Imprimatur,  
Geo. Thorp Reverendissim P. D. Gulielmo Archiep Cant. A Sacris Domesticis April 16. 1679.   

ESSAYS Divine AND MORAL.  
By Bridgis Nanfan, Esquire.  
LONDON,  
Printed for William Leach at the Crown in Cornhill, near the Stock-market. 1680.   

To the Right Reverend Father in God, William, Lord Bishop of S. David's.  
My LORD,  
THe World hath such a Veneration for your Lordship, that but to affix your Name here, gives an ennoblement to what of its self is altogether immeriting. I do not a little glory in the honour of your Friendship, and that in the perusal of these Papers you have been pleased to give them a valuation. I do now with more than ordinary assurance let them see light, since influenced by your favour, and warranted by so true an understanding.  
My Lord, Divinity is not my Province, and in a dissolute age may seem less fashionable: but the most unconcerned person, when he comes to make a retreat into himself, will leave to turn devotion into Ridicule, and find piety his best security. Heights of this nature are not within my Talon; what I have most, reached at hath been the gracefulness of expression, otherwise unfit to approach your Lordship. I know no reason but that composures of this kind should put on all the lustre we can dress them with, to beget Inamoratos, since their intrinsic beauty hath in this purblind world so little attraction.  
My Lord, 'tis usual in Dedications to celebrate the persons we address to; but your Lordship hath so often drawn yourself to the life, that a rude Pencil would seem but to disfigure the fair Lineaments your inimitable hand hath fashioned. To enumerate your Lordship's perfections were too bold an undertaking, and (where they are so eminently known) were to set up a Taper to the Meridian Sun. Besides (but by paying your Lordship a fitting observance) I should offend your humility, of which you are a great example. Though the Copy seldom reaches the original, yet that all persons would endeavour such perfection, is hearty wished by him, that desires to continue the honour of styling himself,  
My Lord, Your Lordship's most Obedient Humble Servant, Bridgis Nanfan▪   

These following Essays are,  

1. De Sanctitate Matutinâ. Ecless. 12.1.  
2. De Humanâ Fragilitate. Job 14.1.  
3. De Passione Christi in Corpore proprio. Lament. 1.12.  
4. De Passione Christi in corpore mystico seu de cruce piorum. 2. Cor. 4.17.    

ESSAYS Divine and Moral, etc.  

ESSAY I De Sanctitate Matutinâ.  ECCLES. 12.1. 
Remember now thy Creator in the Days of thy Youth.  
AN Elegant Subject receives no illustration from the faint colours laid on by a rude hand. The Pencil of the greatest Statist fits best to beautify the noblest actions. What nobler action, than to chalk out the intricate Labyrinth to an eternity of bliss? A skilful Pilot he must needs be that steers through this Hellespont.  
2. The sure Lantern of the glorious Gospel must be eminently placed, while we pass this straight, when so many with winged Sails make to the heavenly Ophir, yet for want of the true Card of God's illuminating spirit to direct them, or fainting by the way, when they cross the line of persecution, few make a rich return of their labour.  
— Pauci quos aequus amavit  
Jupiter, at que arden's evexit ad aethera virtus.  
None then so fit to keep steady the erring World, as old Solomon, who had not only God (the Infallible Word) to dictate to him, while he dropped this Precept, but the Firm of Heaven set to a Transcript of a full Series of Experience, from the rising to the setting of his Age. He could in the liveliest colours delineate unto us the exorbitances of our Juvenile fervours, who had the Malady thereof as a Quotidian Ague.  
3. This Magus could also best state the unwieldiness of frosted Age to ring an hourly Devotion, when the Wheels and Master-springs are rusty and out of order, and its imbecility to raze those strong Fortifications Satan (that subtle Engineer) cunningly builds to annoy us; when he, who had wisdom to an astonishing excellency, could not repulse the temptations spun with the fingers of the softer Sex, but must, in scorn of the ever living God, go worship Ashtoreth, the Goddess of the Sydonians.  
Remember now thy Creator.  
That's the burden of his Song: all the rest of the strings are wound up to tune with this. Good God so dispose our hearts and hands to beat the time, that our souls, with so sweet an harmony, so Angelical a Diapason, may be ravished into an heavenly ecstasy.  
Before the glimmering spark of our devotion be absolutely extinguished, he puts in this seasonable Memento, as a bellows to blow it into a new flame.  
4. This is the Antidote that cleanseth and purifieth our blood, poisoned with the envenomed arrow of our sins. Those Seraphic thoughts are the pearled dews, Ambrosial showers, that water, and refresh us, when we are almost dried up, and withered: Those Arabian winds (rich in their Perfumes) that fan and cool our spirits scorched with the raging heat of lust and concupiscence. When the ghastly visage, haggish Ghost of sin affrights us, one drop distilled from this Alembick, and carefully thrown on the faces of our consciences, presently inspirits those parts, which before only wanted the decent ceremony of a Winding Sheet. When we are sung asleep with Satan's Lullabys, when, in the midnight of a besotted Lethargy, he carries his dark Lantern to fire this train, here's the Curfue that rings the Alarm, that with full buckets of repentant tears we may timely extinguish the spreading flames, before they lay hold on the rotten buildings of our souls.  
5. They who went to the Cave of Trophonius, to consult the Oracle, drank of two Rivers; Lethe at the entering in, Mnemosyne at the going forth; that, by the operation of the one, they might purge their thoughts of such delectations, as they had given too free a Welcome to; by the other, enshrine in their breasts what that adored Deity deigned them the knowledge of. So when we make our Applications to Heaven, consult that sacred Oracle, we must not only memorise him, as the great Architect of the Universe, as God from all Eternity, but we must clear our remembrance of all Dregs and Lees, the issue of our foul Impieties, of such poisonous Cates as discolour the easy tinctured complexion of our souls, with this cooling Julip put out the fire of our Concupiscence, with this Opiate deaden and stupefy our enraged affections.  
Good and evil, like fire and water, have repugnant qualities, will not body together, but like an Exhalation, break.  
6. How then can we contemplate our Creator as a pure Essence, but we must abominate our own beastiality? How can we remember him as a just Judge, without trembling at the Bar of his Justice, and putting in the merits of our Saviour, as our surest Plea? Or take in Ideas of an allseeing eye, without ransacking the inmost Cells, and Meanders of our hearts, for the casting out those Devils, those Impieties that have lain so long leiger? They must be thus exorcised before we can fashion an entertainment, garnish the best lodgings in our souls, give a respectful audience to those tutelary Angels, to that Legatus à latere, Christ Jesus himself.  
In the Reign of Tiberius it was judged an heinous crime in Paulus the Praetor, for taking a Chamber-pot in his hand, when he wore a Ring that had the Engravement of Caesar.  
7. It must needs then be an offence of a deeper, die (after we have once lodged God in our hearts) instead of Myrrh and Cassia (incense of a pure life) to make him nauseate those dwellings with the ordure and filth of corrupt affections.  
This is a Catholicon, a Medicine for all diseases. When we are entangled with macerating cares, the thoughts of a true and powerful friend clears the mind of its disturbances, builds a confidence in us equal to a victory: so though misfortunes, like violent Surges, roll in upon us; yet if the Heavens be serene, that we have but a gleam of our Maker, such beams, such coruscations issuing from his grace, dispel all Mists and Fogs that incurtain our souls, brighten every affliction, make every wound and scar received in his warfare, marks of honour and beauty.  
8. The Ancient Hebrews would memorise on their Gates and Porches, the favours the Lord had been pleased, at any time, to confer upon them. Such gentle dews of acknowledgement, exhaled from us by God, are showered down in whole Cataracts of Love and Bounty. If such gratitude in Heaven, that a cup of cold water given in the name of Christ, ushers in a sure Reward; shall we, who have not activity to inspirit the meanest action without the Master-spring of God's Omnipotent Power, satiate ourselves with the affluence his goodness affords us, and not give a retribution of thanks? Shall he, that form all, find only a repugnancy in him, whose reason (as an Heavenly Intelligence) should sit on the Sphere of his active abilities, to give them perfect motion.  
Remember now thy Creator.  
9 This the Persian Decree that cannot be reversed, the first word of command given unto the Young Soldiers, fight under the Banner of the Church Militant. This ranks our thoughts and affections, that they run not into disorder. These few words make● us, more than Archimedes, to take the transcendent height of Heaven; and though but a ladder of few rounds, yet when we ascend the uppermost step, our heads are reared above the Clouds, where we look upon the great Magnificoes of the World, as so many Antics below us, dancing Galliards to no better Music than what pleasure and vanity, as so many deceitful Sirens, sing us.  
10. Is it not time therefore to sound a retreat to such, that run a full career in pursuit of their own vanities, with this excellent piece of Scripture?  
Remember now thy Creator.  
Let such learn to put by insinuating pleasures with that brave resolved answer, Hippolytus gave to the enchantments of an alluring Siren,  Procul impudicos corpore à casto amove Tactus— 
Shall we throw the remembrance of him behind us, who made himself the Pattern to mould us into so enamouring a shape; whose hands (as Saint Basil hath it) were to man as a Womb, ennobled that shape with a soul (though clogged with the rags of flesh,) journeys from East to West, rides about the Circumference, descends to the Centre, ascends to the top of the Universe, posts from Earth to Heaven in a moment.  
11. And when (like foolish Schoolboys) we had rob God's Orchard of that Fruit impaled with his own mandate, and so heaped coals of fire upon our own heads; though by this we had sunk ourselves to the lowest abyss of misery, yet would he not (like friends that take their farewell with our felicity) leave us forlorn; but rather than we should eternally perish, and so cancel the benefit of our Creation, tore a limb of the Deity, made a divorce between God and God, betwixt himself and his beloved Son, that he might be a Sacrifice for so grand an offending. When he had thus repaired the old defacements caused by Adam, new minted, coined us full of Glories, steering us from a troubled Sea into safe harbour, this Watchman that slumbereth not, still kept Sentinel knowing, the storm being once allayed, we would put our weatherbeaten Vessels to Sea again.  
12. This not all (though sufficient to engage our remembrance) but every Creature (the riches of Nature) made by the hands of the Almighty, kneaded of the same Elements, and only beholden to man for their names, are so subservient, as to pay themselves to him, as constant Tribute. I need not take care to put more weight into God's balance, when the least mite of his favour will at any time turn the Scale of our best: deservings, but join wonder with the Psalmist, What is man that thou art so mindful of him, or the Son of man that thou so regardest him?  
But let us not, Fata fugiendo in fata ruere; while we hale off the Sands, fall foul on the Rocks; to prevent a forgetfulness of our Maker take such boldness with this Superspiritualis spiritus (styled so by Damascen) as one friend will with another. The Effigies of him, whose endeeredness to us hath merited some extraordinary value, is commonly drawn in the liveliest colours, set in the most obvious and eminent place, that we may enjoy a living show for a dead substance.  
13. But this great and terrible Jehovah, glorious in his incomprehensible Attributes, whose sacred name I adore afar off, not daring to approach but with a prostrate countenance, much more with a rude Pencil venture at his Dimensions, who is great without quantity, and good without quality; can he be circumscribed with lines, whose Centre is every where, and Circumference no where? Who spans the Poles with his fingers, and holdeth the whole World in his fist? Shall fading colours set forth the glory of his countenance, who is clothed with light as with a garment? With what eyes shall we behold this Father of light, when the face of his servant Moses carried too radiant a lustre for the Israelites to behold without a darkening Veil?  
14. Nay, by what measures shall we estimate the Creator, when the Creature itself, the Sun (a Creature without so much as Vegetation) appears too resplendent for the eye of man to fix on without dropping a tear, as a repentance for his boldness? But then let hot sullenness have that predominancy over us, because we cannot see beyond our Horizon, have a full draught of his ineffable Majesty, refuse to know so much as we can. Without unravelling the ruffled skein of the Trinity, we may comprehend that, which may be the material cause of our salvation. To remember him as our Creator, and (in the acceptance of his Son's merits) our Redeemer, as one that by day goeth before us in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire, is a Sphere large enough for man's narrow soul to Intelligence.  
To make this a Complete Chain, we must add another link to it; In the days of our Youth.  
Remember thy Creator, in the days of thy Youth.  
15. That easily rated to us we commonly strike into a bargain, not omitting the Golden Opportunity of purchasing. Can more triumphant glory, with such exceeding cheapness, be set before us than this Clum Empyraeum, this Heaven of Heavens, purchased only with the Remembering our Creator, in the days of our Youth?  
¶ Certainly it was a Noble show to have seen Rome (Queen of the World) when her victorious Captains made their entry in their Triumphal Garments, crowned with the Spoils of Kingdoms, attended by Princes, and Potentates, Ensigns, and Trophies of their glorious Conquests.  
16. Alas, it was but a Poppet-shew, at best but fantastic Pageantry, to those superexcellent things of the New Jerusalem, which cannot be deciphered but in part, when our bodies are glorified; because we cannot see to the end of eternity, shall never be able to  the plenitude of its glories, and rich beatitudes; because we shall never have experience of their termination, have that duration, that a thousand years are but as one day, of such an everlastingness, as that of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Merciful Lord give us that holy longing of Saint Augustine; To see that head which was crowned, and those hands which were pierced, to purchase for us such inestimable glories, that have an incomprehensibility above all admigration.  
It is observed that Saint Paul, after that he had been rapt up into the third Heaven, and there seen the wonders thereof, and heard things unutterable, put a very low valuation upon any thing that was terrene ever after.  
C. 1. Since our encouragement is so great, our Trophies for victory over sin and Satan shall be so full of Pulchritude, so glorious, let us not post off our repentance to a dying hour, that must of necessity be an early Sacrifice, but strike while the Iron is hot, in the fervour of our Age. Though he paid some that came at the last hour, equally with those who endured the whole heat of the day, and shown them eminent mercy, when the cracked glass of old age hath been dropping the last sand; yet know we not whether the fatal Sisters will draw out the thread of our life to a greater length, or that God (whose lenity may be abused) will accept our dull spectacle services, when the evil days are upon us, we refusing him the choicest oblations of our youth.  
This portion of Scripture (pardon the compareson) is the Brazen Head that tells us, Time is. If we have not the Wedding Garment on when the Bridegroom calls, we shall not have admittance into the Bridal-Chamber.  
2. Such as repudiate Christ in the lustre of Youth, in their Meridian of Glory, shall receive a retaliation, when that Vermilion proves adulterate.  
Christ's Spouse the Church is fair, and hath no spot in her, not bleer eyed, not palsie-headed, but comely, as the Tents of Kedar, and as the Curtains of Solomon. So that, if we will match with Christ, we must bid the Banns while our Roses are fragrant; when we are young, and pulpy, that the Seal of God's Grace may stamp the more lively. Signature on us.  
When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his Son Isaac, (a straight command for the Father to bathe his hands in his Son's gore; nay, Isaac his only Son, Isaac whom he loved) yet Abraham's ready performance shall be the echo to God's call, and will as attentively receive his orders for the slaughtering his Son, as his Wives Sarah's for the impregnating her Handmaid Hagar, as 'tis manifest in his early rising to offer up this piece of himself, as sweet incense unto the Lord.  
3. Out of this old Cistern we may draw forth living waters, and we Children learn of this Father of many Nations; betimes, in the dawning of our age, rise from our downy beds of sin, to glorify our Maker, and those endeared pleasures (as so many dalilah's,) that enervate and disable us from combating with Satan (that great Leviathan) we must depose, unthrone, before they subject us to a vassilage.  
The pestilence soon deflowers the fairest complexion, and an inconsiderable disease in our Nonage makes the Lilies look pale and wan, blasts the Roses in our cheeks, and every where gives a sallow tincture to what before appeared pure and sanguine. Now this of the mind holds the same parallel with that of the body. The first stage of our life is the most dangerous for giving and receiving temptations: Every vice, like a Courtesan, tricked up in the loveliest attire, makes its address, and rather than this tinsel stuff shall want vent, that subtle Impostor, the Devil, brings in all the Precedents and Plead of Nature.  
4. Speaks to us in our own Dialect, robed with the fairest blandishments and graces of speech; leaves out no artifice or flourish to make his Oratory persuasive; tells us, to meditate on Heaven is but a fit of Melancholy, the dumpish thoughts of Mortality carry a harsh and jarring sound to our sprightly spirits, such wrinkled severity, such grey headed Meditations, knit no Rosaries, make no fit Chaplets to crown our budding Age; our Understanding is not yet settled, our Judgement but in the blossom; so great a work ought to have a serious and well weighed deliberation, which in youth must needs be disturbed with Objects of a brighter lustre; persuades us only than 'twill be seasonable to hang the Chambers with black, set up a grim Skeleton, dress the Closets and Windows with bundles of Cypress, when the marrow of our bones is drunk up, when we have lopped off the excrescencies of an exuberant fortune, when weariness and diseases call froward and sullen Age to its retirement.  
5. At what time soever a sinner doth repent: Here we have God's Word for it, that any time serves his turn. Why then should we rifle youth of his solace, make meager the plumpness and fairness of our body with fasting and penance, when we may beguile the night's tedioussness with revelling, and far delicioussly every day? Why should we put on Sackcloth and Camels hair, when we may wear Tiara's on our heads, fine linen and a Tyrian Robe upon our bodies? roll ourselves in dust and ashes, in penitential tears, and heart breaking sorrows; when we may 〈◊〉 down in beds of Ivory, bathe our Bodies in Egyptian Liquors, and besmear our braided Locks with Nard? Why should we not drown the sound of a bold Boanerges (who denounces nothing but black and dismal portents) with amorous Songs, and heart ravishing Ditties, chanted by Quires of beautiful Sirens?  
6. Assoon as he hath thrown water (drawn out of the Stygian Lake) on those glowing Embers, beaten down those vapours that were only dancing in this lower Region, and for want of an heavenly influence could not ascend higher, to be at a greater certainty, shows us all the glories of the World, carries us (according to our Saviour's usage) from the Pinnacle of the Temple, to an exceeding high Mountain, from an affection, a lust of a lesser growth, to one of a greater maturity; knowing that his intoxicating cup (Philtre like) assures him our amours, that these adulterate delectations set out in the richest embroidery, have a fascination irresistible: And where our pleasures are there will our hearts be also.  
Here are the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, enough to make a riot, to beat down, to levelly those Mounds and Bulwarks, that are slightly set up, and worse guarded for the souls preservation. Musaeus calls the light of Hero a deceitful one, because it extinguished when Leander, amidst the boisterous waves, had most need of its direction. So may it be said of the vanity of this World, that 'tis an Ignis fatuus, a deceitful light, it leads us to Charnel-houses and Cmetaries, to death and destruction.  
7. Therefore Solomon, that we may not be turned into hearts by the Enchantments of that Satanical Circe, drink of those tilted Lees, entertain their dalliances and fawning Courtships, presents us a more lovely and lasting Object, Our Creator, at whose right hand are pleasures for ever more.  
The grave and staunch Counsellors of Rehoboam (that his Reign might not be built upon a slippery precipice) gave him this sound advice: Speak kindly unto the people this day, and they will be thy servants for ever. So Solomon with the whole Hierarchy of Saints and Martyrs, bequeathed us this excellent Principle (grounded upon experimental knowledge:) Speak hearty and fervently, unto God this day in prayer, in this Praeludium of our Age, and he will go in and out before us all the days of our lives.  
To make such early provision is a removing the evil day far from us.  
8. When the mighty Caesar fell, in the morning as he entered the Senate, a Book was conveyed into his hands, wherein was laid before him the whole Scheme of the Conspiracy: but he disposing of it for an Evening exercise, lost the opportunity of putting by those fatal thrusts made at him. Architas Tyrant of Thebes, refusing to read a little Schedule (where, as in a Magic glass, he might have viewed the Pourtraictures of his Enemies, and have seen the face of their Confederacy) perished that Evening amidst the Delicacies of a Banquet. Thus assoon as we appear upon this World's Theatre, God stretcheth forth his Sceptre to call us to him, puts into our hands the Book of life, where, in legible Characters are delineated to us the Stratagems and Machinations of the Devil, also how to break those Snares, destroy those Gins and Toils set for us.  
17. But if we will play with Feathers and Rattles, when our Salvation lies a bleeding; or, Archimedes like, draw circles in the dust; we may expect to be doomed to Caesar's fate, if not in the bud, yet when we are full blown, before our tremulous leaves shall fall with Winter Frosts.  
Qui primò obstitit, repulitque malum, tutus, ac victor fuit: Shall Seneca, a Heathen, give such demonstration of a brave mind, and we, who have the glorious Gospel perpendicularly shining on us, walk in the shades of death, and live as if we had not one beam or ray to invigorate us? The Naturalists observe, Frigiditas non intrat in opus naturae. Whether it be a received Maxim in Philosophy, I'm sure it holds in Theology. If we render God the Service of our Youth with cold and benumbed hearts, it makes us rather retrogrades than advancers of our salvation. When we are composed of such dull Materials, such phlegmatic Constitutions, that the bright rays of the Apostles, the flaming Torches, those Saints and Martyrs, that with Elias are carried up to Heaven in Chariots of fire, or those celestial flames of divine truth brought down by our heavenly Prometheus, will not light our dull matches, quicken this earthy Compositum.  
10. Lord! what warmth, what animation can they receive by thrusting them into the cold and dying embers, with the ashes of security raked over them. Remember therefore thy Creator while thy vivid parts are active, while we can give our bodies a lively Sacrifice, before the Sun of our youth be set, or day darkened, and the North Star shine only in our Horizon, before the Winter of Age approaches, such years, such days, wherein thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.  
The Kingdom of Heaven must be taken by violence: How unfit then is decrepit Age to Camisado the Devil? Who, like that Roman Cocles, posts himself on that bridge we are necessitated to pass over, makes good that narrow straight that leads unto Heaven; and those infirmities, that soul vessel (our body) is then freighted withal, so distract and discourage the mind, that it knows not where to make its advantage.  
The Prophet Jeremy tells us; 'Tis good to bear our yoke in our youth. Assoon as Sampson's strength forsook him the Philistines prevailed, and made a mockery of him. If Jacob had wrestled with the Angel, when his strength (as a fortification) time had dismantled, he could not have held eontest with God till the Morning.  
11. The Ancient Romans would enrol none into their victorious Legions, but such as had strength in some degree equivalent to the Magnanimity of their minds. The Grand Signior (whose vast Territories his irresistible hand hath made Tributary) yearly assesses his Christian Provinces at so many young striplings (when confirmed in the Mahometan Faith, principled in the Customs and Manners of the Country) to recruit the valiant band of Janissaries. Holy Writ shows us the same care in Nabuchadnezzar, who culled out the towardliest Youths of the Israelites, that, by an early sowing in them the Seeds of Idolatry, they might be choice Instruments for the propagating their Pagan Worship. And the Poets tell us, that their great God Jupiter would be served by none, but such as the young Hebe, and the beautiful Ganymede.  
12. If the Glories of our blooming Age shall thus adorn the Throne of Princes (whom God with the breath of his Nostrils can make but as stubble before the wind) Shall not then this Tetragrammaton, our great God for whom we want Epithets, nay, the Tongues of Angels, to give him nomination) command our attendance when clad in the fair Livery of a becoming Youth? Shall not we work with him whilst it is day? For when the night cometh no man can work, no vigour is then left to dissipate those Clouds, no Sun to exhale those Mills and Fogs that lie on the surface of our souls. Dum hodiè appellatur: 'Tis to day that you must hear his voice. And you shall hear it in a sweet Tone, sung by God himself in the Choir of Heaven, with a Consort of Myriad of Angels: Arise my Love, my fair one, and come thy way. If we were not a stiff necked People, a perverse Generation; We would echo back that of Israel's melodious Chanter; O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee.  
13. Plato in the height of his Agony, amidst the pangs of death, thanked the Gods, That he was born a man, and not a beast, a Greek, and not a Barbarian. But that insensate man, that stops his ears against such heavenly Charmers, shuts out the Almighty, draws a Curtain betwixt God and his poor soul, lest the thoughts of Heaven damp his pleasures, the reverence due to so great a Majesty strike him into an awful obedience, when the untunable summons of death alarm him, Plato's joy shall be his sorrow, wish that his ashes might never be kneaded into the same lump, but go to a Land of forgetfulness. Improvident soul! the clear sky of thy felicity shall be soon overcast; thy short day will have a long night: For thy Heaven here thou must have an Hell hereafter.  
Cleombrotus was so far transported with reading a Treatise of the Immortality of the Soul, that he presently slew himself.  
14. And it is recorded by Caesar in his  War, that the bare opinion of the Druids (who taught that the Soul was out of the reach of Death, and that it outlived the Body's dissolution) made their Followers magnanimous in warlike Achievements, and pulled that frightful vizard from off the face of death, which otherwise would have stopped the carrier of their prowess and gallantry. But that that made them valiant, makes thee cowardly, and (if made thy case) but faintly expressed, when the Philosopher calls it Terribilium terribilissimum, the terrible of terribles; when the Doors shall be shut, the Windows darkened, and the Curtains drawn about thee, the Mourners attending thy departure, and nothing but Emblems of sorrow and sadness, and thy evil Angel (like Brutus' spectre) facing thee in this thy dismal solitude, and thou cry out to him, Habe me excusatum; and he will answer thee in the Negative, Thou must be stripped of all thy Glories, of all thou accountest dear to thee; thou must to the shades below, and after that to Judgement.  
15. Then will the body (after that it feels the throws and pangs of Death) fly out upon the soul for her inbred contagion and sentiments of impurity; and the soul accuse the body for giving fuel to all intemperance, for its officiousness in acting the dictates of a corrupt mind, and only agree in that they are alike miserable.  
How grievous will it be, when thou shalt consider thou hast bartered away thy God for a trifle, sold eternity for a moment's pleasure, for that which Pindarus calls, The dream of a shadow? And now every one of these Phantasma's attend the Exit, and sad Catastrophe of thy soul, carry a faggot to her funeral pile. Now canst thou discern (to thy immense sorrow) that Ixion like thou hast embraced a Cloud for Juno; That those Virgin faces have been Harpies, ravenous Birds, and that they had their Dragon Tails under their deceitful wings; Jael-like they have brought thee butter in a Lordly dish, but born a hammer in their deadly hands.  
16. 'Tis the Prophet Esay's call to the regenerate man lodged in the Chambers of the Earth; Awake and sing, ye that lie in the dust, because the dawning of your rejoicing is at hand, that you shall wear Crowns on your heads, and carry Palms in your hands: But to the unregenerate man will the call be; Awake and howl, ye that lie in the dust, because the daybreak of your for sorrowing draweth nigh. Then will ye cry out to the Mountains and Rocks to fall upon you, and hid you from the wrath of the Lamb.  
Let therefore these expressions, which have put on mournful Robes, these Scutcheons and Ensigns for lost souls, broach our eyes, and sosten our petrified hearts; sting and quicken our remembrance for the works of a devout life, That we put not the consideration of our eternal welfare, like Jorams Messengers, behind us. No trusting to an after game, when we have but one cast, one throw, whether we have Heaven or Hell: 'Tis odds against us we draw a blank, when we have but time to pull one chance out of this great Lottery, but few hours to redeem thousands of their Predecessors.  
D. 1. It might have been Ornamental to a Christian, what dropped from Seneca; Ante senectutem curavi ut benè viucrem, ut in senectute bene morerer. 'Tis no good trusting to that we can make to ourselves no certain assurance of. It was therefore Saint Augustine's care not to venture his salvation (a thing so precious) on an Evening Repentance. We can promise to ourselves no boon voyage, putting to Sea when our Vessel is leaky, and weather beaten, fit to be careened, than ventured forth upon the tempestuous Main.  
2. What can we say for ourselves, or who shall plead our cause, when the soul, and all her fortunes, are properly Gods by title of Creation, and we change the property of them, and make them instruments for sin and Satan; when we prostrate our beauties to our lust, and make courtship and caresses to vile affections, to rottenness and putrefaction, whose deformity lies hid under a lillyed skin spread over it, and serve God when our zeal is as cold as our bodies; when we cannot bend the knees to reverence our Maker, lest we stumble to the Earth, the Tomb which must presently enshrine those few dusts of ours? Though we are then free from some sins (but thanks to our age for such abstinence: Temperantia in senectute non est temperantia, sed impotentia temporantiae.) 'Tis not that our affections are surfeited, that we nauseate those Cates we have so deliciously fed on; Or Saint Hierom's Surgite à. mortuis, & venite ad Judicium, knocks at the doors of our hearts, and tells us; For all this we must come to Judgement; but that our bodies are not able to go an even pace with our desires, that they are too much enfeebled to follow the pursuit of their former vanities: Why wait we not for the twilight to hunt the quarry of our goatish affections, but that our stock of fuel is burnt up, by too freely blowing the coals of our lust, or that Rheums and Dropsies have drowned those scintils and sparks that were left?  
3. Why Epicurise we not so much, but that there is a deficiency of heat for its digestion? Why rise we not so early to inebriate ourselves? 'Tis because we have so many issues and botches (the plague sores of a debauched life) that makes our bodies Plena rimarum; Sieves like, they cannot hold full draughts. As the Prophet Elisha said to his servant Gehazi: Is this a time to be taking rewards? So, Is this a time to begin our Heavenly Pilgrimage, when all is dark about us? To begin to live, when a diseased body, a distracted mind, and unsettled estate call for reparation? When (like the devout women) we might have presented to God, in the morning of our Age, gums, and sweet spices of prayers and supplications?  
Adolescens, tibi dico, surge. Now is the time that salvation is offered to us; when every faculty is in its most admirable perfection, the senses most subtle, their spirits more agile.  
4. The eye can best discern without a Perspective, the Effigies of God in his own person, and all other his mighty works for the service of man; The ear quickest hear the sweet sounding music of his word; The hands have a greater dexterity to perfume God's Altars with the Odours of Alms-deeds and charitable actions; The feet strongest and best able to support us to the hallowed Temple: Thus employing our vigorous and active abilities, is a seeking the Lord while he is near to us. The nature of Quicksilver is to tremble, and be restless, till it find something with which it may commix. So these Mercurial parts, if not set on work in God's service, will be sure (though to their own cost) take employment elsewhere. Youth knows no Medium; its lively Embers will be either blown into a flame of Devotion or Concupiscence. Let us therefore tread that path figured out to us, take that Clue in hand to lead us through the intricate Labyrinths of a perplexed life: And, for our better direction, there are erected in holy Scripture Pyramids and Columns, such store of lights, as so many Pharo's, that we may sail on with a prosperous gale to our haven of felicity.  
5. If the glorious Mansions of the Heaven, with all its splendid Equipage, be worth the purchasing; Let us Remember our Creator. If at any time we Remember our Creator; let it be, Juvenili aetate, In our rosie-morn, In the days of our Youth. If we will bate ourselves so much of our present enjoyments, as to pay him Primitias, the service of our Youth; Let it not then be a lame, or disjointed one, lest we be put by, as those maimed persons in the Old Law, from serving at the Sanctuary; but such vivid, such Heroic services, as will not shame the giver, nor cause God to withdraw his hands from deigning them a favourable acceptance.  
6. This will forward our Journey to the New Jerusalem; a City that hath all peace, all joy: Where there is no leading into Captivity, nor crying in her streets. A City of pure Gold, and the Walls of Jasper. A City that hath no need of the Sun, neither of the Moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth light it: Where we shall not forget him; for we shall sing Allelujahs to him: Where we shall not forget him; for we shall have such glorified bodies, as to see him face to face without a flaming bush to interpose, without meaner Objects than Saints, Angels, Cherubims, and Seraphims.   

ESSAY II. 7. De Humana fragilitate.  JOB 14.1. 
Man that is born of a Woman is of few Days and full of Trouble.  
Quoth natum est poterit mori: Every birth will have a burial. And a greater Rhetorician than Seneca tells us; There is a time to be born, and a time to die. The hand of fate signs no Indulgences, reprieves not any, seeing all are doomed and destined to the shades of death. Nullâ prece mobilis Ordo: No entreaties can reverse the Decretals of Heaven. The world itself, with its resplendent Luminaries, Sun, Moon and Stars, plead no exemption.  
8. Those weaker fires must be burnt with a more powerful one from Heaven, and every thing reduced to its primitive condition, to a figured nothing. God only that was without beginning, knows no end. All things else will have their calcination, will to rubbish. That Microcosm, man also (though but an Epitome of the World, yet of greater dignity than the whole Universe) for Adam's disparadising himself must have this Dilapidation.  
Though the hands of the Almighty have kneaded us (Thy hands have made me and fashioned me round about) and baked these bodies, when inorganical, in the Oven of the Womb, to a purity of ripeness, to an animation; yet our first sinning hath cracked these Vessels, that we moulder to dust again.  
9 Though thou hast form us so like unto thy glorious self, as made David out of an ecstasy of admiration, cry out, I am fearfully and wonderfully made; yet since we have blotted out the Inscription of Heaven, which was so gloriously figured on us, defaced that noble Impress thou was pleased to stamp upon common clay, 'tis no injustice if we return to dirt again, for this Lord Paramount to change our free tenure into Lease hold, nay into Villeinage. Since we refused to live in the Sunshine of his favour, 'tis of our own meriting that we are doomed to a Land of darkness. Though these earthly Tabernacles have the enoblement of being Ancient Demain, Crown-lands; yet have they no privilege of immunity, shall not be freed from the common Gabels' nature imposes upon them, but have their devastation too. Though our bodies (by divine Institution) are the Temples of the Holy Ghost; yet if we make them receptacles for sin, we cannot expect loss than a dissolution of them. For, The wages of sin is death. Every man (as Tertullian hath it) being Homicida sui, a murderer of himself. Man forges the weapon, and sin is the sword that doth execution on us.  
10. Dari bonum quod potuit auferri potest. The same power that cast these divided Elements into one entire Building, can with the breath of his nostrils destruct them again; and since we prove not Vessels of Honour, will speedily take the matrials asunder, and lay them in the dust: And yet may we not with Holy Job) say unto him, What dost thou? For 'tis the Lord's doing, and therefore marvellous in our eyes.  
Seeing then we have pulled this house upon our own heads, which if sin had not undermined (though but houses of Clay) had outbraved times dilapidation. Let us therefore be content (our own consciences having already proved our Indictment) to hear that irreversible sentence passed on us, which hath long since sent many to the place of execution; though reprieved for a few days, yet wilt thou bring us also to death, and to the house appointed for all living. We must all back to the place whence we came, the Earth, there lie fettered in the prison of the Grave, to be torn and mangled by her little Furies, fierce executioner, till our bones are picked clean, till they have their incineration too.  
11. In the sacred rolls of Heaven we find the same judgement denounced against the heritage of the Lord, Thou Worm Jacob. No higher title doth the Lord bestow on the greatest of the Sons of men: For they shall all lie down alike in the grave, and the worms shall cover them. Stoop here, and see the polished Tombstone that's laid over us; the worm shall cover us: And read what Epitaph Job hath writ on it: Man that is born of a Woman is of few days, and full of trouble.  
It had been enough to have said, We are born of women, without reading to us the destiny of a short continuance; for by that we might have spelled our fleeting condition, and as in a mirror, viewed the forms and Idaea's of our present sufferings. 'Tis necessary to derive our pedigree, blazon the cankered stuff we are made of, that we might not too much glory in a mistaken happiness.  
12. Corruption thou art our Father, the worm is both our mother and sister. Like the Apples of Sodom, we may then appear glorious to the eye, but let the finger of God touch us, and we crumble to dust and ashes. That structure reared up of rotten and putrified timber, will have a fall, shall be forsaken of his supporters: Vessels kneaded of friable and mouldering matter, will into fractures, cannot long body together. Of such an uncornbined Composition is man that is born of a woman, and therefore but of few days.  
A short Requiem did that Noble Heathen sing to the soul of his endeared son (upon the news of his disanimation) Sciebam me genuisse mortalem: I knew I did not beget an immortal being, that which could not die.  
13. This reproves that too feminine nature of some, who melt down themselves with immoderate sorrowing, as if they would preserve their departed friend in the pickle of their briny tears. Cadant lacbrymae sed non fluant. Some small drops (as a rightful Tribute to the dead) may be sprinkled on the grave; if not for our dear brother, yet for our disconsolate souls, that have lost the start of this blissful Santon in his heavenly expedition.  
That the body must perish, must have a change, nothing more certain. Are not our ears continually alarmed with the dismal sound of the Passing-bell? And whilst our eyes are busily looking on the Hearse, and pomp that attends it, we perchance stumble at a grave; and they, that even now carried their dead friend to his bed of earth, may, before the Sun hath run his next days course, justle with him for a grave.  
14. Worm's must necessarily devour us, to make room for others. For one Generation passeth, and another cometh, and that small portion of turf measured out to us by the Charnel-man, we hold but for a season, till we have forfeited our Lease by letting our building run to ruin, a dissolution of ourselves.  
Then we, and the Grave, carry but one Complexion; the Sons and their Mother Earth alike featured, the guildings and flourishes of Nature being quite erazed out of us: so that ill-favoured Thirsites appears as lovely as Adonis; Cleanthes a poor tankerd-carrier, as wealthy as Croesus': for the Mouths of both are filled with Dust. Pompey, that would admit no equal, hath here no inferior: for Dust hath no preeminence, shows no Acts of Royalty, displays no Ensigns of greatness. Our Beauties (if we have any such light thing to glory in) will become as Dirt, and our very deformities heightened to a greater deformity, the vilest of putrefaction. What Statist, by the help of his inspections, can resolve this to be Dust Imperial; distinguish that which sat on a Throne, from that which wearied out itself in a Spittal?  
15. What Anatomist, or Critic in Physiognomy, dare (by making inquisition on a Skeleton) trust to the Symmetry of those disguised parts, aver, here lie the ruins of Beauty, there the rubbish of uncomeliness? What Classis, what Synod, what General Council can, by winnowing or sifting the Dust of the Grave, say, this is believing Dust, that Atheistical? Such sudden revolutions will the coldness, and chillness, and darkness of the Bed of Earth work in us, when once laid up in it, that we are not only lost to ourselves, but to those that sudceed us. Can the Eye of Augustus Caesar light us to his neglected Urn, which, before Death had eclipsed, shot such scorching Beams of Majesty, that, like the Sun 'twas said to dim the sight of his admiring Subjects? Or that silver-tongued Tully tell us where we may rake up his disparkled ashes?  
16. No Inquisition will the Son of Sirach have in the Grave. If thy charitable Friends be disposed to pay thee an anniversary mourning, it might prove difficult finding out thy Sepulchre: envious Time hath blotted thy Epitaph, cracked thy Tombstone, perchance divested thee of that upper Garment, and pieced it to some remote building. Allow it appear in legible Characters, we cannot say this Dust belongs to thee; some latter Friend may be there since interred; the Charnel-mans' Shovel may by digging too near, pair thy Sides, throw the into the neighbouring Grave: or the Earth's little Cannibals, in their Caresses and Frolickings, drag thee out of the Chancel into the Churchyard, or highway, or feed on thee in thine own Grave, and spew thee forth in another. Hard finding thy Grave then, but harder finding thee in thy Grave, and hardest finding any piece of thee entire; if Sainted, not so much as to make a Relicque of. So many mutations, transmigrations, will these Rags of Flesh receive in a few Centuries of Days, assoon as in Lustres, or Olympiads.  
E. 1. This than should teach them who do Turgescere fastu, swell with a Tympany of Pride, and self conceit, that they despise not their poor Brother. Did not one fashion us both in the Womb? Shall we then account him inglorious, whose Roof is not seiled with Cedar, nor painted with Vermilion? Why, he that hath swallowed down Riches shall vomit them up again; and those stately Palaces, erected as so many lasting Pyramids to perpetuate our Names and Memories, are but Castles built in the Air: For when Death hath sealed our Mittimus, we shall, no more to our House, neither shall our place know us any more. So that we might take up that of Esau (though more justly) Lo I die, and what good will my birthright do me? Such embellished Mansions, when the Edifice of our Flesh shall ere long be dismantled? Such Hydropic desires of Gold, when we ourselves shall become Dross, or (according to the Prophet's embasement) reprobate Silver? How far can Preferments stead us, when Death shall cut the Spurs of Knighthood off our heels, degrade us of all our Honours, levelly us with the Earth, nay sink us lower than the Dust we tread on?  
2. Philip Monarch of Macedon falling in the Sand, and seeing there a perfect draught of his Body, cried out, upbraiding his insatiable Ambition; O ye Gods, we think the whole Universe too little for us, and behold how small, and minute a part serveth.  
In the Days of David ashort Arithmetic would have cast up the Years of Man, and how many Ages have since spent themselves to bring about this declining one, this last quarter? No Methusalems' in these Days: for as the World that encircles us, wears, waxing old as doth a Garment: So this Microcosm, this little World Man must wear. We cannot fetch out the Steps of our Grandsires', their Shields, and Lances, are too weighty for us to manage. One of their Monuments, where they allowed themselves but Elbow-room to lie, if destructive time hath not leveled its stateliness, and luxury, with the Earth (for the Mausolea themselves shall be entombed too in the common Grave) would serve now to hid a whole Family of ours.  
3. To our Pygmy growths our Years then must be proportionable: Our abode here shorter than a peregrination. Tho we pass by those Iliads of Dangers, that obviate us, and burn out to the bottom of the Wiek, die in our socketts; yet deduct so many Years for our declination since those more durable ones, and; almost one half of that abbreviated time for Sleep (the Handmaid of death,) how inconsiderable, when, cast up, will the Summa totalis be that we have to live? How short our continuance? If they were but Sojourners when the World was in the Meridian of his Age, in its greatest Stature, what a hasty transition do we make in its setting, in its decrepitness. As if we came to give the World a visit, and, in scorn to its miserable shortness, bid a farewell to it.  
If Life was but a shadow when God darted on them the rays of his glorious Countenance, and held Dialogues with the Sons of Men, how far distant are we (that refuse to come into his presence) from the substance?  
4. If our Life in those large striding times was but a Span long, how short are we now of that Span? And if God doth not alarm us to Judgement, that a few Ages more succeed ours, their being will be so fleeting, so voluble a duration, so short, so inconsiderable, that they will not know how to entile it. Even now we attribute too much by calling it a continuance, having already, in the way to that general dissolution, suffered so much change, but that the precedent Words check the loudness of the phrase: 'tis but short, but a few Days. Man that is born of a Woman is but of few Days.  
He that lives longest hath but his Term, his being here is but as a Thought presently shouldered out by another. The Flower we know (though more gorgeous in attire than Solomon in all his Glory) in the morning is by the Sun's vigour raised out of the Bed of Earth, displays her Colours, and in the evening sickens, and dies. Yet Man is no other; sometimes less considerable, rising with the Sun, and stays not his setting.  
5. How great a part of mankind from their Mother's lying in, date their laying out? delivered by the Hands of the Midwife, from the Mantles and bloody cover of the Womb, to be sealed up in a winding-Sheet, post from one Grave to the other? How many (with the Babes of Bethlehem) see the World, without continuing so long, as to understand what they see, or, if they know it in the best of content, conclude it not to be worth the knowing, if but for its short continuance? How many before they arrive to that perfection Nature designs us (the beauty, and strength of Youth) are often so debilitated, that for want of Strength expire?  
How few make their perambulations till they feel the decrepitness of old Age kicking up their Heels; or if the Thread of their Life be drawn out to a more unusual length, yet is it but a lassitude, a Province of Labour and Sorrow; every Minute expecting when Death strikes at the crazy Doors of their bodies, the Damps that they carry about them, making their Taper all that time burn Blue, ready to extinguish.  
6. That Death shall unbody our Souls, take down these tapestry Hang of Flesh, strip us to the bones, what's more, incinerate, Calcine those very bones, distracts not reason; since there is a necessity for all men once to die: Mors necessitatem habet aequam, et invictam. But that we should untimely die, and, which is more admirable Non admittere mortem, sed attrahere; Make our hands (the Bodies careful Conservators) our own Executioners, is a wonder too transcendent. When a healthful composure intends us for a longer time, precipitate our ruin, dig our own graves; as if we conceited a greater misery in living then Job, or to lay violent hands on ourselves were (after the Roman garb) to deck our heads with Garlands and Trophies for the conquest over our present sufferings.  
7. The two main Columns that support man's life, are heat and moisture: If there be an excess or deficiency in either, this stately Colossus becomes irreparably ruinous. But if we were such perfect Naturalists, as to acquaint ourselves with the right constitutions of our bodies, and had an observant will to act according to the dictates of our knowledge, by measuring out such a temperament, that the heat be not cooled by an exuberancy of moisture, or too thrifty allowance for it to feed on, our lamp might burn with a greater Nitor, a more lasting Clarity. But such things, are we born of women, either to know so little, or, which is worse, make not practical what we do know; that either with excessive ating cloy we that heat, make it unfit for digestion, or throw too much drink upon those glowing embers, or else frying up our marrow, emptying our veins to fill the exorbitant desires of our lusts, we are hurried to our last sleep many decad's of days sooner than if we measured out every thing aequâ lance, with the hand of Mediocrity. No marvil our day is so soon clouded, our tale so soon told, our Pilgrimage so soon terminated: for not only Nature intends us a quick dispatch; but we must needs steal a Thief into our farthing candle, mend the swift paced sand that measureth our time, by shaking the glass of our life into quicker motion: Like that exquisite Limner who cut a visible line through that small one copied out to him by his competitor.  
8. We have but one passage that leads us into the world, and that a straight one: For we come like Rebeccha's twins, struggling, and striving for our admittance; but death hath bands of Executioners in a readiness to give us our passport. Though there is but one postern that leads us out of the land of the living, Death, yet many are the ways trod out to it.  Mille modis lethi miseros mors una fatigat. 
Some foot it by those lesser paths of Agues, and Colds; Others ride the beaten and trodden ways of Surfeits, and Fevers; Others the common roads, and high ways of Pestilence, and the Sword. At this Centre, Death, all lines meet, all roads give up their passengers: and when we have discharged our Bill of fare, paid Nature her arrears (for we have been dying even from our infancy) vestigia nulla retrorsum; We make no return. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more.  
9 Though we have our Magna Charta confirmed to us by the king of Kings, and Lord of Lords, of a Sovereignty over the Creatures, as is acknowledged by the Psalmist, Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet; Yet there is no creature so contemptible, but may have a time to triumph with the spoils of his Lord.  Praesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem; 
Every thing menaces destruction, hath an Envenomed arrow ready to let fly at us. The Fates could string their Bow with one single hair, when they sent a death to Fabius a Roman. A fly was winged with Destiny, when it choked Adrian. Aristides, after he had escaped the furies of men and savager beasts, had the thread of his life snagled in two by the bite of a Weasel. A Gnat, or Emmet, can as well lay us in the dust as an Elephant.  
10. An Ear-wig (when ransacking the Cells and private chambers of our brain) stings us as deadly as a Scorpion. A small fish-bone destroys us (as it did once Tarqvinius Priscus) sooner than a shark, or Swordfish. A pin may give Lethale vulnus, a fatal wound (if sharpened with the anger of Heaven) as readily as could Ajax spear: And this confimed in the mournful story of Lucia sister to the Emperor Aurelius, who innocently sporting with her infant, received a small prick in the breast with her Needle, and through that small loophole presently death discharged itself upon her. God out of a little Orifice can give our vitals passage, and our souls can as easily sally through Chinks, and Crannies of our bodies, as if it had doors, and gates to let it forth. Add then these casualties (from which no one purchases a Patent of exemption) to the natural infirmities of our bodies (which are wounds, and bruises and putrified Sores) and our foolish propensity of imping those feathers, that of themselves are winged strong enough to carry us to our long home, and we must necessarily conclude our emanation from the prison of the womb, to Golgotha, the place of execution, to be inconsiderable, so inconsiderable, as to have no continuance.  
11. Is our time here but of short continuance? Then is it high time to trim our lamps. Rogus et urna meditanda. Set before our dreaming fancies our Pile and Pitcher, and every man say to his improvident soul, what the Prophet did to King Hezekiah; Put thy house in Order for thou shalt surely die. Quamdiù? Cras quare non modò finis turpitudinis meae Saith St. August. How long will ye resist the holy motions of repentance, and cry out to morrow we will purify our souls with snow-water, when before the day cometh, they may be drowned, swallowed up in their own pollutions. Let nothing therefore hinder thee to pay thy vows in due time, and not at the vespers of death, when thy Malady and busy care to leave a calm and quiet estate to thy hasty successors, distract thee in thy accounts to God.  
12. The womb was our tiring room to put on the habiliments of the flesh. The world is our tiring room to deck, and apparel ourselves with the rich robes of righteousness. And we know not how soon the loud Music of the last Trump will sound us forth, to show to the all discerning eye of Heaven, whether we have acted to the life Comedies of pleasure, and sensuality, or Tragoedies of sorrow, and compunction for sin; whether we have chanted wanton lays, and amorous ditties; or Canticles, Hymns, and spiritual songs.  Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum; 
Let us with the Poet conceit every day to be our last, and with that Heathen Seneca, Efficere mortem, sibi familiarem; Make death our daily companion; so to prepare, Ut Moriantur ante nos vitia; That our sins give up the Ghost before us: For in our last scene they will shift their robes, and (to our great Consternation) all appear dressed in their true deformities.  
13. When this Pursuivant (Death) hath thus attached the unregenerate man, what hath pride profited him? Or what good hath his riches, with his vaunting, brought him? Then if he had the whole world at command he would take up the Devil's phrase, All this will I give thee to reprieve me but a few days, that I might file off my rust, burnish myself for Heaven, clear my freckled soul of those Morphews, and stains, that present her uncomely in the sight of her maker.  Desine fata deûm flecti sperare precando, 
But alas entreaties avail not any thing; ho deprecating fate: 'tis not our importunate whining can alter the decrees of Heaven. Think not, because, when God decreed Hezekiah a present death, upon his humble petition he reversed that heavy sentence, and commanded the Sun for a sign to go so many degrees back in the Dial of Ahaz, therefore that he will do so for us. Let us not be deceived by expecting an Injunction from the Chancery of Heaven. The Egyptians found it experimentally true, that the Goddess of Destiny spared none, no not the first born in pharoh's Court, therefore they built her no Temple, offered no Sacrifices to her.  
14. Non Torquate genus, non te facundia, non te Restituit pietas—  
It matters not whether we are of the Julian, or Claudian family, no embellishing of perfections, no ornaments of Nature, no sanctity of life can privilege us from the grave: for every man hath his appointed time, and that a short one, and as if that were not enough, a miserable one too. The Prophets have foretold it, the Apostles revealed it, every day, every hours experience confirms to us, Man that is born of a woman is but of few days, and full of trouble.  
15. What? To be of few days, and that full of trouble. We should rather have thought, that the brevity of man's life had been remunerated with all solace and delight; the few steps we tread had been on the fragrant Carpets, of roses, and violets, than, instead thereof, to find a repletion of sorrow, such sorrow as will keep pace with our being; though an unbidden guest, attend us, till we are entombed in our mother Earth.  
15. Job thought it too hard measure (though he let it not go unrepented of, sitting in sackcloth and ashes) when out of the bitterness of his soul he expostulated with the Almighty; Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take a little comfort. This was but a fallacious argument. If he had changed his note it had been more tuneable. Are not my sins many? Why then is the rod of affliction laid so gently on me? Why should the avenger of all things cease from punishing me, when I stop not my Career in offending? How can I with confidence beg any boon at his hands, when I vouchsafe him not a retribution of thanks? Our afflictions are no compensations for sins past, but sometimes given us as a makebate between us, and our endeared amours, to divorce us from the gaieties, and Utopian felicities of this deceivable world, which (like the Panther) pleases at distance with a perfumed breath, but in their embraces murder us.  
16. The careful nurse imbitters her nipples with Wormwood, that the Infant may nauseate the teat, and feed on stronger nourishment: God deals with his children, Antidotes the poison, by souring the pleasures of this world, making our honours and luscious delights pall'd and insipid; rubs off the varnish, and shows their deformity, that we may no longer be Inamorato 's of them.  
Why then should we wrack, and torture, our inventions to acquire that which beggars us? Build steps, and stairs, to mount us on the Terrace of a greater misery? ('tis St. Basils') Duriorem carcerem praeparamus: by enjoying the opulent things of this life, we fortify our prison, lay another coat of dirt upon our Souls, which hinders the beams of our Creator from irradiating them. There is nothing that in our esteem merits the name of good, but hath an allay, a checquering of sorrow.  
F 1 We know the purest glasses will have their dews, their tears hanging on them; the brightest felicity its dropping cloud, an opacous body of discomfort; and pleasures themselves will destroy us before enjoyment, if plentifully poured out. Our souls are so shallow, that they will be soon surcharged, if they come towards us velut agmine facto, in too violent a source. Pliny reports that Chilon the Philosopher in embracing his Son (having a Crown of Laurel bestowed on him at the Olympic games) with a surfeit of joy presently expired. So did Marcus juventius, when the Senate designed an ample honour for him. What pleasure can we expect, what trust repose in any thing that is under the Sun?  
Quos faelices Cynthia vidit,  
Vidit miseros abitura dies.  
Miserable Job reads here miserable man's fortune, and in the glass of his own infelicity (the Devil laying the Scene for his tortures) could clearly see to set us this Elegiac dirge, full of misery. We have not one appellation in scripture (when dissected, untwisted by the Rabbins) that we find any thing to glory in.  
2. In Adam we are called Red earth, which holds complexion with those spurious bats hatched by us (our sins,) they are as red as Scarlet: and if the swarthiness of our discoloured souls gives leave to blush at them, then do we keep to our dye too. Sometimes we are called Ish, but a sound, and that properly enough; for we come Crying into the world, ringing loudest peals of complaints, when our voice is inarticulate, unexpressive: And we may be compared to a sound, a voice; for that is soon sent forth, and assoon lost. You see then, we l have not our names for nought. God will not ennoble with a splendid title that which deserves so much embasing.  
3. Indeed our piesent tribulations are as a thousand witnesses to assert this truth,  Quocunque; aspiciam? Quocunque lumina vertan; 
We cannot look upon any thing, but what appears with a a clouded face. Let us take our rise from our entrance on this stage of life to the shutting up our last Catastrophe, and we shall appear Actors in one continued Tragedy. No sooner bolt we out of the womb (for we come headlong into the world, which shows our giddiness and innate love to it) but we find an entertainment so cold, that we are fain to warm us with our own tears, and our ability so faint, so useless to administer relief to our crying necessities, that our little Organs are presently sounded to implore a necessary aid, our legs too weak to underprop the small burden of our bodies, our hands not strong enough to reach us sustenance; and she that landed us in this vale of misery could not keep us from going assoon out of it, if the arms of a stranger did not reprieve us from the grave. All that time we are led and directed by Tutors, and Governors, reckon ourselves under the rod of persecution, differing nothing from a servant, though Lord of all.  
4 And no sooner arrive we to complete man, but emulation boils within us to such a tumour, that we envy, and hate, those we see move in an higher Orb; and think our condition but Heremitical, because the seat of our Sovereignty is not built high enough, to give us prospect over our Neighbours. Under this Torrid Zone of our age, in these distempering dog-days, our desires are so exorbitant, affections so disproportionable to the dictates of reason, that while wandering through innumerable Labyrinths of care and trouble, trusting to the Clue of our own fanatic spinning, we lose ourselves, and seldom attain to that our betraying fancy reached at. What though we crown our endeavours with a sought for success, the felicity of our enjoyment, in a just balance, will weigh too light, if set against the harrassing of the body, and wracking of the spirits in procuring it? So that this florid part of our life, if compared to the other extremes of age, appears to you at first with as great a difference, as the Sun in its pride to a day of clouds. Yet upon a due calculation we have as many Haltionian days under either Polar Star, as under the Eccliptick of our youth.  
5. Having now cut the line, sailed through this dangerous passage, I shall lead you into a more temperate Climate; but there we make no long progression, enjoy only some few lucid intervals: For before we can purify our blood, poisoned with the sin's of our youth, bring back our straying fancies, recompose the distempers of our bodies, settle the Vertigo or giddiness in our brain, the Winter Quarter of age approaches, disparkling such cold influences, that the warmth of our breath hath not vigour enough to thaw the Icicles that hang on those few hairs, our many sins could spare us. Tum quicquid aetatis retrò est, mors tenet; Death makes one in this last Scene, journeys with us in these latter days of our Pilgrimage. So that the same may be rehearsed to us (though in another sense) which St. Paul preached to the wanton widows, That we are dead while we live. Our tattered flesh, suppled with Salves and Unguents, swaddled and held together with plasters and trusses, like ruinous buildings with Clasps and Cramperns of iron.  
6 What is it then but labour, and sorrow, and, as the wiseman renders it, Days wherein we have no pleasure? Though he terms them days, yet are they overshadowed, in which we enjoy but a twilight, the sable Curtain more than half drawn about us; our Candle all that while blazing in the socket, giving more of ill savour, than light; So that we are not only a burden to ourselves, but an offence to others.  Rarum est faelix, idemque; senex. 
If we did but curiously scan the distempers incident to each period of our life, and what a Symphony there is in the whole to complete our sorrow, so that though we shift the Scene from our Infant Morn to the Solstice of our age, that to our declination, 'tis rather a malo ad Pejus, not to better our condition, but present it more disconsolate.  
7. Good reason have we then, being men of like infirmities, at this grand Inquest of man's mortality, to give in with Job the same verdict, though he as our foreman (for his experience) speaks for us: Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.  
Since a fullness of trouble co-habits with us in these earthly Tabernacles, 'tis our happiness that our lease is of no longer continuance. Seeing here we float upon a Mare Mortuum of misery, it may comfort us that we are not far from the shore. If Heaven had granted a longer Term, it had been but to be longer miserable. For holy Job observes; While the flesh of man is upon him, he shall be sorrowful, and while his soul is in him, it shall mourn.  
8. Now if we have conformed ourselves to God's holy rule, whereby to ground a confidence, that Christ is gone before to prepare a Mansion in Heaven for us, that consideration will alleviate the harshness, and asperity of our sufferings, sweeten the imbittered cup that Nature hath put into the hand of every mortal, dull the edge of our tribulations (the certain concomitants of this life,) sugar all our tears, stifle all our groans, make us with the Salmander live in the flames of our persecutions, call to our astonished enemies for our funeral Pile, that we may embrace it with gladness; 'twill suggest that ere long we shall change these vile bodies (now subjected to the outrages of Fortune) for glorified ones, that we have not many days to pass through this wilderness (inhabited with Serpents and Scorpions) where Legious of sorrows and vexations march after us, like the terrible Host of the Egyptians, before we arrive at our promised Canaan.  
9 Though sickness fastens on us, almost to the throwing down of these mudd-walls, this tottering fabric of flesh; yet will it appear but as sweet slumber, because of our assurance, that when we are dissolved we shall be with Christ. Though our fortunes are unjustly seized on to gorge the exorbitant lusts of higher Powers, and we left as trimly suited as Adam in his green Apron, yet shall we pot repine at our chastisement, since the king of Kings, by an Act of resumption, takes back no more than what he formerly lent us the use of, and in the height of our penury sing a Te Deum, knowing that God hath stored for us a treasure in Heaven, so lasting as moth, and rust, cannot Corrupt, so sure as Thiefs cannot break through and steal. Though we are bereft of our children (those little Images of ourselves) yet will we look up to Heaven, from whence flew the arrow of his vengeance, and appease our sorrow with David's Salve; We shall go to them, they shall not return to us. Though all the misfortunes of the world, like an inundation, break in upon our weak defence, yet this Red Sea shall not swallow us up, and as Paul and the rest of the passengers (when shipwrakt at Melita's shore) boated all safe to land on planks and broken pieces of the ship; So we, when wracked, and torn, on the rocky hearts of our remorseless enemies, lay hold some on one comfort, some on another to land us safe in our wished Port.  
10. Though we are beaten for professing the name of Christ, yet let us, with Peter and John, rejoice, that we are counted worthy to suffer rebuke for his name. Now said Ignatius (the Martyr) begin I to be Christ's disciple, when in his journey to Rome he received scorns, and contumelies, from a band of Soldiers commanded for his Convoy. We are then in highest favour in the Court of Heaven, our soul brightest, when it hath the light of his arrows, and the shining of his glittering spear.  
Curtius' records of the great Alexander; Semper bello, quàm post victoriam Clarior; That he appeared more Illustrious in the inquietudes of an hazardous war, than in those serene vacations that he triumphed for his glorious victories. Disturbances, and anxieties, in our life many times put an edge on the bravery of our spirits, when too much prosperity becalms them. An overcasting cloud makes the Sun of our felicity arise more radiant. The fairest picture must be shadowed with the blackest groundwork. A Diamond emitts a more vigorous lustre when set within a black enamelling: So, afflictions are the souls foyl's, to set off, and make her appear more amiable in the sight of her Creator.  
11. We better see our faces in Jet than in Alabaster; clearer discern what stains the soul hath contracted in the glass of adversity, than prosperity. Crystal is too lucid, too transparent, gives no reflections. So honours, and earthly pleasures, shed their beams, dart their rays too powerfully, destroying our Souls Optics, that we cannot perfectly discern ourselves, nor God lowering on us, till they are in their declination, till they make a longer shadow.  
Seeing then the sorrows of this life are the truest glasses to dress ourselves in, though they are burning glasses yet let us look steadfastly on them, and there shall we behold Tyara's, and sceptres, prepared for us. Our lament (by their excellent Alchemy) converted into songs, our Captivities into triumphs, our ignominies into Crowns and Diadems. And not like that wretched Apostate who forsook the frozen lake, and that glorious company of Martyrs, not long after to die the death of an Infidel.  
12. Though we walk upon the backs of Porcupines, the way set with thorns and prickles, yet is it but for a few days; for ere long we shall be at rest in the grave. And at that great Audit, when Christ shall deign to meet us half way in the Chariot of the Clouds, we shall be raised again in the twinkling of an eye.  
Though our Tombs are defaced, our Urns kicked about, and our neglected ashes promiscuously mingled with the common dust, yet God (that great preserver of men) will rally every shattered limb, and pair those feet that were before Antipodes, set every splinter, carefully gather every scattered Atom, put sinews and flesh upon every dry bone, give to every seed his own body, to every body his own soul, but more refined, made more glorious: For in the resurrection our terrestrial bodies shall be sublimated to a Celestial perfection, be like unto the Angels in Heaven, and, if that be not change enough, have an assimilation with God himself. Though nature, and her Elementary bodies, be at variance, yet there shall be the nearest conjunction between God, and us: For we shall be marr●●● unto the Ancient of days, And I will marry thee unto me for ever. Saith the Prophet Hosea.  
13. Then Time shall be no more; for we shall be to all eternity. Faith shall be no more; for we shall have an Epiphany, a day of glorious manifestation of all his promises. Hope shall be no more, for there shall be a perpetual Jubilee, a constant fruition of such superlative beatitudes, that the tongues of Men and Angelsin deciphering them seem but as sounding brass, or as a tinkling Cymbal. But love in its altitude, in a quintessential perfection, free from the violences and transportations, the weakness and imperfections, the heats and colds of our love to the Creature, which varies with its object. This not sullied with any mixture of malice or envy, when it beholds a Saint sit in an higher Throne encircled with a bigger Crown.  
14. If so many Kings and Princes threw aside their Coronetts, and Diadems, that they might have more leisure to contemplate the excellencies of Heaven, when their understanding was but weak, their love but an Embryo; If so many Martyrs hugged and kissed their stakes, laid them down in their flames, as in their Marital beds, to conserve this love, to secure themselves for immortality; How bright and glorious will the flame be, when it shall have the fervour of a Seraphim, the purity of an Angel? When we shall see the Object of our love (God) with whom there is no change, or variableness, and still desire to see him. To meditate on him here, is to see him hereafter.  
ESSAY   

ESSAY III. G. De Passione Christi in Corpore proprio.  LAMENT, 1.12. 
Have ye no regard, all ye that pass by? Behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me, in the day of his fierce Anger.  
HEre's black tinctured in the deepest die, words of such transcendent Prevalency, that would make stubborn Rocks relent, and exact a fluency, of Tears from the sealed up Fontanels of our Eyes. Can any Heart, (though petrified to a wonder) not break that brittle Mansion 'tis enclosed in, when it shall hear one sing his own sad Elegy, ring his funeral Peals with such mournful Bells?  
2. Had that Tyrant Nero, who sung the Ruins of Troy (when environed with the Flames of his Imperial City) been a spectator of this Tragedy of Tragedies, heard these doleful Notes (clad in so sad a Livery) so attracting Sorrow and Compassion, Pity would at an instant have Triumphed over cruelty, and made him turn convert to the highest Commiseration. For who could stifle a tributary Groan, when he heard this dying Swan sluctuating on the bitter Waters of Affliction, without being ever after deaf? Who could with a supercilious look (without suffering an absolute Eclipse) behold such innovated Punishments, too grievous to answer the foulest Treason, undergone by him who had not the meanest trespass to account for? Or yet in this Iron-hearted Age of ours look on this sad Lamentation (though superannuated) and not set his sorrow to a louder Key, than the doleful mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddo.  
— Quis talia fando  
Temperet a Lachrimis?—  
3. But if these attendants here (these words that wait upon this mournful piece of Scripture) move us not, or the deplorableness of our condition beget no emotion, yet hear his own complaint, sounded by that golden Trumpet Jeremiah, we know not what an unexpected reformation it may work in us: For he that out of Stones could raise up Children unto Abraham, and squeeze the hardest Rocks into flowing Rivers, can with the Breath of his Nostrils mould our Hearts into the softest temper, and raise a right and unfeigned Lamentation; for never Words were spoken more emphatically, or with a truer accent of Sorrow. Have ye no regard all ye that pass by? etc.  
4 As petty Punishments become petty Offenders, so an abyss of sinning calls for an abyss of Suffering. 'Tis no meritorious act in an Homicide to bow down his Head to the stroke of Justice, for he shall but sacrifice it to the Blood of another: There the Law makes it compulsory, fashions the Punishment to the Offence. But for the Son of God, the second Person in the glorious Trinity, (one so free from Spot or Blemish, that durst say to his critical Enemies, which of you can rebuke me of Sin) to bow the Heavens, and come down from his Imperial Throne, where he sat surrounded with Saints and Angels; to approach this vile World, which was before his Footstool; to put on the rags of human Flesh, which before was clothed with light as with a Garment; and from a King of Kings to be enroled a subject, and pay Tribute to Caesar; that rid on the Wings of Cherubins, here in his greatest Triumph to bestride a silly Ass; that thought it no robbery to be equal with the Father, to make himself of no Reputation, and to take upon him the form of a Servant; that had so many glorious Mansions in Heaven, so wholly to dethrone himself of all Pomp and State, as not to have a hole to hid his Head in, to be hunted like a Partridge in the Wilderness, betrayed by one Servant; abjurd by another, forsaken by the rest, and generally scorned and scofft at by the Multitude, spat at, scourged, and delivered to a Death, the most ignominious Death, the most torturing Death, the most prolonging Death. All which summed up could not be endured by any, but one that participated of the Deity, or ransom less than the Sins of the whole World.  
5. Now our Messiah could not have writ our Names in the Book of Life, if he had not descended to the susception of our Infirmities. So that he was made Man to suffer, God that he might be able to suffer. Not that the Godhead was Copartner with the Humanity, or any way attenuated his sufferings; for that was invulnerable, impassable. But the All sufficiency of the Deity sustained, and strengthened, the insufficiency, and weakness, of the humanity. Else could he not have trod the Wine-press of his Father's Wrath, drunk so deep of the Cup of his indignation. That which would have torn, and shattered, the best built edifice of Flesh, Christ is enabled to undergo, that he might not give up the Ghost, till he hath gone through what a wracked invention of exquisite Tyrants could inflict.  
6. But before we go up to Mount- Calvary (the Scene of his Tragedy) let us walk to the Mount of Olives, that from that Ascendant we may take the better prospect of his doleful Passion: There shall we find him labouring under such an Agony, as should make him so exceedingly sweat, sweat Blood, drops of Blood, and that trickling down.  Ibat purpureus niveo de pectore sanguis. 
7. No wonder there was such Distemper in his Body, such an Ebullition of that most precious liquor, when God had sent fire into all his bones. If our astonishment hath not already overset our reason, benighted our senses, look on him in the Judgment-Hall (though but with Peter afar off) yet may we be near enough to see him run the Gantlope, his virgin body enduring so many stripes (as some affirm) wearied a whole band of soldiers.  Viscera mortiferis tandem contusa flagellis. 
The Scribes and Elders had reason of state to hasten his death: But that Mercenary soldiers (whose short winged souls seldom soar so high as Court-Politicks, and whose Commission we sinned not so extensive) should, contrary to the nobleness of their Profession, act the ignominious parts of abominated Hangmen (especially when the meekness of his phrase would, like softening oil, rather Mollify their stony hearts, than confirm their obdurateness) illustrates Gods heightened fury to sin, and so consequently to Christ, than the greatest sinner in the world. He should not sip in the cup of his father's wrath, being now to drink a Health to the whole world, but quaff off the very lees of his indignation.  
8 He shall not have the liberty of Job, with a potsherd to wipe off the excressency of Blood; for those holy hands, that had been so often extended, to give comfort to his afflicted people, lifted up to his father to reach down mercies from Heaven for his persecuting enemies, so Charitably disposed to deal Alms to so many Thousands, are now fast bound, and they (who should have guarded him as Prince of Jury, not Prisoner in Jerusalem) are already voting his destruction in their hasty leading him away to [Pontius Pilate the Governor.  
O hard hearted Jews, not only cruel to your Saviour, but pitiless to yourselves in refusing to be washed in the laver of regeneration; spill so much Nepenthe, and not cool the tip of your Tongue with one drop, make of it no cherishing Cordials to strengthen your enfeebled souls; wound this Balsom tree, launce this Wing Palm, and hang no bottles to gather the distilling liquor, but let it fall (like a box of rich Spicknard) on a parched hearth, not to be gathered up!  
9 The morning being now come (too bright to look upon such black deeds) they set the great Judge of Heaven and Earth to receive his Condemnation from men. Little hopes to receive the benefit of Clergy, when the High Priests, and whole Sanhedrim, are his Prosecutors. Pilate might have said the pains of denouncing sentence against him, who in his present sufferings represented the truest figure of death.  — O quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore— 
10. But 'tis decreed this Holocaust must be offered up to atone the incensed Majesty of Heaven. Caiaphas' the Highpriest prophesieth the same. women's assaults many times batter down men's strongest resolutions. Strange then if pilate's wives Petition carry not a prevailing. Sed oportet Christum pati. The sentence of Heaven is irrevocable; no appealing to a higher Tribunal: Her Petition then for this time shall be rejected; and though she suffer many things in a dream by reason of him, Nevertheless (like the neglected Prophecies of the Trojan Cassandra) it shall pass but for a dream, to clear a small scruple of Conscience. He will not enter the Lists alone with the Jewish Nation, and so run into a Praemunire against Caesar.  
And now no sooner had Pilate made clean the outside of the Platter (the inside still streaked and purpled with the Blood of Christ) washed his hands in token of Innocency, but they presently cry out for his Crucifying; as if nothing could rebate the edge of their craving Appetites, unless they caroused full Draughts of his Blood.  O miseri quae tanta insania cives? 
11. They must needs go whom the Devil drives: some (whose Feet are swiftest to shed Blood) are already run to the place of execution, and there proclaimed him coming. Others thrust him out of the Old, and accompany him as far as Golgotha to the New Jerusalem; and, instead of sable Vestments (a decent attire for a departed Friend) or the Romans sacred Velles and Infules (mentioned by Livy) signs of submission, and humble demanding of Mercy, put on Crimson Robes died in the Blood of Christ; instead of solemn Dirges, ring loud Peals of Acclamation. And they that not long before ushered him with Triumph into the Holy City, singing Hosanna to the Son of David, presently change Note, crying, Crucifige eum, crucifige eum. Though he lie weltering in his own Blood, yet is he forced to try the strength of his bruised Limbs, and he that (to the admiration of Beholders) reanimated the dead, and enabled them to take up their Beds and walk, must take up his Cross, and walk his last Peregrination. For Holy Writ informs us, that Malefactors among the Jews carried the Cross, whereon they were to be crucified, to the place of Execution. Christ for the first Stage carried his own, which afterward with a cruel requital bore him.  
12. Would not so nefarious a death expiate so small a crime, so slenderly proved, have fed their meager Appetites even to Satiety, but there must be added to it a Ceremonious Mockery (Bellerophon like) bear the Warrant signed for his own Destruction, embrace that Altar on which he presently shall be offered up a Victim.  
Isaac carried his own Funeral Pile to the Mountain where he was to be sacrificed, but had a timely Reprieve by an Exchange from Heaven. It fared not so with Christ. He was so far from escaping that sharp potion the Hand of God had embittered, that, before he came to receive his grand Tortures, his whole Body was one main Wound, without the least Parenthesis of Soundness. Never such Indications of Love.  Cernitur in toto corpore sculptus amor. 
13. Every where Ingravements and Sculptures the indelible Characters of his superabounding Mercies.  In horribili stat cruce nostra salus. 
And now is this our immolation laid on the Altar of the Cross: and that Man should not surfeit to damnation by eating the fruit of Eden, Christ climbed that accursed Tree, which bears nothing but bitter and deadly Fruit; so inexpressive, as Cicero undertook not (lest he should spill colours) to decipher the Tortures of the Cross: else would not his exuberant Style have quitted a Subject so abounding with so few words. Quid dicam in crucem tollere? A bloody Tragedy must needs ensue where the Devil digests the Plot, and the High-Priests, Scribes and Elders are the chief Actors in it; the avenging God letting lose, and unmuzzling the whole powers of Hell.  
14. Certainly those Fiends could not so soon forget the many Affronts put on their Delegates by our Saviour, as being thrown out of their possession of Men, and glad to be humble Petitioners to have admittance into a Herd of Swine (too good a dwelling for such unruly Guests.) Where we may observe, that though they at present could not disgorge their full swollen malice, yet, to show how ill they resented this disgraceful expulsion, threw a whole Herd of Swine into the bottom of the Sea, to provoke the greedy Gadarens to desire our Saviour (as the Author of that Loss) to departed out of their Coasts. No marvel the Prince of Darkness endeavoured to cloud this bright Star of the East, proclaimed open War against the Prince of Peace. But that his Companions in the flesh, what's more, the terrors of his Father should set them in array against him! 'Twill not then, misbecome this man of sorrows, in the height, of his dolorous passion, to break forth into this bitter Complaint, to upbraid those unrelenting Passengers with this (though too mild) exprobration. Have ye no regard all ye that pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, etc.  
15. Our Saviour's naked Body hanging now on the Cross, modesty for a while bids me draw the Curtain; and if you look back you will see greater things than these: for we have as yet but walked the round, and at a distance taken a slight survey of the out-lines of this great Peice of sorrow; but if we make a nearer approach, we shall find the inmost and more sensitive parts sending forth deeper Groans, louder Outcries.  
There was Poena animi, as well as Poena corporis: And a wounded spirit who can bear? Else would he not have cried out, and that with so loud a voice, before his remorseless Enemies (whose proud rejoicings were the echoes of his Sighs and Groans) My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The repetition of [God] showed the vehemency of his Passion, as if he felt himself wounded with God's wrath, and abandoned of his own Father for our sins: our impieties carved greater wounds in his disconsolate soul than those of his Body; his Feet and Hands were but once nailed to the Cross, but his Soul-piercing Wounds forced a tontinued Distillation: for every levity he paid a Groan, and the least sentiment of sin cost him a sob, a tear.  
16. If Christ paid so costly a rate for our Peccadillo's, our Venial Sins, it must be keener than a two edged Sword, more loathsome than the baneful juice of Aconite, to see the Boorish Gergasites prefer the saving of their Swine before the imparadising their souls; the Buyers and Sellers in the Temple pollute so sacred a place rather than lose a convenient Exchange for their Merchandise. Can any sorrow be like unto his sorrow to find Unbelief, a Disease so Epidemical, and in his own Country, where so near a Relation should have at least paid him equal respect with remoter parts, there to have his Pedigree scornfully ripped up, Is not this the Carpenter's Son? As if God (who measureth not as man doth in deceitful Balances) were a respecter of persons, or he that fabricked this admired Machine without matter, could not Royalize with a Commission the abjects of the people to act his high Commands, or (to use the Apostles Phrase) make known the riches of his Glory on the Vessels of his Mercy.  
H. 1. Can any sorrow be like unto his sorrow, to hear Peter (that great Cornerstone) who had so solemnly promised to wear his Master's Cognizance (even to death) to discard him when his greatest extremity challenged his best and stoutest observance, not once, but thrice, heightened with direful Oaths, and horrid Execrations, and that to a silly Maid, in the presence of his Lord & Master, and obstinately persist in it, till the Warning-piece went off the third time, and shot remorse into him? Can any sorrow be like unto his sorrow, to see the Holy City Jerusalem (the Metropolis of Jewry) with its Glorious Temple, now the beauty of Nations, ere long to suffer such a Dilapidation, as not to have one Stone stand upon another, making good what was sung at the Funerals of another Sceptred City;  Ruit Ilium & ingens gloria Teucrorum. 
2. When Hector, Captain of Troy, Was despoiled of his life, the Trojans and their City became a Prey to the Neighbouring Nations: so soon as those Regic●des destroyed their Native Prince, the Roman General both conquered and crucified them. In verticem ipsius recurrit pernicies. Our just God making the hands of Heathens instrumental to vindicate the cause of Heaven. Can any sorrow be like unto his sorrow, to see himself every where bespattered with bitter Sarcasms, who should have been Deliciae generis humani (the Honour of the Emperor Titus) and a Murderer reprieved; one that destroyed the living, before their Christ who had raised the dead?  
3. Can any sorrow be like unto his sorrow, to see the seduced Populacy (who should have been so bold in the cause of their salvation, as to have vied tears with the drops of his most precious Blood, tuned their Sighs and Groans, to the loud tenor of his Outcries, and riving of his Soul) carelessly pass by shaking their Heads? To see those Rabbis, the Scribes and Doctors, so far from applying a Sovereign Cure to their tainted Souls, that unless he would show them another Miracle by an immediate descending from the Cross, they would not believe? As if all those mighty Works he had already shown, and same had brought home from remoter parts, were clean forgot. Can any sorrow be like unto his sorrow, to see his Kinsfolks and Familiars stand afar off, and made so unfit to pay a full Tribute of Commiseration, as that they could not with safety own a clouded Countenance?  
4. If he eat with Zachens he is accounted a Friend to Publicans and Sinners: there they unawares speak truth, for he seeks their Conversion; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If on the Sabbath he cures the diseased, and gives them a Reprieve to complete their Calcule for that great and general Audit, 'tis a breach of the Law of Moses. If he speaks mystically to them (by wresting it to their own sense,) form it into matter of Accusation. When the Tyrians and Sydonians heard the Harangue of Herod the King, they raised their Notes to the highest: Acclamations, styling it The voice of God, and not of man: But if Christ embroider his Speech with Tropes and Figures, though never man spoke as he spoke, his Friends say, He is mad, his Enemies cry out, He hath a Devil. O quae mentis acerbae moestitudo? But why should we wade farther in this, since we are no more able to fathom the depth of his sufferings, either of Soul or Body, than S. Austin's Child could lave out the immense Ocean with a little Spoon.  
5. Some will say much may be undergone in good company; but for Christ (who before he assumed this Body of Flesh, was. a companion to the great and mighty Jehovah, and well might be so, when there was an equality of Greatness, waited on by Myriad of Saints and Angels) now to be placed between two Thiefs, two notorious Delinquents, could not but mount his thoughts to the summit of sorrow. That Virtue is seated betwixt two Evils is a Maxim undeniable, since 'tis so notably verified by our Saviour's hanging on the Cross between two Malefactors (likely companions are these then for extenuating miseries, when their natures admit of such perfect contrarieties, as good and evil in their several Abstracts) who there, instead of an ingenious Confession, revile their Fellow-Sufferer Christ Jesus with this tart satire, If thou be'st the Son of God save thyself and us.  
6. A strange Object had they found out for their scorn and derision, who was wholly composed of Meekness and Gentleness; but a stranger time had they made use of to vent it in, when death had them on his Shoulders: but the one of them (to the wonderful demonstration of the readiness, and prevalency of his Mercies) presently turned Convert, reproving his Companion; Fearest thou not God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And in the nick of time (while the Iron of Contrition was hot) hammered on't a well formed Petition; Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Words fitly spoken, hanging like Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver.  
7. They needed not have made so curious a scrutiny for new fashioned punishments to afflict him,  — Qui poenis occurrit atrocibus ultrò. 
For when Vinegar mingled with Mirth and Gall, was proffered him to drink (a favour bestowed on such at their Crucifixion, to open the Veins, and so accelerate death) Christ would not drink, lest he should mar the whole Tragedy, by failing in the last Scene. Good God if these be the Favours Man deals to Man, let me receive my Favours from thine own hands. From the first putting on the Swaddling Clouts of Flesh, he had yielded most acceptable Sacrifices of perfect Obedience to his Father: and therefore the horror of the last three Hours Suffering should not make him sound a cowardly Retreat, and so frustrate the Decrees, and preordained Resolves of the Almighty. Perdidit vitam, nè perderet obedientiam. He would give up his life, rather than make forfeiture of his obedience.  
8. Unless we go beyond nature for a search, the fire of the hottest Revenge will expire, when it hath the Blood of its Adversary sprinkled on it. But their malice rebated not with his death, but had a continuation to his Body after his high flying Soul had journied as far as Heaven; else would they not have desaced that incomparable piece of Building (glorious in itself, but more glorious in being the Sphere for this Son of God to move in) by thrusting a Spear into his Virgin Side, for Blood and Water to stream forth, too too precious to be spilt on the Ground of that most accursed Country.  
9 Timanthes a Grecian Painter, when he was to resemble the doleful Sacrifice of Iphigenia, drew a sad Ajax, a mournful Ulysses, but the Face of Agamemnon, the Father, he veiled with a sable Curtain, as not knowing how to decipher so great a sorrow. So we may content ourselves to have delineated the Bewailing of his Disciples, that received the glorious Impress of his Doctrine, the inward sighs and bitter Lamentations of his Friends and Kinsfolks. But instead of showing you his wounded soul, stabbed with our sins, his tortured Body, such Throws so unexpressive, such pangs so unsufferable, something should be interposed betwixt your sight and it, lest out of a zeal to draw that to the life, we take from the State, and Majesty of so true a sorrow.  
10. As the Forerunner to the sad Catastrophe of an Heroic Potentate, a blazing Comet prodigiously shakes his flaming Beard, as if it threatened to fire the lower Region to light him at his Funeral: But at so great and terrible a Massacre of him, who could bind such Kings in Chains, and their Nobles with Links of Iron, could the Sun, that shone but at his courtesy do less than withdraw his Beams, lest it hold the Candle, whilst such horrid Assassination was perpetrated on the Son of God? Or the Earth, his Footstool, to fall into a Trepidation, while it bore such unnatural Inhabitants, that (Viper like) would tear out the Bowels of him, who brought Bowels of Mercy and Compassion to their languishing and Bedridden Souls? Since Christ should be no more preached in the Temple, but polluted with Buyers and Sellers, rend itself in twain from the top to the bottom, the Stones clavae asunder, and in their inarticulate Oratory bespoke their accursed ruin, and our insensibility. The Alarm so great that the dead who had long slept, awaked, as if they arose to present him their Tombs. Every thing full of prodigy and wonder. The great Luminary of Heaven suffers an Eclipse, though the Moon, not then in conjunction, but full, to the admiration of Dionysius; Aut Deus naturae patitur, aut mindi machina dissolvetur. All things in that disorder, as if nature were distracted, and every thing ran back to its first Confusion.  
11. Thus we see, Sun, Earth, Temple, Stones, which are the insensible servants of Man, by their several unaccustomed Mutations, seem to have a quicker resentment of his sufferings than man, who alone is concerned without any Corrival.  
By this time devout Joseph hath begged the Body of Jesus, and (though a rich man) ventured to show his affetion to him living, in a decent interment of him dead. While his charitable hands are throwing on fragrant Spices, and rich scented Odours, let us a little look back on that great Attribute of God (his Justice) that which here occasioned our attendance on this sad and solemn Obsequy.  
12. Those Pieces must needs be well limned, that have the hand and care of the best Artist to figure them, Adam is here drawn to the life, for he is styled the Image of his Maker; his Soul of no Elementary Substance, but the Breath of God. And this Epitome of the Creation, prelated so high above exacts he but an observance to one single command; the Command high and peremptory, upon the pains of Death; the temptation languid, and saint, commended by a Serpent.  
13. That he, that is thought to exceed his Successors in wisdom, and had the precipitation of the Angels, the wrackings of those glorious Vessels, as in a mirror figured to his understanding, should (by so soon affronting his Maker) split that Ark that carried the whole fortune of Mankind, and afterwards give the lie to his Omnisciency, and essential Ubiquity, by shrouding himself in the close Walks of the Garden (as it God wanted a Clue to the Maeanders of his own planting; or one Tree could repair what the other lost, shelter him from the imminent Storms of Heaven; or that there were an Opacity in those Glorious Optics, who could see through the dark and disordered Chaos to model and rank things into a beautiful Order) and in his Epostulation aggravate this sin by a seeming extenuation; The woman whom thou gavest to be with we, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat: (As if God had laid the Scene for his Transgression) If I had been alone, steered my own course, I had not thus offended, Strengthens this Bill of Indictment drawn up against him, and calls for justice to avenge it. O Lord, how shall we fulfil the whole Law, when Adam in his brightest integrity, but newly dropped from the hand of his Maker, could not observe this poor Particle of it? The Spark that flies the Fire that fed it shall be put out. If we refuse the allowed Delicacies of Paradise, nauseate the Cates of his own planting, we shall earn our Bread with the Sweat of our Brows. Since we dislike to equal the days of Heaven, we shall die like Men, die eternal deaths, if not expiated by the Crucifixion of the Holy Jesus.  
14. As our Impieties are transcendent, so will his justice be elevated to the same height. Our Sacrifices must be adequate to the multiplicity of our Transgressions. Can man, by exposing his own life to the fatal stroke of death, satisfy for his own offences, his debt were quickly paid, and Heaven with all its Glories purchased at an easy rate. But the only wise God well knew that the whole world of flesh, though it had as many worlds as this hath Men, and all to endure the exquisitest deaths the most ingenious Torments could inflict, would not take off the interest of our Engagements, no, not, expiate the crimes of one days offending. Let us not therefore think we are hardly dealt withal, because God would not remit any thing of a due debt, but forbear giving up our Verdict, till we sweeten our censures with the ensuing Mercies, which is that that next presents itself.  
15. As the Mercies of God are above all his Works; so is this Mercy of his, in sacrificing his only Son, Paramount above all his other Mercies. For since Hecatombs of Beasts could not appease the wrath of God, but that we must enjoy the blackness of Hell for our demerit, he freely bestowed on us his beloved Son, to live miserably among those which gave him such untoward welcome, to pass through such an agony as should make him sweat Blood, Tears of Blood; to die a cursed death, such a death, such a sorrow, that none but himself could endure, no Tongue but an Angels can relate.  
16. Friendship is never so truly beautified, at no time so gorgeously set forth, as when, like a ready Handmaid, it waits, upon the greatest indigency. God was, and is, that true Friend to us. He saw how near we sat to the Margin of Hell, how the Devil stood in Ambuscado with dilated Arms, ready upon our first tripping to lay hold on us, our own imbecility to resist: the Attack; then sent he one that would not be foiled, should rescue us out of the Regions of Darkness, though with the unavoidable loss of his own most precious Blood. Ungrateful Man, though he hath defaced the Image of his Maker, disrobed himself of all his Glories, yet would not God that he should die eternally, as is most eminently seen in this his one mercy.  
As it was a mercy in God in being this way satisfied for ovi Oftences, so was it as great a mercy in Christ to lay down his life: for he did it spontaneously, and without compulsion; his Passion being wholly in compassion to those,  Qui mortem insonti possent imponere Christo. 
I. 1. No man taketh my life from me, but I have power to lay down my life, & I have power to take it up again: That he that was God, and is God, should die, is man's wonder: but that he, who could draw forth more than twelve Legions of Angels in warlike Equipage to his Rescue (when one single Angle proved sufficient to slay one hundred and eighty five thousand armed Men in one night) would die most readily, lay down his life, rears that wonder a degree higher. But that this Son of God (whose Soul was so Crystalline, whose whole life more innocent than the Seraphical thoughts of expiring Saints) would prodigally pour forth his most precious Blood to bathe and cleanse our Leprosy, is an exaltation of that.  
2. It shall be upon record, as an high piece of merit, if one man lay down the Treasures of his own life to cancel the exacted debt of of his Friend.  
— Subeuntem fata mariti  
Alcesten.—  
Alcestes reprieved her Husband Admetus with the loss of her own life. Maecenas, a noble Theban, embraced death to restore life to his Captive Country. Calphurnia, the Daughter of Marius, was by him sacrificed in the Cimbrick War. History is replete with blazoning Grecian and Roman Worthies, who have disvalue their own lives, when in competition with the safety and honour of their Country. This had a limitation to their Friends, to their distressed Country, yet it entitled them to be seated in the hallowed Pantheon, enroled among the Gods, to have Tombs and Statues, built to perpetuate their memory to futurity. But Christ's love was universal, it had the essential property of good, it was sui diffusivum, it extended to the whole Universe, to those that despitefully used him. In the Abyss of his Passion, in the throws of his most compungent sufferings, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. There could be no ends in Christ, no accumulating of Glories, in whom dwelled the Fullness of the Godhead bodily.  
3. The insuperable and transcendent love of Christ is every where legible and conspicuous. Let us fashion returns of Gratitude in the greater Odium to our Deviations, that cost him so many pains, so many sorrows; making that pious resolution of S. Bernard our own, Nolo vivere sine vulnere, cùm te video vulneratum: As long as we hear thy Wounds, as so many Mouths, crying out upon the cruelty of our Aberrations, we will not live without a throbbing Soul, a wounded Spirit. He had days of Humiliation for our Festivals, sorrowing for our rejoicing; drank Vinegar mingled with Gall for our Carousing; for our Purple and fine Linen he wore a Robe of Mockery, and that spat on, and defiled; was scourged for our wantonizing; macerated his own Body, to pull down the excressency of ours, overgrown with a repletion of Luxury; crowned with Thorns to obtain for us a Crown of Righteousness, that he might throw to us the Donatives of Everlasting Life. And after all this (as if his Endearedness to us had been hitherto unexpressive) ascended the Cross, that by that Ladder we may scale Heaven, and for our prize have the Fellowship of Saints and Angels for ever.  
4. Thus we have seen God's Justice, and Mercy run parallel. His justice must keep us to that severe awe, and perfect Obedience, that presumption get no footing in our hearts; not so much as an Out-work, whereby it may at any time surprise the main Fort. His mercy must teach us not to despair of his seasonable relieving us; though our Sins are the black Curtain drawn between the light of his glorious; Countenance and us, so that we are almost dried up, and withered, yet, at, the least appearance of our Humiliation, he will shed some Gleams, dart a Ray of Favour upon our drooping Souls.  
5. An abused patience amongst most men transforms itself into a fiery indignation. What greater motives for God to destroy the interest we have in his favour, than our disdain and ingratitude. The Israelites after they had once received from the hand of God Livery and Seizing of the Land of Canaan, and by that had a confirmation of the validity of his Promises, they so soon forgot the exuberant mercies of the Lord, that he presently seized on their large Charter of Liberty, and gave them into the hands of Tyrants, Christ when he had once pieced the rich Robes of the Deity to the rags of flesh, soon found us sick even to death, our wounds gangreen'd, and nothing could restore them but his own Blood. Medicabile Nardum, rich Spikenard, precious Ointment; he searched into our sores, wiped off those venomous pollutions we had attracted from the Loins of our first Parents, made us sound men, left us his Antidotes, Instructions to continue sound Christians. But we must not like an over-confident Prodigal, who hath his first Debts struck off from his Friends hopeful amendment, continue his unthriftiness, presuming to find their favour as prolifical as at first. Debet amor laesus irasci. Love once abused changes its smiles into frowns.  
6. God will not be mocked; he hath a Rod of Iron in his Hand, which he will not always brandish over us, but when we provoke his wrath he will strike home. Tarditatem irae gravitate supplicii compensabit (saith Lactantius.) Though God doth not present execution, yet when he is pleased to scourge us, he will recompense the slowness with the weight and grievousness of our Chastisements.  
Then when God is angry who can stand before his wrath, or abide the fierceness of his displeasure? his wrath is poured out like fire, and the Rocks are broken by him.  
7. Because the Almighty hath hitherto given us a Lifeguard of Angels, that therefore he will continue the same protection to us (however we demean ourselves) is an argument built wholly upon fallacy. The distance is many times great betwixt his Will and Power. 'Twere easy for God to make the Black Guard of Satan splendid Courtiers in Heaven, transplant all the fiery Legions of Hell into Parardise, hollow and sanctify all their Profanations, transforming them into glorious Angels of Light, and instead of howling and shrieking, make them perfect Choristers to sing Anthems in the Celestial Quire. But that God will have his justice go an even pace with his mercy; they to be tormentors for sinning, we to be tormented by them for offending.  
8. But let it not be with us as in unsound Bodies, the expelling of one Disease the making room for another, which may be as obnoxious as the first; instead of a too confident relying upon the mercies of God, and our own worthiness, to fall upon its contrary evil, a despairing of the sufficiency of his promises. From the last, a Rock equally as dangerous as the first, should be our care to waft our weatherbeaten Vessels, when we have almost steered into safe Harbour. We cannot figure any thing of the inward and distant Lights of the upper Region, without the assistance of a Telescope. But God, with a Glance swifter than Lightning, darts through all the Fig-leaves of our pretensions sooner than thought; threads the Maze and Labyrinths of all our Hearts: Then must he needs give a veritatem dixisti to Moses, Our Imaginations are evil, and that continually. Assoon as we shake off the Fetters of the Womb we are froward, repining at our Maker's dealing with us, who might have moulded us into Monsters. As soon as we draw breath we draw in sin, and that with Greediness. But let not this anatomising our contagious Souls startle us, or fill us with conceit, that therefore we shall utterly peperish; for if we were destined to damnation, than were our Creation no happiness, but a curse.  
9 If we timely take up, God will let light into that gloomy darkness that invelops us, disperse those full swollen Clouds of his Wrath, that they break not on us. He is not an inexorable Judge: his stock of mercy is as replete as ours of sins. The Thief on the Cross deferred his repentance till the last moment (when we are sure he had not time to make long Prayers) yet did outrun many who all their life road post to Heaven, and gave in his Benè discessit the same day the Son of God entered into his Glory. If after all the abominations of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abrabam could have found out but ten righteous persons in those Regal Cities, God would have stopped the Viols of his Wrath from being, poured out upon them. A strange discouraging Lottery, where so many thousand Blanks may be drawn, before the Hand of God can light upon one prize. Here might we enumerate the mercies of God, and for want of numbers leave them numberless. Sure this would have more puzzled Archimedes' Arithmetic, than the Sands of the Sea he proudly vaunted he could give a number to.  
10. 'Twas a mercy in God to midwife us from the dark Prison of the Womb, which otherwise would have been to us a putrid Grave. 'Twas a greater mercy in preserving us till we arrive at a ripeness of Knowledge, that we may consider our admirable making, with the wonderful Architecture of the Universe. But a greater mercy than that is the possessing our Souls with the saving knowledge of his Word, which is a Lantern to our Feet, and serves as a Pale, and Fence, to keep in the depraved mind of man from breaking out into all Enormities. Where, for our greater Regulement, we may see as clear, as if painted by a Sunbeam, the Sufferings of the Primitive Saints, and God supporting them to hold out the Conflict to the end▪ without Apostasy; and likewise his Justice severely executed on those, that presumptuously spurn at his Ordinances, and despise his rich mercies.  
11. But his mercy of mercies, and greatest of all mercies, is, that of sending his only Son, who was equal to the Father, and the Holy Ghost in Majesty and Honour, to have sorrow, such a sorrow as should make him so dolorously complain to all those that passed by. To die, to die such a death as should make him so passionately cry out to his Father, as if he had suffered the height of God's Anger (his Dereliction) and all to exorcise us of sin, and Satan; ransom us out of a Land darker than darkness itself, that we may be elated into the highest Heaven, where we shall be as far above the Sphere the Sun moves in, as we are now below it.  
12. And that great and terrible Jehovah, whom we durst not name without a venerable prostration, whose clarity we cannot here behold, but through a Glass darkly, by reflected Beams, there see face to face, know him as we are known, accompanying Saints, Angels, Cherubims, and Seraphims, in singing Praises to that great God; where Sorrow shall know no Beginning, Bliss no Ending.   

ESSAY IU. I. 13. De Passione Christi in Corpore mystico, seu de cruse piorum.  2 CORINTH. 4.17. 
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.  
'TIs a Canon drawn up in the College of Heaven, that through the Ordeal Fires of Adversity the Saints enter the Regions of Blessedness. 'Tis fancied by the Poet, that Aeneas passed through strange and uncouth places, had much of horror and trepidation before he reached the Elysian Plains. We must sail through this Fretum, pass these Straits before we launch out into the Ocean of endless Beatitudes.  
14. We must scale these rugged Alps before we make our Intrado into the Campania of future Glory. There is no Galaxias, no Appian way to Heaven; 'tis not Lapidibus complanata. And this every where proved to us by the Footings and Tracing of many imparadised Saints; some to the Theatres to be baited with wild Beasts, as Ignatius; some to the Fire, as Polycarp; some to the scalding Baths, as Phocas Bishop of Pontus; others to the Scaffold, as Saint Paul; every place tinctured with the Blood of Martyrs, the Prison in Jerusalem, the Cradles in Bethlehem. But their Race is run, they have finished their Tragedy with a glorious Exit, with the Plaudite God and Angels.  
Some say the Lilies have no other Seed than their own Tears. We are sure the Church hath no better Seed than the Blood of her Martyrs. It is a goodness we are not to thank our Enemies for. That which is intended for an utter extirpation, proves our best preservative.  
15. Our Bodies keep the sounder for their Phlebotomy. The more they trample on us, the higher we rise: Antaeus' like, we gather strength by our fall. This emboldened Tertullian to tell the Bloodshot-eyed persons of his time, that their persecutions did but open the Sally-port to God's distressed people. Plutarch reports how that Promotheus struck his Enemy with an intent to destroy the object of his hatred, but instead of cutting the Thread of his Life, spun it out to a greater length; probed a hidden wound, lanced a concealed Imposthume, which otherwise had proved fatal. Here is the true Sword Salve which both wounds and heals. O lovely Sore, when the Heavenly Aesculapius puts on the Plaster: O happy wound, that worketh so glorious a restoration. He that beholds the Wracking and Tortures of the Saints and Servants of God, without faith to look upon the Crown their Saviour is weaving to adorn their Temples with, or to conceive the Caresses and Exultancies their Souls make in the midst of their Agonies, will behold them with much inquietude and astonishment.  
16. 'Tis the contemplation of the Joys of Heaven that buoys our Souls, that they sink not in this black Sea. Through that Medium thy not only look into Heaven, but Paradisum ment deambulant. See but the Bead-roll of S. Paul's Sufferings; read but the Bill of Fare he draws you of a perturbed life, you would think he might make the greatest Holiday. Magnum aliquid spectat. Sure there was some immense thing he looked after, that kept him from Swoons and Faintings, that alleviated the sorrow and anguish of his soul: and here he gives us of the refection, assures us our affliction is but light, and, which makes it inconsiderable, it is but for a moment.  
Philosophy tells us, that the world's chief materials are Food and Raiment, the rest is Nugatorium quiddam, whole absence may be dispensed withal; and therefore, if the chosen of God want the Redundancies of an exuberant Fortune, we cannot say their life is levened with sorrow and discomfort.  
K. 1. If we anatomize man in his Umbrage, his mendicant Condition, we shall not find him so pared to the quick, but that he may rival with him whom fortune hath aspected. Zeno Citiensis lost all his Goods in a storm. This which would have made foul weather, raised a Hirrecan in another's Breast, he not only receives in a calm and serene temper, but counts it a Blessing from the Gods that they had given him liberty to study Philosophy. 'Tis not the thing itself that hath any intrinsecal worth to ennoble our condition, but our manner of receiving it, the value we set on it. Paul the Hermit's Coat was as gorgeous in his Eye, as if vested with a Persian Robe. And John Baptist's Locusts and wild Honey tasted as sweetly, as if he had feasted at the Table of Apicius or Lucullus. Diogenes' Earthen Platter, and the Roman Senators Dishes of Clay, were as useful as if moulded of China Earth, or embossed with Gold. The purling Water tasted as deliciously out of those courser Goblets, as dissolved Pearls drank out of Cups of Agate and Crystal by the riotous Anthony and Cleopatra. And if we respect fame, Epaminondas and Fabricius are transmitted to posterity with as many Asterisques of Honour as that wealthy Crassus; their contented poverty studding and enamelling their best Perfections.  
2. Let our condition be never so abject, so necessitous, we have no reason to obnubilate the Sun of his Favour with the least interposition of distrust: for Heaven's great Almoner many times gives us a measure brim full, pours out the overflowings of his Love, and that when all humane help is at a loss, and impossibility of self-preservation. Where could the Israelites have found out materials for the cutting out new Garments in their forty years sojourning in the Wilderness, if God had not miraculously minded their preservation? Sure no Workmanship so lasting as that which this great Architect fashions with his own hands: the Ground was too rude and churlish to give Viands to so many Guests, yet the fleshpots of Egypt could not equal the Dainties they are in that barren Soil.  
3. Sure the Banquet must be rich and bountiful, when this generous Dispensator furnishes the Table with Cates, fetched out of the Store-House of Heaven. And Elijah in his indigency had his Mess brought him, one while by an Angel, another while by a Raven.  
We have not yet seen any Gorgon Faces to affright us, and though we are led into darker Rooms, yet the Damps will not be so great as to make our Tapers burn blue. To be sentenced to the Athenian Ostracism, denied to breath the Air that suckled us, torn from the society of Friends and Acquaintance, snatched from the dear Embraces of an indulgent Wife, to hear the Cries and Heart-breaking of a tender Offspring, or, like disconsolate Niobe, see them slain in our own sight. We might think this to be calculated for the Meridian of Sorrow; yet it is a Grief that may be very well supported with the Contemplation of what is yet left us. And if this be not Cordial Operative enough, consider that in Heaven we shall not be erratic, but Stars fixed in the Firmament of Glory; not irradiated with a borrowed lustre, but perpetually enlightened with the presence of God himself.  
4. Plato never reckoned himself destitute of Company as long as he had the conversation and freedom of his own thoughts, never banished his Country when he had the fame Elements for sustentation, the fame Luminaries to give him light and warmth. They may erase our Palaces, disparkle our riches, strip us of all the world calls beautiful, because we are here but Tenants at will; but that which we hold by a second life is a Building not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens. They may dilacerate our Bodies with unaccustomed Torments, undress them of nature's chiefest embellishments, yet they cannot disrobe our Consciences of their white Vestments, extinguish those bright flames which (like Elias' Chariot) coaches us up to Heaven.  
5. If they banish me (saith Brutus) they cannot forbid to carry with me my Virtues. They are Crown-Jewels that must not be fingered, no ravenous hand may embezzle. Though Detraction blurs our Honour with her sour Breath, makes putrid the sweet Ointment of a good name; though our Statuas are thrown out of the Capitol, and hung up by the Heels in the Forum; though our names are blotted out of their Records and Annals of fame, registered only with scorn and imbasement, God permits it, that from this obscurity, out of this lowness of Fortune, he may do himself the more honour, show the excellency of his power by mounting us on a higher Throne, drawing the Rays of our Glory to a brighter Lustre. Historians every where show us many brave men, as well Heathens as Christians (who had no other fault but too much merited of their Country) that have been paid with scorn and ingratitude, nay, with Proscription; and afterwards, with the consent & applause of those very Persecuters, have thrown off the Mantles and Cover of Darkness and Obscurity, and like the Sun after an interposition, appeared all Glorious.  
6. God seldom remunerates his Servants here with a temporary felicity. Some indeed have been crowned with Rosebuds, have let no Flower of the Spring pass by them. Though Mordecai, a Captive, was invested with the Royal Robes, and road upon the King's Horse, yet others have gone on foot, and not a seeming Gourd to refresh them, but so as he comforts and keeps vivid the Vitals with his Spirits and Extracts, distilled through that glorious Limbeck, Paul the Apostle: We may be troubled on every side, but not distressed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken. God hath Balsom for every Wound, a Plaster for every Sore, and though he dress it not while it is green and fresh, yet he will make his applications before it fester.  
What though God suffer an Executioner to lay violent hands upon thee, he cannot go a step beyond death; he does but antedate the work of a Disease, the difference only is, a nefarious hand presently storms the body, and a malady takes it in by a longer Siege: few drop like a wasted Taper in the Socket, but some violent wind puts it out, some sharp Disease is the extinguisher, and the Conflicts and Colluctations that such have with death adequate the throws of a more hasty Transition. So that it matters not whether we die Sicca, or humida morte; whether we are burnt with a quick fire at the stake, or a lingering one of a Fever; whether we are thrown into the Tiber, or drowned at home with a Dropsy; whether starved in a Prison, or shriveled in our Chamber with a Consumption.  
7. Since God hath a Statute upon our Bodies, It being appointed for all men once to die: and that we cannot be removed from our Troubles of Life but by death, than the shortest way must needs be the best. 'Tis a poor thrift to put a Save-all into our Farthing Candle, to be angry because the thread of nature is broken before she has time to wind off the whole bottom. Though the eye of Moses was not dim, nor his natural force abated, yet when God bade him, Go up and die, he readily quitted his own command, went up to the top of Pisgah, and died. The Primitive Christians set so great an estimate upon the days of their death, that they called them Natales. Then they only began their Epocha of living: the world was but before in labour with them, and death was the Midwife to give them a Nativity.  
8. Certainly could we but hear the Transports of a refined Soul singing an Obiit to the world, preparing her Heavenly Viaticum, it would have a strange charm, awake our Poppy Souls, and infuse into them raptures of joy and exultation unexpressive; or if fabricated according to the Model of that Philosopher, who would have a Window in the Breast of every man, we might see a strange Festivity within him, not a Cloud in that Hemisphere. What more lovely than the wounds of Sebastian (though drawn with a rugged Pencil)? Those feathered Arrowswinged him for an Heavenly Flight. Does not a Martyr amidst his Flames show like the Sun encircled with Rays of Glory? And S. Stephen, when brought before the Council, appeared not with pallor & dejection (like a Malefactor that looks half executed before the doom be passed) but so Seraphical, that the Judges saw his face, as though it had been the face of an Angel. When a Saint hath been mounting a Scaffold, have we not been big with conceit by those few Stairs he was ascending a Throne; that it was his jacob's Ladder that railed him up to Heaven?  
9 He must needs make a boon Voyage, that in so little a time is set on the shore of eternity, with so few steps is carried from earth to Heaven.  
Let not then any thing startle us, though vizarded with loathsomeness and deformity, nor be terrified, though we change life for death (with that brave Theban Epaminondas) so the Victory may be glorious. It is God's care (and who would not almost love his Disease for such a Physician (many times to use Corrosives to the Body, that the Soul may have her Lenitives; punish the worse part, that the better may be preserved. To a mortal man there can be no immortality of evil, man himself hath but a short period; his life compared to things of the least duration. And yet they that acted the most tragical parts (no doubt) had some Interludes and Recesses. It was not long that Joseph lay in prison, nor Job on the Dunghill, nor Jeremy in the Dungeon. Others have put on Mourning for a longer term, but they also had a time to shift their Sables. Dabit Deus bis quoque sinem.  
10. It is against the Rules of a Tragedy to have every Scene filled with Blood shed and Slaughter. A strange distempered Season if the Heavens should continually be hung with black; as strange if we always sat in darkness, that the Sun did not sometimes peep through our cloud of Adversity. Though it enlighten not the whole Body, yet it may gild the Fringes and Borders of it; gives us, though not a glorious light, yet sufficient to keep our dying spark alive. But against all partiality, it must appear strangely short, if compared to the never terminating pains of the Fiends below, where the Worm never dieth, nor the Fire ever goeth out. It is observed by Boetius, That a punctum of time, and ten thousand years hold better proportion than so many years, and that endless thing Eternity. Aeternum, aeternum, quanta, haec duratio, quanta! How much horror and amazement should the consideration of it bring to them that barter for a present felicity, a few transient Glimmerings, so much horror and confusion; where they shall spend morientem vitam, be always dying, and yet never die; not one drop of Water shall be cast into the Furnace to slack their Flames, not one spark of Fire shall warm these refrigerating Waters: and to heighten the wonder, contraries shall dwell together without any destructive clashing. Lamentable is the cry of the Prophet Esay, Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting Burn?  
11. Is it not then better to be cast down with sorrow for sin, than to be sunk so low, that we never rise again; to be clouded for a while, than overcast for ever? Melior est modica amaritudo in faucibus, quàm aeternum tormentum in visceribus: It is better to chew a little Gaul in our mouths; than to have Gripe in our Bowels, and Excoriations in our Souls, and that for ever: to drink a Jill of Wormwood, than to be perpetually intoxicated with the Cup of his fiery Indignation: to endure the heaviness of a night, for the joy that cometh in the morning; a day that shall never be benighted, a day that shall not have so much as a Cloud to veil or curtain the Saint's happiness.  
12. It was answered by that famed Emperor Vespasian (when Apollonius desired admission for Dion and Euphrates, men eminently qualified) My Gates stand always open to Philosophers, but my very Breast is open to Apollonius. So the Gates of that Palace Royal of Heaven, that sure City of Refuge, are never shut against such as are beaten on the Anvil of Affliction for righteousness sake. But God receives these to a greater endearedness, stretches their natures wider to receive a fuller measure of Glory, erects their Throne with more refined Gold, sets richer Jewels in their Crown, that ennoble their suffering with Patience and Glory in their Tribulation. Patience, it fans the holy fires of Love, throws perfumes into the flame, snuffs our Lamp, and makes it burn with a brighter clarity; like the Chemist's Elixir, it turns all into incorruptible Gold, the Touchstone by which God tries his people whether they be Gold or a base Metal.  
13. The warlike Inhabitants of Germany plunged their Male Children in the Rhine, to discover by their boldness in struggling with the waters, their Courage or Cowardice. Our Heavenly Father casts us on the Waters of Marah, wrinkles the face of them with that tempestuous wind, Euroclydon, that troubled Paul, to see whether we would lighten our Ship of that Baggage Stuff she is fraught with, whether we have courage to go on, or patience to endure, though we see neither Sun, nor Stars, for many days.  
He that goeth to Golgotha, and seethe Martyrs and Malefactors sent to the immortality of another world, may easily make the difference, who suffers for demerit, and who for a good conscience. The one sings in his flames, the other howls; the one reproaches the Executioner, the other thanks him, and with that Proto-Martyr Stephen prays for him; the one, like a spent Meteor, stinks in his Socket, the other (like Aromatic Torches) perfumes the Air with odoriferous Evaporations, or a setting Sun that leaves an impression of Glory on the Neighbouring Clouds.  
14. But to have heard the complaint of Hadrian sung in a sort tone, in a sadder Elegy; or to have seen the impatience of Herod, when wracked with an incurable Disease, but more distorted Conscience; or Julian the Apostate, full of horror, and remediless despair; or Nero, when he crept into a Thicket of Reeds, for fear of dying more majorum. This sure (like Belshazzar's Handwriting) would have made lose the Joints of his Loins, and his Knees to smite one against another. But the Saints of God they smile upon death, and torture, and good reason have they. Mors non est obitus sed abitus: Death is their Goal-delivery, gives them a Writ of Ease from all their Labours and Endurances; 'tis their Intrat to their Glories, and endless Beatitudes. S. Jerom saw but a little timidity in his Soul, some show of her unwillingness to leave her old Habitations, and presently he gives her the check; Egredere, quid times anima mea, egredere, etc.  
15. We may with less reluctancy traverse this Alpian way, because much plained with the footings of those that have gone before. If Myriad of Saints marched in the van, and dared their Enemies to an Execution, shall it startle us to bring up the rear? No Victory without fight, no Crown without Victory. We may be Spectators at the Olympic Games, carry a Crown to adorn another's Triumph, but never wreathe our own Brows, unless we get the Garland with striving. And who will not enter the Lists, when he is sure to carry away the prize? For God, with his Militia of Angels, attends the Combat, and enhanceth the price of their Virtue, according to the vigorousness of the temptation they grapple with. If such had not their exemption from the effects of an angry God, whom the Lord hath styled, A man after his own hearty, the signet of his right hand, the friend of God, his Husbandry, his Building (expressions of a strange endearedness) can we, that are but Shrubs and Brambles, think to have merited more of lenity than those Oaks of Bashan, those Cedars of Lebanon; those Columns of Piety and Godliness, that our services are of an higher strain than the Apostles and primitive Saints, and therefore he should lay his strokes the gentler on us.  
16. Believe it, we have dipped our Sins in a far deeper Die, made them as red as Scarlet, rivalled the greatest Offender, and therefore our suffering can never make an expiatory Oblation. If God did perpetually flash his Lightnings, dart his Thunderbolts, and knot his Rods (like the Whips of the Furies) with Serpents and Scorpions, yet the disproportion must be strangely great betwixt a finite suffering, and an infinite Majesty offended. 'Tis of singular advantage and encouragement to us in this War-fare, that Christ underwent the fame pressures, but ripened to a greater maturition: for he can tell (to a scruple) how much Freight we can take in, how many fathom of Water our Vessel draws; so that he will be sure to unlade us, if the Burden be too weighty, throw into them some sweet Liquors, if the Waters taste too brackish.  
L. 1. It was a comfort to dying Lausus, that he received his death from the great Aeneas. It matters not how many stripes we receive, how deep the wound, how disconsolate the Soul, since it is a Saviour that afflicts, who carries healing under his Wings: so much Blood and Sweat, so many Sighs and Sobs shall not become fruitless; but he will see though Work of our Redemption perfected. We are wounded, but that good Samaritan will have compassion, bind up our Sores, and pour Oil and Spikenard on them, that can settle and compose a distempered and sadded Soul, and sparkle our Countenance, as if we were putting on the Royal Habiliments in the morning of our Resurrection: Dum dat verbera ostendit ubera. God never bruises us, but he hath a Plaster ready spread, pearled Cordials to fetch back a departing life. 'Tis said the Stork lets out the corrupt Blood of her young ones, and then acts the Surgeon's part, closing up the Wound with her Tongue. Thy Rod, and thy Staff, they comfort me; both like loving Correlates attend each other.  
2. It is a very great advance to a Cure, when our fancy builds a belief, that the means and applications used by our Physician will be prevalent to a repelling the Disease; then we yield our Bodies wholly to his disposal, and never dispute whether he will phlebotomize, or use strong Purgations; whether he scarrifies the wound, or makes an incision. God, who is omniscient, knows best how to deal with his Patient. Emollient Medicines will not remove a Chronical Disease. 'Tis well if we can save the Body by cutting off one gangrened Joint, by letting out a little discolored Blood, preserve the rest sanguine & sound.  
Sure those Laws of the Romans (like Draco's) should have been writ in bloody Characters, where they invested the Parents with the power of life and death of their Wives and Children. Fulvius had not the denomination of cruel in doing execution upon his Son for confederating with Catiline. And Titus Manlius was thought rather favourable, than a severe Justicer, when he went no higher than to make his Son Syllanus a perpetual exile.  
3. This rigorous piece of Justice, and  affection, built Trophies to their name, but no way improved the condition of the Patient; for it was Physic of a strange nature, a sublimate never ripened in Love's Limbeck. Our Heavenly Father that fashioned us may impose what Laws his divine wisdom thinketh best; but if he wounds his Servants, 'tis to heal them; if he takes away a temporary life, 'tis to hasten them to an eternal one.  
Magni beneficii est indicium; When God seems to disfavour us, then are we in highest favour; and we make the nearest approaches to him, when in the eyes of the world we seem to be at the greatest distance. Holy David acknowledged a Cure done upon him by an Heavenly Chastisement; It was good for me that I was afflicted. The Prison was the best School for Manasses; for in that, solitude he could have no Divertisement, but leisure wholly to contemplate his great Deliverer and figure to himself Ideas of a more Glorious Kingdom. Vexatio dabit intellectumi Punishment is Sins Looking-glass; there it beholds its ugliness and deformity, the Stains and Morphews which make the Soul look squalid.  
4. When Absolom was under a Cloud, and putting his Designment of a Rebellion into the Forge, to amass a greater strength, he sent an invitation to Joab to embark in the same design; but Joab (whether in detestation of such unnaturalness, or unwilling to hoist Sail, till he saw to which point of the Compass the Wind would settle) rejected the Summons, Absolom sends again and again, and still Joab refuses; but when he gave command to burn his Cornfields, and ravage all that Neighbourhood to him, he made no dispute, but came apace. So in our prosperity we draw a partition betwixt God and us, will not cloud our thoughts with the contemplation of Judgement and another World, let his invitations be never so luscious, presented by Prophets, Saints, and Angels: but when he lays waste our Possessions, dismantles our Dwellings, throws us upon the Dunghill, than we look with averseness on out sins (the evil Spirits that raised this Tempest●) then do our visive Beams pierce through Heaven itself, and in this foul Wether seek to cast Anchorage in the Arms of our Saviour.  
5. The Philosopher observes, that if we will see the Stars, and highest part of the Sphere, at Midday, we must descend to some Cavern, or low place in the Earth, where we are freest from the light, and coruscations of the Horizon we live in. So we must be removed from the glaring lustre of the World before we can truly discern Heaven, and the radiancy of its Glory. The Figure and Global part of the Sun is clearer discerned in a Dish of Water, than in his Fiery Chariot. The Astronomers best posture is to lie prostrate on the Ground. When we are thrown on our Back, humbled and brought low, than we best behold God's Immensity, and our own impotency. The Earth that hath endured the Summer's Heat, and Winter's cold, cut with the Blow, and crumbled with the Harrow, is best cultivated to receive her Seed, and make a grateful return to her Benefactor. Some Fruits are best fermented with nipping Cold, and biting Frosts. Our stony Hearts are soon ripened and mellowed by affliction.  
After we have been thrust into the Forge of Persecution, we are then malleable, easiest to be hammered out. God sets his stamp, coins us for Glory, when melted in the Crusible of Adversity. Prosperity (like the Sun) doth too much harden us. Thunder scatters and disparkles ill boding exhalations, clears the Air of all pestilent and malevolent humours: God thunders by affliction, breaks the racks of sin, and scatters those foul Meteors that are engendering in the regions of our Souls. Spikenard, precious Ointment, and sweet Waters savours more that the hand scatters and throws about, than when sealed up in their Enclosures of Crystal. Spices, for pounding and bruising, send forth exhalations more redolent. How Sunburnt, what aethiop's appear we, when blacked with sin? But as soon as God hath burnished (and like the Diamond) cut and pointed us, we appear (like the King's Daughter) all glorious. Affliction is the Mercury Water that clears our sallow complexion: the best Beauty Spot we can put on.  
7. Elkanah said to the Mother of Samuel, Am not I better to thee than ten sons? So it may be said, is not affliction better than a thousand pleasures? Here every vanity doth waylay us, as Jael did Sisera, Turn thou in my Lord, till it smite us through the Temples. If we saw but this foul Body dissected, it would appear like a Mandrake Apple, comely to the eye, but poisonous in taste; or like the glorious Tombs of our Ancestors, that, enshrine nothing but dirt and putrefaction. 'Tis not all Comical we act; the Scene will presently change; like Jonas' Gourd, it springs up to day, and canopies us from the Sun's intrusions, but anon an envious worm withers it. Pleasure was never so absolutely enjoyed, but that it had some Gall, some Worm wood thrown into the Cup. The smoothest face cannot laugh without contracting Wrinkles, and the extremity of it bedews our Cheeks with Tears. Like a Rainbow, it hath half Sun, and half Cloud. Like a Meteor it gives a glaring light, but portends mischief; fits us for Plagues and Pestilencies. If they were really good and profitable, they would improve those that enjoy them; but the contrary effect is most apparent.  
8. When Nabuchadnezzar stalked on the Roof of his stately Palace, and there beheld the Majesty of Babylon, did he not then begin to wax proud, and vaunt the Workmanship of his own Hands: Is not this great Babel which I have built? But when God had humbled him with Chastisement, plumed his Eagle Wings, than could he pierce through those Clouds and Vizards that enveloped his understanding, see more of his Maker from that lowness of Fortune, than when he towered on the Pinnacle of all his Glories. When David had his Beams displayed in a Royal Horizon, sitting on the House top, soon pried into the Retirements of Uriah's Garden, and there fed his eyes with the unlawful love of Bathsheba: but when Nathan the Prophet had trumpeted God's Judgements, and with a black Pencil drawn a Scheme of his succeeding miseries, it soon fetched him down from that height, and made him retire into himself, and appeal to the Chancery of Heaven for Mercy.  
9 We have no reason then to be sadded, or cast down, if we see another wear richer Robes, bespangled with brighter Glory; because the Merchandise he trafficks for, hath such a supervaluation, so strange an impost set upon it. He that sufficiently battled in the pleasures of a luxuriant life, bids us, Envy not at the glory of a sinner, for thou knowest not what shall be his end. O consider, what real and substantial sorrow they exchange for counterfeit pleasures; for fleeting vanity, an endless misery. If Dives in his life time had seen those pits of confusion, heard the shrietches and yell of the damned, put his Finger in that scorching flame, been stretched upon the wrack but for one moment, he would have made his life more tragical, torn off his Purple and Fine Linen, and put on a Pilgrim's Habit; would have fasted himself to a Skeleton, set Lazarus at his own Table, and sat himself at the Gate.  
10. 'Tis not a Hell hereafter that excuses, but here a corroding conscience must centre within them; that, like the Handwriting upon the Wall, imbitters their delicious fare, damps their Frolickings, puts them into shiverings and tremble, though encircled with a Corone of Princes, finds them out in their Retirements, and in a croaking Mandrake Groan pronounces, their accounts must be balanced, their pleasures audited, that there must be sorrow in its Achme, misery pulled up to an unimagined height. It ends not here, but commonly they close up all with some sad Catastrophe. A Plebeian hath seldom any eminent part in a Tragedy, but mighty Princes, fond Lovers, warlike and haughty Heroes compose the Scenes. We cannot call that a fair day which hath a ruddy Morn, and bright Noon, if the Evening shuts up itself with adismal blackness. Attend but the Exits of those wretched persons, see this Squib run to the end of the Rope, and it shall bespatter itself in pieces. Let us not pass a Judgement upon a Pomegranade by a fair outside, denote him happy that flutters in an opulent fortune; for their Jealousy and Fear ought to run parallel with their felicity. O, unhappy is our condition, if God thinks us not worthy to wrestle with miseries, to bear in our Bodies the Marks of our Lord Jesus.  
11. The Destroyer must needs come in upon us, if the Scarlet Line hang not in the Window, or finds not blood sprinkled upon the Lintel and Side Ports. God's anger is screwed up to a strange pitch when he passeth by us with his Rod, when he will not so much as brandish his Sword at us. S. Austin saith, That an offender sometimes so exasperates his Maker, that he will not chastise him in this life. Their condition is very forlorn, whom the Lord leaves to a future punishment. How deadly will the blow be when God shall put fire to the Mine he hath been so long digging! How deep the Cup, how bitter the Potion that he hath been so long brewing! If many of the Saints of God, out of the Sense of their own unworthiness, have had strange Titubations in the naming of that great and terrible day of the Lord, a day that the powers of Heaven shall be shaken, how much should an Impenitent tremble & quake, when he considers that at this grand Assize the Lord will come with Fire, and with his Chariots like a Whirlwind to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with Flames of Fire.  
12. 'Tis now time that we remove from the Waters of Babylon, take down our Harps from the Willows, and prepare to sing the Songs of Zion in a Glorious Land; wade out of this Valley of Tears, and get up unto Mount Nebo (Moses glorious prospect) that we may see the Riches of the Celestial Jerusalem; and yet we can view but an imperfect Landscape. For if the knowledge of all the Sages in the World concentred in one person, he could give but a blurred Copy, a dark Figure a faint resemblance of that ecstasied Glory, prepared for the Saints, and Servants of God. 'Twas the most desired wish of S. Austin, to have seen Rome when she was the World's Metropolis, heard S. Paul in the Pulpit, and seen our Saviour in the Flesh. But there he shall have his wish strangely superlative, see a City whose Foundations are garnished with all manner of precious Stones, where the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb are the Temple of it, and in that Temple hear S. Paul, and Myriad of Angels, tuning their Harps, and singing perpetual Hallelujahs to the Glorious Trinity; and, which transcends admiration, see the Lamb wear the same Dress, chequered with the rich Robes of the Deity.  
13. There we shall have those Dotes Beatorum, which the Schoolmen so much talk of, Visio, Dilectio, Fruitio in such perfection as no Line or Plummet wrought by nature's hand can fathom their Abyss. When there is Summum bonum in summo gradu, it will be hard defining how good, how great they are. Here we speculate and spell our Saviour in his Word, in his last Will and Testament. But there we shall behold the Word itself, Christ Jesus. God hid Moses in a Cleft of the Rock, and covered him with his Hand, while his Glory passed by; he saw his Back parts only, in transitu.  
But when the great day of exaltation cometh, that the Lord maketh up his Jewels, he will take us out of the Clefts and Vaults of the Earth (the Cabinets where he treasures up his Dust) and set us on such elated Thrones, as Zacheus his little Stature shall be no hindrance to take a full view of the Beatifical Vision. We shall not look with admiration only, but with love and delight. Here our eyes are commonly bleared with envy, when they behold the Grandeur of another: but we shall rejoice at the Saint's Coronation, have not the least tincture of emulation if we see a bigger Crown, a brighter Glory. Our love to Christ must needs be insuperable, which made us Coheirs with him in Glory; that when one drop of his Blood had more of value than to make an adequatory Oblation for the sins of the whole World, he would set a running all the Sluices and Rivulets of his Body; nay, would have abated nothing of the whole series of his passion, if but for the laving of thy one individual person. And if Christ so loved us in the flesh, espoused us when we were full of loathsomeness and deformity, he will flame out with greater Fires, put us into his own Bosom, when the Refiner hath melted off our Dross, washed us with his Fuller's Soap, when he seethe us mounted to the Zenith of our Glory.  
15. Aeneas, though esteemed pious among the Heathens, never had a nearer access to Apollo's Temple, than to the Threshold or Porch of it. The Israelites durst not touch the Borders of the Mount for fear of being stoned, or thrust through with a Dart. And the Jews entered not into the Sanctum Sanctorum, but the High Priests alone, and that once a year. Before God spoke unto Moses he prefaced by Thunderings and Lightnings, and Mount Sinai, was altogether on a Smoke, and the whole Mount quaked, and the people trembled. But when we have our Materiality spiratualised, a Manumission from the corruption of the flesh, we shall corns unto Mount Zion, the City of the living God, and to innumerable Companies of Angels. The Planets, that have a predominancy over our Bodies, here sparkle only a borrowed lustre: these, we gaze on with great admiration: yet at the general conflagration these Lamps shall be put out, as having too dark Rays to shine in the Horizon of Glory.  
16. And if a Saint of the lowest order in Heaven shall flash out more refulgent Beams, than if all the scattered Stars and greater Luminaries were stuck in one Sphere, made one splendid Ball of Light, with what hallowed Fires shall we burn, when with the brighter Cherubims, and many eyed Seraphims, we shall be set in one Carcanet, make up one glorious Constellation? How great our light, when like so many Heliotropia we shall sit sunning ourselves in the presence of God himself? Helen could never draw her eyes from beholding the beauty of Paris; and Dido was sick of the same Disease.  — Nequit oculos implere tuendo: 
She would never be satiated with the gazing on the countenance of Princely Aeneas. But the Fire of their love was quickly put out, (like the fairest Flowers they may be withered with too much smelling to.) Age will dull the edge of a  Appetite, or in the height of their Enjoyments disaster or jealousy enrage it to a Frenzy.  
M. 1. Pandora's Box is open to every man. Here is no happiness whose Ligaments are not soon broken, whose Compositum hath not some dross. We are never fanned with so smooth a Gale, but we are sometimes made to lower our Sails, some Hirrecans are raised to make a Ruffle. And if our Halcyon Days make up a few Climactericks, we are glutted, have a saturity of Enjoyment. But in Heaven we shall see God Paternaliter, with a desire and love still to behold him, and that without any anxiety, or the least decadency.  
We have seen some persons that have had such a symmetry of parts, such an air in their Countenances, such a plenitude of Perfections, that hath wrapped the Beholders into wonder and astonishment. If Corruption can put on such charm, how bright shall we shine, when quickened with Celestial Fire; though invested with the same flesh, yet spun to a finer Thread; though kneaded of the same Atoms, yet finer searsed, cast in a fairer mould: our Bodies shall be clarified into Soul-Matter, and our Souls flame out with the Fires of a Divinity. No less than an Apostle assures us, We shall be made partakers of the divine nature; be so rarified, so spiritualised, have (as the Schoolmen venture to call it) an Identification with God in the state of Bliss.  
2. Here we have a Film, a Cataract in the eye, that Luminary, our understanding clouded with a Cimmerian Darkness; at best we see but in Aenigmate, darkly, or like things we behold in the Water, that appear with crooked and distorted forms. But when that great Oculist of Heaven unseals the eyes of our understanding, shows us Magnalia Dei, those abstracted speculations, which are now inscrutable and past finding out, shall then be as plainly figured, as if writ with a Sunbeam, and we shall behold the inside of things with a clearer perspicuity, than we do now their outside or colours. There we shall understand why the sin of one man should be the sin of every man; why God would not cancel the World's Obligation without that inestimable Blood of his dear Son, when he might have satisfied himself with a meaner Sacrifice, or taken away the cause by denying the Tempter access into the Garden; show how the world was made, whether by a fortuitous Concourse of Atoms, as our Sectaries in Philosophy have it; how the earth hangs upon nothing; how Moses did all his wonders in Egypt; unriddle the Sacred Mysteries of the Deity, and those inextricable knots of Divinity, which have unsheathed so many Swords, caused such Clashes and Disturbances, shall be all enodated, presented as in a Mirror to our Understanding.  
3. Here we may stand on Tiptoe, look into the Elyzian Fields through the prospective of Faith, but we view them at a great distance, and commonly we have weak Beams, and an unsteady hand, but there those faint means will become useless: God will pull off his Mask, throw aside every Umbrella, and give us a patefaction of all his Glory. When Mount Tabor sparkled with the Beauties of Christ's Transfiguration, and the Apostles were showed the gorgeous Apparel they should be decked with hereafter: no wonder if Peter desired there to fix their Tabernacles. If such a Stage as Mount Tabor can present a Scene so richly dressed, when a few Saints descend and traverse it; how illustrious will the sight be, when we see the Great Jehovah, and Myriad of Angels, pleno orbe, in their full Glory. We shall not only see these Transcendencies, but be that which admits of no emblematizing, adapted, made congruous, and sympathetick with Celestial Perfections.  
4. Stars have their Malevolent Aspects, the brighter Luminaries their Spots, and the most splendid Diamond is not every where transparent. But in Heaven there are no Erratas, the beautified Saints cannot contract the least stain. No unclean thing enters into those Holy Habitations, breathe nothing but the sweets of love, have such a fullness of every delicious thing, that there can be no addition: for, if there could be any increment or decrement, than there were no perfection. Ibi vita sine morte, veritas sine errore, felicitas sine perturbatione, all things sublimated to the most ecstasied purity, & that without any change, without any disturbance, no night but an endless day.  
5. Things are best illustrated by their Contraries. The Northern Men, that are benighted for six Months together, salute the approach of the Sun with a more exceeding joy, than they that face him every day. The Beauties of the Spring receive a better Welcome after a stormy Winter. Rest will be most joyous to those who have undergone a troublesome Pilgrimage. The clarity of Heaven will appear more lucid to them that sat here in darkness. Take a Prisoner out of a dark Dungeon, and set him before an unclouded Sun, and he shall not be able to make him a fixed Object. And what is the Radiancy of this Sun to the Son of God? This Spark to that glorious Diamond, this Daddock-wood, this Glow-worm to that Morningstar? When God shall raise his Servants out of their Beds of Obscurity, remove them from the dark Chambers of the earth, and show them the glittering Mansions above, they shall be like Cherubims, full of eyes, give and receive light, and nothing shall weaken, their improved Optics, though millions of Suns shine in one Horizon in their Meridian of Glory. These Suns shall never exhale an ungrateful Cloud to obscure them, never be an interposition to eclipse each others light; their joys shall not be levened with the least sorrow. That clear Sky shall not contract the least spot, and which is more, time shall never wrinkle them.  
6. 'Tis a conceit of the Poets, that in Elysium their Goblets were always full of Nectar and Ambrosia; and as they still drank, their Cups were replenished to an overflowing. The Saints have better assurance for the Permanency of their Paradisian Bliss. Mutabimur in immutabilitatem: We shall be changed into an unchangeableness. Our Crowns shall continue the same splendour, our Robes the same Lillied Purity, our Palms the same Verdure and Fragrancy. Here we are in a continued fluxibility, have Springs and Palls, Summers and Winters, Droughts and Inundations: But in our final Estate there is neither Efforescentia nec canescentia; not ebbing or flowing, no extinguishing of that Vestal Fire; no falling of that Golden Leaf of endless Glory. Because our time is here short, we cut it into shreds, reckon by Minutes, Hours and Days. But when we have once cast Anchor in the Ocean of Eternity, non est heri nec hesternum; there shall be no distinction of Days, no reckoning Lustres or Olympiads, but have one perpetual Pentecost, a never ending Jubilee.  
7. The Arithmeticians are so bold as to tell you, they can set down how many Corns of Dust make up the Globe of the Earth. They will go a strain beyond that, and say they can give a number to as many Grains, as shall fill the spacious Concavity betwixt this and the Firmament. The Mathematicians take the height and dimension of the remotest Planet, put a Girdle about the Heaven itself. The Philosophers will tell you of what stuff the Stars and Spheres are made. It would not only pose Archimedes, but baffle the Angels themselves, to draw imaginary Lines about the highest Heaven, sum up the Calends of Eternity.  
8. Here you have a Picture with a Janus Face; on the one side the Features shadowed with a black Coal, a blubbered Face, dishelved Hairs; but he that makes a curious inspection shall find, though black, yet she's comely, discover a life in that sorrow, beauty in that carelessness. On the other side, there are only some few Lines drawn to show, that something more excellent should there be shadowed. Zeuxis being hopeless of pourtraicting a comely Venus, limned only the back parts, leaving the rest to fancy and imagination. At best, we can draw but in Water-colours those incomprehensible Glories. For if Paul, a Star of the first Magnitude, after he had been caught up into Heaven, and viewed the splendid Equipage of that place, confessed that he saw things unexpressible, and heard things unutterable, 'tis not for Dust and Ashes to bedribble with a rude Pencil such superexcellent perfections. But so much satisfaction we find as to discern a strange disparity betwixt the service and the reward, affliction and Glory; the one so light and momentany, the other so weighty and e●●●nal, that it is but as a dust in the Balance, an Atom to the Earth, a drop to the Ocean; the one a punctum, the other admits not any Philosophical Commensurations.  
9 Let us then, like wise Merchants, lay out for that rich Pearl of eternal life. There are (saith the Prophet) that buy much with a little. For taking up the Cross of Christ, enduring a few temporary outrages, we shall sit with him on his Throne, arrayed with a blaunched Vesture. For if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him. Jacob served his Uncle Laban seven years for Rachel, and they seemed but as a few days, for the love he bore to her. If we desire the Espousals of Eternity, we must cheerfully undergo a few Medicinal Corrections, feed upon Husks, since it brings us to the fatted Calf. It was an earnest of a strange affection in Agrippina Occidar modò imperet; I care not how they dispose of me, so that Nero reigns. But holy Job looked for a better return of his Imbitterments, when he took up that stout resolve, Though the Lord should kill me, yet will I trusl in him. And likewise S. Austin, Domine hîc ure, hî seca, ut in posterum sanes.  
10. It matters not how soon we get upon this pale Horse, since he transmits' us into Abraham's Bosom; though he sears us with an hot Iron heated in Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace, so he marks us for his; how soon he imbalms and conduits the Body in the Grave, so he serve it up for a refection at the Supper of the Lamb. If he unskrew the Wheels and Gimmors of this Building, 'tis to give it (like a foul Watch) a new scouring. Though he cut down the Trunk, yet care shall be taken of the Root. We may dispense with a transplantation when he gathers us from Briars and Brambles, plucks us out of a barren soil to set us in a more fertile Land. Though our Flower sheds his Beauties, hangs down the Head, and dies, yet the Seed shall still be preserved; like China Earth, such stay in the Grave shall beget a transparency. Though he undress the Soul, throw the Body into the Valley of dry Bones, and there lodge it for thousands of years, yet they shall appear Tanquam somnus unius horae; but as the sleep of one hour. And though sent to that slate of Dormition, such names, as have not defiled their Garments, shall be registered in his Ephemerideses, in such indelible Characters, as no Index expurgatorius shall ever blot out; and in his good time he will visit the Sepulchers & Coemeteries of those dead, recall the Souls from their Widowhood, put unctuous matter into every dry Bone, cloth them with Sinews and Flesh, and spread such a Covering of Skin upon them, as Moses' Face (when illustrated) would appear but as a darkening Veil; and all to meet our Redeemer in the Clouds, that he may in this lovely Dress usher us to unspeakable Glories, to Heaven, the Haven of our endless Rest and Happiness.   
FINIS.   

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