocence shall aggravate their condemnation before the just Tribunal in heaven; so our example shall condemn them, in the judgement of all impartial Arbiters here on earth: For what Client of Rome was ever sentenced to death by the reformed Church, merely for matter of religion? what are we other to them, than they are to us? the cause is mutually the same; only our charity is more, our cruelty less. Neither is this any small testimony of our sincere innocence; It is a good rule of Saint Chrysostome, if we would know a Wolf from a Sheep (since their clothing (as they use the matter) will not difference them) look to their fangs, if those be bloody; their kind is enough bewrayed; for who ever saw the lips of a Sheep besmeared with blood? It is possible to see a Campian at Tyburn, or a Garnets' head upon a pole; Treasonable practices, not mere Religion, are guilty of these executions: But however, our Church is thus favourable in the case of those heresies, which are either simple, or secondary, and consequential; yet in the cases of heretical blasphemy, her holy zeal hath not feared to shed blood: witness the flames of Ket, and Legate, and some other Arrians in our memory; And the zealous prosecution of that Spanish Cistertian, whom we heard and saw (not long since) belching out his blasphemous contumelies against the Son of God, who after he was given over to the secular power for execution, was by the Spanish Ambassador Master Gondemor, carried, back into Spain by leave from King james, of blessed memory: in which kind also Master Calvin did well approve himself to God's Church, in bringing Servetus to the stake at Geneva; As for those which are heretics only by consequence, and interpretation, heedlessly undermining that foundation which they would pretend to establish, as we may not, in regard of their Opinions in themselves, utterly blot them out of the Catalogue of brethren, so we must heartily endeavour all good means for their reclamation; strive to convince their errors; labour with God for them in our prayers, try to win them with all loving offices, neither need we doubt to join with them in holy duties, until their obduredness and wilful pertinacy shall have made them uncapable of all good counsel; and have drawn them to a turbulent opposition of the truth: for, as it is in actual offences, that not our sin, but our unrepentance damns us; so it is in these matters of opinion, not the error, but the obstinacy incurs a just condemnation. So long therefore, as there is hope of reformation, we may, we must comply with this kind of erring Christians; but not without good cautions. First, that it be only in things good or indifferent. Secondly, That it be with a true desire to win them to the truth. Thirdly, that we find ourselves so throughly grounded, as that there be no danger of our infection: for we have known it fall out with some, as with that noble Grecian of whom Xenophon speaks, who whiles he would be offering to stay a Barbarian, from casting himself down from the rock, was drawn down with him for company, from that precipice. Saint Austen professes that this was one thing, that hardened him in his old Manicheisme; That he found himself victorious in his disputations, with weak adversaries, such men in stead of convincing, yield; and make themselves miserable, and their opposites foolishly proud, and mis-confident. Fourthly, that we do not so far condescend to complying with them, as for their sakes to betray the least parcel of divine Truth. I● they be our friends, it must be only, usque ad arras, there we must leave them. That which we must be content to purchase with our blood, we may not forgo for favour, even of the dearest. Fiftly, that we do not so far yield to them, as to humour them in their error, as to obfirme them in evil; as to scandalise others. And lastly, if we find them utterly incorrigible, that we take off our hand and leave them unto just censure.  
As for differences of an inferior nature; 
Staphil. desens contra Illiricum.  if but (De venis capillaribus & minutioribus theologicarum quaestionum spinetis, as Staphilus would have theirs:) or, if of matters ritual, and such as concern rather the Decoration, than the health of Religion; it is fit they should be valued accordingly; neither peace, nor friendship should be crazed for these, in themselves considered. But if it fall out through the peevishness and self-conceit of some cross dispositions, that even those things, which are in their nature indifferent, (after the lawful command of Authority) are blazoned for sinful, and heinous, and are made an occasion of the breach of the common peace, certainly it may prove that some schism (even for trivial matters) may be found no less pernicious, than some heresy. If my coat be rend in pieces, it is all one to me whether it be done by a Briar or a nail, or by a knife. If my vessel sink, it is all one whether it were with a shot, or a leak: The less the matter is, the greater is the disobedience, and the disturbance so much the more sinful. No man can be so foolish, as to think the value of the Apple, was that which cast away mankind; but the violation of a Divine Interdiction. 
1 Pet. 2.13.  It is fit therefore that men should learn to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake: But if they shall be wilfully refractory, they must be put in mind, that Korahs' mutiny was more fearfully revenged, than the most grievous idolatry.   

§. XV. The eleventh rule of Moderation; To refrain from all railing terms, and spiteful provocations in differences of Religion.  
IT shall be our eleventh rule for Moderation, that we refrain from all railing terms, and spiteful provocations of each other in the differences of Religion. A charge too requisite for these times; wherein it is rare to find any writer, whose ink is not tempered with gall, and vinegar, any speaker, whose mouth is not a quiver of sharp, and bitter words. 
Psal. 64.3.  It is here, as it is in that rule of Law; The breach of peace is begun by menacing, increased by menacing, but finished by this battery of the tongue. 
H●spin. de festis Ethnic.  Wherein we are like those Egyptians of whom the Historian speaks; who having begun their devotion with a fast, whiles the Sacrifice was burning, fell upon each others with blows, which having liberally dealt on all hands, at last they sat down to their feast: thus do we; after professions of an holy zeal, 
Ex utraque p●rte suut qui pug●are cup●●tus Cic. Tyroni suo Epist. l. 16.  we do mercilessly wound each other with reproaches, and then sit down, and enjoy the contentment of our supposed victory. Every provocation sets us on, and then (as it useth to be with scolds) every bitter word heightens the quarrel; Men do, as we use to say of Vipers, when they are whipped, spit out all their poison. 
Erasmus taxat Hilarium quod Arrium appellat Satanam & Antichristum. Praefat. ad Hilar.  These uncharitable expressions, what can they bewray, but a distempered heart, from which they proceed, as the smoke and sparks flying up show the house to be on fire; or as a corrupt spital shows exulcerate lungs: By this means it falls out that the truth of the cause is neglected, whiles men are taken up with an idle, yet busy, prosecution of words; Like as in thrashing the straw flies about our ears, but the corn is hid. And it hath been an old observation, that when a man falls to personal railing, it argues him drawn utterly dry of matter, and despairing of any farther defence; as we see and find that the dog which running back, falls to bawling, and barking hath done fight any more. 
Mr. blunt's voyage to the Levant.  I have both heard and read that this practice is not rare amongst the jews, to brawl in their public Synagogues, and to bang each other with their holy Candlesticks and censers; in so much that this scandal hath endangered the setting off some of theirs to Mahometisme: And I would to God it were only proper unto them, and not incident unto too many of those, who profess to be of the number of them, to whom the Prince of Peace said, My peace I leave with you. It is the caveat which the blessed Apostle gives to his Galathians, and in them to us; If ye by't, and devour one another, 
Gal. 5.15.  take heed ye be not consumed one of another. Lo here, it is the tongue that bites; and so bites, as that (after the fashion of a mad dogs teeth) both rage and death follows. And if any man think it a praise (with the Lacedaemonian in Plutarch) to bite like a Lion, let him take that glory to himself, and be as he would seem, 
Psal. 17.12.  like a Lion that is greedy of his prey, and as a young Lion, that lurketh in secret places: But withal let him expect that just doom of the God of Peace, Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and the Adder, 
Psa. 91.13  the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Certainly it is in vain for us to expect any other measure from the exasperated, and unruly minds of hostile brethren, 
Eteocles & Polynices.  whose hatred is commonly so much greater, as their interest is more: They whose fires would not meet after death, are apt in life to consume one another.  
This is the stale and known Machination of him, whose true title is, The accuser of the brethren. That old Dragon, when he saw the woman flying to the wilderness to avoid his rage; 
Revel. 12.15.  what doth he? He casts out of his mouth water, as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood: what are these waters which he casts out of his mouth, but slanderous accusations, lyings, detractions, cruel persecutions of the tongue? And shall we that profess the dear name of one common Saviour, so far second the great enemy of mankind, as to derive some cursed Channels from those Hellish floods of his, for the drenching of the flourishing valleys of God's Church? Shall we rather imitate him then the blessed Archangel of God, who contending with the Devil, and disputing about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, 
jude 9  but said, The Lord rebuke thee: Nay, shall we dare to do that to Brethren, which the Angel durst not do to the Devil?  
When we hear and see fearful thundering, and lightning, and tempest, we are commonly wont to say, that ill spirits are abroad; neither doubt I but that many times (as well as in jobs case) God permits them to raise these dreadful blustrings in the air, right so when we see these flashes, and hear these hideous noises of contention in God's Church, we have reason to think that there is an hand of Satan in their raising, and continuance. For, as for God, we know his courses are otherwise. 
1 Kings 19.11.  When it pleased him to make his presence known to Elijah; first there passed a great and strong wind, which rend the Mountains, and broke the Rocks in pieces, but the Lord was not in the Wind. After that Wind, came an Earthquake, but the Lord was not in the Earthquake: After the Earthquake a Fire, but the Lord was not in the Fire; but after the Fire, came a still small Voice, and therein was the Almighty pleased to express himself; Lo, 
Ambro. in Psal. 45. ●  as Saint Ambrose observes well, the Devil is for noise, Christ for silence. He that is the Lion of the Tribe of juda, delights in the style of the Lamb of God; and is so termed, both by john the Baptist, his forerunner, in the days of his flesh, and by john the Evangelist, his Apostle, in the state of his glory: Neither was the holy Spirit pleased to appear in the form of a Falcon, or Eagle, or any other bird of Prey, but of a Dove; the meekness and innocence whereof, our Saviour recommended for a Pattern to all his followers: 
Nunquid Ovis Lupum persequitur? non, sed Lupus Ovem, etc. Chrys. Hom. 19 in Matth.   
If there be any therefore, who delight to have their Beakes or Talons imbrued in blood, let them consider of what spirit they are; sure I am, they are not of his, whose so zealous charge it is; 
Coloss. 3.12.  Put on (as the Elect of God, holy and beloved) bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; 
13.  Forbearing one another, forgiving one another; if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, even so also do ye: 
14.  And above all things put on Charity, which is the bond of perfectness; 
15.  And let the Peace of God rule in your hearts.   

§. XVI. The twelfth rule of Moderation: That however our judgements differ, we should compose our affections towards Unity and Peace.  
WHich divine counsel of the blessed Apostle leads me to the twelfth and last rule of Moderation, viz. That if we cannot bring our judgements to conspire in the same truth with others, yet we should compose our affections to all peace, to all tender respects and kind offices to our dissenting Brethren. 
Contra quam Lutheranus, q. apud Prolaeum. A Calviniana fraternitate Libera n●s Domine. P●olaeus. Fascic. c. 1. q. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. So●rat. l. 2. c. 30.  What if our brains be divers? yet let our hearts be one. I cannot but commend the exemplary disposition of the Christians of Constantinople, in the days of Constantius; when the famous Church of the Resurrection was there to be erected; the Novatians, men, women, children, (though a Sect diversely affected) brought Stones and Mortar to the building of it; joining with the Orthodox Christians, against the Arrians; communicating with them in three other Churches; and were upon the point of a full unity and concord, had not some few wrangling spirits, of the Novatian party put in a Claw, and crossed so fair hopes. Had the matter been so slight as he conceived, it was good counsel which the Emperor gave to Bishop Alexander, 
Socr. l. 1. c. 4.  Ac tametsi etc. Although you, saith he, differ from each other in a point of small moment (as we cannot all be of one mind in every thing) yet it may be so ordered by you, that there may be a sincere concord betwixt you; and that there be a mutual communion and consociation betwixt all your people. And the same temper hath been laudably observed and professed by divers late Worthies in the Church. Concerning the administration of the Sacrament to the sick in case of extremity, Calvin in an Epistle to Olevianus, gives reasons of that practice, but withal adds; Scis, frater, 
Epist. 363.  alium esse apud nos morem; You know, brother, the fashion is otherwise with us; I bear with it, because it is not available for us to contend. Luther, though a man of a hot and stiff spirit, yet writing to the Cities and Churches of Helvetia, hath thus; 
Honestis, ac prud. Dom. Consulibus, etc. Tiguri, Bernae, Basileae, Schafhusii, Saugalli, etc. An 1537. Vid. Hosp. & D. Paraeum in Iren.  Insuper ut dilectio & amicabilis concordia, etc. Moreover, that there may be a perfect and friendly love and concord betwixt us, we shall not fail to do whatsoever lies in our power, especially I, for my part, will utterly blot out of my thoughts, all the offence that I had conceived, and will promise all love and fidelity to you: And shuts up with a fervent prayer; that God, by the grace of his holy Spirit, would glue their hearts together, through Christian love; and purge out of them all the dross and dregs of humane diffidence, and devilish malice and suspicion, to the glory of his holy Name, the salvation of many Souls, to the despite of the Devil, 
Subs●ripti. V. P. Add●ctus. Mart. jucherus.  of the Pope, and all his adherents. And before that time, in the Conference of the Divines on both parts at Marpurge, Oct. 3. 1529. passing through all the points wherein there seemed any difference, and sticking only at the last, concerning the Sacrament, they shut up thus, Quanquam verò, etc. And although we could not at this time agree, whether the true Body and Blood of Christ be in the Bread and Wine corporally, yet each part shall hold and maintain (so far as his Conscience will allow) true Christian love with other, and both parts shall continually pray unto Almighty God, that he will by his Spirit confirm us in the true sense and understanding thereof: To which were subscribed the names of those ten eminent Divines following; Luther, Melanchton, justus jonas, Osiander, Brentius, Agricola, Oecolampadius, Zuinglius, Bucer, Hedio. Thus, Thus it should be amongst Divines, amongst Christians, who hope to meet in one Heaven. If it must be with us, as with the Sava and Danuby, two famous Rivers in the East, that they run threescore miles together in one Channel, with their waters divided in very colour, from each other; yet let it be (as it is in them) without noise, without violence. If we be children, as we pretend, of our Father Abraham, let us take up his peaceable suggestion to his Nephew; 
Gen. 13.8.  Let there be no strife, I pray thee, betwixt thee and me, betwixt thy Herdsmen and my Herdsmen, for we are brethren. Macarius was, in his time, accounted a very holy man; yet I read, that after he had macerated himself with long devotion, he had an answer from God, of the acceptance of his Prayers; but withal an intimation, that after all his endeavours, he came short of the merit of two Women in the City, which were two Wives of two Brethren, which had lived fifteen years together in one house, without the least discord.  
This sweet and peaceable disposition cannot but be graciously accepted of God, betwixt us that are Brethren, in the wide House of his Church. It is not for Christians to be like unto Thistles, or Tazels, which a man cannot touch, without pricking his fingers; but rather to Pitosella, or Mouse-eare in our Herbal, which is soft and silken in the handling, although if it be hard strained, it yields a juice that can harden Metals to cut Iron. But if we meet with a kind of men, who are disposed to be quarrelsome, like to that certion in Suidas, 
Suidas. V. certion.  who would needs wrestle with every man he met; the best way is to do as some have advised, when we are provoked to fight with women, to run away. eat profane and vain babbling, 
2 Tim. 2.16.  (saith the Apostle) as for peace, if it fly from us, we must run after it; Follow peace with all men, as he to his Hebrews: 
Heb. 12.14.  But if after all our quickest paces, it will not be overtaken; if we still fall upon those, who are enemies to peace; rabid children, who love to hear themselves cry; Salamanders, who love the fire of contention; muddy Eels, who delight most in troubled waters, be they such as are under our power, wherefore are Censures, but for such spirits? Even he that could say, Shall I come to you with a Rod, or with the spirit of meekness? said also, 
Gal. 5.12.  I would they were even cut off that trouble you. It is well commended by the Historian in Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople, 
Socr. l. 7: c. 40.  that he showed himself mild and gentle to all, and by this means won more than others did by roughness and severity; and it is a sure rule, 
Mesius est propter misericordiam rationem reddere quà propter crudelitatem.  that it is an easier account that shall be given for mercy, then for cruelty: And certainly, this course is first to be taken; The Chirurgeon strokes the arm, before he opens the Vein: But where lenity prevails not, we are cruel to the Church, if we strike not home; when singing will not still the Child, the Rod must: If they be such as are without the reach of our Authority, we must first do our best, to make them sensible of the wounds they give to our common Mother, and those Rubs which they lay in the way of the Gospel; since it cannot be otherwise now, than the Historian noteth in those first Ages of the Church, 
Quinetiam dogmatum discrepantia, quorum alia ex aliis nascebantur, impedimento fuit, quo minus complures, qui fidem Christianam recipere animum induxerant, eam recip●rent.  that the difference of Opinions, whereof one arose out of another, was a great hindrance to many, in pitching upon our holy Profession: And as Optatus, of old, betwixt our Licet and their Non licet, Christian souls cannot choose but stagger, and be distracted; And withal, to mind them of the palpable Wrongs we do to ourselves, and the Advantages we give to common enemies. It was a worthy and just intimation, which Saint Gregory Nazianzen gives, to this purpose, unto the Synod of Constantinople; What can be more absurd (saith he) then whiles we decline the enemies fight, to betake ourselves to mutual assaults of each other, and by this means to waste and weaken our own forces? Or what can be a greater pleasure to our adversaries, then to see us thus bickering with ourselves? But if neither the respect to the Glory of the God of Peace, nor to the peace and welfare of the dear Church and Spouse of Christ, nor of themselves, can prevail any thing; what remains, but to mourn in silence for the irreparable breaches of the sacred Walls of jerusalem, and together with our zealous prayers for the opposed peace of Zion, to appeal to the justice of that holy and righteous Lord God of Israel, with  Increpa Domine bestias calami, 
Rebuke, O Lord, the beasts of the Reed, and scatter the people that delight in War. Amen.  
FINIS.