THE SPIRITUAL BEE, OR A MISCELLANEY Of Scriptural, Historical, Natural Observations, and Occasional occurrencyes, Applied IN Divine MEDITATIONS.  
By an University Pen.  It is my Meditation all the day long. Psal. 119. 97. 
OXFORD, Printed by A. & L. Lichfield, for Edw. & Joh. Forrest, 1662.   

To the Much Honoured Sr. COPLESTON BAMPFIELD High Sheriff for the County of Devon.  
Much Honoured Sir,  
I should not have known how to have skreened myself from the imputation of Overvaluing this Paper, if I had thought it had merited your Acceptance, much less your Patronage: for, in reference to the latter, as I esteem custom no sufficient Warranty, for men's making the Portal a guard & defence to the City, judging themselves sufficiently secured from those assails to which they are otherwise liable and exposed, by placing some Name of Repute in the Entry; so I could not but account it, as highly above the infirmities as the bulk of this pamphlet, to deserve the Passport of your Name standing in the Front, to induce the world (which is that I design in this Dedication) to be at least Civil to it: And in reference to the former, could these Lines change their hue and put on Red, they would but in type represent that Consciousness of many imperfections which Gild hath made legible in the Authors Countenance: So that waving all plea of Title by desert, to your acceptance as well as Protection, I must cast myself entirely upon your Pardon; which I presume I shall not be long in suing out, having anticipated the severest Award any other Judge can pass, by a more rigid Censure of my own, which I hope will procure favour for him, who is  
Much Hond. Sir, Yours truly devoted in all Christian Observance. Oxon. Aug. 2d. 1661.   

To the Christian Reader.  
Reader,  
IT is the happy advantage of our Contenplative Life above all others, that we can never find the leisure to be truly and entirely Idle; and when we have a Writ of Ease given us from more ordinary and necessary occasions, even in our relaxations and remissions, the Mind enured to Speculation will find out some matter or other to work on, and busy its self about; and it can as little be wholly reposed from that activity and motion, as the Sea from agitating and moving its self, or the eye while open from seeing. This small Collection of Thoughts which thou art here presented with, hath the issue of my improvement of that advantage (Loss of Time in its smallest parcels, being that which I have always desired to reckon in the heaviest Jtem of those things I am accountable for to my Discretion) being only the product of my retirement home into mine own bosom, in those intervals, & respites which have been afforded me from other Litterary Employments, quibus in occupationis exilium missus sum: (which consideration will also furnish me with an Apology for that Inequality of style which the more judicious reader may observe the various parts of this Abortive to be form with) & I confess scarce any thoughts did ever with so great a relish steal my time & mind away as those which I have thus expended. My Papers would easily have afforded to have swelled the size, but I would not presume to entrench further upon thee, till thy candour towards this were secured.  
As I judge it vainly imprudent to have recourse to those known and usual pretences of, preventing false Copies, importunity of Friends, casting in their Widow's mite etc. so commonly served up as excuses, and Vouchees of Publication (though I might perchance use some of them with more grounds than some, who impose upon the vulgar by setting up their cry at greatest distance from their Nest, like Lapwings) So likewise I deem it tediously formal to make Defensatives & enter cautions against the Critic and the censurer (the Zoilus & Momus:) Although, as they are wont to rub Hives with bitter herbs to defend them from venomous creatures, so I could wish I had an Antidote against some Readers that make it their business, like Flies to seek out and stick upon sore places only, or which is worse, like Spiders, to gather and by an innate virulency concoct into poison that, which of itself was of an innoxious nature: However, while I lie post siparium, and my writing is like that upon the Wall to Beltshazar, where the hand only was seen not whose it was, my Curtain will be instead of a Shield as well as a veil.  
As for this manner of writing some have thought it as advantageous to public improvement as any; having observed that it hath been the unhappy fate of polemical and controversal books rather to enlarge & widen then close differences, in so much that their usefulness otherwise doth seldom countervail and expiate for their disadvantage this way: and for Doctrinal writings their numerousness doth rather oppress then benefit, rather satiate then satisfy the Reader; and I have sometimes thonght the case to be much the same here, as it hath been observed concerning being versed in Books of History that it makes men wiser than those of Policy, as furnishing us with Instances as well as Rules, and 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  as it were upon the Stage dressing up and personating the Precept so, as that our minds shall have a more full and advantageous prospect of it.  
I doubt I am justly jealous in fearing it a self flattery to think here may be that variety which may not be wholly without profit: That Divine whose aim is only to please, never pleased me; and yet withal I ever judged it impossible for a man to profit that pleased not. If wax may be here hived up as well as Honey, yet both may be some way useful. Where the grounds from which I have made my starts do not afford such plenty of beneficial thoughts (which is to be imputed to the poverty of that treasure of which the Author is owner) yet there perchance what is discoursed may administer the happy occasion of better thoughts in others: and the Honey which drops from the driest of these leaves may not be wholly unimproveable.  
I had once thought to have marshaled and ranged the things according to their nature under their distinct Titles, but upon second thoughts I waved this piece of Heraldry, as deeming it needless with such curious and nice Ceremony to seat every thing in its proper place. Farewell.   

THE Spiritual BEE, OR A Miscellany etc.  

I.  
THERE's a very little Viper at Amyclae (saith Solinus) which is disregarded for its smallness, but hurts the more easily because slighted. And they say of Witches that they beg and are pleased with small things to be given them; but they thereby procure a power to work what mischief they please on the Donours. The Devil comes often a pleading for some sins sub forma pauperis; Is it not a little one? and being listened to, he can improve the smallest grant to his great advantage in our hurt and discomfort. As he represented it to Eve 'twas but tasting an Apple; which proved the ruin of Mankind. Therefore when he shooteth this Shaft, let us take it up and retort it on himself again: if he make the smallness of the thing a consideration to tempt us to a compliance, let us make use of it to facilitate our resistance; if it be small to yield to, it is little to resist, and 'tis easiest to deny Satan in the smallest things, whom we must not gratify in any. So long as we show no kindness to him he can never hurt us: But if we give him the least corner of our souls but to sojourn in, he will soon litter a whole hellish brood of sins in a small room, and by an increased force, get an absolute rule. If he have easy admittance at the smallest pass, Gad, behold a Troop comes; as the whole power of an Army may fall in upon a City at a narrow breach. A little spark may be so feweled and managed as to set on fire a whole Town. 'Tis therefore an excellent saying of the son of Syrack, he that despiseth little things, shall perish by little and little. Let me crush the Cockatrice in the Egg, that I feel not the mortal stings of the Serpent when engendered; and strangle sin in its Infancy, that the first breath it takes may be likewise the last, and it may expire in the first motions; that though it be conceived, yet it may prove abortive. Happy shall he be, O daughter of Babylon, that thus taketh thy children while young, & dasheth them against the stones before they are arrived to a more adult and unresistable growth.   

II.  
I have sometimes seen a blazing Comet much outshining other Stars, and attracting the eyes of men to behold it with wonder; which yet by its decay, and vanishing awhile after hath appeared to have had no true place among the Stars, but in the lower Regions; to have been nothing else but a slimy Meteor, and notwithstanding its glaring lustre, secretly to have sent forth vapours of a virulent and malignant nature. How many in our days have been seen and gazed on with admiration, who have shined with glorious beams, which yet by their fall have at length discovered themselves to have been Exhalations, only guilded with rays, and counterfeiting Stars by an exceeding splendour (for often doth the Hypocrite outgo the Saint in Appearance, as much as he comes short of him in Reality) Many have had a shining zeal in those exercises of Religion that lie open to the view, and so have gotten and kept up an high esteem and credit, but not trading on a solid stock, but taking up their Saintships all upon trust, no wonder they prove Bankrupts at last. The foolish Virgins made a great blaze with their Lamps, which yet by their going out appeared to want Oil. These Falling-starres shall never shine in the Firmament of Heaven. Let all therefore try & assure to themselves the fixedness of their station, the consistency of their substance; and making just allowances for that ascititious and imposturous Light, which Interest, Profit, worldly credit and advantage, slavish fear of God, may have vested them with, examine what remains of what is true and firmly grounded. Let me never deceive myself or others with a false Light: I had rather be a true star, though the smallest, and shining undiscerned (as the Stars in the Milky-way, which cannot be seen without a Galilaeo's Tube) then be the most glorious Comet. Lord, though a spiritual Falling-sickness may cast me into a swoon for a time, yet let it never mortally seize on my vitals.   

III.  
Justinian the Emperor having had his Nose cut off by his Enemies, when he was their prisoner, and afterward recovering his liberty and his Empire, when ever the wipeing off the filth from it, put him in remembrance of the injury, he caused still one of his enemies to be brought before him, and put to death. A holy Revenge would well be thus exercised against Satan; whenever the working of our corruption reminds us of that cursed depravation of our Natures which that Arch-Enemy of our salvation was the Author of, to slay a Lust and make it fall a sacrifice to the zeal of our indignation; if there be any Agag or Ruling one, let not our eye spare him, but bring him forth and hew him in pieces. This will be, by a spiritual Chemistry to extract an Antidote out of the Viper, to make a sovereign Treacle of the Scorpions own flesh; to pave our way to heaven with the sculs of our Enemy's: in a sense, by a holy guile to make Satan cast out Satan: to turn an overthrow into a victory, and raise a Trophy out of our ruins; to rise by our falling. As Peter could then perfectly conquer his self-confidence when he remembered the sad story of his foul fall in the Priest's hall; and could give a more humble and modest answer when Christ asked him, lovest thou me more than these? Thus St Paul, when he found Satan knocking for entrance, fell a buffeting himself.   

IV.  
Finding my Friend in a passion of anger, I gave him a check, and endeavoured by some motives to reduce him to moderation; but I perceived he was the more incensed and that after the attempts I made to slake & lay his heat, it was become greater than before. Passion is deaf to all advice but what may seem to encourage it; this Wildfire makes that its Fuel, which was intended to quench it, and turns that into food, which was designed for Remedy. Water cast on the Smith's forge doth the more inflame it, and makes it burn the fiercer: a Torrent is so far from being restrained by what is set to stop it, that it swel's the higher and spread's the farther, Pontem indignatur. To encounter a man in the boisterousness of his passion, is, to enter the combat with such creatures as St Paul fought with at Ephesus; to cast reins on the waves of the Sea when it rageth: and to use rational endeavours, is to call a Soldier to Council in the heat and fury of a Battle. The method therefore both most kindly and most effectual is, to give place to wrath while the tempest rageth: not to apply ourselves to the cure of it in its Paroxysm, not at too great a disadvantage to meet it with reason and counsel when it comes forth armed with fury and hooded with blindness: when the Fire hath got a full conquest, & the flame is outrageous, we seek not to quench it with water, and so save the house, but by pulling down the next, make the want of fuel diminish the flame. The violence of Anger is best broken by giving way, and yielding to it, (as a Flint is easiest broken on a Cushion) and time is the best Lenitive to mollify it.   

V.  
It hath been observed, that those who have the longest freedom from diseases & least infested with their assaults, do most hardly escape when a disease once take's hold of them; Nature being easiest subdued where it hath not been quickened by exercise and opposition: and hence it is that Fevers are generally more pernicious here in England then other where in places about us, because that disease is less familiar to our natures, then to those in our neighbour country's.  
Temptations usually are most dangerous where least frequent, and their assaults most effectual on those who have seldomest experimented them: they are then most to be feared when their power is increased by a strength gathered from long discontinuance, and the edge of our resistance rebated by a long restiveness: when our shield is laid by, and may have contracted rust, than those fiery darts are with most difficulty repelled; when our Bow is unbent, and our hand in our bosom, no wonder if our disadvantage be great in the enemy's onset. Hence Satan hath this Stratagem amongst others, not to be frequent in his assaults there, where former Alarms have excited to care and vigilancy, and set continual watch and ward: but to attempt entrance rather, where a long quiet hath bred security, and lessened the power of Defence: where he bestows his visits seldomest he is least feared, and consequently lest provided against. Let me not think myself secure from those temptations with which I have been little exercised, lest I find myself most overpowred there where I lest suspected Assault, and add to those Advantages, of which Satan hath otherwise too many over me, that of mine own Security.   

VI  
I read of an African beast, called the Dabuh, 
Scal. Exer. adv. Card. 217.  which they take with Music; for being charmed with the sweet sounding of it in his ears, he suffers his feet the while to be fettered; and so his death is the Minstrels pay: And the folly of the Lark is pitied by us, which while it playeth with the Feather and stoopeth to the Glass, is caught in the Fowler's net. there's a spiritual charmer which by the pleasing delights and allurements of the world, casts us into security, and then we are with ease enchained in his shackles: a Siren that sing's us to death. This is that, which hath by sweet and soft conquest enervated the sampson's, overcome the David's, subdued the Solomon's; that, in whose triumphs have been led the most resolved and generous spirits, the stoutest and ablest Champions. Do thou (with the wise Grecian) stop thine ear to the Music of Pleasure, for it is Magic; trust not her flattery's, O my soul, for her kisses are but to betray thee, & there are snares in her smiles: when she fawn's, on thee & windeth about thee, cast off the Viper; in the end she will bite as a Serpent: to relish her sweetness is Mortal, for she is the highway to Death, & if thou affect her thy face is set towards Hell, and thou art in the road thither. Lord, if I am at any time allured into Satan's nets, and his bolts are cast over me, do thou knock off my chains, and lose my bands (as thou didst to Paul and Silas) break the gins and deliver me, that my soul may escape as a bird out of the snare of the Fowler.   

VII.  
Alexander the Great was wont to say of Homer's Heroic Poem, that, it ought to be sung only to a warlike nation, & at the noise of a Trumpet, not when it sounds a Retreat, but when it calls to the Battle: For it is not for mean spirits to resent motions of Generosity at the recounting of affairs which have no less Difficulty in the Conduct then Beauty in the Description. What he said of that admired Poem, may with more aptness be applied to the Gospel of Christ; Tuba est Christi Evangelium; it proclam's a war, sounds an Alarm, and calls us to the Camp; to make every place a Pitcht-field, every day a day of Battle against those many and incessant assaults, both from intestine and foreign force. And who but those that are inspired with a heavenly courage, can bear the Thunder of that sound, that calleth them, to love them that hated them, to do good to them that Persecute them; to take up a heavy cross, and follow Christ naked, to glory in reproach; to hate Father and Mother, and (which comes to the quick) their life also to be Christ's Disciples. How many refuse to take up the weapons and enter the Lists; and cry these are hard sayings, who can bear them? And those who engage in the encounter, when they find the greatest enemy they are to Combat with is Self, many throw down their arms, and fall to caresse and embrace that which they should Duel with.   

VIII.  
The Deepest Waters move most silently & undiscernably; and the Spheres have the swiftest motion, yet move without noise: The Stars, though vast and glorious bodies, yet distance makes them seem very small; and many Stars as in the Galaxy, shine unseen: The Moon when that side towards the Earth is darkened, towards heaven shines bright. If in some men's conversation I seem to discern little, or nosplendour, let me not be too rashly forward in my censures of their estate; it may be I do not approach near enough to them: perchance our heavenly Father may see that in secret which doth not discover itself openly; he may have a bright-side heaven-ward, though toward Earth he seem wholly Eclipsed: Perchance he hath so much more of the Publican in him, then of the Pharisee, as to think it a good work to conceal his good works; and therefore is so far from making his prayers in the open streets, to be seen of men, that he thinks his Closet scarce private enough when the door is shut: and so far from proclaiming his almsgiving by sound of Trumpet, that he will not let his left hand know, what his right doth, when it dispenseth them: The Flax may have fire in it though it be but smoking, and do not break out into a flame. As most men do seem better than they are in truth, so some are better than they seem to be. I had rather be good and not seem so, then seem good, and not be so: For the Publican went home rather justified then the Pharisee.   

IX.  
THe unjust Steward in the Gospel, 
Luke 16.  having wasted his Master's goods, and by high dieting his own Lusts brought a plentiful estate to a Consumption; and being thereupon accused and discharged his Stewardship, casteth about with himself what to do, and findeth he was reduced to a great extremity, not knowing how to dig, and to beg he was ashamed; get a sustenance out of the sweat of his brow he could not, and turn beggar to crave it he would not. Lord, when I enter into a serious review with myself, and cast up my accounts, I find the endowments, gifts and advantages, the goods thou hast entrusted me with, to have been very carelessly Stewarded by me, and I have forfeited the benefits both of them and of thy service: Dig I cannot, I know not how to earn a reward of glory by my own righteousness; but I am not ashamed to beg; my spirit is not so stiff and incompliant, but that I can come once and again to beg relief at thine hands for Christ's sake; yea, I am not ashamed to be a daily beggar at this door; for I know, the more importunate I am in cravinge, the more bountiful thou wilt be in giving.   

X.  
THe Book which St. John eat, while in his mouth was sweet and pleasant, but in his belly became bitter: & we read of waters in Miletum and elsewhere, fresh at the top and bitter at the bottom; and of a Lake in Phrygia whose water makes those that drink it strangely jocund and full of Laughter, but such as it ends in their death: The Bee hath honey in the mouth but a sting in the tail. While we are pleasing ourselves in carnal contents, and rolling a sweet morsel in our mouths, we should do well to consider whether it will not be bitterness in the end: there is no earthly pleasure which hath not the inseparable attendance of Grief, and that following it as closely, as Jacob came after Esau, holding it by the heel: Yea, worldly delight is but a Shadow, and when we catch after it, all that we grasp is substantial sorrow in its room. The honey should not be very delightful, when the sting is so near; better want it then feel the smart and venom that attendeth it. A nail in the temples may be the Entertainment, where Fair speech was the Usher and butter in a lordly dish the first course, to make way for it. These Gnats that make a pleasing sound awhile flying about our ears, will bite us ere they part. Let me rest on nothing that hath not a real and unmixed pleasure in it, and then I shall find I must leave this world, and take a higher flight; here is no such thing for me to rest the sole of my foot on, all things have both the saltness and turbulence of the Sea in them. I will not bid adieu to innocent delight, but neither shall it have any thing of my heart; if I unwarily press too much on Roses in the pulling, the prickles may run into my fingers. I will honestly enjoy my delights, but not purchase them at so dear a rate as my own Danger and hazard. That Mortal laughter and dancing which the bite of the Tarantula causeth, is only cured by Music: The best remedy against the Madness of Laughter is the voice of that wise Charmer; God can cure and retrench the exorbitances and profuseness of our spirits in worldly delights.   

XI.  
LEt us contemplate Prayer in its journey between Earth & Heaven (as Jacob did the Angels ascending and descending:) It ascendeth lightly mounted on the wings of Faith, but it comes ever laden down again upon our heads; it goeth up, it may be, in a shower of tears, and descendeth in a shower of blessings: it is wafted into heaven with groans (for these have a force to open heaven gates, and that prayer fly's fwiftly that is carried on the wings of a Groan) and those Sighs return again laden with comforts (like the Southern winds in Egypt whose wings are charged with the sweet odours of Spices.) They go out weeping but never come weeping back, for where the Spring and Seedtime is wet, the Harvest is clear and joyful, they that sow in tears reap in joy.   

XII  
I Have somerimes wondered, & almost judged it another Miracle, that Balaam was no more appalled & amazed at that most strange uncouth Miracle to hear a voice come from that mouth which was wont only to Bray, and to see himself outreasoned by that, which was remarkable for nothing so much as its stupidity and dullness (almost as though He and his Beast had exchanged natures:) that his knees did not tremble, and heart become like a stone, nor did he so much as alight off for it: but as though no strange thing had fallen out he giveth the beast a wrathful answer, without any Symptom of wonder. Although perchance being a Sorcerer he might be not wholly a stranger to converses not much different from this, which might make it seem less uncouth; yet I rather think that the transport of Madness which so possessed this Prophet, and the covetousness which blinded his eyes, left no room or capacity to reflect on the unnaturalness of the accident. And then see how senseless and stupid Lust and Passion make us. Many are so eager in the pursuit of their carnal desires, so wholly possessed with contrivances, to compass, and Hopes to attain their satisfaction, that they regard not any providences though never so strange and remarkable that enterfear & cross them in their course: though God meet them in the way with a drawn sword, though he speak from heaven in a voice of Thunder against them, they are not astonied or appalled: they may storm and rage at the impediments that traverse their unlawful pursuits, and at the blocks which are laid in their way, but they take no notice of the Hand of providence which casteth them there, though it be perchance as visible and miraculous as that which wrote Beltshazzar's Doom on the Wall.   

XIII.  
WE read in Agellius of a Soldier, 
Noct. Att. lib. 4. c. 20.  who riding forth to a Muster with a horse as lean and carcaselike as if he had been newly raised out of a Charnel; and himsef so well habited & full that he might have been a very sufficient burden for a more able beast; & being demanded by the Censors whence came such a great disproportion, between the Meagerness of the one, and the Grossness of the other, answered that it was because He took care of himself, but his Servant took charge of his Horse. Most men have languid and infirm souls while their Bodies are in a vigorous athletic habit: Their spiritual parts are reduced to meagerness and Consumption, whiles their Sensual parts are Full even to a Plethora. And whence is it? because their Souls have no share in their care and treatment, they do not mind them as their own charge: their time and diligence is all laid out on their bodies; these are the Darlings they pamper, and which engross all their thoughts and care; or if through a vouchsafement they expend any the other way, they soon rescue themselves as from an Usurpation and encroachment. But surely, souls so weakened and emaciated will not be able to stand the least brunt in the day of Battle with the Enemy's of their salvation, labouring under the pressure and weight of a so much indulged Flesh. Let me have a lean, unhealthy, neglected, deformed body, no matter, so I may find my soul sound, in good liking, strong, and beautiful in the eyes of God.   

XIV.  
HOw many weary and tedious steps do many Mahometans tread in their long Pilgrimages which multitudes of them yearly take to Meccha, the place where their grand Seducer Mahomet was buried? and that merely for the increase of a carnal imposturous Devotion. (that they may be reputed Hoggees i. e. Holy men, as such are ever after styled) And how many a deluded Popish Pilgrim measureth thousands of tiresome paces, adventureth through many dangers, endureth many hardships and severe and grievous Entertainments, in a journey to the Holy Land; and is content at last when come in view of Jerusalem to pay a great Entrance-Tribute to the Turks for admission, and all merely to see the Sepulchre which enclosed our Saviour's body, and the place which once had the marks of his footsteps. I am a pilgrim not by choice but by an unhappy Necessity; my Journey is towards a Holy Land the heavenly Canaan; I Seek a City which is from above, the New Jerusalem: which my Saviour not only hath but always doth bless with his presence; not in his low, abject, humbled estate; but in his exalted wonderfully glorious presence. Shall I complain of the tediousness of the way, the Terror of incident dangers, the sweat the toil and laboriousness of the travel to be undergone, where the contentment and delight at journey's end is so infinitely transcendent? What Red Sea can have so much horror? What wilderness so much dismal & sad amazement, what occurrences can be so fearful, hardships so grievous, dangers so terrible, what condition so necessituous or State so bewildered, as will not be rendered Amiable and desirable when leading to the sight and enjoyment of our Saviour? No Tribute either of sorrow or death its self, but is an easy Purchase for admittance, not to his Sepulchre but his Throne▪ not to see the place where the Lord lay, but where he reigneth; and not to look on, as an Alien, but to Enter and possess as a Denizon.   

XV.  
SOme are so Curious as to conjecture that Christ's Prayer which he made after his withdrawment from his Disciples, was not merely Mental but vocal, inferring it from the manner in which the Evangelists relate it, he prayed Saying; which they will have to imply an audible speech and voice.  
However, whether we have so great a Pattern for it or no, I think there is some advantage to be observed that secret Prayer hath which is vocal above what is Mental only, (although it be all one to God who hath an ear to hear what the heart prayeth as well as what the Mouth.)  
1. In that by joining a voice to our Mental prayer, our Affections are more awakened and quickened; as we find by experience, that the Sense of a Misery when cooped up in our own thoughts may not express itself in tears▪ (which are the Language of grief) but yet when we vent it to others, in our recounting it, we canted refrain from weeping.  
2. It limits the mind more and keeps it more fixed and intent upon what is spoken.  
3. We find sometimes that vehemency of affection doth force us to it, for when our passion & devotion is ardent, and the fire is kindled within us, it breaketh forth into outward expressions, complaints or tears. I may add lastly, that we can sometimes better form, or at least draw out in better order our conceptions of what we pray for in an audible voice.   

XVI.  
WHen the Assyriant were blinded they were easily led into the midst of Samaria. A benighted Traveller is easily deceived by false lights and Ignes fatui, to follow their guidance which do but conduct him inro bogs and lakes.  
What great advantage did the Romish Foxes make of this policy these late years among us; first extinguishing our lights, and then by subtle Emissaries playing their tricks in the dark: dealing with us as the Philistines did with Samson, first putting out our eyes and then making sport with us: Surely it was this Dragon's tail that drew down more than the third part of the Stars from our Firmament, and cast them to the earth to be stamped upon. And whither would our new lights have led us? were not most of our new principles and opinions mere Decoys, and Captains chosen (though silently) to lead us back in a return into Egypt? But now those evil Spirits that haunted us in the night do withdraw and disappear. Had not the mercy of Providence seasonably prevented, we might by that time our eyes had been open have found ourselves in the midst of Samaria.   

XVII.  
I Saw a Painter having made the Picture of a Face smiling, on a sudden with no more than one dash of his pencil make it seem to weep. How near are the confines of Joy & Sorrow, which with the change of a line may be made to sit both on the same countenance: their nature is much more distant, than their Abode. In the twinkling of an eye, in the turning of an hand, sadness may justle out mirth; and deep sighs may be fetched from that breast whence loud laughter made its eruption. Pleasure may die in the same moment that gave it its birth, and a sudden succession of grief may turn its cradle into a grave. The Tears which an enlarged and vehement passion of joy had run over with, may in the middle of their course find an Arrest and be made to Minister unto Grief. In the flight of a minute, in the beating of a pulse, the dilating of the Heart by a Diastole of Pleasure, may be turned into a contracting it, by a Systole of Sorrow.   

XVIII.  
LIvy tells us that the Galls when they had once tasted of the Wines of Italy, were so much taken with the pleasantness and lusciousness of them, that they would not after rest contented with a bare commerce and trade thither for this Wine, but fixed their resolutions by conquest to get possession of the Land which brought it forth (and that was the inciting occasion to their Invasion) 
* The like we read was the occasion of that inundation of the Lombard's into Italy under Alboinus their King. P. Diacon. l. 1. c. 1.  Thus the Antepasts of glory do but provoke the desires and erect the appetite of the believing soul: he is so far from being satisfied by foretastes, that they do but augment his thirst after a plenary fruition. He is not content with so small drops that are derived unto him at so great a distance from the Fountain: nor are those degrees of grace and comfort which he gaineth by holding commerce with Heaven upon earth by those two factours Prayer and Faith, by trading in the worship and ordinances of God sufficient to allay the hunger of his appetite: he cannot drink his fill nor slake his thirst at those cisterns: A holy insatiableness doth so enlarge the capacity of his soul that the more he hath the more he longeth for, and the wideness of his increasing desires is proportioned to the largeness of his receivings. Therefore his resolves and aims are by a holy violence and conquest to get a possession in that spiritual Canaan from whence these grapes are brought him as prelibations; that he may there drink of that wine of the Kingdom, and of those Rivers of pleasure.   

XIX.  
CHrist is wont still to back his checks and reproofs with a Reason. As to the Disciples going to Emaus, Luk▪ 24. O Fools and slow of heart: but why so? Ought not Christ to suffer, etc. to the Disciples in Simon' s house, Mat. 26. Why trouble ye the woman? For she hath wrought a good work: for the poor you have always with you, not me: for she did it for my burial. To Mary in the Garden, touch me not, John 20. Why? because I am not yet gone to the Father. Lastly, to Peter for drawing his sword, Mat. 26. John 18. he subjoins to his reprehension a fourfould reason. 1. He that takes the sword shall perish by the sword; therefore 'tis an unjust attempt to resist and hinder my passion. 2. The cup which my Father hath given, shall I not drink? therefore impossible.  
3. Can I not ask my Father and he would give me more than ten Legions? therefore the attempt is foolish.  
4. How else should the Scripture be fulfilled? therefore 'tis undue. Our Reproofs would have a more effectual operation, if they were thus still attended with reason; The ears of men are generally very tender and delicate, and a reprehension grateth on them if not attempered by a due conveyance. A smart rebuke if not clearly evidenced to be just by being backed with sufficient reason doth but irritate and embitter the minds of men: the Plaster maketh the wound rage if this Ingredient be not in the compost; the cauterisme doth more hurt than the disease. The reproof even of a righteous man though it be an excellent oil (to allude to the Psalmists expression) yet may break the head, if unduly administered.   

XX.  
Many there are that are wont to bestow visits on others, not so much out of a motion of love and kindness, as, either not to be reputed negligent in the formalities of common courtesy, or to make the wheels of Time seem to move the faster by trifling it away; or to make discoveries and observations, that they may by prying, gather up a stock of discourse for the next. The visits which men for the most part bestow on God in his worship are out of principles analogous to these; not out of any principle of sincere love & delight; but either that they may not seem wanting at least in the formal and Customary Exercises of Religion, or to pass away the time only, or it may be where they should be Bees to suck honey, to play the Spiders and suck poison; to gather up matter to defame and calumniate and raise an evil report on the things of God.   

XXI.  
AMong the Prospects which the Scripture opens to us of Eternity, my contemplation sometimes placeth me in the midst of that great Gulf fixed between Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, and Dives in the midst of foul Fiends, with eyes directed, now to the consideration of the one, then of the other. Whither are all the Rich man's joys fled in which his soul was steeped and inebriated? what's become of his heightened delights, his Music and Masques, Unctions, Feast ample buildings, and large and jolly entertainments, his train of attendants, the purple and the fine Linen, his wanton pleasures and the whole Pageantry of his happiness? On the other side, where is the misery and contemptibleness, the nakedness and hunger, the aches the soars and the stench of the poor man? These things are all vanished: and the Scene is altered. Their past condition is changed into a present as different each from other as Heaven from Hell; and the present is fixed in a stability as unalterable as Eternity. Let us consider and weigh their Purchases in the Balance of the Sanctuary: The Rich man's exchange is, the pleasures of sin which were but for a season for those dreadful pains which are the reward of sin, and which never shall have a season either to mitigate or conclude them; a seeming Paradise for a real dismal Dungeon; moment any contentments for eternal torments: Delights that are as empty as froth, and as short-lived as the age of a Minute, for sorrows so heavy and acute, that no Metaphor can equal or Hyperbole transcend them in expression, so durable that they shall run parallel with Eternity. The Poor man's exchange is, from a small weight of infelicity to an exceeding weight of glory, from a Wilderness to a Land flowing with plenty; from a Cross to a Crown; from tears without their saltness, sorrows deprived of their sting, griefs as short (at longest) as the span of life; to pleasures untainted, joys in the most exalted and sublimated quintessence, a happiness as much without a period as Eternity itself. And who but joins with that Ecphonesis of the Father? O miserable happiness of the one that concluded in everlasting misery! O happy misery of the other, that ended in everlasting happiness! I had rather with Lazarus beg in rags, then be in Dives' coat ruffling it in Silk,, and faring deliciously every day: his low estate is so far above my contempt, that it is the object of my wish, rather than Dives', which is so far below my envy that it falls within my pity.   

XXII.  
THere may be Livery and Seisin taken of a whole Lordship only by the delivery of a turf of earth: and a Deed of Gift of the whole may be executed only by giving a parcel of the goods. The Rent that is given may be small and inconsiderable, yet if it be an anknowledgement of Homage and Fealty and wardship, it is of great consequence. The smallest Grant that we make to Satan, may give him a right to the whole; if he be complied with in the least temptation it may be enough to admit him to a full possession and dominion over us. Where this Serpent hath but insinuated his head he can with ease wind in his whole body after: Therefore see thou grant him nothing, lest he make his advantage of it to the claim of all. 'Twas said of Hannibal, he knew well how to conquer, but knew not how to improve his conquests: Satan is well skilled in either; he will easily lose no ground he hath got; he will be sure to prosecute a victory, and improve an advantage.   

XXIII.  
IT is strange how Peter who not long before had been so daring as to draw his sword on a whole Regiment (as though he were his Master's Champion) and notwithstanding all his resolves and protestations of not forsaking Christ, yet how on a sudden he was infected with the air of the Priest's Hall; for as soon as he had got in thither, as though a contagion had seized on him his temper was changed, and while he did but warm himself at their fire, his zeal and respect for his Master was abated and chilled. Many times our foot in the Devil's snare and we are grievously entangled, where we thought we might have been safe enough: we venture upon occasions of sin, and put ourselves within Satan's circle, thinking we are sufficiently armed & secured by peremptory resolves and engagements, little considering, either the plausible and insinuative nature of sin to work itself in, the treachery and deceit of our hearts to betray us to an admission of it, or the craft and importunity of the Tempter to win upon us. Hard it is to avoid infection in the company of those that have the Pestilence (especially evil men having so much of that quality, which they say is in those who have the Plague on them, that they desire to taint others;) hard not to be seized by evil though by gentle and insensible degrees in the society of the wicked. Evil converse cannot but leave a tincture of corruption upon us if rare, if more frequent a deep and double dye. The Spirits and manners of men are by a secret bewirching enchantment transformed into the conditions and fashions of those with whom they communicate. It is not easy to retain our fresh taste (like fishes) while we live in salt waters. We may say generally of Rivers that they never run within the same banks without mixing their current, (though the River Savus streameth together with the Danow in the same channel without blending his waters with him, as Mr. Blunt assureth us.) Waters passing through the earth have a quality and savour derived to them from the nature of the Soils and Minerals they have their course through.   

XXIV.  
WE read of some rhat by use have brought themselves to swallow Poison without harm, yea, and to make their food of it. And Albertus tell's us of a Girl that fed continually on Spiders: So strange a power hath custom to alter the temper of the body, and to change almost it's very Oeconomy: The like effect it likewise hath on the souls of men, in reference to those pernicious sins which have most of the poison of the old Serpent in them; from which their inclinations and dispositions were at first utterly averse and abhorrent, but by custom and habituating themselves to them, they come to make them at last matters of daily practice: which perfect conquest over all good inclinations of their mind and reluctancies of their consciences that they may arrive to, the Devil leadeth them by these steps; beginning by wicked suggestion, he offers the poisonous Pill, but being guilded; so Pleasure is ushered in; Pleasure draweth on consent, consent maketh way for practice, and practice bringeth on custom, which by excuses, palliations, defences, obstinacy, and lastly glorying and boasting, correcteth, evirtuateth and rendereth ineffectual all motions or endeavours of conscience from within, and all influence of Applications from without. But such Venomous creatures can live no where but in Hell, Heaven is a country will never admit them (as they say, Ireland, Majorca and some other places will not enterrain any poisonous thing.)   

XXV.  
I Have seen a pretry deceit used to keep some from their meat, that they dare not eat, by laying shreds of Lute-strings on it which have appeared like Worms; and from their drink by putting into it the counterfeit of a Toad. Satan often plays this part, & useth such a wile to affright the children of God from their Father's Table, and to make rhem out of conceit with duties: he presents to their sight, the corruptions of their performances, and so representeth them that they shall appear formal though never so zealous, proud or hypocritical though attended with never so much humility and sincerity. When thou hast done thy work then he cometh to thee with his Sophistry to put thee into a distrust, that what thou hast done will turn to thy great hurt, and opening the parts of thy duty telleth thee, here thy corruption wrought, there thy pride discovered its stir, here thou were't as cold as if thou cared'st not whether thou were't heeded or no, there thou hadst lost thine heart; and is there not death in the pot, thinkest thou? or expectest thou wages for what deserveth stripes? These sleights he useth to dishearten believers from their services, and he hath this great advantage that they are usually very apt to suspect themselves; their humours are stirred to his hand, and therefore he may the more easily work on them; they are ready to give credit to any that comply with their pensive apprehensions; and therefore are easily induced to use Satan's Perspective, which at one end magnifies the evil of their performances, and makes it seem greater than it is; at the other end extenuates the Good and makes it appear less. It is easy for Satan to press him down that is already sinking, & to die that soul sable black, which is of a dark and sad hue before. Thou that art not ignorant of Satan's devices, show him that thou seest the Sophistry, and understandest the cheat.   

XXVI.  
THere is that we are wont to call Good nature, which however desirable, yet doth very much prepare and expose those in whom it is found to temprations: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  for it is nothing but a pliable, yielding, waxen frame, which is so much the more subject to evil impressions rather than good, as wickedness is more insinuative than virtue: such flexible twigs are easily bowed into crookedness; such a soft temper of mind is easily wrought and moulded to a compliance with any the most dangerous suggestions, as the soft grisly head of the Infant is framed into any fashion by the Midwife & Nurse. Their facility and bashfulness oft betrayeth them to a Grant of that which yet they secretly condemn themselves for not denying; and they know not how not to comply with the desires of the boldest and most unreasonable Insinuatour. That bashfulness is dangerously bold which durst offend God, lest it displease Men. Nothing more laudable than a firm inflexible temper when found in the way of righteousness. Let me never be abashed to deny what another is so shameless as Sinfully to ask: Let my heart be wax to the impressions of goodness, but marble to those of evil: as pliant as an Osier to the hand of Virtue, as stiff as an Oak to Satan and his Instruments. Let a righteous and just Request be as a command to me, let me obey it as a Law though it be but a Desire: but let an unjust and wicked demand be cast back by me with abhorrency. If my Friend in any thing be a Factor or Spokesman for Satan, let me bid him, get him behind me (as our Saviour did Peter.) I'll use him as Moses did his Rod, while a rod he held it familiarly in his hand, but when it began to wind and hiss and show itself a Serpent, he cast it down and ran from it Better lose my Friend then my Innocence; and safest to keep at a distance from him when he breathes contagion. I may be an Adversary to his vice while a friend to his person, like that Archer Alcon who when the Dragon was enfolded with the Child, could strike his Arrow in the one and not hurt the other.   

XXVII.  
I Find both by the course of God's Providence and and the instructions of his word, that he hath sometimes a Rod to lay on the back of Friends and Favours to bestow on enemies. But surely God knows who he is dealing with; and then he favoureth these in Anger, and punisheth them in Love. He gave the mutinous Israelites Quails, but so sauced that they might wish them out of their mouths before they swallowed them. God fatneth some for the day of slaughter (as the old Heathens were wont to deal with their Sacrifices, first to feed them, then Crown them, and at last kill them:) and lifteth many up high that their fall might be the greater; who might apply that expression to their case, thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down; And others he casteth down that they may by a happy rebound rise the higher. I would rather be dieted with the three Child's fare, bread and water, then on Israel's Quails; rather gater crumbs under the table with Lazarus as God's friend, then sit at it, as Dives' guest: And I choose affliction and adversity with Love, before happiness and prosperity without it. Lord, as I pray, that thou wouldst not rehuke me in arger (I do not deprecate thy Rebuke (my sins call for it) but thine Anger, this word hath the Accent of my desire, not that) so likewise, that thou wouldst never bestow mercy on me in judgement, or blessings with a curse attending.   

XXVIII.  
SOmetimes I have intermitted or deferred the performance of duty upon apprehension of some present indisposedness and unaptness: I have thought; better not set mine hand to God's work then spoil it: better omit mine offering then give the lame and blind in Sacrifice; the next time I'll make amends when I am fitter to do it: And the next time perchance the task hath been more irksome to me, and my Plea of unfitness hath seemingly more strength than before; so that what before I did defer, now I could be content should be wholly neglected. Have I found thee, O mine enemy? here the Serpent's head discovers itself. Hereafter when this plea is put in it shall be cast back without hearing: I will check the least thought of loathness toward the performance of the work I have stinted myself unto: A lame prayer may get to heaven: I may by rubbing and chafing my heart get a warmth in it. If I put forth my strength, I may break asunder the cords and with'hs with which I am bound, The Spirit may come and fill my sails, and I may have the wind with me, though the tide be against me. However, that Rule of Physicians is well applied, to practise here, who advice weak and nauseating stomaches to eat, though they have no present appetite, because they shall feel the effects thereof in their future increasing strength.   

XXIX.  
THe Turks have a saying concerning the Tartars (whom they repute a very wise Nation) that other Nations) have their wisdom written in their Books, 
Busbequ. epist.  but the Tartars have devoured their books, and so have wisdom lodged in their breasts which on all occasions they can draw forth to practice. Many Christians have the Word of God written in their Bibles, but they never (as St. John) swallowed the Book. The Laws of God are best inscribed in the Tables of the Heart, the soul is the best Phylacterie and Repository for them, and Practise the fairest Transcript of them. He is a good Text-man whose life is a comment on Scripture.  
What actual benefit can there accrue to us of Gold in the Mine or Pearls in the bottom of the Sea, except we dig for the one and coin the Bullion of it into Money, 
Il vin nel fiasco non cava la seat del capo Wine in the bottle quencheth not a man's thirst.  and dive for the other that we may have them to apply to our use. He to whom the Word of God is not as his necessary food, that doth not tanquam saeer Helluo, devour, digest, and convert it in succum & sanguinem, is like him, who as long as he had Plato's book of the Immortality of the soul in his hands, he was a Platonist, but as soon as he had laid it by, he became an Epicure again. As we use to say of some Physicians, that they are better acquainted with Galen then with the Disease; so of such we may say, that they carry their Wisdom rather in their Book then in their Heart.   

XXX.  
ONe of the most Tragical and sad arguments of humane Misery, that is wont to be brought on the Scene, is that of the Purchase of the unhappy King Lysimachus, who made an exchange of his Crown & Kingdom for one draught of Water: which bargain the constraint of that necessity he was reduced to, doth sufficiently excuse; for now his soul sat on his lips being forced out of his body by a violent Thirst, & a Kingdom was not an over-rate in the purchase of that aquavitae by which the King's life was redeemed (though the water when drunk might be distilled through the Alembics of his eyes in sorrow for so great unhappiness.) Who then will account that a hard saying in the Laws of Christ that commandeth us to forsake all and follow him; where the is Life; not a temporal Life only, which is always subect to the changes and incursions of fortune, exposed to labour, infirmities and diseases of the Body, infested with more troublesome and incessant distempers of the Mind, always either languishing under chillness of Fears, or burning in Feverish Desires; a Life still besieged with temptations: but an Eternal Life, which is not only free from all those Evil Attendants with which the other is rendered miserable, but possessed also with an unconceivable Felicity. Who would not go and sell all that he hath for the purchase of such a Pearl? who would not disesteem all though he were as great a Monarch as Adam or Noah for the gaining of that living water which he that drinketh of shall never thirst more, for out of his belly shall flow ●ivers to life eternal? yea, who would not barter his Trifles for an immarcescible Crown?   

XXXI.  
THey say of Trifoile that by observation guesses may be taken from it of the future season of the weather; that when it generally bear's many flowers 'tis a sign of plenty of rain and showers to succeed, and when few, it portendeth great drought. No better prognostic can be taken of what Heaven designeth concerning a people, then from the Lives of Christians; if they are fruitful and plentiful in good works, that is a forerunner of God's bountiful effusion & showering down of mercies, but when they are generally barren, 'tis a sad sign of approaching judgement, and of God's making such a Land dry and barren for the iniquity of them that dwell therein.   

XXXII.  
'TIs said of an Eastern King that he was so fat & gross that he was not sensible of pain when Needles were stuck into his body: And the Numidian Bears, they say, are so fat that they feel no stripes though blood be drawn from them. Those who, as the Psalmist phraseth it, are enclosed in their own fat; who are puffed up with a worldly prosperity and wallow in a voluptuous plenty, are so insensible and obdurate, that, though every new sin that is committed by them fetcheth blood of the soul; & every wilful sin be to it as the Dagger driven up to the haft in Eglon's bowels, yet they feel it not. See how stupidly and senselessly the Epicurean Carnalist runneth himself upon the pikes without fear or feeling, Job 15. 26. He runneth upon God, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his buckler, but whence such a gross stupid insensibleness? v. 27. because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks: He hath so gorged himself and is so plunged in sensual delights, that all sense is drowned and lost in him. God no where threateneth a more benumbed and Lethargic frame of Spirit, then where he says, Make the heart of this people Fat.   

XXXIII.  
IT hath always been the fate of Neutrality to please neither party; and those who would compound and medley themselves to comply with opposite interests, are disliked and maligned on both sides: therefore the Praetor of the Samnites wisely observed in Livy, Media via nec amicos parit, nee inimicos tollit, the middle way neither procures friends nor removes enemies: As the Flying Fish, which being partly Bird, partly Fish, is still persecuted in the water by the Fish, and in the air the birds have an enmity against him. Thus Alphonsus observed of the Senenses, that being Neuters in the Italian War, were afterward made a prey on both sides; comparing them to such as dwell in the middle story of a house, annoyed from beneath by smoke,, and by urine from above. Such is the condition of the Religious Hypocrite, who will give God his outside, but bestow his heart on some other Treasure; who will serve the Devil and his Lusts under God's Livery; who will give him the courtship of the lip and knee; but his Heart falls down before some other Idol; and in his breast he recanteth what his tongue and gestures pronounce: And in this Scenical & artificial dress he applaudeth himself secretly for thus Acting his part with two faces, for his wise and crafty compliance to the doubly gainful service of two Masters. As though he had found out the Polirick Art of Atoneing the opposite Interests of Heaven and Hell, and marrying and compounding them in one common temper. But alas! nothing hath more in it of Folly; for because he is a Saint though only in profession therefore the world hateth him which hateth Sheep's clothing though upon a Wolves back; 
Chi pecorasi fà il lupo la mangia. He that makes himself a Sheep, the Wolf will eat him.  and because he hath the form only denying the power therefore God hateth him the more, in whose eye, simulata sanctitas est duplex iniquitas, sin appears double, when beheld under a Mask of Holiness: The world hateth him because he seemeth good, and God because he no more than seems so. Religion is the best Armour in the World, but he that maketh a cloak of it, will find when God calleth him to a reckoning that the stuff will cost him dear. He that under a specious and vain pretention of Sanctity hides a Nest of Lusts, will at length find himself as much deluded in his close contrivance, as that Cardinal Campegio was in Henry the Eight's time, whose twenty richly covered Sumpter-horses, being by chance overturned in Cheapside, discovering nothing but a petty Magazine and Trumpery of old Bootts and Shoes and Marrowbones, exposed him to the just scoff of all. Better timely uncase thyself, throw off thy Vizour and show thyself what thou art, then appear to be what thou art not: but 'twere best of all for thee no longer to personate and merely act a part, but truly to be what thou hast endeavoured to seem.   

XXXIV.  
YOung Lapwings when hatched are (as it were) so impatient of delay, that before the shells open of themselves; they break their passage through those walls not enduring to be penned up by their confinement, & as soon as their head and feet are at liberty, they run away with the remainder yet upon them. Many we have seen whom a strong confidence grounded on but weak abilities hath put forward before their time; who have rather rushed out then been sent forth; that have put out on their voyage before their vessel hath been sufficiently ballasted or rigged: Envoys that have gone forth before they have had Instructions, like Ahimaaz who would needs be running, though without a command for it, and if Examined can give as little an account of what Message they bring as he could: Such, as are like unthrifty Heirs, when they should be gathering Knowledge, spend faster than they get; their expenses exceed their receivings: Such who venture to set up, though all the stock they have, if any, is (perchance) a borrowed one: who enter on an Embassy without credentials. Such Lapwings as these that go from under the wing of their Dam while their heads are green and the shell on them do soon run wild: The conclusion is that as the enterprise was rash, the progress uneffectual and unprofitable, so they reap in the end blushing and discomfort. The protection of a flock against ravenous hests is a weighty charge, and though young David could slay the Lion and the Bear when they set upon his sheep, yet every ruddy youth is not sit to be a Shepherd. Where a rare precocity of understanding anticipateth years and supplieth age, yet methinks (that I may here apply what one said) they might tarry at Jericho till their beards are grown. I ever thought it more safe to be drawn forth and forced by importunities to set our hands to that Work for which, who is sufficient? rather than to rush on it uncalled as that for which any might be sufficient that would think himself so: It is obedience to go when we are called, but to be running forth before a Gall, is a too forward officiousness, arguing pride and boldness. If such Novices would go and learn what that of St. James meaneth, 
Jam. 3. 10.  My brethren be not many teachers, they would find it would give Writ of ease to their too forward Adventures.   

XXXV.  
OUr Saviour (Luke 4.) would not give the Devil Audience even where he spoke truth, I know thee who thou art, the holy one of God; refusing to have the Father of lies bear witness of him, because he knew he used that truth only to countenance error: And on the same account the Apostles (Acts 16, 17.) silenced the Spirit of Divination, and set a gag in his mouth when he would have defiled the Gospel by preaching it. Mat. 4. 6. we find the Devil quoting Scripture, but strangely maimed & perverted, to make it serve his own turn; for one part is left out, the other misapplied. We may be sure this Impostor hath never any Errand but deceit, whatever Message he seems to bring: This Liar always mixeth some truth with his Tale that may make way for it to enter into belief. For Vice and Falshood must still borrow the assistance of Virtue and Truth. There is always true corn strewed under a pitfall; and they are full and weighty ears which we daub with lime to deceive the poor Birds in a snow. In Lotteries there are some few prizes among many Blanks to keep up the Game. Even in the dunghill of Mahomet's Alcoran there are some jewels, and Sergius hath bespangled & decked it with some parcels and branches of Scripture and Christianity.  Et partem veri fabula quaeque tenet. 
This great Deceiver Satan, dealeth as Cheaters are ordinarily wont, who to make their Impostures more currant and passable, use some means to gain a credit before they can cozen. Alchemists bring forth sometimes true and real Gold out of their furnaces pretending it made there, which was secretly conveyed thither, that they may the more easily impose upon belief. Let me beware of Satan's hook though covered with never so specious and pleasing a bait. Though his Pills be guilded, yet they are poisonous. Though he take the covering of an Angel of Light on him, yet by a circumspect eye the black Fiend may be discerned under it: There suspect him most where his pretences are most plausible.   

XXXVI.  
THe Cinnamon Tree is killed by water, which quickens other Trees and makes them fruitful; and Narne (as Pliny saith) becomes the dryer for Rain: It is likewise reported that the ground about Armagh in Ireland grows more barren by being manured. I find as great a wonder that St. Paul tell's us of, 
2 Cor. 2. 16.  that the same doctrine should work the savour of death in some, which to others was a savour of life unto life: and that the preaching of the Cross which is to them that are saved, 
1 Cor. 1.  the Power of God, should be to another sort which perish, Folly. The same Light of the Word which gives to sound eyes comfort and refreshment, increaseth the distempers of those eyes that are sore and makes them smart the more; and the Warmth of it (for 'tis a Fire, which hath both these qualities) may exhale a fragrant savour from those hearts that are as a garden which the Lord hath planted; and noisome streams from such as are Corrupt. Thus, what stays the stomach of one man will (as Physicians tell us) make another to regorge: and the sweetest Honey procure's in some the most bitter choler.   

XXXVII.  
I Have sometimes wondered at a strange perverseness of the Israelites, who when God Slew them then they sought him, and returned early: but when they had Quails to the full, 
Ps. 78. 34.  and Manna in abundance than they repined and tempted him most. Like some Dogs which if you stroke them they will snarl and be ready to turn upon you, but if you strike them they crouch and fawn: or like those things in Nature which being gently handled will sting (as Nettles) but being crushed hard they will reflect no smart. 
Terent.  That Father in the Comedian hit upon the right cause of his Son's untowardness, Malè te docuit meafacilitas multa: and Servants are no where more apt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (as Philo phraseth it) so to behave themselves as if they had no Master, 
Philo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  then where they most experience his Lenity and Goodness. We may daily observe it, that the too gentle disposition of Governors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Clem. Alex.  is apt to cause and cherish those discontented & Rebellious humours, which a rigorous severity curb's and restrain's. Yea, the Man after God's own heart, while he was kept in Chase and hunted on the Mountains like a Partridge, was so jealous and sensibly conscientious; that, for but cutting off the skirt of his unjust and causeless Pursuer's garment, as though the same Instrument had wounded the tenderest part of his soul, his heart smote him: And yet when brought to his ease and plenty, and Courtly jollity, he boldlyadventures to flesh himself in those Crimina devoratoria salutis, 
Tert.  Adultery and Murder: Whole Camels will go down now, where a Gnat was strained at erewhile: and these foul sins though mingled with Blood are not so soon disgorge by Repentance, as a more innocent action was before. Thus a condition of prosperity and affluence and immunity from evil, doth as it were debauch the mind and make it grow wanton by excess; whereas nature when kept under restraint and depression, is capable of just obedience: as in the body, a high and full Diet breeds many noxious and superfluous humours, whereas a spare feeding keeps it both clean and healthful. We are most fruitful in a Low estate; as Trees in an humble Valley are fertile, but on a high Hill more barren. There's as much variety in the tempers of our souls in reference to the different conditions of Adversity and Prosperity, as there is in some Fountains, which in the night are warm, in the daytime cold: or that Indian Taddy we read of, which is sweet before the Sun riseth on it, but when warmed with its beams it becometh Sower. 'twas when he was pampered in the Land flowing with milk and Honey, that Jesurun waxed fat and kicked; and became more Unruly than he had been before, while under the Discipline of the scourge in a dry and barren Desert.   

XXXVIII.  
MAn that was once in honour, and placed little lower than the Angels, having lost his Birthright, is now become lower than the Beasts that perish; and the Scripture now sendeth him to School to them; to the Ant to learn Industry, to the Ox and the Ass to learn Duty to God, to the Dove to learn Innocency, to the Serpent to learn Wisdom. But how many do descend so far even below their Degraded Estate, that they transcribe these Patterns not in the Good but the evil; & whereas they should make use of them as Tutors and Monitors, they degenerate into the very Nature of beasts, and make Nebuchadnezzar's punishment their option. We know that Centaurs made up of half Man, and half Beast came not from Thessaly, but had their original in Pindar's Poetic fancy, he was the Prometheus that fashioned them; and Galen considering the utter irreconcileablenesse of the fiction with principles of Anatomy, is very angry at his Vanity in it: But we may find many such Monsters in Morality, if we consider the strange discomposure that is in the Souls of Men; where the difference is only, that here the Prodigy is more wonderful, in that the Beast is placed above the Man, Passion and Lust above Reason. How much rather should men endeavour to advance their Natures above their present Sphere, to recover and raise them rather than thus depress them: and if they will needs forsake their Humanity, to assume the nature of Angels, & succeed to that voided Rank which the Prinee of the morning was willing to leave.   

XXXIX.  
POpe Alexander the Fifth, who had been so bountiful to the Poor, that he had left little or nothing to himself (Records do not abound with many such Popes) would often take occasion to say merrily of himself, that he was a rich Bishop, a poor Cardinal and a beggarly Pope. Many are thus retrograde in Christianity; like Nebuchadnezzar's Image, the further off from the Beginning the more their worth and goodness decay's, as in that, the further from the head the courser the Metal; their first commencing Christian had a golden beginning, they went on to a Silver progress, and in the conclusion they are all earthy: Or as we see salt Candles, they blaze a while at first kindling with fair hopes and a clear lustre, but they soon wear out to Leaks and Snuffs; and expire at last in smoke and stench. True Saints go up the Hill to Zion, every day bears them a step nearer Heaven; but these go down the Hill, and are further from Salvation in the evening of their life then when they first believe: Whereas they should be like the Sun going on from strength to strength, till they come to their Meridian lustre, they rather resemble him as he was in Ahaz's time when he stood still; for in this subject the case is one, where non progredi est regredi, he that doth not go forward in Christianity, goes backward; He is already come to a decrease of goodness, that doth not strive after an increase of it. Many the higher they rise in the World, the more they descend and fall in goodness; and their true riches decrease & are impaired by the increase of outward Acccessions: like Trees which as they advance higher in growth, their Roots proportionably go deeper downward into the Earth; and as Stars which the higher they are the more their beams are contracted and narrowed. The Devil effects on them what he did but tempt our Saviour to, no sooner are they raised to a high Pinnacle, but strait it follows that they cast themselves down; and being placed on a Mountain where they have a more large and Alluring View of the World, they fall down before Satan.   

XL.  
I have sometimes observed such a thing as a proud Humility in the world. Some will reject a merited Commendation only with a desire to be commended for rejecting it, and that their Esteem may grow by their seeming restraint of its increase; these look one way and row another, and shun praise with a greater vainglory; they hate pride, but so as that there is pride in their very hatred of it. 'Twas a smart reproof of Diogenes, who trampling on Plato's rich Bed out of contempt, was told, that he trampled on it with more pride than Plato possessed it. Some are wont to inquire into the blemishes and crimes of their own Actions and discourses, on purpose or hear that it was well done or spoken, & without blemish: There may be an equal vanity sometimes in praising and dispraising ourselves; for as they who commend themselves desire consent, and seek after others approbation, so likewise many times they who balm themselves, seek after opposition and desire they may be contradicted: Such have petty Arts and contrivances to lay a foundation for a Reputation where they would seem to be undermining it, and closely to raise an esteem where openly they seem to design the ruining of it. Because the way to be exalted is to be abased, therefore they will seem to cast themselves down in their own opinion that they may rise in the esteem of others. While they seem to be pouring contempt on themselves, they are drinking in the waters of vanity: Their humility and modesty is only Scenical, a dress and Mask; & usually at times they are discerned through their vizour; their dissimulation is not of perpetual continuance (ficta citò in naturam suam recidunt) As the Devil sometime said to Job, touch him in his body and see if he will not curse thee to thy face; so touch such a man a little in his reputation and see if he will not grow impatient, make an assault upon his esteem & see if his vanity do not cast off the Mantle and betray his humour which he feign would have concealed. There's no more Critical Indication of our Humility whether it be serious or only Personated, then by this, whether we are content to hear dispraise not only from ourselves but from others.   

XLI.  
I meet with an excellent advice of a Heathen (soexcellent, 
Anton. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  that I can't but think it proceeded from a higher Dictate then that of his own spirit, as likewise many other sayings, both of the same and other Stoical Authors) to procure that which in the issue is the Goal, which all men's pursuits do drive at, Contentment; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. To will nothing but what God wills. Methinks, this is like a Northwest pasage or a shorter cut to a Treasure greater than that of the Indies, to a haven of Satisfaction and Rest, which men seek to arrive to generally by a wide compass of vain contrivances: This is such an excellent Elixir that the very touch of it turns all into Gold. This is that Panacéa & Universal remedy that preventeth and removeth all discontents, frettings, tumults and disqviets, murmurings and discouragements of the soul, and put's it into a temper so equal so calm and serene, that it doth in a measure anticipate its future Happiness by a present enjoyment. For when our will is thus as it were resolved and melted into the will of God, we have all that we desire and nothing can happen to us but what we will, and what more needeth there to make us happy here? This is a higher degree then mere submitting our selves to God's will, (which yet is a high attainment,) for it makes the divine will and out's to be the same: This is the ready way to procure riches and honours and pleasures, not by using endeavours to Add to our Wealth, Reputation, and Carnal enjoyments (for thus we find by experience, that he that hath most, hath greatest want in his store) but by a more compendious and less tiresome way, by Detracting from our desires & by reducing them to a due proportion, and thus we shall find it true, that He hath most that hath as much as he desireth; as he is not Rich that hath much, but he that hath enough, nor he Indigent that hath little, but he that craves more; for we are not rich or poor, happy or unhappy, honourable or mean so much according to the proportion of what we possess as of what we desire. Therefore I commend his answer, who when his friend wished him, that the Gods would give him whatever he desired; 
Jambl. in vita Pythag.  nay rather (saith he) that they would give me to desire but what they give.   

XLII.  
WHen Nabuchadnezzar straightly begirt Jerusalem and they were reduced to extremities, the Jews made a solemn Covenant with God to dismiss their Servants and set them free: but no sooner had the King removed his siege and left the City open, but they reverse and repeal their Vow, & bring back their Servants to their former bondage.  
How often do we find such whom God hath beleaguered with an Affliction, or planted his battery against by a disease, and seemed to have marked out fordeath make Covenants and Promises of a future reformation, and of putting away their sin, which yet when he withdraws his terrors, and puts up his Arrows, or causeth the sickness to retreat, those ties do no more bind them then the Withs did Samson, but they arise and go out & do as at other times: while their backs smart under the Rod and they sit on the margin of the grave, their spirits stoop, their passions are broken and the heat of them assuaged, their thoughts are humbled to a Sobriety; then to be liberal of Promises is an easy Bounty: but when the storm is over and they return to their former freedom and delight in sensible Converses, than they are hidebound and restrained in performances, & rescind former engagements: the sighs of their sickbed which they turned into penitent groans are now vanished into air and forgotten; the sad reflections on their former vanity's, the serious Recollections of their way's, which they were reduced to when the flesh sat uneasily upon them, and dwelled in sorrow, are now as little thought on, as the dolorous accents of their grief. When they are come newly out of the Furnace of affliction, while the smell of fire is yet on them they are scrupulous and tender; but it is but as those who come out of a hot stove, that shrink from a cold air at first, but by degrees are soon brought to their former hardiness of temper if the soul be not changed, though there may for a while some religious colour appear in the man's face, he will at last return to his former habit.  
It was therefore wise advice which Theodoricus Bishop of Coleine gave to Sigismond the Emperor, who demanding how he might be directed the way to heaven, he answered If thou live so as thou promisedst in a painful fit of the Gout or Stone. The Israelites when they had been humbled with the voice out of the fire, the uproar in all the Elements, the thunder, darkness and terror of Mount Horeb, were very prodigal of their promises, All these things will we do: but God foresaw, though they spoke as they intended in that distress that they would after be no less niggardly in their performances, O that there were such a heart in them! and what people ever more rebellious than they? Never was a heart harder than Pharoah's; and yet upon the repetition of every Plague; how Couchant is the Lion! how doth he fawn and crouch to the Power which his stubbornness incensed! at every stroke, how he cries out, Spare me this once and I will offend no more! And at length when Death had made all Egypt at once to ring with Passing-Bells, & his Palaces were even invaded by that king of terrors, he suddenly gives the Israelites a dismission, and as it were thrust's them forth as if he could not be soon enough rid of them, Rise up, get you forth from among us: And yet no sooner were they gone but the stream of his Passion hath a reflux, being only diverted by that Judgement, and he makes after them with the whole Posse of his Country to fetch them back again.  
Lord, let never my holy resolutions go away with my Afflictions, nor my Health dispense with the Vows of my Sickness: Let me not, when I have in my distress found Sanctuary in thy mercy as a Votary, in my enlarged condition indulge myself the looseness of a Libertine: Let me quit my credit, and faithfully pay my vows, and discharge the Bonds I have entered into with thee in my necessitous and low state. Let Immunity from evil never render me such a stranger to what I were in distress, that I should recoil from my promises, and disown them.   
FINIS.   

The Spiritual Bee: Or A MISCELLANY, etc. The Second Part.  

I.  
IT is now no new advertisement, that the Spirit of God himself doth in Scripture make use of heathenish speeches and observations, and apply them to a Spiritual use. Thus St. Paul took notice of a Paganish Inscription of an Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and begun his Sermon to the Athenians on that text: and in the same place v. 28. he quotes one of their Poets, Aratus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. As also Menander 1 Cor. 15. 33. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And Callimachus (or Epimenides) Tit. 1▪ 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. And James 1. 17. we have a perfect Hexameter verse, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. and a double Jambick 2 Pet. 2. 27. Surely the warranty of such an Example will give good ground for our making use of the borrowed helps of humane Writers in Sacred things, so we deal with them as God commandeth the Israelites to deal with the Canaanitish captives, 
Deut. 21. 10 11.  if they would wed them, to shave their head and pair off their nails etc. if we divest them of their paganish superfluities. For surely it would reflect injuriously upon the wisdom of God to think that he hath given the Gold and treasures of Arts & Learning, the spoils of the Egyptians, to be converted and made use of only for the making of a golden Calf (such are all other subjects compared with divine) rather then to be applied to the use of the Sanctuary, and the Service of God, as Exod. 35. to the building and adorning of the Tabernacle: so be, that they be made to pass through the fire (as the Midianitish gold and silver, Num. 31. 22) and be throughly refined and purged from their heathenish dross. He that furnished Cyrus with treasure and riches of secret places, 
Is. 45 3.  for the building of his Temple, Ezra 1. 2. doubtless had an eye to the framing and edifying of his Church in that light of knowledge and literature with which he hath imbelished such writers. Hagar must not bear children to herself, and her Mistress Sarah obtain none by her; and as long as this Handmaid hath her eyes towards her Mistress in due subserviency, and is observant of her direction, while she seeks not to rule in the house, why should she be cast out? Elias did not nauseate or reject the food that was brought to him by a Raven, an unclean creature under the Law.   

II.  
The Mahometans are wont at their entrance into their Mosquits (or Churches) to put off their shoes and leave them behind them: and so when they bein their devotions they stop their ears, & fix their eyes, that their thoughts be not diverted. When we enter into the house of God we ought to take heed unto our goings: the shoes we are to put off (as Moses when he entered upon holy ground) are worldly and carnal affections; we must divest our-selves of all earthly encumbrances, not bring that into God's presence which may profane his Sanctuary, but wash our hands in Innocency before we compass his Altar: much less may we carry into his house any resolutions of sin, or allowed and cherished inclinations to it; for this were to enter not only with shoes on, but with feet filthy & bemired, which cannot but pollute the ground we tread on, and cause God not only to be angry at, but loath and abominate us. And when we are engaged in duties of worship, a strict guard must be kept on our Senses, that they be not inlets to that which may steal away our Hearts, and through their treachery our Sacrifice be not found (what the Heathens counted Prodigious in their Victimes) without a Heart.   

III.  
A Vine which is one of the most fruitful of Trees, (made use of by God to compare the Christian unto) if it be left to its natural excrescencies, unregarded and unpruned, shoots forth into many superfluous branches and stems, and spendeth its most generous strength that way, and so becometh weak and fruitless. If God should leave the best Christian to the vicious exorbitances of his own heart and affections, and not curb and prune them, and retrench the extravagancy of his desires, his strength would be spent on that which profiteth not, and he would soon grow barren and useless. There is need that both by his restraining grace he reduce and limit our desires, and by the sharpness of afflictions he cut short and check their excrescencies. Jonah grew fond of his Gourd, and God smote it, and therein nipped and restrained the unruliness of his Spirit, which would have spent his love and delight on a silly plant. Hezekia's pride was grown to such a height, that he must needs vent it by boasting of his treasure; but God blasteth it by sending the Chaldaeans to plunder him. When mine heart doth irregularly run out after vanity, let the smart of thine hand correct my wander, and tame the wildness of my affections. Better I should bleed by thy pruning hook, then be cut down by thy Axe as withered and fruitless, and cast into the burning.   

IV.  
WE may observe that Lightning doth work with more potency and force, where it meeteth with the greatest resistance; and acteth more on that which hath hard and firmly compacted parts, then on what's soft and yielding, and giveth easy passage to it: hence it is, that it hath been sometimes said to pass through the scabbard without any effecton it, and to melt the sword in it; hence also, the hard Oak and firm Cedar are exposed to its force, and feel its effects, when the Bay which is of a more yielding tender nature, is passed over untouched by it. The Judgements of God in their working are much accommodated to the temper of the Subjects on which they light. Where they meet with a stubborn, unpliant enemy, they fall with greater force, and are most pressing and heavy; they will break, where they cannot bow: the foolish heart (Prov. 19) fretteth against the Lord, he is careless and rageth; but what's the effect? The man that hardeneth his neck when he is rebuked, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy: those that are as wild Bulls in the net of God, their own fury and rage doth but the more entangle, perplex, and weaken them; but where God meeteth with souls of a soft, complying, and obedient temper, his dealings are accordingly gentle, he afflicteth them lightly, and doth not stir up all his wrath, he doth but shake his rod over them, with which he lasheth the backs of others. In this respect, because God doth thus wisely & carefully distinguish between the different states and tempers of the Patients he dealeth with, he is said to correct us in Judgement.   

V.  
AN indiscreet, imprudent reproof hath usually a double ill effect first, in that by the fault of the manager (as a good story may be quite spoilt in the relating) the action in its self good, is rendered for the present irksome and tedious: as a plaster laid on the wrong side may only smart, when on the right it would have cured. And next, in that it leaveth a prejudice behind it very disadvantageous at the like future occasion. A good stock of prudence and caution is in no duty more requisite then in this of Christian reproof, which requires such an exact observation of circumstances, time, manner, persons, etc. to a wise management of it. As I desire never to act that tacit part of a Flatterer, with silence seemingly to sooth and cherish him that deserves reproof; and by a Friendly Cruelty to betray him into a security: so I think it both more safe and more wise to tarry on the shore, rather than launch forth, when I know the wind will be contrary, and beat me back again with bruises and rents. Where the person hath so much of the swine and dog in him, that he will trample under feet instruction and reproof, and turn again and rend me. Christ's prohibition warneth us not to dispense holy things, 
Luk. 7. 5.  nor to cast pearls to him. When the dose meeteth with such tough ill humours, that it doth but stir and anger them, not purge them out, there mostly it is more wisely withheld then administered.   

VI  
CHrist I find before his passion, 
Mark. 14.  repeateth the same prayer thrice, 
Math. 26. 44.  Father if it be possible etc. which yet is so far from a Tautology, that there is in it the divinest Art of Rhetoric. For the reiteration is a great evidence of the strong intention and affection of the mind: as it was the overflowing of compassion, which doubled the Compellation in that, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets; and of love, in that, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to sift thee: and the sweet Singer of Israel is no where more Pathetical, then where he twice doubles the Note, Sing praises to our God sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises; all crowded within the compass of one verse: he found so much melody on that string, that he could not leave harping on it. Heaven cannot be proof against a Petition so often darted towards it, it pierceth the more forcibly where it is so by renewed applications driven home. In a strong Prayer a force is used upon Heaven, the violent take it by force, and when the strokes come so thick, and are so urged by redoubling, there can be no resistance. But further I observe likewise that our Saviour's latter prayer is somewhat longer than the rest (as the wave which comes last swells highest) his mind was inflamed to a greater fervency in the progress; insomuch that at last his ardency broke out into a sweat, a sweat of blood. But how often do I find that my vigour and fervency rather lose then gain ground of my deadness and coldness in the continuance; my hands fall and my desires sink; the sails flag, which at first setting out (it may be) seemed to have a full gale. This yieldeth suspicion, that the work is not so naturalised to me as it should be: for ●ll natural motions increase their swiftness the more near they draw to their period.   

VII.  
IN Civil converses, those whom we are not acquainted with, we cannot find that pleasantness and relish in their society, as we do in their converse which familiarity seasoneth with a delightful gust; because where we converse as strangers it is with some distance, and as it were under check and restraint (as in a strange country we will not adventure any thing abroad without guard or convoy) and so not without a kind of uneasiness: but where as familiars we have more freedom and openness. If we transfer this Experience to our spiritual Intercourse with God, we shall find the case very coincident; surely it would be far more gustful and delightful unto us, if we did not by our neglect of it keep ourselves still as strangers to him. Frequency in our Accesses would breed a familiarity, that we might converse with God with that freedom with which friends open their bosoms one to another; we should be more enlarged in our Addresses, and that would make them have a more pleasant relish to us. By often treading the way, we shall beat out a path to the throne of grace, free from that uneasiness and discouragement which in unfrequented ways we meet with: want of Use maketh that irksome, which otherwise would be pleasant. He who bestoweth the frequentests visits on Heaven, finds himself most welcomed there, and hath the best entertainment; and he who cometh oftenest, will still desire to come oftenest. Therefore let those who esteem that, as void of delight in its self, which their own negligence only rendereth so, learn to judge righteously, and impute the effect to 'tis genuine cause: Manna is here to be gathered, if they would come out and bring pots to vessel it up. The Table lies spread, and Christ bids his Guests be merry; 
Cant. 5. 1.  Eat▪ O Friends, drink, yea drink abundantly; but they stand off as strangers, and will not be among his Friends.   

VIII.  
Saltpetre, though itself observed to be of a fiery nature, yet being mixed with lue-warme water, at first it contesteth with it, but when overcome and dissolved by it, the water becometh abundantly more cold than otherwise it would have been. And that water which hath been warmed, and after returneth to its native temper, becomes more cold, and more subject to be frozen, then that which hath not felt the fire. The convictions of the Spirit of God, where they do not work a thorough change, the heart becometh afterward benumbed into a greater coldness and deadness. A spiritual Relapse is very pernicious: where God hath been knocking and sent away with a Repulse, in judgement he will suffer another bar to be clapped on that door, and make the sinner more hardened. He that hath conquered the good motions and desires which heaven kindled in him, is given over to a more reprobate sense (as the temper of Iron is more hardened by being quenched after it hath been heated in the forge.) No sinner doth more eagerly wallow in the mire, than he that returneth to it after he was once washed: and the Dog will not easily again cast up that Vomit which after his first disgorging he hath licked up. Where the unclean Spirit after his departure for a season, in his return findeth the soul empty of Christ, swept and voided of all gracious dispositions, and garnished with whatsoever vice may suit the entertainment of so unclean a Guest, his reentrance as with new Attendance, and his Hold is rendered sevenfold more impregnable than before; he taketh to himself the black company of seven other spirits worse than himself, and that man's last estate is worse than his first. Lord, let me never quench those sparks which I should be always quickening and kindling into a flame, lest by so doing. I make myself fuel for a flame, that shall never be quenched.   

IX.  
PLiny (as his Nephew tells us) out of curiosity praying into the mountain Vesuvius, 
Plin. Epist. l. 6. c. 16.  that he might discover the manner and causes of those fiery Eruptions (in Natures Kill) was devoured by them, and made fuel to that, by which he thought to have increased his knowledge; and so found his death in his too bold advance in quest of that Mystery of Nature. Surely to be too curious in our Inquiries and researches into the Mysteries of God, cannot but be dangerous. God hath drawn a Veil over some things, and if we are so bold as to go about to lift it up, he may justly strike us with blindness, even in those things which were before exposed to our view. If we long after such Forbidden fruit, God may by a flaming sword set to turn to all points of the Compass keep us not only from the tree of Life and Knowledge, but from all other trees in his Paradise. Moses might come to the Hill, but not to the burning Bush, Come not hither; if he had, it might have proved a consuming fire to him. If the waves of the Sea have their limits set, hither to shall ye go; much more man's presumption and curiosity: And what security can he give himself that will boldly invade the Privacy's which an infinite wisdom hath locked up in concealment, and break down the Enclosures which the Almighty hath set up. Cannot we be content to be admitted into his House except we ransack his closet and Cabinet; to be of his court except we be his Secretaries? If we have an ear to hear where God hath no tongue to speak, he may justly cause us to have no eye to read where he hath a hand to write. 'tis dangerous presumption to break open God's Seal; to go in quest after the knowledge of that, which he hath therefore, hidden that we might not know it. He who is not content to look on the Sun where his rays are refracted through a cloud, will but lose his sight by staring on him in his naked brightness.   

X.  
ONe that had a thorn run into his foot, of which he took small notice, till it after caused an Inflammation, and Gangrene, which soon seized on his whole leg, was yet unwilling to undergo an excision to prevent its further spreading; but at length it seized on his vitals and proved mortal. The event of this disaster when told me, made me consider, how many inlets there are unto death, and how the most contemptible thing may be Harbinger to that King of terrors: examples of the like kind are frequent in story, of Fabius choked by a hair, Pope Adrian by a gnat flying into his throat, Anacreon by the stone of a grape etc. 
Sir. T: Norris Precedent of Munster. Cambdens Eliz:  One of the bravest Spirits that England ever gave a Cradle to, or Ireland a Grave, having received a light hurt, beneath his high mind to stoop to the dressing of it, by neglecting it lost his life: And we read of another whom the prick of a needle under the nail of his thumb sent out of the world. Surely I cannot be certain this day whether death may lodge with me before the next, if the least prick of my foot may make way for it; if the smallest passage be a door wide enough for it to come in at and the soul to go out at. Any thing from the bow of death, when our appointed time is come, may be a sure Arrow to hit the mark; a thorn may be as mortal as a sword. Though nature had never exposed our bodies to the assaults of an army of 300 diseases (for so many Pliny's List informs us we are infested with, and a more exact accountant would find upon enquiry that the number might be set much higher without any error in the stating of it) yet that variety of Instruments, chances, states, and circumstances of life which we lie open unto, might administer sufficiently unto the womb of death. Let me be prepared for that by every thing and at all times, which may come at any time & by any thing, must come one time or another. I shall not hasten my death by being still ready for it, but make it less terrible and deprive it of its sting. He that looks for death daily, shall never meet it the sooner, but the better and the more joyfully.   

XI.  
SHimei when eager in the pursuit and search after his Renegades, was unmindful of the injunction Solomon had laid on him, and the limits he had confined him to, and so ventured the loss of his life for the finding of his servants. God hath made laws that might limit and circumscribe the ways and actions of men, and hath menaced death for the transgression of them; but most men are so earnest in the pursuit of transitory things riches and pleasures (which are but servants and should not command our desires) that they mind not the bounds which God hath prescribed them. While they are in the heat of their range, and carrier in sin, there is no time for a sober weighing of that startling question, What will the end of these things be? or for a serious reflection on the terror of that threatening voice, the soul that sinneth it shall die. The Voluptuous man will as little own any bounds set to moderate his pleasures, as rivers do acknowledge their banks when they swell and spread themselves out of their due channel: the Ambitious man is as vast and wide in his aims and hopes as the boundless Ocean: the Covetous tradesman can inch his measure, and foist in false weights and use the balance of deceit, while he mindeth only his gain, and considereth not that his conscience is fold in the bargain Lord let me never endanger the loss of my soul in the unlawful or unwarranted pursuit of any temporal good.   

XII.  
IN the rebellion of Corah, Dathan and Abiram wherein they rose up against Moses and Aaron to bereave the one of his rule, the other of his priesthood; it was a dismal terrifying sight to see their punishment; the earth to open under them and swallow them up alive and close her mouth on them; that which is wont to be only a grave to be their executioner: insomuch that I do not wonder that the people (which by God's command were all called thither to bespectators) all that were round about fled at the cry of them; for they said, lest the earth should devour us also: for though they were not guilty of the conspiracy; yet the horror of such a sight could not but affrighten them to seek for security. If we might in like manner see how rebellious impenitent sinners go hence into the pit of destruction, if we might in visible manner behold how hell opens her mouth to receive them, and how they fall into the womb of death which is closed upon them to all eternity; surely it would make us tremble and flee, endeavour to avoid the danger and seek out for a refuge, lest it should devour us: their destruction would put us on vigorous endeavours of working out our salvation with fear and tremling; and the sad evils of their death would be a means to remedy and cure the sinful evils of our life. That which we cannot see by an eye of sense, we may discern with an eye of faith, let it therefore have the same effect on us as believed that it would as visibly seen.   

XIII.  
A Subtle Lawyer desireth no more advantage in an hold which he would take in a conveyance then many words; somewhat he will find to fasten on, and will so blanche the matter, that that shall seem plausible at last, which at first had no such appearance. I date the beginning of the Fall from thence, where Eve took the boldness to hold chat with the Serpent; if once we enter into a discourse with the Tempter, and proceed so far as to listen to him, we are half won already; there is a ready passage for him from the ear to the heart. Where such a Sophister is admitted to reason the case, and our ears are open and our tongues free, the matter is as sure given up as if it had been yielded without dispute. Evil and Error is of itself insinuative and plausible, much more when managed by so subtle and persuasive a Rhetorician. If the devil be entertained in our Parlour he will soon get a lodging in our bedchamber, if we give him easy entrance into an Outworke, he will soon possess himself of the City. Therefore stop thine ears at the voice of this Hellish Charmer: Assoon as he addresseth himself to a temptation send him going with an Avoid Satan.   

XIV.  
IT seemed strange to me when▪ I first understood that some venomous things would yield an Antidote to their own poison, and that the viper will offord a remedy against the deadliness of his own sting; and since I have learned that it is a frequent thing in Chemistry to extract alexipharmacal Medicines out of things which in themselves are most noxious and destructive; thus the Artist will make Mercury and Antimony, deadly poisons, by the power of his operation to yield remedy's of rare virtue: We read of a Plant also in the West Indies whose leaves are venomous, and yet the root of it, is an excellent Antidote. Let me not then wonder that he who brought all things out of nothing and light out of darkness, can educe good out of evil: that this Omnipotent Chemist can out of sin draw a Restorative Elixir, and make the poisoned darts of Satan prove Antidotal; that he can make our disease afford a Medicine; that he can out of the Gall and Wormwood of Affliction extract a Quintessence of Pleasure, and sublime tears into spiritual Joy. Let me admire and adore thee Lord, not only for thy grace and love in our Salvation, but for thy Power and Wisdom in the methods of it.   

XV.  
THe Apostle compareth those subtle Impostures by which Factours for Hell drew men aside from the faith to the embracing of strange Doctrines, unto Witchcraft. Gal. 3. 1. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you. And 2 Tim: 3. (wher● he painteth out the condition of the last days in such lively colours, as if the state of our unhappy ages had been present before his eyes) he parallel's the seducers with Pharaoh's sorcerers and Magicians, Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses. What strange effects of this Sorcery have we seen in our days? did Satan ever play so much above board and act so openly upon the stage as in these times he hath sometimes even laid aside his mask and adventured to appear in his own shape. And of what little avail have the Countercharms of sound principles formerly instilled been to many on whom God hath suffered these Impostors to practise their Magic? And how have the Devil's Instruments by this black Art, and Spiritual Necromancy, raised out of their graves errors long since dead and buried, and putting a new guise on them made them walk up and down again? And many have been wrought upon by such an unhappy Fascination, that (as Machates (mentioned by Phlegon) supposed he had caressed and happily enjoyed his Spouse, when it was but a dead and rotten carcase; So) they have fallen in love with and espoused that for truth and religion which is but Heresy long since laid in its grave.   

XVI.  
I Read that the Mahometans have set hours for their daily Orisons, in which they are so constant that not any secular matters, whether impediments of business or divertisements of pleasure do keep them from praying five times a day; whether they are fixed at home or abroad moving in a journey, when their stinted times come they apply themselves to their (O that I might call them, true) devotions; and this doth every one, from him that bears the Sceptre to him that carrieth the Sheephook. How many are there called Christians that cannot afford to pray so many times in a week, in a month, as those Infidels in a day; that can be content to crowd a whole Sennight's devotion into one Prayer; and count them too lavish in their expenses of time that make greater allotments of it for that business than they: yea, some think it enough if they sum up their lives and expire their last breath with a, Lord have mercy upon me. Christ commandeth us to pray for Daily bread. Every day Manna must be gathered from Heaven. It is as necessary to the Spiritual life of our souls as our often repeated meals and refections to the subsistence of our bodies. We justly deem it strange and wonderful in some that we read off, who have lived without meat, some whole Weeks, others Months, others years, (and a creditable author telleth us of one who lived 15 years withous eating or drinking.) But here a long fasting and Abstinence from this Spiritual refection is a thing so frequent that it meriteth not so much admiration. But what account Quercetan giveth of the former, that in such strange fastings the inspired air hath been sufficient in attraction to afford nourishment to such bodies; is more truly applicable here; for the souls of such are (like Chameleons) fed on the air and vanity.   

XVII.  
Walking in a hot summerday, I was somewhat annoyed with a multitude of flies and gnats humming about me; drive them off wholly from me I could not whatever means I used, yet I could hinder them from settling on me.  
And thus I find it sometimes with the thoughts and motions of my heart; evil suggestions are very busy within me, and though they much infest me and are troublesome to me, and I endeavour to drive them away, yet I cannot free myself wholly from them; but they shall not rest there: the birds might light on Abraham's sacrifice, but they were soon driven thence. Though Satan and the Corruption of my heart do send forth a noxious Offspring, yet my heart shall not harbour nor cherish them. Evil motions may arise within me or be injected into me against my will, but I will not be Nurse to foster the breed, nor host to lodge or entertain such hellish guests. As Vagrants that range the Country are wont to be served, whom though we cannot prevent from passing through our town, yet we do not permit them to make any abode there, but whip them away, and so send them to their own home: I cannot hinder them from passing through me, but I will look to it that such stragglers shall have the Law executed on them, that they do not either make their stay there, or return thither any more. These Malefactors may come to me for harbour or shelter but the only thing I shall do with them, shall be to make their Mittimus and send them away.   

XVIII.  
THe Rabbins tell us, according to their wont vanity, that Aaron Exod. 32. intended not to make a Calf, but cast the golden earrings into the fire to consume them; but by the operation of Satan working by some Egyptian Magicians in the camp the form of a calf came forth.  
But surely it is very usual for that old Serpent thus to overact us, and make us unwittingly advance his interest, while we think with innocent intentions we drive on a good design; to use Zeal without knowledge as an Instrument to promote his own cause under the pretext of God's: Where men think they are building a Church for God, to make it a Chapel for himself. Peter thought he had uttered that which would have pleased Christ, Master pity thyself: yet the Devil (it seems) had made him his spokesman, get thee behind me Satan. That design which to gain Proselytes and Assistants had pro aris stamped upon it in the front, holiness to the Lord written on it; when the other side is seen, sometimes proveth to be only pro focis, for the advancing of a carnal Interest which some have set up to be promoted and driven under that Mask: Hence hath it proceeded, that what David said the zeal of thy house▪ hath eaten me up, may be by a prodigious Inversion truly applied to some, their zeal hath eaten up the house of God.   

XIX.  
Serpent's which in the cold of Winter growing impotent and languid retire themselves to their dens and caverns, unable to hurt, or to stand out against the least resistance; when warmth returneth with the Sun, renew their former strength and vigour, relinquish the holes and retirements in which they lay folded up, can use their force and their sting again and appear dreadful to the most armed opposition. Those Temptations which in the season of Adversity, we seemed to be wholly freed from, or had lost all their efficacy and force, that it was an easy conquest to subdue them; when the Sun shine of Prosperity cometh on, it cherisheth▪ and envigeurateth them, their number is augmented, their strength more prevailing, and their assaults more frequent; scarce a step we take in which we are not in danger of a Serpent's sting.   

XX.  
SOme Christians have been earnest and curious that they might know the very day of their conversion; the time of their Spiritual Nativity, when there was an access of joy among the Angels in Heaven because a new Saint was borue to it; the day from which as the Epocha of their salvation they are to date the beginning of their Happiness; that they might set a mark upon it, and make it signal in their Calendar in a scarlet-Text as the Day of their Second Birth. But let it not be so much my care to know when I commenced Believer as to assure myself that, the day is past, and the happy work wrought. The voice by which God raiseth a sinner from the dead, is not always accompanied with thunder and Tempest, but sometimes it is a still voice: He sometimes cometh early and preventeth Satan's harvest, and stealeth into the Creatur's bosom silently and undiscernedly before any Giant-sin hath deflowered the soul; and then by no token can we retrieve or find out the determinate season, by the most careful search. Some in the Spiritual travel of their second birth have few or no painful pangs, while others have sharp and grievous throws which make them remember the time as long as they live; as the women of Israel were sprightful and quick and lively in their delivery▪ unlike the Egyptians. The streams of grace may be large and full, where yet the head of it may be undiscovered, as the river Nilus hath a great and plentiful current, yet his springe is unknown: The Sun may rise with his head veiled under a cloud, and unobserved, and yet after appear in full strength and glory. S. Paul had his eye upon the Goal, 
Phil. 3. 13.  and forgetting those things which are behind, pressed forward towards those things which are before: and (in allusion to his practice) we should not so much busy our selves to know where we first made our start, as mind the running of our Race.   

XXI.  
LEt us observe the several steps and descents which Eve made in her fall, that brought with it the ruin of Mankind.  
First, she enters into a discourse and holdeth parley with the Serpent at the forbidden tree, and so setteth herself out of God's guard.  
2. She listeneth to the plausibleness of his pretexts, is moved with the doubts which he starteth, and giveth credit to his false and sly insinuations, and believeth his lying suggestions.  
3. She looketh on the fruit with a longing eye as pleasant and desirable. The heart is soon bewitched when the eye is fascinated, when the object findeth easy admittance there, it soon set's the affections on fire, and the fumes from them cloud the understanding and make the will to warp.  
4. Her longing must be satisfied; she took of the fruit; her hands execute the commands of her perverted Will.  
5. And she did eat; And what else could be expected but that when she had received the cup so willingly at the Devil's hand she should drink off the poison? But Lastly, she gave also to her husband with her: The Devil that before was a modest beggar without door, now he is entered command's the house; and she is so officious for him as to become a Tempter herself, desirous to diffuse her sin beyond her personal confinement See by what winding stairs we were led down into these depths of misery we now are in.  
Therefore give not place to Satan, not for a moment; retire not the least step: stifle his primitive and seemingly innocent motions; play not about the bait lest thou be caught unawares: Yield not at first lest thereby thou unwittingly part with thy strength to resist him in his following▪ ollicitations: If he loosen the roots of thy Faith at first the next gust of temptation may cast thee quite down. If we stop not the journey of sin by a seasonable Arrest at its first stage, the further it goeth the more strong and numerous it groweth, like a River which the farther it runneth from its spring the more it enlargeth its strean and windeneth the Channel. David walking on the Battlements of his house in a loose and careless manner, gave his eye liberty, and in that free gaze it soon ran out of God's keeping, and through amorous and light glances on Bathshebah let in Adultery, and so holy David became one of the fools in Israel; neither rests he there, that was a Pearl in his eye, it soon becometh bloodshot, and by degrees he compasseth a cruel, yet deliberately plotted murder. Absalon at first only entertained some ambitious thoughts, and a secret desire of anticipating his future hopes and Antedating his style of King; but the swelling imposteme soon ripened and broke out to his own destruction in Rebellion, incest and murder. One sin is the decoy to another; and though God never pronounced an, increase and multiply, on it, yet nothing is more fruitful: The giving way to it is as the pouring out of water, which before might be kept within the bounds of what contained it, but when poured forth its course is uncontrollable, and we cannot limit it; it is not for us to say of sin hitherto it shall go and no farther.   

XXII.  
THe Panther is wont to be taken by the Hunters by two sorts of wiles; sometimes by wine in which he hath so much delight that he will drink of it to inebriation: at other times they are wont to lay glasses for him, which while he tarryeth to behold himself in, he is with ease overtaken and destroyed.  
Satan makes men drunk with the pleasures of sin, and then dealeth with them as he pleaseth: By immersing and drenching themselves in carnal delights they are transformed into swine, (which the drunkard to a proverb most resemble's) swallowing in the mire, and are a prey open and exposed to him that goeth about seeking to devour. Samson having his mind weakened and inebriated by a too-fond and strong affection to his Dalilah, was thereby betrayed to the loss of his great strength, and laid himself open to the unresisted assaults and insults of them, of whom thousands before could not effect that which a handful did then. But where he cannot allure to gross sensuality, he compasseth men with a device no less effectual and more refined: This mighty Hunter of souls setteth a glass before them, wherein they may view and contemplate their own excellencies; and that usually so falsely flattering as that it shall represent a fair beauteous image to the most deformed misshapen face: He knows that the reflection on his own perfections with admiration was his own ruin, made him measure the distance between Heaven and Hell by a fall, and changed him from an Angel to a fiend; and from a personal experience made use of this sleight to entrap our first patents in his first grand Attempt to destroy Souls, in which he found such answerble success, that no wile ha●h been ever since more practised, by one hath he more filled the Region of darkness with lost souls: By this he setteth the Creature in the Throne and maketh him in a direct way advance himself above his Creator. When an unballasted spirit is so overset and swelled up with fond and vain conceits of it's own excellencies, 't is easy for him to overturn it: When he hath set the soul on a Pinnacle there to be presented with a large view of its glory, and to gaze on its own perfections, the weak head scon grows dizzy and addle through pride. These entrapments the Devil had practised on the Publican and the Pharisee, the one he had made to run into more enormous and gross sins, the other he had set his glass before, and he was so taken with his own image, that he could find no other matter to fill his prayers with, but the recounting of his own perfections. Lord, suffer not Satan by any of these wiles to ensnare me; Not to intoxicate me by the pleasures of sin, and so weaken, & shave off my locks, lest the Legions of Hell be upon me: Let me not drink of the Devil's wassail, his wine is a mocker; my Soul, look not on it when it is red, When it giveth its colour in the temptation, for in the end it will bite like a Serpent, and hurt like a Cockatrice: Pride goeth before destruction, and a high mind before a fall; therefore also lay thine hand upon thy mouth, for God hateth an haughty eye.   

XXIII.  
WHen Nathan had given holy David a relation of the cruel extortion and injustice of the rich man in wresting the poor man's ewelamb out of his bosom, 
2 Sā. 12.  how doth this anger kindle presently and his passion rise against the wickedness of the injury; insomuch that he strait resolve's, and back's it with an oath, that the man should surely die who had done that thing: But in the issue it soon proved that David was a little more nearly concerned in the matter than he was aware of, when the Prophet came home and closed with him with a Thou art the man. The sentence he had pronounced was on his own person, and righteous David had unwittingly been the judge to condemn David▪ the Adulterer and Murderer; at his own bar, out of his own mouth. Do not we thus often condemn our own vices in other men's Persons, and pass a just censure on those sins in them which we have inconsiderately indulged in ourselves? Many do severely sentence worldly mindedness, sharply declaim against covetousness, brand and defy the sensualist, pronounce condemnation on the Hypocrite, & can with heat inveigh against such other sins; whereas if they would turn their eyes inward they might see what they thus condemn within their own bosom; and their sentence would be no where better applied then to themselves.  
When I read the relation of Judas' cursed treachery, his covetousness and dissimulation, in selling his Master for thirty pieces of silver (the price of him that was valued) betraying him into the hands of the Jews to a grievous Passion and Death, making a kiss the Prologue to the hellish part he acted: how doth mine anger boil and mine heart rise against his wickedness? How severely is Pilate condemned at my tribunal for sentencing my Saviour? And I pronounce the jews a thousand times worthy of that scourging, and buffeting and death, which they inflicted on Christ. But if I seriously reflect on myself may I not find a traitorous Judas within mine own home? I may startle, and disown it; Judas himself would not answer to his name, but put it of with a, Master, is it I? But surely it will appear I may return upon myself with a, Thou art the man, if I consider, that I have betrayed Christ to my lusts and delivered him into the hands of his enemies: I have sold him by preferring the pleasures of sin, the satisfaction of my carnal desires, the dross of the world before him; by advancing some fleshly interest above him: And I have by mine hypocrisy made a kiss the covert of my treachery. I by my sins have pronounced Pilat's sentence on him, let him be crucified: Every transgression hath been a thorn, and nail, and spear to him; I have spit in his face by despising his ways; and by my vanity and pride have clothed him with the purple, the crown of thorns, and reed of reproach: he hath been wounded not only for, but by my transgressions: Though he pronounced a consummation of his sufferings on the cross, It is finished; yet by these new 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and aftering of sufferings, I have acted over the Tragedy on him again, as though it had not been finished. Therefore, as Seneca said of himself, that if he would seek a fool [non longè quaerendus, meipsum invenio] he need not go far for him, one might be found within his own skin: So I need go no farther than myself (though I cry Hosanna to Christ) to seek a Judas, a Pilate, a Jew.   

XXIV.  
GAleacius that noble Marquis of Vico, was so effectually wrought on and persuaded by an elegant similitude in a Sermon of Peter Martyr's, that he soon after laid down all his honours interests and relations at the feet of Christ, and by a voluntary choice took up his cross, and became a Convert. Perhaps the same thing nakedly and barely proposed would not have made so easy and great impression upon him, as it did set forth and adorned in that Rhetorical dress. The same passage in a different habit, may be vigorous and piercing, or languid and dispirited.  
Hearers are generally like Bees, they go all to the flowers; therefore our discourse may be profitably as well as pleasingly strewed with them, so they yield as much honey as they make a fair show: The food will be received more readily when thus candied and sweetened, as Pliny says the Elephants eat their provender the better if the manger be garnished with flowers. The assistance of oratory (so it be duly applied, and come in only as an Auxiliary) is no way to be slighted and rejected; for by this chiefly (among second means) the Preacher in the affections of his Auditors, by this he thunder's and lighten's in them (as Pericles was said to do by his eloqnence.) The palm may sometimes strike more effectually than the fist. The potion will down in sack which otherwise would have been nauseated; and bitter Pills under the covert of somewhat that is toothsome will be admitted. The feathers that imp the arrow make it fly the faster and pierce the deeper. Surely it could not be without the help of this Art that Christ was so graphically described, and (as it were) painted forth in his crucifixion before the eyes of the Galatians (Gal. 3. 1.) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Although the Imposture of that Rhetoric, 
Which makes me think on Homer's description of Paris II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  deserve's more reproof than commendati- which work's on the Affections alone, and not at all on Reason or conscience; and so kindleth a strange fire in the Heart, (through the glass of the Fancy rather than the Judgement) which God will not own in our Sacrifice: As likewise the wantonness of that, which is as gay and gaudy in the dress of every sentence, as a young Scrivener is in flowering a Capital letter with his luxuriant pen; Truth (specially divine) will not be decked thus like a strumpet, although it refuse not that her native beauty should have the advantage of a decent matronlick ornament. The pearls of the Kingdom of Heaven should be set in Gold (not in Lead) though not so curiously wrought and embellished, as that the Artifice should hide the native lustre of the jewel. Comely and neat apparel is an ornament to the body, but if either gaudy or course, a disgrace.   

XXV.  
A Spartan having long busied himself about the carcase of a dead man to try if he could settle it firm in an upright posture; perceiving how ineffectual his endeavours proved, sometimes the head falling into the bosom, sometimes the arms flagging downward, and the whole, at last, falling to the ground▪ told the slanders by (who smiled at his unsuccesful attempt) there's wanting (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) something within, meaning a Soul. Thus it is in dealing with those who are dead in trespasses and sins; if we endeavour to hold up their countenances heavenward, and would have them fix their eye on Eternity, and an immortal estate, we can't hold them to it one moment; they presently incline towards the earth again: if we would set them on their feet, and make them upright, if we would set their hands at work in deeds of righteousness, justice and truth; and have them to stretch out their arms to the relief of those that are in distresses; all is in vain; while there's no spirit nor principle of motion; something is wanting within. If God's dreadful threatenings be sounded in their ears with a voice of thunder they hear it not; if Hell be set before their eyes in clear and visible representations, they see it not; if a scourge be laid on their backs their dead flesh feels it not.   

XXVI.  
'Tis a true and pithy proverb which is in use among the Levantines, that Heaven and Hell are seated in the heart of man. Every man is a little world within himself, and his soul is the scene and Theatre in which are represented, the Process of a Court of judicature, the pronouncing of a sentence of condemnation or Absolution, a binding and losing, and according to that award, an execution; in which, conscience (as in the former it sits as a deputy judge under God, so in this it) act's the Executioner; and there are in the Heart a Paradise of pleasure, streams of comfort on the one hand; on the other, a gibbet, fire and a rack. Doth not he find a Heaven within him, that hath that certain and sincere and untroubled happiness▪ those gleams of joy and refreshment which a good conscience is author of? Let popular noises, vulgar suffrages & opinions, outward commotions and attempts be what they will, they can no more disturb or raise a wrinkle in this inward calm and Pacifique Sea, or correct and restrain that transport of comfort that ariseth from the triumphs and applauses of Conscience, than all the thunderings and storms in the lower Regions can discompose the serenity of those which are above the stars: This made Paul and Silas sing in their prison, while the foundations of it were shaken by an earthquake. And doth not he carry a very Hell in his bosom, whose soul is rend and distorted with those convulsions of horror and terror, distracted, by those fearful amazements, pierced, by those sharp Agonies which a guilty conscience punisheth him with? Though he seek relief by diversion to worldly business. by consorting with merry society, by running for Sanctuary to false and flattering opinions, by rolling himself in his uneasy chain of fire; yet he may assoon forsake himself, as by all his Arts and methods get out of these suburbs of Hell.   

XXVII.  
OLd Ely who was so mild towards the notorious sacrileges, Adulteries and incests of his sons, of which all Israel rang, how uncharitably doth he misconstrue poor Hannah's devotion, and upon what a weak ground (only, seeing her lips move without noise) doth he build the heavy charge of drunkness against her: But afterwards perceiving his error, he recant's, and mole's his condemning Hannah into praying for her.  
Thus it often happens, that those who are most mildly indulgent to their own, are most sharply censorious of others (As the Hedgehog hath sharp prickles without, but is smooth and soft within: And the Snakes in Syria, do sting foreigners, but will not hurt any of the inhabitants, as some say.) He whose judgement is suborned or bribed by Affection to a too partial and soft Gentleness; will on the same account, where the subject is different, be as much warped and biased to a contrary extreme of a too unjust rigour: For the case is much altered with the persons that are concerned in it: If nature or affection be allowed to pass the sentence, and in judging offences to accept the persons of the offenders, the judgement must needs be partial: The same eye which was so bleared that it could not discern a beam in one case, will be so quicksighted as to spy a moat in the other. And how apt is hasty and in-considerate zealt to pass a grievous censure, where there is no other ground for it but mere misprision? Those that are too forward and rash in their reproofs before they have taken sufficient estimate of the ground on which they are to levelly them, are often guilty of a zealous breach of charity. Let me imitate Ely, not in committing but amending his fault, and if in my haste I have prejudiced or injured another by an unjust censure, let me not persist in my error, but be as unquiet till I have made satisfaction for my offence, as I was till I had committed it: Let me in cool blood make the best reparation I can for the wound I have given in my heat and distempered zeal.   

XXVIII.  
A Dr. Spigelius, 
Fab. Obser. Cent. 5.  that incomparable Anatomist, while (at the marriage of his only daughter) he was gathering up the broken relics of a Glass, it happened that a fragment of it scratched one of his fingers; but the hurt because of its seeming slighteness being neglected, created at last an inflammation which possessed his whole arm, and raised a swelling under it, and in the conclusion (though he might seem by his excellent skill in Physic to have command over death itself) by an Empyema brought him to his grave. Thus the least wound given to our souls by the smallest sin, if neglected and slighted may by degrees fester and gangreen into the intolerable torment of a wounded spirit: And the lightest hurt if we have not timely recourse to our spiritual Physician and to the balm of Repentance, may grow to our irremediable woe. If we wash not our wounds with our tears while they are fresh and make not speedy application of the plaster of Christ's blood, a scratch may soon contract such a purulency as may ripen it to an ulcer: Specially considering that the flesh of the mind (pardon the grosseness of the metaphor) is not easy to heal, being full of evil, corrupt, and morbific humours which will make the least hurt fester and rankle. Neither must we content ourselves with a palliative cure, a skinniug over the wound; for that leave's it securely to gather all superfluous and noxious humours to itself, as to an Abscessus, which will in the issue exulcerate and inflame the mind.   

XXIX.  
GOld in the Oar, as it newly comes out of the mine, before it hath passed through the fire, can hardly be discerned from stone or a piece of hardened earth; but yet when it hath felt the furnace, and is by it purged and separated from its dross, it comes out the most precious of metals; In somuch that the flames seem rather to make then purify the Gold. Many who before they were cast into the furnace of Affliction, had so much dross and impurity, and earthliness cleaving to them, that little of Heaven was discernible in them, come out of it wholly unlike themselves: That searching and penetrating flame, separateth the precious from the vile, divideth between them and those corruptions which are most closely and intimately combined with and embraced by their Spirits: They enter into the fiery trial earth, and come out Gold: This endue's them with that holiness and humility by which they are prepared for that high perfection of beauty and glory, which they shall be vested with when they enter that great and glorious city, whose streets are paved with pure Gold, and whose foundations and gates are precious stones. The hue and complexion of their souls who thus pass through the fire, is altered; they have abandoned and laid aside all their carnal adhaerency's, repaired the breaches of their consciences, the decays of their graces, their neglect of duties, their coldness in religious services: Though before they were bound and fettered by their lust, yet they come forth, (as the three children out of Nebuchadnezar's Furnace) free and at liberty.   

XXX.  
'TWas an inference that deserved laughter which one made, who reading in the subscription of some of S. Paul's Epistles, Missa fuit Romae, presently thence concluded that surely Mass was said at Rome in S. Paul's days. Pointz a Jesuit cries out, there's no hopes of prevailing with these Heretics because it was long since Prophesied of them. 2 Chron. 24. at illi Protestants noluerunt audire. ('Tis well (as one says) Protestant's were heard of in the old Testament as well as Jesuits, whose name by good hap one of them hath found out Numb 16. 24. even as Erasmus found Friars in S. Paul's time inter falsos fratres.) Many there are whose dictates are as little favoured by Scripture, and who are not ashamed to make as ridiculous a claim to its patronage: That will not bring their opinions to the word of God, but draw it to their opinions; and force their own sense out of it, with as much violence and torture, as that whereby Chemists endeavour to extract that out of Metals which God and Nature never put into them. Such would make the divine oracles (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) to speak to the patronising of their own interest; and would suborn God for a witness to their errors. As Caligula dealt with Jupiter's statue, taking off the head of it, and placing his own in the room, so they substitute the devices of their own brain in place of the sense of God's word. Yea, sometimes such interpretations and Glosses are given as do not only corrupt but contradict the Text, and that with as open and declared an enmity, as that of the Papists, when they make in one of their Pope's Canons by the word statuimus to be meant Abrogamus. Such might with greater show of reason pretend either to a new Revelation, or to have found what they deliver in some of those (spurious) writings, the Epistles of Paul to Seneca, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Acts of Paul and Tecla, etc. rather than in the Old or New Testament.   

XXXI.  
'TIs as strange as true what we are told of the Tarantula an Insect not unfrequent in Italy, that if it happen to bite any, usually with a wonderful fit of mirth and laughter by degrees they die away: And nothing but Music can cure them. A Viti saltus doth the like in those who are seized by it, their humours and spirits being so distempered, that they are continually dancing till death takes hold of them, and conclud's their comic mirth in a Tragical Catastrophe. Methinks the case of those is much the same who are bitten by that Infernal Serpent; All whose years are spent in mirth, and their days in laughter, but in a moment they go down unto the grave. Let us see a little how the humour work's, and look on the image of this spiritual Frenzy, and listen to this crackling of thorns. Let out hearts cheer us, say they, and let all care be extinguished in laughter; let a solemn aspect ne'er be entertained in our countenance, and let a sad look be perpetually banished: Let a serious speech be interpreted the raising a Mutiny against the reign of Mirth, a sigh be punished with manacles, and the dropping of a tear as the venting of a Pasquil: Let him that break's not out every way in jollity (like the wheel of a well-couched firework, that flies out on all sides) be baulked as a male content; as one that would blend and dash our wine with water, or that would corrupt the charms of our Music with discord. Let us own no care but how we shall multiply and vary our methods of delight; how to make the ensuing day glide away with more softness and jollity than his forerunner; how to sublime and exalt pleasure, & extract an Elixir from all the flowers in the Paradise of Delight; let us eat our bread with joy, and drink our wine with a merry heart, for there is nothing better than this: Let disports and Revels, feast and dalliance be our daily and nightly entertainments.  
Rejoice o young men in your youth, 
Eccl. 9 11.  and let your heart cheer you in the day of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes. But listen, and you shall hear a clap of thunder; Know that for all these things God will bring you to judgement. Your Joy is but a flash, your mirth vanisheth in the noise, your disports do but imp the wings of Time, your feasts are but Running banquets, short delights, your Ordinaries are pleasant, but the Reckoning is Ruin, your Dalliances do not embrace content, your Music is as empty as sound. What is the sum of your misery, the frolicksome excesses and extravagancy of your mirth are the Harbingers of anguish and sorrow; these symptoms are the Prognostics of destruction, the end of these things is death: Eternal wrath is entailed upon your momentany delights, and nothing can cut off the entail but an act of sovereign mercy: The Kisses of Pleasure (like Joabs to Amasa) are but a glozing to mask the conveyance of the Sword into your bowels. Surely that laughter well deserve's experienced Solomon's definition of Madness, which is thus the forerunner and symptom of destruction: 
Prov. 26. 18  Which (as he speaks elsewhere casts arrows and firebeands, and death, and all in sport.   

XXXII.  
WE read of Agrippina that the course she took to destroy her husband Claudius was, by tempering poison at a banquet with the meat which he most delighted in, 
Suet. Claud.  a Mushroom (boletum medicatum avidissimo talium ciborum obtulit.) And we know that what is venomous, being mingled with Wine, work's more furiously and incurably then with Water. The Devil's great business is, to search into our tempers, thoughts, inclinations and affections, that finding which way the pulse of our soul beates he may apply himself accordingly; that he may suit and attemper his temptations so, as most effectually to work on the humour that abound's most in us; that he may lay his poison in our daintyest dish; and bait his hook with what he is sure we will swallow with most eagerness▪ If he finds the heart bend upon Riches, he will present such a man a golden Idol for him to fall down unto (as Nebuchadnezar set up an Image of gold for his subjects to worship:) When he entered judas to hurry him to that horrid treachery, 'twas a silver Key that let him into his heart, and he knew that the Bag which he carried was so closely hugged by him, that poison would be best conveyed to him in a Cordial of gold. Are unclean and wanton desires accustomed guests to his soul? The Devil will be the Pander to his lust, and by effectual contrivances will so order things as that they shall fall in with the current of his affections: Thus he endeavoured to compass David's death by the poison of a look; & when he found Amnon's soul hot with this Fever, he by Ionadab's mouth inspire's a crafty fetch into his head of feigning himself sick, whereby he inveagled his sister. Hath pride and Ambition the throne in his heart? How doth the Devil sublime his thoughts, and raise them up to high and soaring hopes, engaging him in such designs as cann●t be compassed but by wading through deep and enormous sins: Thus Haman that he might engross the favour of his King, and shine with a lustre of glory free from that shadow which the contempt of an unbended knee seemed to eclipse it with, is drawn to contrive a cruel epidemic plot against the whole nation of the jews; and which proved in the upshot most fatal to himself in an advancement which his ambitious thoughts had never proposed to him.   

XXXIII.  
THe Universal Centre to which all the thoughts actions, and contrivances of Men, tend, the Point to which they are all directed is Contentment; this is the great Spring to all the various motitions of Mankind: And however distant and contrary their ways and courses, their inclinations and constitutions are, yet here they all meet and concentre in this one reconciling object: They do perhaps propound to themselves as several Idaea's thereof as they have different faces, but their desire is one and the same. Contentment is that which the Learned▪ seek's to attain in his industrious quest after knowledge, this Jewel the Merchant seeks in his dangerous voyages, the Ambitious in his passionate pursuit of Honour, the Covetous in his unwearyed heaping up of treasur●, the Lascivious in the pleasing charms of beauty, the Conqueror in his earnest desires after victory, the Politician in his deep designs and crafty knacks. But alas! The misery of men is that they would find that in the variety of the creatures, which is no where to be found but in the unity of the Creator. It is not in the Wise Solomon's dear bought Experience, in the Rich Fools full Barns, in ambitious Haman's state & Grandeur, in Ahab's ravished Vineyard, in Sampson's lovely Dalilah, in Nebuchadnezar's Rule over the World, in Achitophel's deep-pated Witt. It is peculiar to God's Wisdom to engross all content in his own hands that he may dispose of it by retail to the children of men, and enforce all, either to purchase it of him or want it. Hence it is that men generally waste themselves in desires, tyre themselves with labours, form new projects, and yet all this while spend their money for that which is not bread; and take up with glassebeads instead of that pearl of price. I condemn their desires as unjust, not because they are without prudence▪ No matter though they be unsatiable, if they were not blind and fixed on objects too scanty and disproportioned. God as he is the only Principle of Being, so he is the only Fountain of content; I will therefore desist from all vain, amazed and unsuccesful pursuits of it within the bounds of finite things where it is not to be found, and procure a Patent of it from him who hath reserved the Monopoly of it to himself.   

XXXIV.  
ONe says of Italy, 
Guevara.  that though in it there be a great many Sanctuary's to provoke and stir up to prayer, yet the people thereof have little or no devotion▪ And in this respect he compare's its condition to that of Bells, which call men to service & never enter into the Church themselves. Many there are who can teach others to know and practise that, which themselves have learned to know only not to practise: (Like Scheub●lius, that great Mathematician, but by Book only, not by Practice; who being required once in an Army to make use of his Quadrant, knew not the difference between, umbra recta, and umbra versa:) Whose lives and Doctrines are so little relative; that they are a downright contradiction to each other. Their precepts are a Directory for the way to heaven, but their examples if followed would lead to Hell. They never ruminated on that prudent advice of wise Solomon, if thou be wise, be wise for thyself; carrying their wisdom as birds do Meat to their young, not in their breasts but in their Beakes: Like the holy Paraemiast's slanderer, though they speak well yet there are seven Abominations in their heart: 
Prov. 26.  At the best they are but Fools that have learned to be wise by rote only, not for themselves, and their Clergy will scarcely save them at the tribunal of the Judge of all flesh who hath no other peculiar respect for him that knows his will & doth it not, but a greater number of stripes to reward his learned folly. Such, what they teach is good warrant for our practice, but what they do is unsafe Precedent for us to live by, because they say and do not. Where I meet this unhappy conjunction of a bad life and good Doctrine (a Light shining but not burning) the one may excite in me indignation & pity, but the other only merit's my practice (though we are all more apt to tread in the footsteps of Example than Precept, so Apish is our nature) what he saith well belongs to all, but what he doth ill should be left only to its Author as his crime, not followed by others as their rule.   

XXXV.  
THough our Laws make so great a difference between and elder and younger brother, that the elder hath assigned to him the main bulk of the estate; yet it doth not so entirely go into his propriety, but that the Father chargeth it with requisite provisions for the younger: The measure whereof if it be not determinately limited, the greater engagement his Father's confidence in him lays on him not to frustrate it by a too contracted and narrow dispensing. God who is the common Father of all, never so far either gratified the lusts or disregarded the indigency's of men, as by a large affluence to design an indulgence to the excess; and luxury's of some and in the mean while no way to provide for supply of the necessary wants of others: No, he hath given an Abundance to the Rich upon this Proviso that the Poor is to have his Dole out of it: God hath placed them in the midst of such Affluence not as Proprietary's but rather as Stewards, the things that are in their possession are not merely and entirely their own, though they have the dispensing power given them: And according to their Receipts so must be their disbursements, if they expect joy and reward at the last great Auditing of their Accounts. They are God's Almoners and must relieve the poor out of their surplusage. Though God's hand of Providence doth not deal out to the indigent their portion immediately, yet he hath given a right to be supplied out of the Largesses of the others. And the Scripture's silence in a punctual limiting the proportion of our charity and as it were trusting it to our hands should the more engage us, not treacherously to deceive that trust by scanty allotments: Forasmuch as thereby we not only detain the Rights of the Poor, and turn their Lot into instruments of supply of our pomp, excess or covetousness; and so sin against them; but also against God, in the unfaithful management of that Trust wherewith he engageth us to take care for a supply of that part of his family which is bare and needy.   

XXXVI.  
I Find it to be more hard to combat Pleasure then grief, and that I am more easily foiled by the insinuating and victorious nature of that, then overthrown by the open and harsh violence of this: For grief where it makes its onset can't hold any intelligence within me to facilitate a surprisal, but Pleasure hath a treacherous party in my bosom that have secret compliances with her, a thousand Passions that favour her Admittance and by all endeavours seek to frustrate my resistance: The soul barricado's itself against grief, and by all wards seeke's to keep off the fury of its assaults, but to pleasure it ly's open and naked, and upon saying siege or retrenchment, it soon hearken's to the summons; it admit's of Parlyes, Truces, Correspondency's, and Compliances here; whereas in the other war, it fight's it out to the last, without quarter; that is like the strife between the Torrent and the Dam, always struggling to force one another, but this is like that between Wind and Tide, which sometimes strive, sometimes come about and are both of aside. The will keep's it's forces firmly united and closely conjoined when she enters the lists with that; but when Pleasure is to be resisted they are divided and dissipated and not easily rallied. The soul's resolution will not be born down by force, but it gently serrender's to the delight that would corrupt it: It soon comes to a Treaty here but the stormings of grief it firmly opposeth. Therefore I will adventure to pronounce it, though it be a bold Aphorism that it is more easy to live on the dunghill of job with patience, then in the midst of Solomon's great affluence and soft contents with moderation: Those paths washed with butter (as the Scripture phraseth it) must needs be more slippery, and rank, than the way that hath blocks and crosses in it, or that is strewed with the salt of affliction.  
Surely if we go out upon an Inquest, and retrieve the examples of those, who have marked the way's that lead to destruction with their blood, we may return with that in our mouths. Adversity hath slain her thousands, but prosperity her ten thousands. 
D. Balcanq let. from Dort.  King James once ask a Gentleman of note, what the people talked of the Spanish Navy, was answered, Sir, the people is more afraid of the Spanish match, then of the Spanish Powder. I more fear Satan's kind offers and courting addresses, than his hostile attempts.   

XXXVII.  
IT may be observed that our Saviour sometimes where the beams of his Deity have broken forth doth strait cast a cloud over them and shut up his great and Divine miracles with, See you tell no man: He will not permit his glory to appear in its full and unalloyed lustre, but draw's a Curtain upon it. How far different from this is the Spirit of many we meet with, whose only desire is that they may dazzle the eyes of others with their splendour; who would have all they do taken notice of and set on Record, and esteem that treasure to be as good as not possessed and enjoyed which is unknown: That look on a virtuous modesty only as a fine innocent qualification, serving a little to commend and set off a man under the defect of more real merits: They desire always to be on the stage, and to be acting some part that may procure them some renowned Title: Glory is the Centre to which all their actions are directed, and they care not how crooked the lines they draw and paths they proceed in are, so they all concentre in this. Their great aim is to gain Admiration; and that I may so far gratify them, I will wonder at them, but it shall be only because of the folly and vanity of their humour; it were a wrong to ourselves to envy them, because they are indeed below deserving it, or to pity them, because they think themselves above meriting it. In truth, they are but the wonder of fools, and the fools of wise men. Christian modesty teacheth a prudent man, not to expose himself to the greatest advantage of view, nor to live at the highest rate of his value: Some Talents are best improved when laid up: And solid and true esteem and reputation grows the more by being suppressed. Many a rich mine is enclosed in the entrails of the earth, and many a fair Pearl ly's in the Sea's womb which never came to view, or shall come.   

XXXVIII.  
THey who indulge themselves the divertisement of reading Romantic stories & fables, do experience, that though they know all to be false and fictitious, yet many times they can't hold from having as violent Passions as if it were true; and as if they saw that really before their eyes, which they are sure is but painted: Sometimes they are under a transport of Joy, sometimes of Sorrow, as it pleaseth the Romancer to tell his story of good or unhappy fortune: They are in fears when extremity of danger is represented, and in hopes when a good issue of the matter seems to open itself, and that with as lively a sense, as if they were in good earnest interessed in the Affair: And though still they can reflect on all as the dreams and fancies of another man, yet when they find themselves so truly afflected they are ready to think them their own proper concernments. This plainly evidenceth what vain, irrational things our Passions for the most part are: How eager and vehement they may be in the pursuit of that which is as empty as shadows and dreams: And it would be a good Lesson from this Experience to learn how little we are to trust their Impostures and the Representations of our deceitful Fancy's there, where the matter is of a more concerning and weighty nature: It being an approved Rule in Prudence, never to trust those entirely who have deceived us, though but once. How great folly is it in us, to permit ourselves to the hurry, of these blind and hoodwinked, yet impetuous guides? In this instance likewise, methinks we have an insight into the misery & unhappiness of our Natures, what a strange & secret violence Sense exerciseth over Reason; what a tyrannical power Passion usurpeth in the Soul: How extremely contagious the neighbourhood of the inferior faculty, the Imagination, is to the higher and more refined the understanding part of the soul: Certainly, there is in man more of the earth out of which he was taken and framed, then of that living spirit which was breathed into his nostrils: there's more body than soul in this proud creature which think's himself created to have dominion over all others.   

XXXIX.  
SAint Paul when he was breathing out threatenings and committing Murders in the high road-way to damnation, was met by God, & by a sudden arrest made stand, thrown off his horse, and forced to surrender up his heart heart▪ Sometimes God set's a stop to a sinner in his hottest career, when he is (like that Son of Nimshi) driving furiously, and break's his course on a sudden while in his full speed: His proceedings in this work are not always gradual and leisurely, but he delight's sometimes by a speedy rescue to recover those entirely that were deeply sunk into the jaws of Hell; and by a mighty surprise to bring them on their knees to beg for peace whose hearts are full of rage and war against Him and his Laws, so that the suddeness of the work may seem to anticipate all previous promptness, dispositions, and inclinations to good. How soon do we find the Jailor (Acts. 16.) anointing those wounds which a little before his own scourge had inflicted on the Apostles: And that proling extorting Publican Zaccheus from a grinder of the faces of the poor is on a sudden become a charitable refresher of their bowels.   

XL.  
QUeen Elizabeth before she came to her Crown, being kept in restraint as a Prisoner, happened to hear a simple Milkmaid sing cheerfully in the field, while herself was more inclined to sadder Airs of sighing, then singing; which occasioned her to say, that that poor maid was happier than herself. Peace and freedom of heart and contentment is more often to be found in a cottage then under a high and magnificent roof: The greatest outward splendour and pomp cannot secure against misfortune, or give one night's sleep (though it do disturb many) or satisfy any appetite of reason or nature or religion; all which the meanest fortunes may afford. Worldly glory and grandeur only make it possible for a man to be made more profoundly and extremely miserable: It is the unhappy Privilege of being advanced to a great height that it makes a man liable to a greater and more sadly calamitous fall (As the Shell fish is carried up by the Eagle high into the air, only that he may be the more surely broken in the casting down.) A great condition is exposed to great crosses and misfortunes; but rags and a mean fortune can have but small ones. However, it is certain that greatness of state is but a great vanity; and high fortune is nothing but danger, trouble▪ and temptation. I would rather choose a mediocrity then the highest condition: There I am high enough where I can best stand upright, and where my fall can be lest miserable & dangerous.  
Fata si liceat mihi  
Fingere anbitrio meo,  
Temperem Zephyro levi  
Vela, ne pressae gravi  
Spiritu autennae tremant. etc.  Sen. Oed. Act. 4.  

XLI.  
IT is storied of Primislaus first King of Bohemia that being raised from a very mean birth to that top of dignity, he always kept his country shoes by him to mind him from whence he took his rise to that advancement, and prevent pride and insolence. And we know Agathocles would always have his table furnished with earthen vessels in memory of his being raised from a Potter to be King of Sicily. Methinks every man carries that about with him that might temper and allay his pride and vanity were his advancement never so high, either in external things, honour, and riches, or internal endowments gifts and accomplishments of mind; were he no stranger to that great and necessary work of selfreflection: For let him consider his Extraction, his soul was drawn out of nothing, and his body form out of the slime of the ground, a clod of earth kneaded into humane shape: If he would think on his relations, corruption is his Father, and the worm his mother and sister (J●b. 17. 14.) Surely that man must needs forget his rise, and alliances, that entertain's pride and vain glory; and he need only study and mind himself to learn to be humble.   

XLII.  
IT hath been a matter of no small debate where Paradise was situated; some placing it beyond an immense Ocean, others by an extravagant fancy have made a room for it near the Moon's Orb, some in the third region of the air, others have set it under the Aequinoctial, most in or about Mesopotamia: But the enquiry is as fruitless as it is curious; and the certainest determination we have of it, is that which placeth it in Terra incognita, I mean out of the Sphere of our knowledge. All the Paradise that now the Scripture speaks of is that third heaven into which S. Paul was rapt. I will not employ myself to seek where that Paradise was which we lost, while I know where that is which I must busy myself to seek. Our sin set the guard of the Cherubins and flaming Sword at the entrance of that, and hath since spoiled and defaced its glory; our Saviour hath opened a free passage to this, and hath prepared it for a reenstatement of us in happiness; and this which our second Adam hath purchased doth in as great a portion surpass that which the first Adam lost, as the highest heavens do excel the beautifullest and richest earth: For that Paradise was but as a transient representation and type shadowing forth the much more exceeding and abiding glory of this our heaven.   

XLIII.  
IT is observable in what manner the contention between Abraham's herdsmen and Lot's is related Gen. 13. 7. and there was a strife between Abraham's herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle (and immediately follow's in a strange seeming dependence at first blush) and the Cananite and Perezite dwelled in the land: Which surely the Spirit of God inserted as no small aggravation of the unseasonableness of the strife, that they should fall out and quarrel while the Heathens lived so near them and were looking on, and so expose their Religion to contempt and reproach. How great an aggravation have our dissensions and differences received from the neighbourhood of those that are Adversary's to the Truth who have delighted themselves to look on, and see our scuffles, and have clapped their hands at the sport, saying Aha, so would we have it▪ from hence also taking occasion to reproach and vilify our Religion. As S. Paul says of speaking with several tongues, 
1 Cor. 14. 23.  would not he that comes in say you are mad? So when those that are without hear of so many dissensions and brawls such jangling opinions among us, will they not think us mad? They will not easily be induced to believe there is a Church or Temple of God building, where there is such a noise and clatter of knocking of hammers & iron instruments. Surely Zion can as ill be built with discord of Hearts as Babel could with discord of tongues. God is not wont to be in the whirlwind of dissensions and uproars but in the still voice: And that Heavenly Dove the H. Ghost, like the Halcyon build's his nest only in a calm. Though the garment of the King's daughter the Church be of divers colours, though there be variety of gifts, yet it should be like Christ's garment without seam; in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit. Lines the nearer they approach to the Centre the nearer they come to one another, and those are at greatest distance from God who are furthest off from one another in uncharitable differences.  
But have the Canaanite and the Perezzite been merely lookers on, or have they not had an other interest in the strife, by strong and secret influences causing and fomenting differences and contentions, and kindling sparks into a flame? Surely the hand of Joab hath been in all this matter: To this sour of tares we are in great part to impute the stirs and disturbances which new Disciplines, new Doctrines, Sects and Schisms have raised among us: Who hath been diligent in improving that rule in the machiavellian Politics, Divide & impera, making divisions & disuniting that he may bring the broken parties more easily under his own Mastery.  
Let the words of my mouth & the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and Redeemer. Ps. 19    

READER, THat the remaining pages might not be left vacant and naked, I have inserted a Poem, which I entreat thee to receive with the same Candour, with which I desire thou wouldst accept the rest.  
THE SOULS' VALEDICTION TO THE WORLD.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I desire to be dissolved, Phil. 1▪ 2 3. 
COme Death, and antedate thy blow;  
Why are thy Chariot wheels so slow?  
Is Time grown slug? or hast no dart  
To smite through such a willing heart?  
Oh! that some kind and wished disease  
Would hast my unexpired release;  
That Agues shake, Cholick's wind  
And Dropsy's water were combined  
To make this claiey Cotte to fall,  
And storm it's too well tempered Wall;  
Or that a Feaver's Fire would burn  
And turned to ashes for my Urn▪  
What's Life? a span of nought but trouble,  
Less, like its Hieroglyphic Bubble,  
In frailty then in emptiness;  
It's real Ills have no redress  
But by the shadows of false Joys:  
It's Good's exceeded by alloyes  
Of much more numerous misery:  
Nor doth 't in Equinoctial lie  
Of night of Grief and day of Pleasure;  
It drinks in Sorrow in large measure,  
But tastes of Joy; it gleans of this,  
Of that its fertile Harvest is.  
Now Hope deceives, then double Doubt  
And base fear do justle'tout:  
Now griefs disturb, and cares divide,  
Now passions blind, and errors guide.  
Had my life by Methus'lems' fate  
Ten Ages thrown into one date,  
My sorrows would renew, till death,  
As oft as I renew my breath.  
I'm weary of the World, and can  
Not relish more its husks and bran.  
How doth this grand Impostor cheat  
Blind mortals, giving stones for meat,  
Scorpions in lieu of fish, and Air  
In stead of food, Chamaeleo'ns' fare!  
How doth she trash obtrude for treasure,  
For true delight counterfeit pleasure!  
She makes her bastard bullion price  
To barter for rich Merchandise,  
(As foolish Indians are deceived  
For Beads to be of Gold bereved.)  
Go, rifle her Exchange, and there  
Thou'lt find but toys and trifling ware:  
Ransack her Chequer, and thou It see  
Dross and adulterate coins there be.  
The temptingst fruit sour relish leaves,  
And at the rotten Core deceives:  
The fairest Apples thou canst cull  
Vanish to cinders if thou pull.  
Every grain of Gold hath Clay  
Mixed with't, and pounds of base allay.  
What poison and what mortal Ills  
Men swallow under guilded Pills!  
Vain pleasures do but so content  
Our feverish minds, as to torment  
The more, improving hot desire  
To a more fervent ravenous fire;  
As waters in a Hectic please  
Greedily swallowed with false ease,  
But the deceit of that relief  
Is followed with redoubled grief.  
Blithe mirth, and unctuous delights,  
Days spent in jollity▪ and nights  
In downy soft reposes be  
Sirenian baits, and vanity  
That fair and slattering Gloss doth borrow;  
Specious and complemental sorrow.  
When will my thread of life be spun!  
Time shake thy Glass, thy sands don't run;  
The wings of Hours unpinioned are  
Else sure they'd move more swift by far.  
Oh that I might find heavens ears  
Not proof to th' Rhetoric of my tears:  
That 't would no longer me deny  
The easy privilege to die!  
A thousand drags and nets are cast,  
And Stratagems and Engines placed,  
To circumvent poor mortals way,  
Who, had Hell no Arts to betray,  
No sleights or force, too prone do  
By inward promptness Death pursue.  
What treachery, what traps and snares  
The world hides in her smiles or tears!  
Do charming looks smooth up her face?  
She would but kill by an Embrace:  
Or if the Crocodile do weep,  
Purpose of death she still doth keep.  
How oft by kind and fond address,  
By glozing words and fair caresse,  
Hath she attempted me, and I  
Alas! too often did comply:  
My easy soul too oft did yield  
Her sovereign conquering look the field:  
But soon I found that I was led  
By fair speech to a Bankrupt bed.  
Her strong Protests of pleasures great  
Raised hopes but to a sad defeat.  
The Honey (I remember't well)  
Had in't a taste of Death and Hell;  
And every traitorous kiss bred smart,  
Masking a sword aimed at the Heart.  
All her sweets had bitter closes,  
Thousands of thorns did guard her Roses.  
Her Gems were flaring glass I found,  
When viewed in a full light all round.  
Oh that my Leases date were here  
Determined, and that slight debt were  
To Nature paid! this Tenement's woe  
My inmate soul would fain forgo,  
'tis a small boon, an easy suit,  
No great Alms; Oh that heaven would do't  
Alas! how I'm divided here  
Amphibious 'twixt hope and fear!  
Now hopes do raise, and Joys tie in;  
Then fears deject, and griefs begin.  
Now faith absolves, and love inflames,  
Then guilt condemns, and folly shames.  
Now heaven shines, and clear light guides;  
Then errors darken, doubt divides.  
Alas! my actions all are stained  
By flesh, and every word profaned  
By sinful and corrupted breath,  
And every thought doth merit death.  
How oft my labouring Mind would dart  
Desires to heaven from my heart,  
But heavy clogs do drag it back.  
And make its strong endeavours slack.  
Oft have I spread my ready wing  
(As Larks when going to soar and sing)  
And thought to mount a pitch as fair  
As ever towering Hawk i'th' air;  
But flesh's leash and tiresome weight  
Did check and soon restrain my flight.  
How wavering and unconstant is  
My heart: how apt to leave its bliss  
In wild persuits! how apt to change!  
How often doth the vagabond range!  
Maugre the fetters and the ties  
Of all my vows, my watchful eyes,  
The discipline of my strict care,  
'tis often gone ere I'm aware.  
At the bright flame of golden Trash,  
At Honour's every glittering flash,  
At Pleasure's wanton fires, my mind  
Too ready to dissolve I find;  
And melting like to easy wax,  
To break resolves as threads of flax.  
These Ills that are upon my breath  
Entailed, nought can cut off but Death;  
Oh that 'twould charitably smite  
This breast that opes so fair a white!  
Would the salt humour of mine eyes  
(Like Aquafortis) break the ties  
And chains that shackle me, I'd vie  
Floods with the boundless Sea, and die.  
Oh! might I have so full a fight  
Of Heaven as by strong rapture might  
Oppress my weak mortality,  
And stretch my heart strings, till that I  
Do feel them break a passage free  
For my glad soul unlinkd to flee  
On flaming chariot of Desire!  
Oh! I'd rejoice thus to expire,  
And in these beams my Death to find,  
To cinders Phoenix like calcind.  
Or that by large and lavish grief  
While wooing heaven for death's relief  
In silent tears (tears without noise  
Are louder languaged than a voice)  
My heart might quite dissolve and melt,  
Till in the swelling stream I felt  
My soul to make its vent, and fly  
Wasted to Heaven in one great Sighs.  
FINIS.