LOT'S LITTLE ONE OR MEDITATIONS ON GEN. 19 VERS. 20. Being the substance of several SERMONS sometimes delivered By WILLIAM INCE Mr in Arts, late Signior Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. Published since his death, by R. I.  MATTH. 5. 19 
Whosoever shall break one of these least Commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.  
LONDON Printed by I. R. for the Kingdom of Ireland, and are to be sold by john Crook and Richard Sergier, in Dublin, at the Sign of St Austin in Castle-street. 1640.   

Imprimatur Tho. Wykes. August 26. 1640.   

Reverendissimo in Christo Patri LANCELO TO, Providentiâ divinâ D ●o Archiepiscopo Dubliniensi Hiberniae Primati & Metropolitae, Has, fratris charissimi Gulielmi Ince, in artibus magistri, Colegii Sanctae Trinitatis Dublin nuper socii senioris, lucubrationes posthumas, igni ab authore devotas, è Sybillinis veluti foliis (ut plurimum) collectas, amore & curâ fraternis, luce & corpore donatas, in meritissimae, Tam authoris dum viveret, quam fratris superstitis observantiae testimonium, L. M. D. D. D. Clementiae vestrae servus à sacris addictissimus.  
Randulphus Ince.   

The Text.  
GEN. 19 VERS.  
18. ET dixit Lot ad eos, o ne sic quaeso Domine mi.  
19 Ecce nune invenit servus tuus gratiam in conspectu tuo, & magnificasti misericordiam tuam erga me, servando vitam meam, & ego non potero liberare me ad montem, ne fortè aliquod malum capiat & moriar.  
20. Eccenunc civitas ista propinqua ad fugiendum illuc, & ipsa exigua est, eripiam me nunc illuc, (nun exigua est?) & vivet anima mea.  
18. ANd Let said unto them, o not so my Lord.  
19 Bebold now thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life, and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die.  
20. Behold now this City is near to flee unto, and it is a little one, o let me escape thither (is it not a little one?) and my Soul shall live.   
GEN. 19 VERS. 18, etc. 
And Let said unto them, O not so my Lord, etc.  
THese words are a part of a prayer, that prayer of a story, a story almost as memorable as any, that was ever yet left upon record since the creation of man, and that is the destruction of Sodom: upon which God indeed commanded the wife of Lot not to look back, 
Vers. 17.  and her hard heart of unbelief and disobedience transformed her into a pillar of stone; so that she, that on Gods bidding would not go, when she would, should now stand, stand an eternal monument of God's displeasure against the children of disobedience.  
Let it not awaken your wonder, that where the Text says a Pillar of Salt, I say of Stone. It is consonant to reason, and the general voice of interpreters, that it was Salt rather, quoad speciem, quam naturam specific am, rather in resemblance of the grain than identity of the nature: else would it never have lasted through so many ages and years to josephus his time, 
josephus. Antiquit. jud. lib. 11. nam extat. (inquit) hodie quoque.  who tells us that in his time there was still extant such a Stone, which tradition gave out to be this though then of one Stone it was become two monuments, one of God's anger against the Wife of Lot, and the second of Times devouring teeth, which had dealt with this as with many other monuments, whose antiquity we read by not reading them, and guess at their age and standing by our neither reading nor understanding of them.  
But of this, we are most certain, she was punished for disobeying, and her disobedience was in looking back towards Sodom, when God had forbidden her. 
Luk. 17. 32.  But what was to her forbidden is to us commanded to look back upon Sodom. 
2 Pet. 2. 6.   
All judgements are more for public example then private revenge, and whatsoever was written, 
Rom. 15. 4.  was written for our instruction. Yea and sure by the quality of the judgement, God meant it for public notice, and therefore God sent a flaming judgement, that all eyes might see it, and by the light of it read his just and fearful indignation against impenitent sinners: a flaming judgement that it might be the world's Beacon to rouse and startle snorting security, to awaken to repentance and detestation of sin: a flaming judgement, that men in this might see a glimce of hell, and in this temporary foresee, and foreseeing fear, and fearing prevent another which is eternal.  
Look then back ye penitent and weeping souls, and judge whether is better, to be bathing in those tears, or frying in those flames.  
Look back impenitent and relentless wretches, and let your hearts (frozen in the Lees and and Dregs of sin) melt and thaw at those flames, and let the horror of so prodigious a judgement, work the like effect on you, as on the Wife of Lot to transform you, that it may be true of you, which was of Nabal, at the tidings of his wife Abgail, that his heart died within him and became as a Stone. 
1 Sam. 25. 37.  1 Sam. 25. 37.  
Look then back and behold prodigious sin requited with prodigious punishment; unnatural lust kindled with the fire of hell, punished with fire that against nature reigned from heaven. In this behold the severity of God: with no less wonder behold his Mercy. Though for one righteous man's sake, he will not spare Sodom, yet for Sodom will be not destroy one righteous man. In this City, which was all chaff and therefore fit fuel for the fire, there was but one sheaf the family of Lot, yet God will not destroy that, 
Mat. 3.12.  but graciously as he promiseth in his holy Gospel, sends his Angels to hind it together and lay it in the Garner of safety, when he burns the chaff with fire unquenchable.  
Behold the riches of God's goodness: 
Rom. 2.4.  he might without the least tax of his justice have destroyed Lot, who was not so righteous but God might have beheld matter of anger in him. He can never want in man's wickedness a patronage and defence of his own justice, and though he cannot find in the worst of men so much goodness as may merit the least blessing; yet he cannot miss to find in the best of men so much evil as may merit the greatest punishment.  
Notwithstanding that good God which is never exceptiously apprehensive of man's infirmity, nor uses the advantage of our weakness to show the greatness of his power in punishing but mercy in delivering: yea though he (I say) do sometimes make his temporary judgements (like his common favours the Sun and rain) to fall with equal indifferency on the just and unjust: 
Matth. 5.45.  yet more often and that especially in notorious and exemplary judgements, the good man's singular piety shall find a singular preservation: and when wrath and judgement (like an universal deluge) shall sweep away a nation, nay a world of wicked men, God shall build the righteous an Ark of safety: and he that like the Widowed Turtle singly mourned when all else generally rejoiced in the pleasures of sin, shall when all howl in the bitterness of torment, singly rejoice for his own particular deliverance.  
A voice was heard (as Tacitus tells us) Audita major humanae vox, 
Tacit. hist. lib. 5.  excedere Deos. Here was more than a voice, the presence of Angels, more than their presence, a zealous fervour and earnestness, more than an earnestness, a sacred violence to save Lot. While he lingered (saith vers. 16.) the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him, and they brought him forth and set him without the City.  
Vers. 17. And it came to pass when they had brought him forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed. Where come in the words of my text; And Let said unto them, o not so my Lord: Behold now thy servant hath found grace in thy sigh, etc.  
The words than you see are a prayer, in which observe the two natural parts of every prayer, thanksgiving and petition.  
1. Thanksgiving in these words, Behold now thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast showed unto me in saving of my life.  
The Petition in the rest of the words.  
In the thanksgiving observe.  

First the order of it.  
Secondly the matter of it.   
First the order, that he makes the former sense of God's antecedent favour, the first and best argument to obtain a subsequent request; Be pleased to learn an holy policy;  
That gratitude is the best prologue to a request, and a thankful acknowledgement of a favour received, the best way to obtain another desired.  
We send forth our prayers, oftentimes as Noab bis Dove, and both return empty; 
Gen. 8.9.  the Dove because all the earth was covered with water, and our prayers because all former favours are drowned in our forgetfulness and ingratitude. We are so transported with the immoderate desire of the things we want, that usually we forget what we have.  
Odiosum sanè hominum genus officia exprobrantium, 
Citero,  qua (saith Cicero) commemorare debet is in quem collata sunt, non commemorare qui contulit. The remembrance of courtesies done, sounds odiously in the mouth of the giver, but gracefully becomes the mouth of the receiver, and to a free ingenuous nature shall not only not be a check, that it shall prove a spur to a second bounty.  
I might here then in the authority of Lot's example, be bold to reprove the customary forms of many men's prayers, in which petition ingrosses the whole length of their prayers and strength of their devotion, while they (either as no part) exclude thanksgiving, or (as to a less necessary part) give it the last and least place, even the expiration of their zeal and prayer. Yet thus it is that like the daughters of the horseleech: 
Prov. 30.50.  we are still crying give, give; or like the Gudgeons ever gaping to be fed, but our food obtained, stops our mouths; not a word heard in way of thankfulness. As if the things which were worth so much importunity when requested, were not worth acknowledgement when obtained.  
But from the order of his thank. I come to the matter of it, in which observe these 4 parts.  

1. A gift bestowed, life.  
2. The subject or object on whom, righteous Lot.  
3. The impulsive or moving cause, grace and mercy.  
4. The quantity or extent of that mercy, great, in this word magnified.   
A temporal blessing, life, bestowed on a righteous man; yet Gods great grace and mercy acknowledged to be the only cause, yields us this conclusion;  
That even temporary blessings bestowed on the best of men, are of God's free grace and great mercy, and not at all of man's merit. Or briefly,  
The best of men cannot merit the worst of blessings. I might easily prove it, and as easily disprove the saucy boldness of those Romish dreamers, who besides the Ladder of jacob, 
Gen. 28.12.  Christ jesus, (whose humanity stood on earth and his divinity reached unto heaven) have found another ladder, even of their own merits: a ladder that hath not only perfection of parts but of degrees too, degrees by which they can climb heaven. Such a one that good Patriarch never saw, never dreamed of, neper somnium quidem. Nor we need we indeed a better argument against them than their own arrogance, which doth always bear witness against itself, and proves those things wanting which it brags to be owner of. 
Luk. 18.11.  Let these Pharisees then vaunt themselves to be higher and nearer heaven than other men, but it may well be thought that rather the lightness of their opinion, then real and  truth lifts them up to this height, that they think themselves highest, nearest heaven, 
Psal. 138.6.  yet God that is in heaven beholdeth them a fare off.  
Let us rather imitate the humility of the truly good man, whose prayers are so fare from that odious theme of assuming merit, that none so much, none so frequent in imploring mercy.  
But this point being polemical, let me leave it to the Lords worthies, and hast to the second part of my text, Lot's petition, which is;  

1. First Negative, o not so my Lord.  
2. Secondly Affirmative, o let me escape thither, that is to Zoar: either part backed with a seeming show and strength of reason. First of the Negative.   
And the reason of that is à difficultate conditionis praescriptae, the difficulty of the task imposed, I cannot; proved by a prosillogisme, Ne fortè aliquod malum capiat & moriar, lest some evil take me and I die. Evil behind me, before me, with me, behind me from Sodom, before me, in the disconsolate solitariness of an unfrequented mountain; in solitariness no company, or company worse than beasts or men: lest I be devoured by wild beasts, or robbed by thiefs who are wild men: or if I be secure from the danger of fire behind me, of the mountain before me, yet I cannot for the evil with me, the length of the way, therefore I cannot escape to the mountain, ne fortè aliquod malum capiat & moriar, lest some evil take me and I die.  
Next follows the Affirmative request, where observe.  

1. First the order of it.  
2. Secondly the matter of it.   
1. The order, that it comes in under the Lee and shelter of his arguments, and is set down in a close and Cryphick method, as though indeed it came in by a strong and undoubted consequence, and rather by way of a necessary conclusion than an humble petition. Behold now. (says Lot) this City, etc. O let me escape thither, viz. to Zoar.  
2. Lot's Arguments to enforce his request are, 1. à re, and 2.ae personâ.  
From the thing requested or the requester himself.  
1. Are, from the thing requested, and that, first qualitate, the quality of it, secondly quantitate, the quantity of it.  

1. First qualitate, and for quality its a City.  
2. Secondly quantitate the quantity and that, first Viae, or secondly Termini.   

1. Viae, for the quantity of the way, it is near.  
2. Termini, 'tis little: And now having sent before these Arguments as jacob bis three bands, 
Gen 32.19 and 31.  to mediate for the acceptance of his request, here follows the petition itself like jacob halting: and needs must it halt, that in a worse manner wrestles with, nay against God in an unlawful request; Orecipiam me illuc, O let me escape thither: nun parvula eft? is it not a little one? The same Argument by an Elegant Epanalepsis and interrogation again repeated, as though he reposed a great deal of confidence in the smallness of the City, and by so easy, so facile a request, would challenge God (as it were) of unkindness, to deny him so poor a boon as a little one, yet of great and main consequence, as much as my life and safety is worth, and my soul shall live, which is   
The last Argument from himself requesting, my soul shall live, which may have a double meaning, either in opposition to the danger of the mountain, as if he should say, in the mountain my life is many ways hazarded, but in this City it is secured: or it may be expounded of his content here, my soul shall live, it will be a favour which will afford me much content and felicity.  
Thus having as Dido with her Oxhide, 
Virgil.  cut the words into pieces, I have enclosed a large and spacious ground, wherein I intent (by God's assistance) to build my ensuing discourse, and first of the Negative petition.  
O not so my Lord.  
The Angels (as you may read before Vers. 16.) had wrestled with Lot's dulness, 
Gen. 19.16.  and with a sacred violence of love and mercy carried Lot and set him without the Gates of Sodom, there bid him and them with him escape to the mountain and live. 
Timor adderet alas.  You might imagine that fear (if his obedience halted) would lend him wings to fly to the mountain, that his danger might have made him have trespassed against his good manners, to have begun his journey before the Angel ended his speech.  
Quid statis? nolunt. 
Horat. Sermo. lib. 1. Sat. 1.  atquilicet esse beatis.  
Behold a new delay from his unwillingness, a new dialogue and direction from his better wisdom! 
Quid causae est merito, quinillis Iupiter ambas Iratus inflet buccas, nequeses fore posthac Tam facilem dicat, votis ut praebeat aurem? Horat. ibid.  O not unto the mountain— quid causae est merito? etc.  
How justly might God cease to strive with him, and let him perish, who would thus contend against his own safety? But God that is of infinite mercy, will descend to man's own conditions for man's own safety.  
Rather than Lot shall be destroyed, the strength of God will be overcome by man's weakness, His wisdom be directed by man's folly: nay rather than Lot shall be destroyed, God will use a loving violence, nay will even suffer violence, let his own command be violated, man's will be established. Lot shall do what he will, so he will be saved, prescribe God any conditions; make God remit of his justice against them of Zoar, which He would have destroyed, that He may extend his mercy to Lot, whom He will save.  
But this mercy of God belonging more naturally to the verse where the Angel even to the wonder of patience accepts him even concerning this request also, 
Gen. 19.21.  I will therefore no longer insist upon it, but only make the Act of God's mercy, lead me to the object of it man's perverseness, in Lot's reply, One sic quaeso Domine mi, O not so my Lord.  
Man's a froward and perverse creature, one whom nothing can please, one whom any thing cannot but displease: that can neither want his wishes with patience, nor enjoy them with content, but with equal repining and discontent both expects and attains; in all variety of his desires being ever constant in his old dislike, and the beginning of new wishes. It must be therefore a patience no less than infinite that can bear with his petulancy and folly. How disquietly doth he tumble and toss, like the troubled Sea, with every wind of report? every whisper of danger disquiets him, and ploughs up the level of his peace unto the furrowed wrinkles of sorrow and discontent.  
God in his first Creation went through all the creatures, and looking upon each Species severally saw that they were good. 
Gen. 1.31.  Man in his corruption looks upon all the creatures, and sees something that is bad in them. Adam had a divine knowledge to name all the creatures, 
Gen. 2.20.  we sons of Adam a diabolical knowledge to nickname all the creatures. All our skill is become like the learning of these latter times mere Criticism, so that in this fair volume of creation, in every class of the creatures, where we might behold digitum Dei, the hand of God pointing at some curious text, that volume have we filled with our own Asteriskes and Erratas, and where a candid censure might of every thing make a good construction and take all in a fair sense, the malignity of our wit will alter it with some idle conjecture, and though to the fullest period subscribe a— nonnulla desiderantur.  
There have been, and I doubt are yet some of Pliny his Scholars, who would be God's teachers, who had they been present when God was creating the world, could have corrected the divine Ideas, and taught him how to have made all things in better number, order and measure.  
Since our first parents tasting the forbidden fruit; we their offspring distaste the best things. The devil than promised a deity for eating, and indeed we can mentiri Deum, we have a mock-divinitie, that let God make what he will with never so much exactness, we can find a fault with it; speak the most plain and powerful truth, we can question it: deal never so justly, we can tax him for it: never so mercifully we can distaste it: like Lucian's Momus that being called to judge of the excellence of those masterpieces which the Gods made, 
Lucian.  an horse, an house, and a man, found fault with all three: that the horse had not horns, the house motion, and the man a window to look into his breast.  
As in the creation, so in the whole course of God's providence, all God's actions fall under the censure of man's frowardness. 
Non etenim cunctis placceat vel Iupiter ipse, Nec mittens pluviam nec cohibens pluviam. Prov. Graec.   
— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
Whether it rain or not, all are not content.  
'tis even a task of divinity to please man; not that this argues any weakness in God's power, who can do all things, but a wickedness in man's nature that will be pleased with nothing. Not only the harder portion of afflicton, but even the best of his favours we entertain with some dislike, and Criticise with a froward curiosity upon the choicest of his favours. Nay if God should give us all things in the world, and not content over and beside all, all would be as nothing, but so fare from satiating the unlimited desire of man's appetite, or settling his thoughts in a quiet composednesse that they would prove but a variety of vexation to him, he would be pinched in that plenty, and starved in that variety: yea when God had done all to please him, he should hear the voice of his discontent screaking in that harsh and unpleasing note, O ne sic quae so Domine mi, O, not so my Lord, etc.  
It is an opinion of the Pythagoreans & Platonists, 
Aristo. de Caelo lib. 2. cap. 9  that the heavens by the revolutions of their orbs produce a most melodious and divine harmony, and that as they are the measures of natural time, so they keep an harmonious time. He pawn no faith upon it, that those Orbs are the great Organ to that higher choir of Archangels, Angels and glorified Saints that sing Hallelujahs to him that sitteth on the throne for ever and ever. 
Rev. 4.13.  But, sure I am, there is not more of various harmony there, then there is hereof unpleasing discord: so that were it possible with Scipio in his dream, 
Cic. Somnium Scipionis.  from heaven to behold the earth (at that distance like a Molehill) and men like little Aunts busy in the eager prosecution of their unquiet desires, so to hear all the ejaculations and prayers of mortals, we should not see so much variety of tumultuous motion, as we should hear of distaste and passion. What murmurs, complaints, repine: what clamorous frowardness, harshness, whining tuchinesse should we here? How many notes of discontent and passion harshly grate upon our ears, and a world full of ne sic quaesoes, not foes, not so my Lord: all unquiet, and in all and every condition and estate a general distaste and frowardness, one praying for that which another prays against, one desiring that which another execrates, and every one envying the condition of other, weary and complaining of their own, and both and all, in their disagreeing wishes, agreeing in this harsh and unpleasing note. O ne sic quaeso, Domine mi, O not so my Lord.  
You will not wonder at the poor Galleyslave, who is forced under the rigid exaction of a cruel master, at each tug to wrack nature, to the height of her endeavour, and with his painting sighs and drops of sweat to wrestle with, nay overcome the opposition of winds and waves, if you hear from this miserable wretch, vented amongst his sighs, Ne sic quaeso, Domine mi, O not so my Lord.  
You will not wonder that the poor labourer that carries the price of his bread upon his forehead, and is forced to make the wheel turn with no other Oil than his own sweat, if you hear the same from him.  
Nor will you wonder at the poor wretch, that lies gasping in the Suburbs of death (whose gasping 'tis hard to say whether it be to take in or let go the poor remainder of his breath) you will not wonder if he, cast down upon the hard bed of affliction, in a discontented frowardness rebound again, like a stone toward the hand that cast him, with his Ne sic quaeso, Domine mi, O not so my Lord.  
But will you wonder to hear the rich man, upon whom the world flows, like the setting of the Hellespont, one way without a return, a Moiety of whose fortunes are both the wish and envy of thousands; whose labour is but recreation, and the study of others but to please him; whom fair pleasure in the variety of all her dresses courteth? Will you wonder that such an one, in his choice of worldly pleasures should have his ne sic quaeso, that such a one could have any the least distaste? But so it is.  
Nor need we indeed to wonder. What can all these outward things comfort a man in a languishing disease? This displicentia sui, is a sickness of our nature. Since Adam first eat that forbidden Apple our Teeth are set on edge, 
Ezek. 11. 2  so that we disrellish even Angel's food, Manna. 
Numb. 21.5.   
The malignity of our wit can find a fault where God never made any, and this dislike of all God's actions and censure of the whole course of his providence is an Epidemical, and general disease of man. For indeed who is there amongst all the sons of Adam, that can justly say, his obedience moveth in a direct subordination to that first mover of all things? that with a ready will, he acteth the precepts commanded, that with an humble patience, abideth the punishments inflicted? No, no, since that fall of our first parents, the best of our obedience halteth, and our patience is frowardness.  
If God impose any task to be performed, inflict any punishment to be endured, which is distasteful to the palate of our sickened nature, O 'tis impossible to do the one, intolerable to suffer the other; with what frowardness we go about the one, and undergo the other, and yet how little reason we have so to do, let us see in Lot.  
Why should we deny obedience to God's commands, or interpose our not so, when God commands always for our own good?  
First, then go to the mountain and be safe, thy disobedience is a negative to thine own safety.  
Secondly, he is thy Lord; how ill coupled are these two, ne sic, with Domine mi, not so, with my Lord?  
Thirdly, thou art his Servant, and is ne sis, a fit dialect for a servus tuus?  
Fourthly, thou hast found grace in his sight, and where is thy thankfulness for his favours past?  
Fifthly, he hath saved thy life, where is thy confidence then for the time to come? if thou obeyest him he will save it still: all these might have been motives to Lot's obedience, and checks to his ne sic, to his not so; yet all are nothing, the authority of a Lord, the duty of a Servant, the mercy of a deliverer, the thankfulness for this grace obtained in saving his life. He is thy Lord, by authority he may command, thou his Servant, 'tis thy duty to obey, and thou mayest be compelled to it: but thou art a favourite to him, it will be the part of thy thankfulness, nay such a favourite as owest thy life, and therefore shouldest venture it in his service.  
Lot offended therefore against his own safety, against the authority of his Lord, against the duty of a servant, against God's mercy delivering, against the Laws of thankfulness.  
But Lot cannot escape to the mountain. Cannot! then in vain are these Laws of a Lord, of a Servant, of gratitude urged if Lot cannot obey. But let us see the strength of his reason, if that will excuse the weakness of his I cannot; first in a general survey after in a more full examination of them.  
I cannot (says Lot) ne fortè aliquod makim capiat & moriar, lest some evil take me, and I die.  
First, there is fortè malum, perchance some evil.  
Secondly, But what evil? nay that he knows not, it's but aliquod malum, some evil.  
Thirdly, let there be more than fortè, a certain evil, more than aliquod, let there be malum horrendum, inform, ingens, a great one: what then? O nè fortè capiat, Lest it take him.  
Fourthly, well! be it so too; let there be an evil, and that evil a great one, and that great one take him, yet et moriar, Lest it take me, and I die. What's in all this to excuse either the boldness of his not so, or the weakness of his I cannot. For  
First, it's causual, whether there be, not mala, but so much as malum in the singular, any one evil.  
Secondly, it's casual, if there be malum, what it is: for it's but fortè, aliquod.  
3. It's casual thirdly, si sit malum aliquod, & hoc aliquod grande, utrum capiat, if there be an evil, and that evil a great one, it's casual whether it take him.  
Fourthly, si sit malum, & hoc malum grande, & hoc grande capivat, utrum moriar, if there be an evil, and this evil a great one, and this great one take him, it's casual whether it be mortal: And yet Lot cannot, will not, dare not go to the mountain, ne forte aliquod malum, etc. Lest some evil take him, and he die.  
But now, as dividedly I have weighed his arguments, and have found them light, let me set one part of the Text against another, and as in a picture, you shall have the shadow of the one, to set of the sight of the other.  
But first the subject of both parts (thy servant) must run through both parts, and in that there's an argument, both against his ne sic, and ne fortè: his disobedient ne, and his destrusting nè. For if Lot be God's servant, in servitute tuâ perfecta libert as, in God's service is perfect freedom God's servant that hath God's pass, may go through fire and water, amongst Swords and Cannons, nothing shall hurt him.  
Now for collating of the parts.  
The first thing in Lot's way is fortè: ne fortè, lest perhaps, lest perchance. For that, against ne fortè I'll set conspectus tuus: Ecce invenit servus tuus gratiam in conspectu tuo; the eye of God's providence against blind obance, and then shall not God's eye see better to guard thee, then blind fortune to hit thee?  
The second stop is aliquod malum, and in that I'll grant the most, that it is magnum or ingens malum: and then, magnitudini mali hujus or miseriae, I will set against it magnificasti magnitudinem misericordiae, to the greatness of this evil or misery, the greatness of God's mercy. 
Psal. 145.9.  And let that which is above all his works, answer the fear of the greatest evil that can betid him.  
Thirdly, against capiat, I'll set invent gratiam, he's accepted of God; let acceptus then stand agoinst captus.  
And lastly against moriar I'll set servando vitam, against lest I die, I'll set in saving my life. And now collecting all, what reason had Lot to trespass against the authority of his Lord, against the duty of a servant, against the mercy of his deliverer? Why for fear of a fortè, who was in conspecta Dei, in God's sight? Why for fear of any evil, who had found grace in the sight of God? Why of the greatest evil, who had tasted God's mercy magnified towards him? Why for fear any evil should take him, who was accepted of God? Why for fear of losing his life, which God had so graciously saved?  
It is disputed by Aulus Gellius in his first book of his Noctes Atticae, 
A. Gellius. lib. 1. noct. artic.  whether a servant receiving such or such injunctions from his Lord, may upon assurance of his masters greater profit, either leave undone his master's command, or vary from it in any point or circumstance of moment. Or whether there be required in a servant such an obedience which the Schools call caecam, infinitum, and irrationalem; so that he ought to observe punctually the command of his master, whether any unexpected accident threaten loss and disadvantage to accrue by doing that which was commanded, and an assured profit by doing the contrary. 'Tis neither proper to this place nor my purpose to dispute this question, only give me leave to relate a Story by him recited, with which he seems to determine the question.  
Crassus' Mutianus, a man that by Sempronius Asellio, & other historians is reported to have been happy in the joint fruition of five of the greatest and chiefest of humane blessings, That he was the richest of the Romans, the most noble, the most eloquent, the most skilful in the Laws, and lastly, that he was Highpriest.  
This Crassus obtaining the province of Asia, and there besieging a City called Leuca, sends to the chief Engineer of the Molealenses, (a People then in confederacy with the Romans) to send him of two masts which he had seen in their City, the stronger and longer, of which he might make a battle ram to batter the walls of the besieged City. The Engineer being a skilful man, and pondering with himself the use of the mast, sends him, not according to the direction, the bigger, but that which he knew both easier for carriage, and more fit for that use, which was the less. Crassus commands him to becaled for, inquires why he sent not that which was commanded, & despising all reasons he could allege, commanded him to be stripped & scourged with rods. Before you brand Crassus with the name of tyrant, besides that you hear the testimony of his wisdom, hear a second in his reason. He thought (saith mine author) all authority would be cheap and vile, si quis ad id quod facere jussus est, non obsequio debibito, sed consilio non desiderato respondeat, if a servant might excuse the duty of his obedience to which he is called by the sauciness of his own advice to which he was not called; and that obedience would be too much enfranchised, if a servant might have the liberty to make his own counsel the Oracle, at which his obedience would consult, whether he should do or not do what his Lord commands.  
If the authority of man's commands be so great and absolute, that it exacts obedience peremptory, and that obedience either neglected or altered, though upon the fairest pretences of the commander's profit, honour etc. deserve so severe a punishment, with how many stripes shalt thou be beaten, 
Luk. 12.47  thou evil servant, that dost disobey, not man, but God, and that not for any reason on his behalf (as that poor wretch that was scourged for Crassus his) but for thine own private respects, honour, profit, pleasure, darest, though a servant, a creature, make thine own ends a sufficient reason to infringe the laws of the Lord, thy Creator, of thy God that cannot be deceived, of God that needs not any advice, or the correction of second thoughts? For he neither deceiveth nor can be deceived, of God that hath so absolute a power, by so many rights over soul and body, whose authority and direction are above questioning either the power of the one, or the wisdom of the other.  
The Centurion saith to one, 
Matth. 8 9  go, and be goeth, to another, come, and he cometh, to his servant, do this, and he doth it. Shall God that is not as he, under authority, 
Rom. 9.5.  but above all, and from whom all other is derived, have less power over us? Let him say go, or come, or do this or that, he can hear nothing but ne sic, not so my Lord.  
It was argument enough in the School of Pythagoras' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ipse dixit, Pythagoras said so, to infer the truth of any paradox, and the faith of the Schools is now a days taught that obedience (if I say not slavery) that in Philosophy, Aristotle is like an Heathen Pope, whose text is avouched with the authority of Canonical Scripture.  
These shall rise up in judgement against the men of this generation, 
Matth 12.41, 42.  yea and shall condemn them too, for they believe the say of Pythagor as and Aristotle, 
joh. 14.6.  and behold a greater than both is here, that great Rabbi, that is the way the truth and the life, yet let him speak and we believe not his word, command and we obey not his law, but question both the truth of the one and deny the authority of the other, with not so my Lord.  
Thus fare of Lots Negative request, with the summary view, and balancing his reasons, it now remains that I proceed to a more full and particular survey of the reasons which Lot pretends to justify this dislike of God's Council, and maintain his own opinion. And the first is from the difficulty of the task.  
I cannot.  
The way of the slothful man (saith Solomon) is upon thorns. 
Prov. 15.19.  Man's unwillingness creates a difficulty in the most easy enterprise, and his fear a danger in the most secure way. I cannot, is many times and in many men nothing elsebut I will not, or I have no mind to this or that, and so me thinks it seems to sound here, rather like a voice proceeding from the reluctancy of an unsubdued will, than the deficiency of a fainting strength.  
There is a Lion in the way, 
Prov. 26.13.  saith the slothful man; there are a thousand dangers, saith the unwilling mind. Unwillingness creates monsters, and sets them up in her own way, to which (like Nabuchadnezzer to the Image himself had made: 
Dan. 5.1.  it falls down in fear, as he in reverence. Thus her own fancies fright her, and with an unhappy skilfulness, where she finds no fears, her own fears makes them.  
But on the other side, 'tis near a miracle to observe, how much a ready and forward willingness can effect. Danger and difficulty are not lets, but spurs to her undaunted resolution, and so fare from amateing her, that they rather animate her; like a bullet that by grazing again mounts, it takes a new and fresh courage at each obstacle, and in an heroical disdain of the least affront, revenges in the second onset the disgrace of the first repulse.  
Had Lot then brought a mind as willing to be commanded, as the command was in itself easy to be obeyed, there had been no exceptions, no demurs between God's command and his execution, no pretences of feigned fears, and divinations of I know not what evil might take him: but rather with a ready willingness and industrious alacrity, he should have showed his obedience to God's authority commanding, his faith to God's Wisdom directing, and how ever, his thankfulness to God's mercy delivering: he should then have said as the servants in Naaman to their master. 2 Kin. 5.13. If the Lord had bid thee do some great thing, 
2 King. 5.13.  wouldst thou not hauè done it, how much rather when he saith escape to the mountains and he safe? or he would have taken up the saying of Shimei to Solomon, 1 King. 
1 King. 2.38.  2.38. The saying is very good, as my Lord hath said, so will thy servant do: he would have answered his fears with his faith, and silenced his reason with his Religion; he would have done any thing but disobeyed, suffered any thing, or any evil, rather than have requited so gracious a favour with so distasteful a reply, as not so my Lord, for I cannot.  
But let us see what exceptions his sluggish fear can make against God's injunction. Escape to the mountain. Why cannot Lot? I cannot escape to the mountain lest some evil take me and I die.  
God bestows an invalueable favour, which his thankfulness should have heard with all joy, and executed with all readiness. But behold delays to God's haste, exceptions to his Counsel, distrust of his protection, and almost a flat denial to his command, a frowardness, and repining teachinesse, which would rather run back in to the flame and perish in Sodom, then be delivered in the mountain.  
Escape to the mountain! saith froward Lot; theirs a command hath much kindness in it, that drives me into more hazards than it shuunes, and for one danger escaped thrusts me on an hundred? There's a journey indeed: to be performed by an aged Father, with a couple of young and tender Virgins, and to be performed by such, and by such in haste, and in haste by them that are overcharged with an heavy burden of sorrow, for loss of kindred, goods, country, and all; already even half fainting with this sudden violence and expectation of unheard of wonders: a journey of that length as must needs make some or all of us faint out right in the way, and so be overtaken by the fire behind, or any other inconvenience which our weakness may give or others take to destroy us.  
But sure the tediousness of this long way, will be recompensed in the end and the place we go to make amends, for the difficulty of the way through which we go. Alas no: when with much weariness we have overcome the tediousness of the way, whether come we? From a City to a Mountain, from delight some sweets of a pleasant valley to the disconsolate loneliness of a vast wilderness: from a place surfeited with the delights of nature, to a desert that cannot supply her very necessities: from pleasant society, to a melancholic solitariness, where life is a tediousness, and nothing else but a perpetuated act of a living death. And therefore Lord, if (as thou pretendest) thou dost truly purpose, and wilt magnify that mercy which thou hast showed to me hitherto: Then, O not so my Lord, for I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die.  
Thus hath Lot found God's Counsel guilty of hazard and inconvenience by a jury of arguments, and produced many reasons to prove it as full of hazard as he of jealoufies, and yet all indeed, but the surmises of his fear and pretences of an unwilling mind.  
So doth man's nature ever cavil against God's commands, they are like this journey to Lot, up hill, hard and dangerous, the precepts he imposeth are impossible to be done, 
Hujus legibus omnia delicta capite plectebantur: ob quam causam Demades dicere solebat, Draconem non atramento sed sanguine leges Scripsisse. Vid. A. Gellium. lib. 11. cap 18.  the crosses he inflicteth impossible to be suffered, his Commandments are like the Laws of Draco written in blood, such as are to deny ourselves; go out from the world: pluck out our right eye: cut of our right hand, and cast them from us: turn our left cheek to him that smites on the right: love our enemies: crucify our affections, starve our appetites in a voluntary abstemiousnesse. Paradoxes, (saith nature) full of contrariety to the principles that were borne with us, 
Mar. 8.34.  full of harshness to our appetites, 
Rom. 12.1.  absurdity to our reason, 
Matth. 5.29.30.39.44.  impossible to our strength. Hard say who can hear them, who c●n bear them? 
Gal. 5.44.  And yet saith our Saviour. 
joh 6 60.  Mat. 11.30. 
March 11.30.  My yoke is easy and my burden is light: 
Psal. 119.24.35.47 77.174.  and David, thy Testimonies are my delight: and the Apostles after their stripes went away, 
Act. 5.41.  rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ.  
How then? the difficulty lies in the perverseness of man's will, not in the hardness of God's command. As therefore the Apostle saith, 
2 Cor. 4 3.  if our Gospel be beds, 'tis hid to them that perish; so say I, if God's commands be absurd, 'tis so to them only who have not their senses exercised to discern good and evil: 
Heb. 5.14.  and if it be harsh, it is to them only that savour not the things of God: 
Matth. 16.23.  if it be impossible, 
jer. 17.5.  'tis only to him that trusteth in the arm of flesh and maketh not God his strength.  
Conquer then thy Will, and in that one conquest thou overcomest all other difficulties: get but that mastery of that, and then the ways of God shall be like the motion of Nature, smooth, and without rubor let, accompanied with earnestness in the onset, delight in the midst and success in the end. Let God command what he will, thy obedience shall answer, 
1 Sam. 3.9.10.  speak Lord for thy servant heareth: as my Lord hath said, so will thy servant do, 
1 King 2.38.  and then shall it appear as sarre from truth, as thy thought, to answer as Lot, not so my Lord for I cannot.  
But 'tis now more than time to weigh his reason, and see what strength in that, can excuse his weakness, in his I cannot.  
Lest some evil take me, and I die.  
And is this all Lot can pretend, a surmise, a nothing to disprove God's Conncell, and prove his own I cannot? Alas, what canst thou weak man, if thou canst not this? What will not pose the best of thy strength, if a mere surmise, ▪ à fortè, if an aliquid, if a jest and some evil can do it?  
O the weakness of distrusting man! What are we, while we hold not fast on the Rock Christ jesus, the best of us a Peter, a Gedeon, a Lot? Behold a champion one of the Lords worthies; yet see his strength, (his weakness I should say) see what can trouble him. Here's no reality of evil, nor needs there any to perplex him: a fear, a thought, a very shadow will serve to melt his substance into the cold sweat of fear: a presumption of his own, Ne fortè malum, lest perhaps evil, and ne fortè aliquod, lest some evil; I know not what evil, 'tis indeterminate, and ne fortè si aliquod malum sit (capiat, lest some evil take me, and ne fortè) si aliquod malum sit, & capiat nè moriar, lest if it take him it be mortal, lest some evil take we and I die. It's casual whether there be an evil; 'tis casual if there be, what it is; it is casual if it be, and be great, whether it take him; lastly it is casual if it be one, and that one a great one, and it take him, whether he die, and yet righteous Lot cannot, dare not, will not go the mountain, ne fortè aliquod malum capiat & moriar, lest some evil take me and I die.  
What needs the bloody sword of the slaying Angel, as against the Assyrians, 
2 Kin. 19.35.  the fight of the Stars in their courses, as against Sisera, 
jud. 5.20.  the warring of the Elements, 
Gen. 19 24.  as falling of fire from heaven, 
Ezek. 5.12.  as on Sodom, infection of the air as against jerusalem, 
Ezek. 6.11 13.  overflowing of Water as on the old world, 
Gen. 7.20, 21.  gaping of the Earth as on Corab, 
Numb 16 31, 32.  Dathan and Abiram? What need the swarms of flies, bands of locusts, frogs, lice orot her his creatures, which stand ready to be the agents and ministers of his vengeance against sinful man, when God can make man himself his own punisher; his own fears, his own imaginary fears, his own torment and executioner, drive him with himself, from himself, even to such an ecstasy of fear, as shall make him (to cure them) to compound with the King of fears death, 
Isa. 28.15.  and make a covenant with hell, that he may shun the present horror of hell?  
But now, to show as well the weakness of Lot's argument, as of his I cannot: suppose for thy fortè, a real evil, for this aliquod, one certain, and of certain danger, yet might he have stood assured in the capiat and monia●, that it should neither take him, nor he die.  
For what? doth thy fortè deify a blind chance, and put out the eye of God's providence? or hath that providence (which thou must needs confess in Sodom) left thee at the gates of it, and will accompany thee no further? or was thy safety from the throngs of the City, that thou art afraid to be with God alone in the mountain? or dost thou think him, as they did after, 
1 Kin. 20.28.  a God of valleys and not of the mountain? or if thou think none of these, why dost thou think there can be any danger in obeying God's Counsel or command? Dost thou think He doth task thy obedience with a command that hath any danger, who therefore doth command thy obedience, that thou mayst escape a danger? If thou thinkest God's purpose be not to deliver, why wilt thou leave Sodom, why wilt thou obey in that? If thou thinkest God's purpose to be to deliver thee, why dost thou not obey in this? Why not to the mountain, dost thou think the nearer heaven thou goest, thou goest the further from him that is the God of heaven?  
Well mightest thou have answered thy fears, as the Wife of Manoah did her husbands. Judg. 13.23. If the Lord (said she) were pleased to kill us, he would not have accepted a  offering at our hands, neither would he have showed us all these things. So might Lot have argued. Did the Lord deliver me from so great a danger as the flames of Sodom, and will he betray me to my petty fears in the Wilderness, and He with whom Angels denied not to lodge, will they not pitch their Tents about my Tabernacle, 
Psal. 34.7.  to guard me? and again, if God was pleased to reveal his counsel to me of destroying Sodom, would he not as well have told me of any danger, if any were? is not that power, which can so miraculously punish the Sodomites, great enough to preserve me, if he be willing, and that he is willing, this deliverance from this common judgement assures me of more than common favour? Non potest tot miraculorum filius perire, he for whom so many miracles were done its impossible he should miscarry.  
I will therefore obey readily (might Lot say) since God commands lovingly, I will go, since God sends me, and though my reason dispute against it, and my fears present me with a thousand hazards, I'll neglect all: I have a commission, God's command will carry me through an boast of opposing dangers.  
For indeed, what is it that I can fear? is it solitariness? He is never alone whom God accompanies. Is it melancholy? the light of God's countenance shall shine upon me. Is it thiefs? 
Psal. 4.6.  amongst a throng of men violently bend to destroy me, God delivered me, by blinding them, and cannot he much more hid me from a few wand'ring robbers? Or is it want? He feedeth the young ravens when they call upon him, 
Psal. 147.9.  nay he can make the young ravens feed his servant. 
1 King. 17.4.6.  Or is it last of all, wild beasts? 
Heb. 11.33.  he can stop the Lion's mouths, 
Isa. 11.9.  and the wild beasts shall not hurt nor destroy in all his holy mountain. What is it that thou canst fear? is it any of these, or all of these or more than all? Yet, 
Rom. 8 31.  if God be with thee who can be against thee?  
Yet all Gods former favours real and many, cannot win the conquest of these few, and those only supposed fears: but he unthankfully forgets the one, and sluggishly yields to the other.  
God was pleased to make Lot his boast, but now he makes his guest a stranger: his safety in Sodom, cost God a miracle, the blindness of many: yet Lot, more blind than they, thinks him absent who is every where present, in whom he lives, 
Act. 17.28.  moves, and hath his being, gropes with more absurdity than the Sodomites for Lot's door; for him that is within, without, above, beneath, fills all places, and is excluded from no place, for him that goes where he will he cannot miss. Yet Let sluggishly yields to his own fears, and the miracle that God had showed in blinding the Sodomites, and carrying him without the City, cannot win the conquest of his distrust, but he fears to follow God's directions, lest some evil take him, and he die.  
I am divided in my wonder at God's patience, and man's distrust.  
Take here then first a measure of that which is indeed immensurable, the Patience and long suffering of Almighty God, whom though we daily, hourly, nay each minute provoke, 
Psal. 7.12.  and answer every act of his goodness, with some fact of our unthankfulness, yet still he continues his mercies, and even while we are finning against him, even then, is he doing good to us.  
What mercy not more than moral and mortal so ill requited, what patience less than infinite so often abused, would not turn to revenging fury, break forth into wrath and indignation?  
Excuse the homeliness of a fable, and let the goodness of the moral win your pardon of the tale itself. 'tis thus;  
A mortal being in heaven, from whence he might behold the earth, as a little Molehill, and men, like Aunts, busy in the eager pursuit of their unquiet desires; amongst other things he sees a thief picking the purse of one that had lately before saved his life. Our mortal being passionately angry at so foul ingratitude, and unable by reason of the distance to call to them, grew so enraged that he caught up Jupiter's tripos, and threw it at the malefactor. jupiter inquires for the author and cause of his throwing, and finding it, exeant (saith he) èeoelo affectus mortales, qui dum, etc. Away with mortal affections out of heaven, and from the government of the world, 
Si quoties peccant homines sua, etc.  which would quickly either leave no stools in heaven or no men on earth.  
The moral shows us the difference betwixt God and man, that it would be woe unto the world, if God were, as man touched with humane passion.  
Secondly, take notice here of man's distrust, God had graciously wrestled with Lot's dulness, and when he would have by his slothfulness and delays destroyed himself, was pleased, (rather than he would let Lot destroy himself) to use a loving violence, by force to carry him and set him without the City. 
Gen. 19.16  Yet now, him that God would save, when he neglected himself, he fears that God would neglect him, when he would save himself.  
Never had man more cause of confidence. So many favours might have excused if not patronised an over bold presumption, and set him so fare from distrustfulness and fear of danger, that he might with fare more reason have run into a neglective carelessness of himself and danger. He might have found seeming reasons, and a show of argument for such a fault, but there is not in all the topickes of invention any argument or colour to hid so foul a distrust.  
What obstinacy and baseness is in the distrustfulness of man? The arguments of God's providence are beyond our numbering multiplied even with the minutes of our lives, and yet are our fears more frequent than our dangers. Let God deliver us from the greatest evils, we dare not trust him in the least: deliver us from a thousand, yet we dare not trust him in one. All his mercies exhibited to us, in bestowing continual favours upon us, in preventing imminent dangers, in delivering us out of many troubles and afflictions that have oppressed us, all these cannot merit our trust in him, or arm us with undaunted confidence against an appearance of danger; but as if there were no God, or as if that God slumbered and slept, 
Psal. 121.4.  and intermeddled not in the government of the world (as the Stoics fond dreamt) we shrink and tremble at sight of every danger, and to secure ourselves think it a surer way to run to unlawful shifts, then rely on the assurance of God's providence. And as if God's hand were too short to reach from Heaven; we think it a fare safer way to catch hold of that which is next us, even any poor, unlawful, and therefore helps shift which our own reasons shows unto us. So wanting that eye of faith (which is the evidence of things not seen) and looking only with the eye of sense, 
Heb. 11.1.  we judge that God nor sees nor regards, because we see not him. Each new danger awakes a new distrust.  
What testimonies had God given to the captive Jews of Egypt of an especial love to them, that for their sakes had showed the strength of his mighty arm, 
Exod. 13.14.16.  in so many unheard of wonders? Is it in the belief of man that any danger could beget their distrust? Yet see, 
Exod. 12.29.  they are no sooner redeemed, by the death of so many souls as that night of horror caused (that might indeed be red for them and blush at their so fowl, so monstrous distrust) but they on the first occasion are ready to undervalue their deliverance, and wish rather to have served the Egyptians, 
Exod 14.10.11.12.  then to die (as they feared) in the Wilderness.  
A deliverance may yield us comfort for the present, but as if of a transeunt nature it ends there, and seldom do we improve it to arm us in the future, so relying on transitory and vain helps, every assault of danger loses the joints and shakes the strongest of our weak built resolutions.  
If God should say to us in our misery as he did unto the two blind men, Matt. 9.29. According to your faith be it unto you; it would be ill with us, each affliction would overcome us, and the shrinking of our faith soon call on us misery enough to overwhelm us: our own despair would open us a gulf, a grave wherein we should bury together, both ourselves and hopes, 
Matth. 27.60.60.  upon which (like that great stone rolled upon Christ's Sepulchre) our miseries should lie with so great weight, as would crush, and at last shrink us into the lowest pit of hell.  
If God should not find a better motive in his own infinite goodness, a better cause in his own Son to deliver us when we are oppressed, alas what danger, what misery so poor, that is not too strong for the weakness of man? What could our knowledge foresee? What could our wisdom prevent, of those evils we did foresee? What could our vain and transitory helps overcome? Nay the Eye of our knowledge being disturbed by our fear, would present evils with more horror: nay should not our knowledge hurt, not help us, whiles it looks through the false perspectives of confidence and fear, it so making evils greater or less than indeed they are? Yea and should not our wisdom rather hurt then help us, while relying on the opinion of it own abilities, it rather makes us secure, when it could not make us safe? Yea and should not the best means our own wisdom could supply us with, rather hurt then help us, when they should prove only like broken reeds to which when we should lean, 
Isa. 36 6  they break, and so run into our hands?  
Pessimus in dubiis augur timor. 
Statius, lib. 1. Thebay. — Fear is the worst Counsellor. Yet these transitory helps, are the forts of our greatest strength, and they to which we own both the most of our trust and thanks. We deify nature, and rely on selfe-unable means, as if a redeemed captive should reverence the sword and not the man that used it to his rescue. Alas these things we trust to, they are but agent of the first and prime cause, things which in themselves carry an equal indifference to be as well the Ministers of his vengeance, as mercy. Heat, the greatest comfort of sublunary things, so that it is called the Father of generation, yet how often hath that father (like Saturn) eaten his own children? Moisture, the mother of generation, yet often hath her womb proved a tomb, and swallowed up her own issue?  
There is nothing in the world proved either by more frequent or more demonstration than providence, yet nothing in our practice more questioned. Who believes God further than he sees him? Where is the faith of those ancient worthies that believed above, against hope, 
Heb 11.  against the evidence of sense, 
Rom. 4.18.  and beyond the possibility of nature, when natural reasons might call their faith absurd, foolish, impossible? If God come, 
Luk. 18.8.  shall be find faith upon the earth? shall he not find it is vanished into its object, and become a thing not seen? 
Heb. 11.1.  Or if we have any faith, 'tis but all sensitive, and must take information from our eye, our ear, our senses. 
joh. 4.48.  Give the Jews a sign and then perhaps they will believe. 
joh. 20.25.27.28.  Give Thomas an ocular demonstration, Let him see the print of the Nails in our Saviour's hands, let him thrust his fingers into his side, and then he will acknowledge my Lord and my God. Give me some ground for my faith to walk on, otherwise I must needs be at the brink of despair. I cannot like Peter walk upon the water, 
Matth. 14.29.30.  or if I do, the rising of a wave shall dash my confidence into despair, and as if every hollow of the waves were to become my grave, my faith and I, must both sink, and I cry out with him in despair, Lord save me I perish.  
But O Lord, do not thou make good our fears to us: O be not in so remote a distance as our diffidence would set thee, nor yet as a judgement of our distrustful fears withdraw thy protecting favours.  
What use shall I make of that hath been said, but even that of the Psalmist, I will go unto the mountain, 
Psa. 121.1, 2.  from whence my help cometh: Learn to look with the eye of faith, more than reason or sense, and then shall we see a guard of innumerable Angels encircling us, pitching their Tents about our T●bernacles, 
2 Kin. 6.17 Psal. 34.7.  and let the miseries of wanting it increase our desire to get it, one grain of which, even no bigger than a grain of Mustardseed, 
Matt. 17.20.  if we were owners of, we might remove a mountain, but wanting faith, a danger that is but as a grain of Mustardseed, is able to move us.  
But be that trusteth in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, 
Psa. 125.1.  that shall never be moved, but standeth fast for ever: No evil shall come near him or hurt him, 
Psa 91.7, etc.  and after a glorious victory of all miseries here, 
Luk. 10.19  
Rom. 2.7.10.  he shall be crowned with glory and eternity hereafter.  
Let us not then in a good cause be ever deterred, by the vain affrights of fear or danger. The goodness of the cause ought to animate us, in the evilness and hardness of the way to accomplish it. If God be the author, the devil cannot be the hinderer. Honesty and goodness shoot in stright lines at the last and best end God's glory, and God will as certainly prosper the means as he doth propose the end.  
Verum & bonum convertuntur (say the Schools) Truth and goodness are reciprocates, there is no goodness without truth, no truth without goodness. Magna est veritas & vincet, great is truth, and shall prevail, so all goodness in the strength of truth shall at last overcome. The winds may blow, the rain fall, 
Matt. 7.24.25.  the floods beat upon thee, but thou shalt not fall, for thou art grounded upon a rock.  
Hast thou begun then a noble, a glorious action, which redounds to God's glory, the Churches and Common-weal's good, Incapisti benè, quis impedivit? Thou baste begun well, 
Gal. 5.7.  who hath hindered thee that thou continuest not? If the action was evil, why did you undertake it? if the action was good, why do you not hold on? What if slanderers backbite you and traduce you? What if authority frown, what if envy malign? what if the multitude rage, 
Psal. 2.2.  and the people imagine a vain thing? thou hast God's commission; say not then I cannot, 'tis but nè fortè malum capiat & moriar, but a lest some evil take me, and I die.  
Thine own cowardice, thine own weakness may conquer thee, 
Psal 2, 3.  but all these, though they take counsel together, shall not be able to withstand thee. If God set thee on work, he'll bear thee through, maugre the opposing fury of the devil and all his agents. Go on then in the strength of the Lord, and be victorious. 
Psa. 71.16.  I tell thee, if for the fortè, there be an evil real, that threat thee: Sicapiat if it take thee, si moriare, if thou die, 
Rom. 14 8.  yet know whether thou live or die, 
Rom. 8.37  thou art more than conqueror. It's better fall in a good cause than prosper in an evil one. Only let not thy fear betray God's cause to miscarriage. If death itself be threatened to thee, die. Canst thou ever have a better end, than to die for that end for which thou and all things were made, God's glory? which grant (O Lord) that we may propose unto ourselves, in all our thoughts, words and works, that glorifying thee in this life, we may receive eternal glory and felicity from and with thee, in the life to come, and that not for any merits ●four own, but for his sake who hath dearly bought us, to whom with the father, and the holy Spirit, be ascribed all honour, praise, and glory, now and forever. Amen.   
GENES. 19 VERS. 20. 
Behold now this City is near to flee unto, and it is a little one. O let me escape thither (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.  
IT is a property of Divinity not to err. Perfection is a White, at which all of us ought to aim, none may hope to hit. The best men have their errors and imperfections, Optimus ille est qui minimis urgetur, he's the best man that hath least, he's no man that hath no faults. Let him be excepted, that was without exception, him that being man was more than man too, CHRIST JESUS, God and man, in whom there was no fault, neither was guile found in his lips. All others are comprehended under the condition of sin, which they shall never put off while they are clad in these robes of flesh.  
The best of God's Saints have had their slips and falls, and to make them fly forth from themselves, to a better and surer hold, they have had often remembrances of their own weakness, in many grievous wounds, and bitter derelictions, have often fallen, been wounded with the weak reed of their own strength.  
Wonder not then if you behold a David defiling his hands and heart with innocent blood, 
2 Sam. 12.9  and unlawful pleasures. David, 
2 Sam. 11.5  though a man after Gods own heart, 
1 Sam. 13.14.  was but a man. Wonder not to behold a Solomon, 
1 Kin. 3.12  the wisest among the sons of men, committing a double whoredom, 
1 Kin. 11.1.4.  Spiritual and Corporal; Solomon, though so wise, was but a man. Wonder not that Peter so foully denied and abjured his master, 
Mar 14.66 67, etc.  unless you wonder that Peter was a man.  
We receive with our birth and nature, two inevitable conditions; peccare & mori, to sin and to die. And though it hath beseemed the piety of the Church's children to justify the Patriarches against the bitter taunts of scaffing I shmaelites, and uncircumcised Philistines, and like the good sons of Noah, to go backward with the vail of charity in their hands, 
Gen. 9.23.  and cover the nakedness of their fathers: yet must not that veil of charity blindfold our judgement, so that we altogether deny those faults to be, which we would have concealed from the scorn of irreligious men. Diminuit culpam excusatio, non tollit. God would have the errors and faults of his Saints as well to stand upon record, as their virtues; and therefore, 
Seneca Nat. quaest. lib. 6. cap. 23  as Seneca says of Alexander his murder of Calisthenes: hoc est Alexand. crimen aeternum quod nulla virtus, nulla bellorum faelicitas redim●t. This is a blemish that shall eternally stick on his fair name, which no virtue of his, nor the glory of all his victories shall redeem: quoties enim quis dixerit; occidit Persarum multa millia, opponetur & Calisthenem: quoties dictum erit occidit Darium, opponetur & Calisthenem; quoties omnia Oceano tenus vicit, ipsum quoque tentavit & imperium, etc. opponetur sed occidit Calisthenem. As often as it shall be said, he slew many thousands of Persians, yea but it shall be said again, he slew Calisthenes: As oft as it shall be said, he conquered Darius, yea but he killed Calisthenes: As often as it shall be reported to the renown of his name, he subdued all to the very Ocean, and it too, and removed his Kingdom from a corner of Thrace, till it knew no other bounds, but the same with the whole earth; but, as a check to all his glory, it shall be said, yea but he killed Calisthenes.  
Thus it is in the blessed Scripture, with many of the Lords worthies, whose religious life and integrity deservedly calls upon our wonder to behold them: but then again, lest they of themselves should entertain too high an opinion, or we of them— desinit in piscem, some frailty or foul slip like Philip's boy tells them, they are but men, subject to like infirmities as we are, sin itself not excepted. No marvel then if we find righteous Lot's arguments against God's counsel and direction, guilty of weakness and folly, for all his confidence in his Behold now, this City is near to flee unto, etc.  
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of such a man (Saith Solomon) Prov. 26.12. The opinion of our own wisdom is the greatest argument of our folly Multi (saith Seneca) pot●issent pervenire ad sapientiam, 
Seneca.  nisi put assent se pervenisse: many men had been wise, if they had not been too wise; and if they had not prevented themselves with the swollen dropsy of self-opinion, had made a wholesome growth in solid wisdom. Many men had gone fare, if they had not looked bacl on their progress, in a multiplying glass, and so thought they had gone fare already.  
This overweening conceit of our own knowledge, as in all other learning, so especially in the height of divine speculation, things (I mean) which transcend the reach of reason, is most dangerous. I dare in those commend a faith implicit, and prefer caecam obedientiam & fidem, the blind and budling faith of Papists, before the most nice and oculate of the most learned. Credulity there takes the place of reason, and that, without usurpation: where we have a new Logic, and authority becomes the best argument. To oppugn God's truth or counsel with our reason, is no less than the extremity of folly, and impudence: we must deny our reason, become foolish, nay absurd to our own wisdom, believe above, against it.  
To defend God's truth or counsel with our reason or arguments, is a foolish and unwarranted zeal, and which action doth more question our judgement than commend our zeal. Though the Ark of God's truth seem to us to be shaken by the opposers and enemies of it, so that it appear to be in danger of falling, yet ought not we to be so indiscreetly zealous, 
2. Sam. 6.6, 7.  with Vzzah, to uphold it with the weak hand of our reason. Our obedience is then best, when it seems most absurd: when it looks only on the authority of the commander, and yet that without more examination concludes an equity of the command.  
It was the triumph of Abraham's faith, 
Rom. 4.18 19, 20.  that above, against hope he believed God, when Sara's womb was now dead. It was the triumph of his obedience to be ready to obey God, in sacrificing of his own and only son, 
Gen. 22.10  when nature and reason had the fairest plea that could be against it, and might judge it unnatural, unreasonable, monstrous and wicked. But he looked rather to the author than matter of the command, and measured not the justice of the action by the rule of reason, but considered the reason of his obedience in the will, power and justice of him who commanded, who is a law to himself and to all others.  
It had been well with Lot, if his obedience, his faith or thankfulness, the first to God's authority commanding, the second to his wisdom directing, the last to God's mercy delivering, had made him follow the Angel's direction, and gone unto the mountain: but while he will be so wise to teach his teacher, God shows him his folly by experience, and makes the mountain, which (if he had gone when God bid him) a place of safety, God (I say) makes it afterward (when he goes on his own errand) the place of his punishment.  
You have heard before Lot's negative request, with the reasons of it, not so my Lord, for I cannot. Now it remains that we come more particularly to handle his affirmative request, and reasons of it. O let me escape thither; to Zoar.  
In the affirmative request we observed, First the order of it, and Secondly the matter of it.  
1. The order of it, that it comes in the rear of his arguments, under the lee and shelter of them, we will therefore reserve to it the last place, and here first take notice of his Asterisk or note of attention before which betrays his confidence in the equity of his request.  
Behold now, says Lot.  
How weak is our wisdom, yet how strong our confidence and opinion? yet obstinacy and pride bear up our opinions, even against God himself, so that with a saucy presumption, we dare capitulate and indent with him, nay even chalk him out the way with a not so, for I cannot but behold now.  
Behold now.  
When man looks through the false medium of his own affection and passion, what monstrous errors and solecisms doth he count? The intellective part of the soul, is like a clear and undisturbed fountain, wherein the form of things is truly represented: but when once the affections (which are the muddy and earthy parts of the soul) are stirred up, it becomes a dirty puddle, wherein things are represented blindly, lamely, and falsely. The istericke eye wonders that others see not all things yellow as itself does, and calls that others blindness, which is indeed its own infirmity. This City is new. Yea 'tis so near thy affection that a just distance being wanting (a condition of perfect sight) thine eye must needs commit an error. If God therefore behold, he shall but see thy error, rather than any thing that may move him to condescend to thy request.  
Behold now. Why, as though thou saw something that God saw not, or as though He that had power to deliver thee, could want wisdom to direct thee, but He must be directed by thee, with a not so my Lord, but behold now.  
He that made the eye shall not be see? 
Psal 94.9, 10.  He that made the soul and invested it with that noble and royal faculty of understanding, shall not He understand?  
Natura agit per line as breviores, (saith Philosophy). Nature is never superfluous in her actions, but goes the nearest and most compendious way to work, and shall the God of nature, not do so much more?  
God is in Heaven and thou on the Earth (saith Solomon) if then He hath the advantage of the ground, 
Eccles. 5.2.  as much as the heaven is higher than the earth, needs He to be lifted up on the shoulders of us dwarves? needs that Sun of light our candle, that Ocean our spoonful, or that first intelligence our information or direction of not so my Lord, but behold now? must He be beholding to thee for thy behold now?  
Behold now. Why? as if God saw as man saw. Our eye is hindered by darkness, by distance, by interposure of a gross body. Being not hindered, what sees it, but colour? It is terminated in the outward surface and superficies, never penetrating into the inmost and retired essence. But God's eye is not as man's, neither doth He look as man looketh. Within, without, hidden, covered, dark, light, are words, and things, to which only man's weakness hath given a being; to that eye of the world there are no such distinctions.  
Here then (for a word of use) let us see the vanity of many men, who think with the colour of an excuse (which our ignorance hath unskilfully doubted) to blear the eyes of that all discerning wisdom, to which thoughts themselves (things of weakest essence and nearest nothing) are open and apparent. 
Heb. 4.13. Psal. 139.2.   
From the Asterisk and note of attention behold now I come to Lot's reasons to urge his affirmative request, which argue more the good man's affection, then enforce his conclusion.  
Innocenti a melior est quam eloquentia. 
Quintilian.  Innocence (saith Quintilian) is better than eloquence and a good cause then a good Orator. Magna est veritas & praevalebit. O there's a confidence in truth, better than all the flourishes of Rhetoric, all the proofs of reason. Each colour implies some defect, and each proof some doubt, that doubt, a possibility of the contrary. And therefore it hath usually been the guise of innocence to make no argument her best argument, and the slight of reason, the reason why she should not be slighted.  
It was a brave and heroic scorn in the African Scipio, 
Titus Livius.  when being accused of treason against the common wealth, he (in stead of answering) led the people to the Temple to give thanks for that renowned victory (that day twelve months before) by him obtained. Scipio's virtue scorned to be defended, let his actions not words speak for him. And me thinks more could not have been said for Scipio then this silence, and his disdain of defence did out do all oratory. And verily truth (like a perfect cube) needs not these poor props: let falsehood and a weak cause strengthen their weak credit with these mercenaries, that like Tartars or Swissers will be hired to either side for the better pay. For indeed our corrupted reason is become the only advocate to passion and affection; and so vassatized unto them, that as it is the greatest of our tasks, so is it that, wherein she shows the best of her abilities, in making good the most desperate and forlorn cause.  
Our affections first resolve, and then make reason harrow all the Topics of invention, to find defences, if not excuses, using herein poor reason as a great Potentate not long a go his clergy. For having a desire to marry within degrees unlawful, he set his learned men on work to prove it lawful, and again after a while (being cloyed and desiring change) set them again on work to prove the former marriage unlawful.  
Nay! so monstrous is the folly of our credulity, when our affections claim a strong interest in the cause, that the same arguments shall serve us to prove contradictions, yea and the same reasons persuade or confirm the lawfulness of that, which in themselves prove it most unlawful.  
Witness the words of my Text, with the two precedent verses, in which Lot would prove God's Counsel as full of danger as his own of convenience and safety, when as all the reasons he can allege, prove the flat contrary.  
For first, This City is near to fly unto and it is a little one. This City.] Is it a City and not the more likely to be sinful? It is Bela, a City of the Plains, and not more likely to be in the same manner and degree sinful?  
Secondly is it near Sodom and not the more dangerous? nay is it near as well in condition as place? how much more likely to be joined in punishment?  
Thirdly is it little? how much more reason to be destroyed? For saith God to Jonah should not I then spare this great City Nineveh, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons, that cannot discern betwixt their right hand and their left, and also much cattle. Jonah 4.11. How contrary is God's argument to Lots? God will have a City spared because it is great, Lot because it is little. But these rich and fruitful plains had much endeared the heart of the good Patriarch: loath he was to change a City, and a plenteous valley for a mountainous and rocky desert, and therefore though God be his immediate Counsellor, the end his safety, yet being interested by affection, against the authority of his Lord, the duty of a servant, the mercy of a deliverer, doth Lot struggle first by delays, and then with forced reason to prove God's Counsel full of danger, as his own request of conveniency and safety. Nay so fare hath his affection blinded him, worse than the Sodomites at his door, for they could not see, because the Angels blinded them, Lot could not see when the Angels directed him.  
I think misguided, unsanctified reason, doth rather breed suspicions than clear them. Syllogisms never compounded controversies, seldom the law friends. There is indeed an abstracted Logic, which prescribes forms and motions, but follow it into the practice of men, it hath still one term more than it should, affection or passion. The Lawyer hath not he his rationem tinnulam for his quartum argumentum? and what wonder then if in a double sense he commit fallaciam in quatuor terminis.  
Nor is it thus only in our every days actions and occurrents, which according to our interest reason must justify or at least excuse, but as if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that circle of Arts, had made them mad too with walkking in it, the Schools themselves and Universities, have matriculated the same dotage. Who would not unstudie reason and befool all arguments, that should see a thesis affirmative proved by many reasons, his true Negative proved also, yet both answered, and after a long progress with inquisition and industry, arrive fairly at the same point where it begun, and end in the greater doubt? Quid leo est, nisi insanire cum ratione? What's this but to be a learned fool, and with great labour to make Cobwebs to be swept away? Magno conatu● nugas! Would not this (under things of faith) be enough to make a man a Skeptick? Sure we need not, to the native weakness of our understanding and reason make it more wretched by this slavery, and mancipation to our affections and passions, unless to a weak eye we would throw in dust. But I leave them in their maze and come to Lot's arguments themselves to enforce his request, and first of the object of his behold; the first reason of Lot's affirmative request, being à qualitate.  
This City, 'tis a City.  
In which (as in the rest of his arguments) I might propose to myself this order. Every argument or reason hath veritatem or veritatis speciem.  
First then I might show the probability of his argument.  
Secondly, the fallacy.  
Thirdly, we might draw from either some use for ourselves, I might thus improve the matter of my text unto a large compass, if I should dilate particularly pro and con on every of his arguments.  
As first in this first argument that it is a City the other a mountain, I might show you in this one three several motives to Lot's desire, Plenty, Society, and Safety. Then in answering these again, I might (without being Heterogeneal) dilate upon the commendation of their opposites Poverty and Solitariness, each of which besides the true determining and moderating of our desire of these, might suffice to hold discourse beyond the limits of your patience. But I shall content myself to glance at some of these, rather than to tie your patience in a long discourse.  
First then of Lot's first argument. This City. 'tis a City, the other a rude and barren mountain.  
This City was before time called Bela as appeareth out of Gen. 14.8. until this occasion of Lot's request, and the reason of it, altered the name to Zoar, which signifies little, because he said it is a little one, and is it not a little one? It was one of the five Cities of the Plains, called the Plains of Jordan, 
Gen. 13.10.  a Valley wherein nature prevented the labour of the industrious husbandman, in a voluntary and unbought fruitfulness, so that it needed not to be watered with the sweat of industry to make it fruitful, but of itself yeclded to the inhabitants occasion of idleness, to the neighbours of envy, and to all of wonder. Such a place it was, that it grew to a word exemplary to set forth the pride and height of fruitfulness. It was watered like the Garden of God, 
Gen 13.10.  and like the plains of Jordan before the Lord destroyed Sodom.  
Here were then three strong attractives to Lot's desire, Plenty, Society, and Safety, and in this City all these three concur to make life securely happy. Abundance of wealth and delicacies to refresh the body, abundance of company to delight and cheer the mind, and then safety which only makes the other consummate in the security to enjoy them.  
For plenty and riches it is true that Quintillan says, 
Quint. dialog. de Oratoribus. pag. 689.  Divitias facilius est ut invenias qui vituperet quam qui contempserit. It's easier to find a man that will despair them, then that will despise them, one that can in the Schools wittily declaim against them, rather than one that will disclaim them. Quis nisi mentis inops? he shall presently be begged for a fool. To stand in tire upon his own bottom and not need to be beholding to any, nay to have all that which shall hold all others either in his friendship or slavery. O it is supremum mortalitatis votum, & locus diis proximus, it is the highest condition mortality can be capable of, and riches give it. Most of the studies, inventions, toils, travels and undertake of men aim at this one end, to be rich. Heaven itself is but too often made the price of this purchase: Men go there to fetch gold, where they lose heaven and day; itum est viscera terrae, into the bowels of the earth; deeper, into hell. This Image of Caesar causeth an universal idolatry, and to that superscription all subscribe.  
That Lot then, should desire to go to this City, rather than to a barren and naked mountain, we need not wonder, unless we wonder that men prefer plenty before poverty. I shall be industriously idle to make more words of so confessed a theme.  
In that it is a City there is a second attractive, Society, and that is to man as his own element. Society is the life of our life, and solitariness is a very living burial. I might here move a Problem, why men naturally in remote and silent retirements and solitudes find a kind of horror and affrightfulnesse?  
Is it that as Solomon says of friends, 
Prov 27.17.  they strengthen the faces one of another, so our Genius doth receive a mutual comfort and livelihood from one another's presence, and so in this solitude (being out of the rays and circle of their virtue) acknowledges that want in this weakness?  
Or doth the soul apprehend the presence of some good or evil spirit, which are both ready, the one to offend, the other to defend us?  
Or is it the reflex of our own conscience upon itself, which being guilty of sin, must needs be of fear?  
Or is it antipathy of nature, which in this sees a praeludium of that universal silence to which all go down? 
Siquis asperitate ea est ut congress us & societatem hominum fugiat & oderit, qualem fuisse Athenis. Timonem nescio quem accepim●●s, tamen is pati non possit, ut non acquirat aliquem apud quem, &c, Cicero de Amic fol. 220 vide, si plac●t plura ibid.  What the reason of it is, I know not, thus much I am sure of, that this horror is an evident argument, that man is politicum animal, that in his nature is implanted a love of Society, and that he was as well made for Cities, as Cities for him; so that Auchorites and Hermits are gone as fare from man's nature, as they are from his company.  
Timon himself, that greatest Owl of Athens, and prodigy of nature, that professed an antipathy to all man, nay, to all humanity, yet he (for all his doggedness) as Cicero wittily says of him) could not career hominum consortio, apud quos virus acerbitatis suae evomeret, he could not want the company of men, though it were but to spit the poison of his gall upon them.  
3. Now for Lots third attractive to the City, which is safety, that man should desire it; needs no more proof, than that a man loves himself, and it were vain in me to go about to prove it.  
Here then were seeming reasons to justify the lawfulness of his request, and excuse his unwillingness to obey God's command. But,  
From the specious show and weight of those arguments, I come to the fallacy in them: and for answer in general to all, first by concession; say, 'tis true, suppose it, that this being a City, is more convenient to fly unto, more comfortable to rest in, there are those invitations here which in the mountains are not. But what then? must God be obeyed only with our conveniency, and the condition of our service be our own content? What is this but to make Gods of ourselves, and to observe him only whilst he will pleasure us?  
Egregiam vero laudem? 
Virgil.   
How much better did afflicted Job: 
job. 2.10.  Shall we receive good at God's hands, and shall we not receive evil? What if God commanded thee, not to danger, but to certain loss of thy content, thy estate, nay thy life, wilt thou not obey? Is not he the supreme arbiter of life and death? He that gave thee all, may be not therefore command all thou art owner of? Must our reason, or will, or content be check-master with his supreme authority, and our obedience be limited to our profit, our pleasure, or such respects?  
Yet 'tis thus alas, many times with many amongst us. God hath many that seem his servants, who are indeed but their own: men that follow him, but 'tis like the Jews, 
joh. 6.26.  for the meats sake only, because prosperity, riches and honour are friends with religion, and go along with it: let these part, and Religion take one way, and prosperity another, these servants will soon acknowledge their master.  
Religion had never worse friends than when it had most, and never so many, as when the temporal sword joins with the Spiritual. The warm and clearest Sunshine of the Gospel produces many aequivocal births, that pester the Church wherein they are, such as are imperfect creatures, in respect of true generation. These though they are in the Church, yet are they not of it, they seem to hearken (with others) to God's voice, but it is while it sounds to their ears in a pleasing key; while their profit, their pleasure or reputation run in parallels with religion, they hold the same course with God's children, but th●se part, the bias of their respects draws these crooked, these turn too, to the left hand after their sinister ends. Let God command them to go, if it be to that which crosses not their desires, they run with the foremost, like a stone down a hill: but to any disconvenience, discommodity or discredit (as Lot here to the mountain) O that's up hill, against the hair to them, then O not so my Lord, they than cannot, lest some of these evils take them, and they die; a thousand excuses, a thousand pretences of fears and evils that may take them, shall stand in their way, and you shall bear I cannot, lest some evil take me and I die. But if God will command them where their affection draws, let them go that way, none more forward in their obedience, their own respects and desires being the main spring from which proceeds their motion.  
2. I might secondly answer, (especially of the two first) from the nature of them, they being adiapbora, things indifferent, that in themselves are neither good nor evil, cannot, ought not to be desired without God's commission to enjoy them. But I leave this, and pass to the second general argument, which is a quantitate viae, this City is near to fly unto.  
'Tis near.  
1. Ease is a great flatterer of our nature, and difficulty, at equal distance from our affection with danger. Labour is the price of honour, and great and heroic spirits only the purchasers. The idle wishes of the sluggard, nor the faint resolutions of the coward, will never arrive at that height where honour dwells. A spirit that grows big as the danger does, and gathers as it grows, shall attain the true greatness.  
2. Secondly 'tis near, and so might befriend his curiosity, that though he were forbidden to look bacl, 
Gen. 19.17  yet he might from hence see whether and how Sodom should be destroyed.  
Curiosity is an itch of our nature, which we would have clawed, though with a poisonous nail. 'Tis a disease we are all sick of. Our first parents set their children's teeth on edge with that sour apple (which their first curiosity to be like gods in knowledge, 
Gen 3 6.  to know good and evil, made them taste) that sour apple (I say) hath ever since set their children's teeth on edge. 
Ezek. 18.2 Gen. 3.7.  Yet they had their eyes opened; and what saw they? nothing, a privation that they were naked. They saw much like the blear-eyed woman in the Fable, that had covenanted with the Physician, to give him so much money when he had restored her to perfect sight. The Physician at every visit stole away some of her household stuff, till at last all was gone: by which time being cured, and he demanding his reward, she tells him she now saw worse than ever, for whereas before she saw her housefull of goods, she now could see just nothing. Their curiosity and desire of divine knowledge brought them just to such a pass.  
Their eyes were opened, 
Gen. 3.7.  but what saw they? That they were naked. Whereas before they were invested with many divine and noble faculties, many rich attributes and privileges of soul and body, they now saw themselves disrobed, naked and miserably destitute of all those.  
Their eyes were opened, and what saw they? Even much like the blind man in the Gospel, 
Mar. 8.24.  men like trees, mankind degenerated into an inferior kind, violently hurled with his passions, and become as the brute beast, 
Psal. 49.12.20.  stupid as the block or tree.  
Curiosity is often punished like jealousy. The impatience of the desire is one torture, and it often finds a second in the object it seeks. It many times fishes for a Serpent, or would try the dangerous conclusion to kill a basilisk.  
Such a Curiosity, was in the men of Bethshemish, 
1 Sam. 6.19.  and it was a dear one, of whom fifty thousand threescore and ten men forfeited not their eyes only but their lives, for prying into the Ark of God.  
Such a Curiosity was in Roderick the last King of the Goths in Spain, 
L. Verulam his essay of Superstition.  and it was a dear one, when he would burst open a part of his palace, which the religion of many ages kept untouched: and what found he? Pictures of the Moors with a prophecy, that when that part of the palace was opened, the people there resembled should conquer Spain, as indeed under Musae and Tarif they presently did.  
Such a Curiosity was in Pompey the great, and it was a dear one. Upon the conquering of Jerusalem, not long before our Saviour's birth, though stoutly opposed and threatened by the Priests, he would needs enter into the Sanctum Sanctorum. And what saw he to feed his Curiosity? Nothing but as Tacitus in his history tells us, 
Tacitus lib. 5.  nulla intus Deum, effigy vacuam sedem & inania arcana: there was no picture or image of God, it was not like the painted Church of Rome.  
But what followed upon this?— ex illo  
Res illi fluere & retro sublapsa referri, some such thing met him as did Brutus afterwards that dampened and flatted his undaunted courage. And it is worth the observing, that from that time things ever went down the wind, in all his undertake the sprightliness of his great and fortunate Genius forsook him, and grew faint and cowardly.  
It was none of the least commendations that Tacitus gives of Agrippa, 
Tacitus in vita Agricolae. pag. 656.  retinuitque (saith he) quod est difficilimum sapientiae modum, he set limits to his wisdom itself, and prescribed a non ultra to his desire of knowledge. And it is the Symtome of a well man'd temper, to be able to reclaim our unsatiate eagerness, and take of the edge of our desire to know.  
It is in Parnassus as in other hills, there is an height to which we may let ourselves aspire: but some there are that think, that height must reach heaven itself, and strive this way to enter into God's Closet. That old itch of our first parents to be like Gods, 
Gen 3.  to know good and evil, they can never claw of. But there is certainly an height to which we may go, but he that rests not there, may go further, but it is downwards, and that many times impotent sui pondere, with a swinge that cannot control itself, till it carry him headlong into the dangerous precipice of distraction and error. Such while like Elias they are wrapped in the Chariot of contemplation, 
2 King 2.11.13.  reach not to the perfect vision of the heavens, and things done and enacted there (which they aspire to) but they let fall their mantles which should veil their nakedness.  
Knowledge, as it is in itself, is a sweet thing, but it hath its sour sauce with it. Like Vinegar it doth not so much satisfy the appetite, as whet it with a new and fresh desire. The Satire that could not be content to see the fire, but must needs in Curiosity feel it, scorched his fingers.  
Now for answer to this second argument of Lots, and to show the fallacy of it, whereas he saith it is near.  
The nearness is so fare from making lawful his request that it shows it rather to be absurd: for if it be near Sodom, it is near danger, and the more being as near in condition as in place. Is this Zoar a City of the Plains, and not in the same condition of sinfulness with Sodom? Then Let thou wouldst change place but not company, and the next degree to sin is to be in the company of sinners.  
Woe be to him that is alone (saith Solomon) and yet (say I) better it is to be alone then in the company of sinners, 
Eccles. 4.10.  and that in respect of a double danger infection and judgement.  
First of infection, for (I dare say) it is as great a miracle, for a man that permits himself the liberty of wicked society not to be tainted, 
Dan. 3.27.  as for the three children in the fiery furnace, not to be burned. And good reason is  this, since in our body there is not so great a disposition to catch fire, as in our souls to receive the tincture of sin. The customary beholding of sin committed, (though by others) doth in ourselves weaken the strength of our Antipathy, and by little and little familiarize it to our nature, bringing us by an insensible progression, from a full hatred to a faint dislike, from dislike to a toleration, from a toleration to a consent, so to a delight, and at last to a society and actual commission.  
And as the danger of infection is much, so secondly little less is the danger of judgement. Witness Lot himself, who suffered in the captivity of Sodom, because he so journed in the City of Sodom.  
Tum tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet. 
Virgil.   
Who desires a vicinity with danger? First therefore look unto thy safety, and then to thine ease. 'Tis near to Sodom, and therefore fare from safety. He commits a strange solecism that makes the way his end, that looks how he goes, not whether. Such is the folly of us wretched men. Do not we just as Lot did? When the seeming pleasures of the way cousin us into hell, when foolishly delighted with the pleasures of sin for a time we go on in the ways of death, 
Heb. 11.25.  as an Ox goeth on to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strike through our liver: as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Prov. 7.22, 23.27.  
Thus much for Lots first argument à quantitate viae, it is near. I proceed to the second à quantitate termini, 'tis little, it is a little one, and is it not perexigua, a very little one?  
In which words (me thinks) I discern as much passion as hope of compassion. Behold it is a little one, and is it not a little one?  
Let me (with your patience) before I enter further into examination of the argument (do what I think the words will give me leave) look over the pale of Divinity, into the groves and shades of Philosophy, and there would I desire the resolution of a problem: Why men have a kind of natural indulgence and delight in little things? Or why men are more taken with things that are under their just and ordinary proportion then those that exceed it?  
For inanimate it is not only not so, but directly contrary, where with the quantity of bulk is also increased the quantity of virtue, as in pearls, precious stones and the like.  
But for artificial things, 'tis indeed many times on the contrary, that the value and esteem of them is so much the more, by how much they are the less. To comprehend in the compass of a Walnut, or in a less quantity, so many several springs, wheels, catches, motions, all distinctly, regularly moving, is it not fare more admirable, than the exemplar of the same in a great clock? For our esteem of these lesser works, the reason is evident, in regard it shows the more art, to contrive a work in the less quantity.  
Materiam superabit opus— Nay this is grounded upon nature, 
Ovid.  which nunquam abundat in supervacaneis, sed agit per lineas breviores, goes the most compendious and near way to work.  
But now for animated things, why we are more tenderly affected towards them in their minority and infancy rather than in their adult-age and maturity: What may be the reason of that?  
Is it that innocency of theirs, with which we are affected, that yet is defiled with no other sin, than what by the necessity of their procreation is contracted to them?  
Or is it from a nobleness of nature to be indulgent towards them that are unable to help themselves?  
Or is it, we love them as the means of our eternity, to which we aspire by this renovation of ourselves?  
Or will you say it is a weakness of our judgements, and misplacing of our affections on the imperfection and inchoation of the creature rather than on their adult-age and perfection?  
Or is it a kind of sympathy with our own principles?  
Sure if it be none of these, and that I may err in the reason, yet the thing itself is evident, that naturally we are more compassionately indulgent to the infancy and minority of the creatures, then to them in their adult-age and maturity, and our blessed Saviour himself seems to acknowledge in his own example this affection as lawful as natural in taking little children in his arms, 
Mark. 10.16.  laying his hands upon them and blessing them, rebuking those that forbade them to be brought unto him, and many such like passages.  
But I am afraid I have dwelled too long on this theme, though I am confident, not with any impertinency to my Text, in which I find the strains of like passionate indulgence, it is a little one, and is it not a little one and my soul shall live.  
But I proceed to examine the argument, and first of the probability of it, and secondly of the fallacy.  
Antigonus being desired by the Cynic to bestow on him a Talon, answered, that a Talon was more than became a Cynic to ask, 
Seneca. de Benef. lib. 2. cap. 17.  being again thereupon requested a penny, he answered that a penny was less than became a King to give. A base and dishonourable evasion, that found a way to bestow neither; whereas a noble and generous mind might have found a way to have bestowed both. In the Talon he looked at the Cynic, what became him to ask, in the penny at a King; what became him to give: whereas he might have given a Talon as a King, and a penny, as to a beggar, yet both with decorum enough,  
I have related the story with Seneca's censure, with which though I will not cross, yet thus much of true morality will Seneca himself grant me, at least in one part of this reply: that any thing may not be requested, but that there is a necessary decorum in all our desires. A monstrous request answers itself. Eàdem facilitate negatur quâ petitur. He gives me a good reason to deny him, who hath no reason in his request, and indeed that man hath forgot the first ground of Charity, whose alms beggar himself; who by building an Hospital makes himself a fit guest to live in it.  
Ask therefore of thy friend but only that, which thou mayst ask without a blush, and he give without a strain, else hath he both, for colourable excuses for thy denial. What reason hath he to bestow that which thou hast no reason to demand? Indeed those requests are easily granted, that bring the blood into the cheek neither of the asker, nor giver, not in the one, by the strain of his modesty, nor of the other, by straining his ability.  
Importunity and impudence is the baseness of beggary, which else may be liberal, while it is ask, if it express as well a care of his estate from whom thou askest, as his for whom, to which the easiness of thy request would offer no violence, whilst for thyself thou canst say with Lot, is it not a little one, and is it not a very little one?  
But otherwise thou teachest him a just denial, who makest thine own supply another's necessity. Be not therefore too importunate in thy demands. Importunity is a civil robbery, if thou be importunate, let it be in another's superfluity, lest whiles thou pullest his coat to cover thine own, thou discover his nakedness.  
And as betwixt man and man, so towards God himself, our petitions are taught a modesty in this example. 
Matth. 20.21, 22.  To sit on God's right hand and left, was a request of more zeal than discretion, and therefore found with our Saviour an answer rather of reproof then grant.  
We may not ask any thing of God himself, that were to make the power of God familiar, and therefore miracles as they are rare things, are as rarely to be asked. 'Tis not for God's state to come every day abroad in his rays of majesty and power: those are things of state, and reserved for solemn days and occasions. And therefore miracles which are effects of Gods extraordinary power, and a kind of new creation, are things from which God rested the seventh day, unless some great and general occasion be offered.  
By the way therefore, for popish Exorcists (those religious conjurers) that make it but every day's work to cast out devils, that have him at command, as ready as if he were but their Tenant at will, it is to be feared they will be some of those that pleading, did not we cast out devils in thy Name, 
Matt. 7.22, 23.  and in thy Name do many wondrous works? It shall be answered, Away from me ye workers of iniquity, I know you not?  
To conclude, our desires must not be measured at the infiniteness of God's power: we ought rather to weigh with a well-disciplined modesty, what we may ask, not what God can give.  
And thus having done with the probability of this argument, which as it regarded himself, may seem good and allowable, I come to the fallacy of it.  
This City is near, and it is a little one.  
In the intention of which words, might be involved a twofold object: 

God's Power,  
or, God's Justice.    
1. First his Power, and then would the force of the argument depend upon this ground. That a thing of no great difficulty may easily be granted. It's but a small matter for me to ask or thee to grant.  
But than would the argument be odious in a supposition or ground, that any thing were hard or easy to God, whereas this is only so, in a finite and measuredstrength. The infinitude and immeasurableness of God's Power, knows nothing that hath any the least proportion of resistance. What be can do (that is, all things) he can do easily. For who hath resisted his power, 
Rom 9.19.  Rom. 9.19. All things are swallowed up in this vastness, he is able to do all things with the same ease, the same strength: as easily move the earth out of his foundation, as move an atom of dust, or the least grain of sand: the sturdiness of the oak is as pliant as the bulrush, with the breath of his mouth. And indeed difficulty is but the task of a finite strength: arising from the resistance of the object, when a thing is accomplished, but sometime with danger, many times with pain, and always with intention. To God there is no such thing as difficulty, pain, or resistance. By what should any thing resist him? All resistance is a contrario, but to God all things are subordinate, acted by him, living, moving in him, and having their being from him. 
Act. 17.25 28.  How then can any thing move against him? To give any thing that power that it could resist God, were to make it God. But to him, dictum, factum, said and done are all one. He spoke, and it was done, be commanded, 
Psa. 33.9.  and it stood fast.  
But this first sense of the words, I pass by, as thinking it not so properly the meaning of the words, & come to the second, made of the second object, God's Justice.  
2. And if it be so understood, then would it be of a most dangerous sense: as if he should confess indeed, that this Bela, or here Zoar, did indeed justly deserve as it had partaken in a share of the same sins, so to partake in the community of the same punishment. But yet it's but a little City, and the inhabitants but few; what if then for my sake, so small a City, and such an handful of men be exempted? Would that be any breach of Justice, or any task of God's impartial dealing, if of ten thousand ten should be spared? Would such an inch break any square, so small a matter be stuck at, upon my desire, for my safety? Spare it then, O Lord, 'tis but a little one, nun perexigua est? so exceeding little, that to pardon and pass by it, can no way impeach thy Justice; which shall acquit itself well enough, in that number which shall justly feel it's just rigour, and as to that number that shall in thine anger suffer, these I sue for, lose all proportion, and become no number? so this act of thy mercy being set, by that exemplary act of thy Justice, shall escape all notice & censure.  
Were I but guilty of a little oratory, I am persuaded, some might easily be cozened into a belief, that the argument were very solid, and would well enough hold water.  
What? (says natural reason, and unchristened Justice) have I rigidly observed all thy commandments from my youth hitherto? have I justled counter against the world, 
Mat. 19.20  neglected (out of conscience and godly fear) my profits, my pleasures, my humours, borne the obloquys and frequent scorns of the multitude; and shall not a little sin, a small errors be excused in me?  
Is not this a frequent plea, that not only the formal worldling, but even God's servants themselves make, and wherein they are wonderfully pleased? as if (forsooth) they had well accquitted themselves, if they have been diligent in their callings, or the duties of religion; O then a little slacking, one neglect or ommission may well enough be excused, and so sin in the crowd of their virtues pass unseen, uncensured.  
So goodness must be a stolen to sin, and diligence the patroness, at least of a small neglect! As if by doing well we purchased a liberty to do ill, and that we might deal with God as the Roman slaves did with their masters, who having served them all the rest of the year, yet for onst (at the Saturnals) their masters served them: 
Macrobius.  so here, as if (forsooth) because we have done God (as we think) reasonable good service, and been indifferently diligent in our callings, God must therefore onst, or so serve us, authorise us to sin a little, and excuse us for a little when we have sinned.  
Is not this almost to make God the author of sin, and goodness monstrously to father her own contrary? Would you not think it a monstrous madness, and strange solecism, if a master should ask his servant why he had offended in this or that command, and he should reply, because I am thy servant, or because I have served thee well and faithfully in other things? Would you not think this servant mad? And would you not think that master that would accept this answer for a sufficient excuse, more mad and foolish than t'other? Yet just so do we deal with God. Why have we been bold in this or that matter to offend? for onst to omit this or that duty, a little too slack of our diligence? because (forsooth) we are his servants, because we have heretoforé been officious and zealous. What a strange reason is here, we are bad because we have been good?  
2. As in this monstrously we would make God the author, and goodness the excuse and privilege of sin, so secondly, it's a thing we never make any bones of, never stick at to sinne a little, so it be but a little, it occasion be, to step a little out of the way, so that we rove not past the outer, most declination sin's of Zodiac. Let us go no further, & then, as if there were a Cancer on hell's side, as there is in heaven, and that we could be retrograde, return when we would, fearless of the steepness of that ascent, and unwary of the deceitfulness of sin, we stop nor, (having begun our career (without God's great mercy) till we are carried headlong into the vale of death, and plunged in the gulf of eternal misery.  
O (my heloved) take heed of this kill indulgence to yourselves, to think to sinne a little, a little to go aside, a little out of the pale of God's protection. O consider what thou dost, no more but give the devil a little hold of thy soul, no more but beginnest a race from the top and verge of a steep hill, no more but tear a little of the writing and covenant betwixt God and thee, no more but add a little thorn to the crown of Christ.  
And yet I am deceived almost as much as thou art? thou dost not these a little, but much, and highly, especially if voluntarily thou sinnest but thy little.  
For first, it's a great error that any fin is little?  
Secondly, as great a one, that thou canst return, repent, and retrieve thyself being at a fault, but thy little.  
First, no sin is little. For tell me, what is little? I would feign know, what is little.  
Is a grain of sand little? Yes, in comparison of a pebble stone. But is a grain of sand positively and absolutely little. No? For in respect of an atom it is great; nay, that atom is not little neither. For if it be quantitative, then hath it extension, if extension than one part without another, and then, at least those parts are less than the whole, and so might I dispute of those parts, and the parts of those parts in infinitum. I know in regard of animate bodies, the best Philosophers are of opinion that they have their prefixed terms of magnitude upwards and downwards, their maximum quod sic, and minimum quod non, their minimum quod sic, and maximum quod non: but there is nothing in the whole universe, that is absolutely and positively little. And this I affirm not only in bodies, but all accidents, whether qualities, actions or whatsoever, to which in any manner we attribute quantity and the affections of it.  
Tell me then, what is a little sin? Sin being an aberration from the right way, measure me the true distance of that aberration, measure me the line that measures that distance; 
Omne quantum est divisibile in semper divisibilia.  thou wilt find a kind of infiniteness in it. For each line is infinitely divisible.  
The truth than is, we call some sins little, not that any is absolutely and really so, but only in respect of some greater. So that our justification in this kind, would prove but like the Pharisees merely comparative: 
Luk. 18.11.  I thank God I am not as other men, nor even as this Publican.  
Be not then so near a papist in thine opinion, that (as they hold some sins venial) thou as absurdly hold'st some sins little, or the Pharisees that hold some of God's commands to be but little ones. Matth. 5.19. Be not deceived (saith S. Paul) for because of these things, 
Eph. 5.6.3, 4, 5.  what things? Eph. 5.6. Sinnes which the world esteems but little of fornication, called but a trick of youth, all uncleanness, covetousness, nay he names less yet, filthiness foolish talking, jesting, even for these things: let no man deceive you with vain words, as if these were but little, petty trifles of sin, toys, not worth the heeding, for whatever, how light soever you may think of them, 
Vers. 6.7.  even for these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience: be not therefore partakers with them. And indeed, they that upon this plea, are bold to commit any sin, argue more in it their own sauciness, than the sins excuse.  
It is not proper, nor probable that an offender will rightly judge of the quality of his own fault. He must censure of it, against whom it was committed.  
What was (in itself) the cating of an apple, 
Gen 36.  what the gathering of a few sticks, 
Num. 15.32.  or the upholding of the Ark when it was so shaken, 
2 ●am. 6.6.  that it seemed in danger of falling? What can we think of these, which might seem each one to have a good plea, the first of wisdom, the second necessity, the third piety? Were not these small matters, and if sins very little ones? and yet the least of these little ones, cost no less than death, 
Gen 2.17. Num. 15.36.  at least temporal, and stretched in their nature to the merit of an eternal. 
2 Sam. 6.7.  Take heed in these things of charging God foolishly. 
job 1.22.  Shall not the Judge of all the earth do uprightly. Gen. 18.25. Yet if our captious wisdoms have not learned so much Christian modesty to be controlled by this authority, but that they dare think hardly of it, and speak it in the place of extreme justice: reason itself may file into a smother phrase, the roughness of that word, and christian it a most lawful and just severity. 
Rom. 11.22.   
Eadem ratio rotunditatis in majore & in minore circulo, sic & in peccato, there is the same kind of roundness in a greater or less circle, so is there the same kind of obliquity in the greater and less sin. A little thing is little, but then unfaithfulness in a little is a great fault. 
Num. 15.  The gathering of those sticks, 
Gen. 3.2 Sam 6.  the eating of that apple, the touching of the Ark, were in themselves but little things, but then the disobedience in these littles was no small fault. God commanded, and his command (which is the bond of all our obedience) was broken, and therefore what ever the things were, for weak and sinful man, with neglect of so many great and strong obligements to offend an infinite and omnipotent majesty, makes these little sins of so great a guilt, that as no man without in justice can excuse their sins, much less with any justice can any excuse their punishments.  
But (let me name it truly) it is a kind of general Atheism, in this declining age (out of the greater acquaintance in sin) that they dare with boldness act those things against God, and esteem them but little, which (if done against a King, nay fare inferior men) would be judged, by common civility, impudently absurd, and monstrous. And no marvel, if to Atheism be added impudence, in those who knowing that there is a God, 
Tit. 1.16.  do yet in their works deny him.  
I have showed the first deceit, of men that think some sins little, the second follows (as bad as the first) that men having offended but a little, can easily reclaim themselves. Let them do this or that, either for experience or curiosity, or company, or gain, or pleasure, or the like, without fail they will go no further, the devil shall in vain expect a further progress, into any further degrees of sin.  
Thou fool! is repentance a work of thine own? or if not, why wilt thou promise so certainly, that which is not in thy power? Thou wilt sinne a little but surely return. To sin is in thine own power, but that thou repent is in the power and pleasure of God only. 
2 Tim, 2.25.   
Alack vain man! with how little reason dost thou flatter thy vain hope? Canst thou leap off a steep rock, and think to stop in the middle way, when thou art carried headlong impotent sui pondere, with a weight and swing unable to manage or control itself? 
2 Sam 14.14.  Canst thou spill water on the ground and think to gather it up, or put fire to tow, and hope it will not rise into aflame?  
O thou little knowest the fruitfulness of sin, the proneness and inclination of thy nature, or the justice of God, that often punishes one sin with another.  
It is said of Ninus his victory, prior quaeque victoria causa sequentis erat, 
justin. hist. lib. 1.  every former victory occasioned the following: and most true it is of sin, that every first makes way for the next, and he that makes no conscience to commit the one, will make less to commit a second, and yet less of the third. For as each act of sin stains the soul, so it gets an inclination and disposition to further acts, by which is wrought custom, and by custom necessity. As S. Augustine says, 
Augustinè.  Dum servitur libidini, facta est consuetudo, dum consuetudini non resistitur, inducta est necessitas, so that at the last, by this fatal gradation men a rive at the height and impudence of sinning, from which (without God's great mercy) there is never a return, 
Heb. 10.27.  but a fearful looking for of judgement, and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.  
Yield not therefore to any the least sin, let not the infancy of it flatter thee, though it smile upon thee with a childish innocence, and pretend nought but harmless simplicity, for here, in a true (though differing) sense, may I use the words of the Psalmist, 
Psal. 137.9.  happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth these little ones against the stones.  
It was but a little cloud at first, 
1 Kin. 18. 44, 45.  that afterwards overcast the whole heaven, so a little sin, (if not scattered by the sacred power of the blessed Spirit) will hid all the heaven from us, eclipse the light of God's countenance, and at last involve us in eternal darkness. And as that little cloud became at length a dashing shower, the least of grains, in its growth, becomes one of the greatest shelters; Agraine of Mustardseed, 
Matth. 13.31.  which is indeed the least of all seeds when it is sown, but when it is grown up, is the greatest amongst herbs, so that the fowls of the air, come and lodge in the branches thereof. Matth. 13.31. such is the increase and growth of sin.  
Believe not then the devil and thine own deceitful heart: they are importunate with thee. What! wilt thou deny them a little? so little? such a trifle? not grant so much room in thine heart as to sow one of the least grains? Why wilt thou be thus fooled, and cozened out of thy soul? Look whether tends the devil's modesty. If he should say to thee downright, bluntly, and without more ado, give me thy soul, he would startle as well thy courage, as awake thy vigilancy: and because he does not so (knowing then he should he sure to be denied) wilt thou be the more careless, because he is the more cunning? Why; believe it, he asks as much in a poriphrasis: now he asks thee, but this thy little; he asks thy soul, and aims (though he seem to play at small games) indeed at thy whole stock. He asks thy soul, but more slyly, lest thou shouldst deny him. And therefore, thou oughtest to be the more circumspect, against his cheating modesty, by how much there's the more real danger in his seeming less desire. It is so fare from any care of thee, that it is indeed but a cunning tolling of thee on, by a seeming carelessness, and the innocence of a little sin. For know undoubtedly, that of these littles is made the devils screw, and the stairs that lead to bell are winding.  
Nemo repentè fit turpissimus— No man at onst jumps into the extremity of sin, 
Invenal. Sat. 2.  and the kingdom of hell (like that of Heaven) cometh not with observation, 
Luk. 17.20.  but by an insensible progress, we go downward, and therefore are bid to remember from whence we are fall'n, 
Rev 2.5.  and the servants come to their Lord with wonder in their mouths, 
Matth. 13.27.  Master didst not thou sow good seed in thy field, from whence then hath it tares? It escaped their notice for a long while, even till the blade sprung up and the fruit appeared.  
Thou seest, here it is wisdom to be a precisian, and that a nice and tender conscience, is the best antidote against secretly insinuating poison.  
Had David before made a covenant with his eyes, 
job. 31.1.  he had not so nearly unmade his covenant with his God; when he beheld Bathsheba from his terrace. 
2 Sam. 11.13.17.  Little thought David that little thief, lust (that through the windows of his eyes stole into his heart) should have opened the door to those two great sins adultery and murder. 
2 Sam. 12.9.  Little thought he, the fruitfulness of that sin of lust, would for one infant, have doublely lost a man, first in drink and then in blood.  
Little thought Peter (when he meant at first, 
Mark. 14.66, 67. etc.  with a plain denial, handsomely to have shitted of the dangerous inquisition) to 01 have run into oaths and execrations. By stepping but aside, he little thought to have run so fare from Christ, even further than they that before forsook him and fled from him. 
Matth. 26.56.   
You see then, how one sin ushers an other, and like one wave calls another, till at last the deep waters go over thy soul. Canst thou pull one link of a chain and think the rest will not follow? In that little sin thou art dejectus de statu & gradu, discomposed and disordered in thy posture, so that thine enemy may close with thee. Such is the fruitfulness and improvement of sin!  
Since then, it is sins method, to win upon us by little and little, here a snatch and there, let us be wise as serpents, 
Matth. 10.16.  and countermine against the policy of that grand serpent. Let us arm ourselves with a sacred jealousy, and well wrought resolution, which as Satan in vain by force, at onst should attempt to break, let us take heed, that he never by his policy unravel, 
Seneca.  and as Seneca counsels, nobis quia regredi non est facile, optimum est non progredi, because we cannot easily return, ' it's best way not to go forward.  
I have thus fare insisted out this argument of Lots in a three fold sense natural, moral, and theological.  
In the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in way of essay, I inquired into the reason, why men are naturally compassionate, and indulgent to little things. Secondly I inquired, what this is which we call little, and whether i: import any essence or quiddity, positive and absolute, or only comparative and of relation.  
In the moral sense of the words, I endeavoured by some ethical precepts, to stop the voracity and greediness of our desires, both to God and man; to cure men of that wolf and to train them up unto a discreet modesty, in all requests, that what we ask may be without a blush, and given without a strain, which will then be, when like Lot of his Zoar we can say for our request, it is a little one, and nun perexigua est, is it not a very little one?  
The Theological sense I have showed might be twofold, in regard of a twofold object that may be supposed God's power, or His justice.  
1. His power, and then would the words involve an error as dangerous as popular, viz. that any thing were easier or harder to God, whereas this is so only in a measured and finite strength. It is a little one is a good argument, in that it implies our modesty, but it is a little one is a bad argument if it look at God's power.  
2. The second sense (supposing the second object, which is God's justice) is likewise dangerous, as confessing that Bela or Zoar (a City of the plains of Sodom) doth partake with the rest of the Cities in the community of the same sins, but it is but a little City, and God's justice cannot be impeached, as partial in sparing so few men, so little a City.  
Hitherto I have proceeded, and though perhaps I have made much ado about a little, yet I am unwilling to let go the same theme.  
Who will not there most fortify, where he knows his enemy will make the greatest battery? It is this way, and almost this way only, the devil wins upon us. The Serpent thus by little and little winds himself in. He never dealt with any except our Saviour, 
Matth 4.6.  to bid him, cast down himself from the highest pinnacle of the Temple: it is his wont to us, to cousin us by degrees, from the height of our zeal and virtue, as by winding stairs, and this way he's so much the more like to obtain his end, by how much we are less able to discern either the declination or danger of the way.  
I had almost vented a paradox, and yet though I call it so, I will adventure to expose it to the hazard of your censure, and am much deceived if it be not acknowledged for more than half a truth; and this it is.  
Little sins, or those sins which we take for little ones, are many times of greater guilt and danger, than those which we esteem great ones. Be pleased to suspend your censure, till I acquaint you with two or three reasons.  

First they are committed in greater numbers, and so numero si non pondere valent, their number will weigh against the others weight. The fruit of this forbidden tree grows, if not great in bulk, yet in branches and clusters.  
Secondly, they are done with greater boldness, and holdness is the very formale of a sin, that which dies in the deepest guilt, and aggravates it beyond all excuse, as if (forsooth) by the priledge of some extraordinary familiarity with God, we might be borne out in a little boldness, and (as the foolish mouse played with the Lion's beard) expect that his patience should still sleep though we tempt it every day, 
Psal. 7.12.  with the saucy importunity of these childish and sportful sins.  
Thirdly, those sins men call little, are seldom repent of, and what wonder (when committed with so much carelessness) if they be omitted in our repentance. Possunt verba dare & evadere pusilla mala, ingentibus obviam itur.  
Fourthly, they are causes of greater: and thereupon much of that guilt, which is in the sins which follow in upon these little ones, may be transferred back again upon those, without whose treachery they had never come in. And though by a Physical necessity they produce not these succeeding effects yet by an inclining (nay tempting) disposition, they open the gap too, and draw in a whole huddle of sins, and those many times great ones.   
Examples are of this but too frequent. Have we entered a little way into any unlawful course, and do we not often find more desperate courage to wade through, than modesty to forbear, or repentance to go back? Over shoes, over boots: we are in, and cannot be much worse, or if we be, it's as good on a little further, and repent for altogether. There's but a broken piece of a day or estate left, I can do no great good with that: as good throw the helve after the hatchet. Thus (in those and such like of the devils Apothegms) we encourage ourselves from sinning to sin, making that a spur which should be a bridle, and engaging ourselves by the infiniteness of this argument, to ingulphe ourselves into an irrevocable condition. Tush! Repentance is but a sneaking and poor conditioned virtue, as good on, and secure sin with sin.  
To this purpose there is a memorable example in Seneca, of one Piso, 
Seneca de Ira, lib. 1. cap. 16.  a Roman General, a man most unfitting that rule, who was (to tyranny) ruled by his own passions.  
Two soldiers having gone together out of the Camp, and one only returning, Piso condemns him that returned, as presuming him guilty of his comrades death. In vain doth the poor man crave any mercy, who is denied the just trial of his own innocence, in the least respite. Away he is haled to the block, where with his neck out stretched, ready to receive the fatal blow, when behold fortune (more kind to him than that tyrant) presents him with the sight of his fellow, just now upon his return. With mutual embraces, and the joyful acclamations of the army, both are brought to Piso's Tent, that he may be acquainted with the soldier's innocence, and his own mistake. But what? must a great general, and that in the sight of all his army, acknowledge in his acquittal, that he could be unjust? It shall be proved just, because he will not repent, which rather than he will do, he will sinne maturely, and desperately, to prove he did not offend so much as rashly. Piso will now, rather than acquit one, condemn both, both him that had not, and him that was not murdered; so that because one did appear innocent, two must perish: nay Piso added a third yet, the Centurion. And wots you the wit of his anger, to find just cause for all? Thee (saith he) I condemn to execution, because thou wast condemned: thee, because by thine absence, thou wast the cause of his condemning: and thee, the Centurion, because being commanded to execute him whom I condemned, thou disobeyedst my command. Excogitavit (saith Seneca) quemadmodum tria crimina faceret, quia nullum invenerat, he found a way etc.  
In dealing of which sort, of strengthening and seeming one sin with another, we deal like a wise Counsellor of the Duke of Florence, who (having a great heap of dirt and rubbish, which without great labour, and much expense could not be conveyed away) was by a grave Senater most politicly advised, to dig a gaeat hole in the same place, and bury it in that. But (replied the Duke) where shall that earth which is digged out of the pit be bestowed? (Why? says the eight of the wise men) make the hole so much the deeper, and bury both.  
Make the tale a fable, and laugh (in the moral) at thine own folly, thou that thinkest in what kind soever to hid one sin with another: 
2 Sam. 11.13.17.  as David adultery with drunkenness, 
2 Sam. 12.9.  both with murder: 
Mar 14 66 67, etc. 71.  as Peter simple denying of his Lord with cursing and forswearing, or (as usually the custom of many is) to hid any offence with lying or swearing, etc. Thou hast digged a pit, 
Psa. 139.8  say as deep as hell (for thither art thou going) to hid thy first sin, yet indeed in this more foolish than him I spoke of. But suppose it hid; where shall the second be hid? make a deeper pit. Thou mayst go to hell that way, but never hid thy sin from heaven, even there also shall thine hand, 
Ps. 139.10  and thy right hand find such out.  
Resolve then, thou canst not hid, much less secure one sin by adding more: thou thinkest to bury the first sin in the second, but where shall the second be buried? How ridiculous is this conceit of men, yet how often practised? David himself (as I said) had this gull put upon him. He committed adultery, to rid a way and bury this filth, he is guilty of drunkenness, and finding this pit yet too little, he will wisely dig deeper, and go nearer hell yet, in Vriab's murder: but finding the vain policy of it, and that this way the mass of his dunghill did but rise to greater bulk (like the Augean stables) his only way was by the abundant tears of repentance (as by an Alpheus) to purge away that corrupted mass.  
Peter was thus served too. He thought at first, but with a handsome conveyance of his body, to have shifted off the blow he feared. But this little motion carried him with such a swinge, that he ran further from our Saviour then the rest that fled: 
Mar. 14.71  he swears & forswears, 
Luk. 22.61  so that had not our Lord looked back to recall him, he had run eternally away from him.  
Do not these examples preach unto you strict vigilancy, yea and preciseness over your ways, that you offend not, though never so little, that you gratify not the devil with the least sin. Thou seest of what dangerous consequence and fruitful improvement sin is: give him not one link, by pulling that, all the whole chain will follow. 
Luk. 1●, 22, 23.  Let not in then this enemy, whom thou mayest easily at first keep out, and who (being onst admitted in) will be too strong for thee.  
I have done with this argument, which I have longer insisted on, because it is the strength and thigh of his request, 
Gen. 32.25.31.  but I have touched it in the hollow of it, and therefore you can expect no other, but that the request must come in halting, which follows in these words, O let me escape thither. But before I pass to the request, and last argument, here stands in a parenthesis a passionate Epanalepsis, set down by way of interrogation [is it not a little one?] In which having done with the matter of the words, the Rhetoric only is left to our observation.  
It is a little one, O let me escape thither, and is it not a little one?  
In which words (methinks) I find, as somewhat of passion, so much of a compassionate indulgence, so that I know not what more winning, and affectionately moving, could have been spoken. A right piece of true Rhetoric, that woes the affections like a right artist, like one that would derive both powerful and pathetically into his auditory his own notions, his own sense, and like a common Genius of the whole body, animate the whole company with one and the same soul. This is the true end of all Rhetoric, both profane and sacred, ducere affectus, to take and lead the affections, quoquo velis, which soever way you please. And to do that, is there any way but through the understanding?  
Which being truly and undoubtedly so, I can but wonder (for understand I do not) what end they have proposed to themselves, whose preaching is more affectedly obscure than Delphian Oracles, or Egyptian jeroglyphicks: that indeed make good in a bad sense, that of the Apostle that calls preaching prophesying, 
1 Cor. 14: 3.  that have mouths, nay words, and speak not, and would make good that curse upon their auditors, to be of those, that hearing hear and understand not, 
Isa. 6 9 82  and seeing see and perceive not. 
Act 28.26.  And indeed I wonder at the patience of them that hear such, who are dealt with as the Fox did with the stork. Who inviting the stork to a feast, poured his liquor into so flat and shallow a dish, that the poor stork was only a spectator, (while the Fox leapt up the meat) his long bill being unable to dip in that shallow platter. For you that hear such, I know not (in that regard) what you lose if you sleep whilst such preach, for if they will not make you auditors, I know not, why you should (in the Church) only be spectators. But for such Preachers, I would upon the pardon of a question, give them (I think) good counsel. What need they labour an hour, not to be understood? Is it not a more compendious way (if they would not be understood) to say nothing?  
2. There is an other sort, that on the contrary, as the former make preaching prophesying, so these in as bad sense, would make good that of the Apostle of some that call preaching foolishness: as if because preaching must not be gareish, 
1 Cor. 1.21.23.  it must therefore be sordid. 'tis beyond the patience of an understanding man, to bear the rankness of their undigested meditations; and God sure, but for our punishment never made such Ambassadors.  
It is beyond both my purpose and skill, to prescribe the best way, who acknowledge myself in the lowest class of learners. But sure, there is a latitude, wherein men may both please and profit, and it will prove best, when men learn first the inclination of their own Genius, and seek to perfect that, whether in the kind of prosecution or action. Much of imitation is distort and lame.  
I have with a perfunctory touch done with this, and come to Lot's affirmative request.  
O, let me escape thither.  
God prescribes Lot the way to escape, fly to the mountain: Let replies, O not so my Lord, for I cannot, &c. there's a nè sic, of disobedience, O not so, and there's a nè fortè, that is his distrust, and then, behold, this Citle is better, there is confidence.  
1. Man's a distrustful creature, and yet man's a presumptuous creature. For is there any climax in sin, whose highest step we have not reached. If the baseness and abjectednesse of our fears shrink us as low as hell, the swollen pride and height of our presumption preaches us as high as heaven: so that with a saucy presumption, we dare capitulate and indent with God, nay even chalk him out the way, with a not so my Lord, but behold a better conveniency, O let me escape thither; thither to Zoar one of the five Cities of the plains.  
2. Man (you see) desires to serve God easily and cheaply, would have the way to heaven down the hill, the way broad, strawed with violets and roses, good store of merry companions along with him, and at the end a wide and open gate, that might be hit blindfold, (O who then would not go to heaven.) He thinks it not for the state of so glorious a Palace to have so narrow a Gate. It's that that offends many, and makes them turn back again to Sodom, that the way should be so narrow, set with thorns of afflictions, that scratch and pull back, a solitary and melancholic way (as many think) through disgraces and reproaches, 
2 Cor. 6.8. etc.  loaden with an heavy yoke, an heavy cross: 
Matth. 11.29.  that all the way must profess patience, 
Luk. 9 23.  and invite a second blow after the first, 
Luk. 21.19.  and at the end agate, that to get through they must creep low as the dust, 
Matth. 5.39.  and so strait that to get through a man must leave his wealth, 
Matth. 7.14.  his dearest sins, nay even his flesh.  
The Israelites way to the spiritual Canaan, is through a sea of sorrow, made big with their own tears, that goes high with their own sighs, with a spiritual Pharaob full of rage and at their heels, through a Wilderness, where there are all things that threaten death and no sustenance for life, 
Deut. 8.15.  no bread, no water, no flesh, no houses, a long way through deserts and wildernesses, amongst many fiery serpents, through many enemies. O these are the things that make many a one return again towards Egypt, 
Act. 7.39.  and go on merrily in the ways of death, 
Prov. 7.23.  till a dart strike through his soul. Men will, with much ado perhaps, be brought to desire to escape the spiritual Sodom, but not by the mountain, O that's up hill and against the hair, but by the way of the Plains of Zoar all would escape. O (says every one) let me escape but thither, this way, by Zoar and my soul shall live.  
We would be content to invert that petition, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, to thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth; that our pleasure might rather be God's service, than God's service our pleasure.  
Most men deem the man in the Gospel a fool to buy so dear a bargain, when he found the Pearl, 
Matth, 13.46.  that is to part with all that he had to purchase it. What needed this cost? without doubt (say they) heaven' may be had at an easier rate, and he but over-bought his bargain. Men will take God at his word, give him a sterile and hungry mercy, good words and good wishes, but not sacrifice. 
Hos. 6 6.  Good thrifty Christians we are grown, that can go to heaven a cheaper way than by good works, that's by the mountain, we can go by faith.  
Mistake me not (beloved) as though in this just sarcasme. I tasked in the least wise our doctrine, or befriended in any sort those unjust reproaches and scandals of the Church of Rome, that we should maintain, that faith alone without good works can save us, or that good works are not at all necessary to salvation. Our doctrine doth more establish, yea, and encourage good works than theirs, while it gives them so great a value that the least of them, even giving a cup of cold water, 
Matth. 10.42.  shall be rewarded tenne-thousand fold above ' its own worth: theirs rewarding them only after the rate of their own worth.  
I would to God our practice were according to our doctrine, and that it were no more the fault of the men, than the religion so to cry up faith, faith, that they have cried down good works, as if they were effects of superstition and ignorant zeal. It is our practice not our doctrine that sets faith and good works at odds, which are in themselves as much connexed and linked as cause and effect, Sun and light, body and shadow, or what ever example of strongest dependence can be found in nature. But I pray God we pay not dear, for thinking to have heaven too cheap.  
The Ephesians cried up Diana, 
Act. 19 28.25.27.34.  Diana, but gain was in it, gain was their godliness, yea their god. We cry up faith, faith, and there is gain in it, 
jam. 2, 24.24.  it's to exclude good works, those (as if out of fashion with Popery) we have not so much piety (shall I say?) or charity, as to keep up those stately edifices which they built. Nay (I doubt) some are so fare from putting a finger to the work, that the repairing of S. Paul's is with them Popish.  
To find a nearer way to the Indies hath cost many a life, and to find a nearer way to heaven, hath cost many a soul. Many a one is in Sodom burned, that went to escape by Zoar. Some will pray, but like sluggards in their beds, will fast, but with curious refections; 
Prov. 26.14.  give alms, but not a moiety of their robbery, give a Vicar five pounds, and rob the Church of five hundred; be temporal Bishops or spiritual Earls; build an Hospital and rob a Church; do good at their deaths, and live how they list. It's no wonder there be weavers, and tapsters, and other mechanic Clergy if there be temporal Bishops. We will follow Christ, 
Luk. 9.59.61.  but take leave of our friends first, or bury dead, but when he bids us follow, we will not follow him to the mountain.  
I come now to the last words and part of my Text, in these words, and my soul shall live.  
Man hath committed in this a foul idolatry, in making the creature a God, while before the enjoyment he promises all happiness (and what not?) in every end he proposes. Man hath done the creature against as foul an injury, while he vilifies the creature in the enjoyment, as fare as to hate, and loathingnesse.  
— Et concipit aethera ment. 
Ovid.   
O, if we could but compass such a man's estate, honour, parts, our desires should sit down, we had done for any further wishes. But do we there set up our rest? nay alas are they not either distasteful, or only the whetters of new appetite? When we enjoy them, how short we fall of that we promised from them!  
Let me escape thither and my soul shall live (saith Letoy,) I have mine hearts wish. Was it so? Alas he's no sooner there, but he flies away from thence to the mountain. So fare short are all outward things in giving a full content!  
We are like the silly shepherd in the fable, that seeing the Sun as it were on the top of an overlooking mountain, makes haste up to see so glorious a thing, but arriving at the top of that, it than appears on the top of an higher: thither again his desire cousins him: with much labour, and fresh hope he arrives, it than appears on a third: and on his third access, leaves him both now hopeless and weary. He finds to his cost, it is in heaven he looks for, and that this is but a fond conceit, arising from his deluded sense.  
Man is this foolish shepherd, he looks upon honour, and thinks happiness is there; on wealth, that happiness is there; on mirth and pleasure, that happiness is there; to come to these with as much pain as promise, he labours to arrive, in each object (like every hill) seems to rest: thither he arrives, sees it now in another object: follows that; it is not there. A new wish tempts him, and that obtained deceives him. Alas fool, it is in heaven that thou lookest for, the true Sun of righteousness, 
Mal. 4▪ 2.  He only hath that which thou lookest for, in vain thou lookest, rest, safety, security, happiness in Zoar, 
Eccl. 2.25.  in that which thy soul hastes to enjoy, if thou expect to find it in sublunary things. There is only rest to be found in the mountain cut out of the rock, without hands, 
Dan. 2 34, 35.  which filled the earth, my fills all places.  
Let us therefore, if we think to escape the spiritual Sodom, go with David to this mountain from whence our help cometh; let us go not by the Plains, but (leave to the papists their Zoar purgatory, the low way let us go via regia, the high way, the difficulty is abundantly rewarded in the delights of the end.  
Let us then go on, 
Matth. 10.22.  and that courageously in the way that God hath commanded, and undoubtedly we shall obtain the end which God hath proposed and promised. Say not when He bids thee that I cannot, 'tis but the weakness of thy sloth, not strength that disinables thee: block not up the way, with the objections of thine own fears: Dispense, and that but for a while, with a few, vain, false, and transitory pleasures that would charm thee like Sirens in thy way, and then the bitterness of conceited evils is already past, thou hast escaped, hast overcome the height of the mountain, where thy soul shall live.  
Soli Deo Gloria.  
FINIS.