Tempora Mutantur. A TREATISE, Theological, Moral, and Historical.  
Representing( as in a Scene) the Vicissitudes of human things, with their Causes and Uses.  
Fitted for the establishing mans Soul unchangeable in the Faith, amid the various Changes of the World.  
By J. R. Master of Arts.  Isa. 21.11, 12. 
He calls to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night?  
The Watchman said, The morning cometh and also the night.  
LONDON, Printed for Tho. Rooks at the Lamb and Ink-bottle at the West end of S. Paul's near S. Austin's gate, Where also is made and sold the best Ink for Deeds and Records, 1664.   

To the RIGHT worshipful sir G. B. Knight.  
SIR,  
IN the wheeling motions of our late changes I have still observed you to be Homo quadratus, one whose Basis hath been firmly grounded upon Religious principles; and amid the manifold Alterations of the World's Scene( on which you have acted the suffering part) most constant unto the Truth; your Heaven-born Soul over-looking these sublunary mutations with an eye of Faith fixed upon Eternity.  
Having therefore composed this Treatise, [ The birth of a Day] brought forth by the midwifery of some weeks studies, I no sooner thought of seeking a Patron for it, then of choosing yourself; whose Experience( I knew well) could fully attest the Vicissitudes of all human things, and whose Judgement did clearly discern their several Causes, as having already applied them home in their sacred Uses.  
And the rather, sir, do I make bold here to inscribe Your name, that I may erect, if but a small Monument of thankfulness unto you for sundry Favours; and let you see that I eye not greatness so much as goodness for the fittest Patron. The former of these having much of Vicissitude in it, being Aurâ fugacior, more fleeting then the Air; but the later of duration, being Aere perennior, more durable then Brass. And a greater testimony of this goodness cannot be given, then your eminent and cheerful suffering, even the loss of All, your Constancy excepted in the Orthodox Faith, which hath taught you to look beyond the Instruments, unto God the principal Agent, in his so various and changeable dealings with you, as to earthly things.  
May these Lines then stand you in any stead, though to be only( as Aaron and Hur were to Moses) some stay and support to your weak hands and feeble knees, 
Exod. 17.12.  it is enough.  
For God who is rich in mercy to those that call upon him, hath a Sufficit for You and Yours, and will at length make up all your losses( if you faint not under them) out of his own choicest treasure of happiness, which no son of violence shall be able to force from You; since you have suffered as a Christian with undaunted Fortitude and Patience, knowing in yourself that you have in heaven a better and an enduring Substance.  
And now, Sir, I commend your Worthy self with your virtuous Lady, 
Act. 20.32.  and your hopeful( as well as numerous) branches, unto God and the word of his Grace: nothing doubting but that He, who by the hand of his providence hath the turning about of this great Globe of the World, will also {αβγδ}, in his good time, turn all to his Churches good: and as he is able every day to build you up more and more in your Holy Faith; so likewise he will do it, and give You an abiding inheritance among them that are sanctified. Which is the prayer of him who esteems it an Honour to be,  
Sir, Your faithfully devoted servant, John Robinson.   
PROV. 27. ver. 1. and last branch of it. 
For thou know'st not what a Day may bring forth.  The whole Verse runs thus; 
Boast not of to Morrow; for thou know'st not what a Day may bring forth.  
THis verse is one of Solomons Proverbs spoken of 1 Reg. 4.32. where we red that Solomon spake three thousand Proverbs, and his Songs were a thousand and five.  
Now a Proverb is a speech of an Absolute and Independent nature. For which cause I shall not look back upon it as any ways Relative, but as standing by itself upon its own account.  
And in this Proverb two general things are considerable.  
1. A Prohibition, Boast not of to morrow.  
2. A Reason of it, For thou knowest not, &c.  
And in the Reason there are three Particulars observable.  
1. The Birth: And this is implied in the relative Quid, which hath always an Aliquid it relates unto, viz. some good or evil to be delivered of.  
2. The Parent that brings it forth: And this is A Day, 
Veritas temporis filia, awl. Gell. Noct. Attic. lib. 12. cap. 12.  or every particular day. For as Truth is the daughter of Time; so also is falsehood. It is Time that brings forth Births that are diversely shapen, both good and evil, straight and crooked, beautiful and deformed, perfectly membred and monstrous. Our gazettes and Diurnals can satisfy us thus far.  
3. The Persons that do ignorantly gaze after the Birth: And they are every man, Tu homo. And if it be asked then Who doth know it; it is answered, Only tu Domine. For secret things belong to the Lord, 
Deut. 28.28.  says Moses: And future things are those secrets that God hath kept locked up from us in his own bosom; He only knowing them a parte ante, we but a parte post. For as Bildad says, 
Job. 8.9.  so may we, Hesterni sumus, That we are but alleys off-spring and know nothing, no, not so much as the issue of one Day, what it will produce. Thou Know'st not what a Day may bring forth.  
And here I shall begin with the last of the three, viz. The persons that do ignorantly gaze after the Birth; And they are Every man; Tu homo. And the rather because it is first in the Text, and comprehensive of the rest. The substance whereof I shall hold out unto you in two Propositions.  
1. That no man can tell the Future Event of things, no not for a day: and this comes to pass from the great vicissitude and unconstancy of all world●y things. Or else, if I may but take in this Reason into the Proposition, then I shall run it thus;  
That there is such a Vicissitude and Inconstancy in all Sublunary things, as that a man can have no assurance of them, no not for a day. We know not what a Day may bring forth.  
For in the great House of the World there be three rooms; whereof the upper and lower have no change, nor shadow of change, the one being full of eternal Glory, the other of Torment; only this middle-most is filled with nothing but Instability.  
2. That it is God alone knows all future things. For this word Thou is here put signanter, with an Emphasis upon it: Thou know'st not. As if he had said, Though the Knowledge of all Contingencies be hide from Man, yet are they known to God as if they were present. For which cause God hath his Name from the present, I am that I am; 
Exod. 3.14.  there being with him neither time past, nor time to come, but all being present.  
First then for the former of the two.  
Now for the orderly handling of this, that I may give some stays and rests to your memories, I shall lay before you these five things.  

1. What this Vicissitude is.  
2. That there is such a Vicissitude.  
3. The Efficient Causes of it.  
4. The Ends or Final Causes of it.  
5. The Uses of it.   
The first thing then is, Quid sit.  
Where know that by Vicissitude here I do not understand such a mutation as is the utter annihilation of the Creatures Essence and Being; because God having made all things, doth not utterly destroy any thing that he hath made, according to that of S. Paul 1 Cor. 7.31. The fashion of the world passes away,( figura mundi, non natura, 
Aretius in locum.  as Aretius glosses it;) But such a one as doth only alter it in its present estate and condition; this particular estate and condition of a thing being the proper object of Vicissitude. Neither is it again every mutation of a things particular estate and condition that is the proper object of Vicissitude, but only such a mutation as is reciprocal: i.e. such a change, as hath like the Sea its Fluxus and Refluxus, its Ebbings and Flowings from one estate to another. And this too we do not understand in a moral, but in a natural way. For there may be a moral change from good to evil, and back again from evil to good, which yet we cannot call by the name of Vicissitude. But the Vicissitude here spoken of is only in natural and Worldly things, which have such a circular motion here, and are so unconstant in it, as that there can be no Insurance made of them in this great Exchange of the World, because we know not concerning them what a day may bring forth. And so much for the first thing.  
The second is the Demonstration of this Truth, That there is such a Vicissitude.  
And this I shall do, First, by express places of Scripture. Secondly, by some Instances of it.  
First, by some express places of Scripture. And here the Preacher hath a good saying, Ecclesiastes 7.14. In the day of Prosperity be joyful, but in the day of Adversity consider. And the thing we are to consider of is, That God hath set the one over against the other. His meaning is, That God hath ordered things here with a great deal of change and variety; As that he hath set Prosperity over against Adversity, and again, Adversity over against Prosperity, even as Light and darkness, to succeed each other by a constant intercourse: To the end, says he, That man should find nothing after him: i.e. that so by this interchangeable dealing of God, no man should be able to find out infallibly what his after estate shall be in this world, whether happy or else miserable. Again consult that of S. Paul 1 Cor. 7.31. 
Videtur hic allusisse ad Scenas, in quibus aulaea momento complicata novam reddunt faciem. Calvin. in locum.  where the world and all things in it are compared to a Scene in a Comedy, which being changed on the sudden, some new matter is presently presented to the eyes of the spectators. And S. 
Nemo est Qui Deum credat sibi tam faventem, Crastinum ut posset sibi polliceri. Sen. Thyest. trag. 3.  James again to the same purpose cap. 4. vers. 13.& 14. Go to, &c. The speech is ironical, as deriding those who think all things here below to be of a standing nature: when as the wheel of all sublunary things is so turning, that a man cannot tell what turn shall be on the morrow. That as the Scripture says of 
Isa. 22.18.  Shebna, 
Huic affine est illud Plautinum, Enim vero, dii nos quasi pilas, homines habent. Plaut. in Capt. Scen. 1.  That God should turn and toss him like a Ball: so are all outward things turned and tossed up and down by the Racket of Gods Power, and Providence, even as a man rackets a ball to& fro from one place to another.  
Secondly, 
O si possemus in talem ascendere speculam, ut totius Orbis ostenderem rvinas. Hieron. l. 2. ad Heliod.  I shall demonstrate this by several instances. And here methinks I could wish with S. Jerom, that I were now in the top of such a Watch-tower, that I might discover unto you the ruins and alterations of all things in the world, from the beginning of the Creation to this day; and present this lively to your eyes, which I am fain to do now only to your minds and understandings; that so I might be able to say with the prophet David, Psal. 46.8. Come and behold the works of the Lord, what desolations, so what changes and alterations, he hath wrought in the world! For one generation, says the Preacher, 
Ecclesiast. 1.4.  is passing away, and another comes: neither is there any thing here so fixed, that it can say of itself as the false Prophets did, 
Isa. 56. last. Sic vulg. Latin.  Erit sicut hody, sic& cras, To morrow shall be with me as this day; Since no man knows what a day may bring forth. Now this I shall hold out unto you in a threefold respect, that ye may be the more affencted with it.  
First, in relation to politic Estates and Governments.  
Secondly, to continued Families, or razes of men that are lineally successive for Name and greatness.  
Thirdly, to particular Persons.  
In all which if I be more historical then otherwise I would, it must be imputed to the present Subject, which is of that nature, and requires it of me.  
First then I shall consider it in relation to politic Estates and Governments: whether we consider them either as drawn out in length in Monarchies; or else as drawn up short in Cities, which are nothing else but Empires epitomized, or republics bound up in a lesser volume.  

Lib. 4. de rep. c. 1.  First then I shall demonstrate this unto you in Monarchies, which Bodine tells us are more durable then Popular States, because less subject to be divided,( Unity being the great Preserver of all things:) and yet have these had, 
Dies, hora, momentum evertendis dominationibus sufficit, quae adamantinis credebantur radicibus esse fundatae. Sir Walt. Rawl. preface out of Casaub.  as the Moon, not only their increase and full light, but also their wain and changes, and this sometimes in a moment. That as in music you shall hear sometimes a string tuned up to its ultimum potentiae, as high as it will bear, and presently depressed again to the lowest Key, and another elevated, yet both of them breathing but light airs and of short continuance: So may you see a Monarchy now wound up to the highest pitch of Happiness, and by and by let down again into the lowest depths of misery. 
Regnorum initia, incremeneum& occasus à dependant. Phil. de Commines lib. 7.  This is the Lords doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.  
And here I shall begin with those Empires and Monarchies that were most famous among the rest.  
For how soon was the Assyrian or Babylonian Monarchy swallowed up by the Persian, the Persian by the Greek or Macedonian Empire, and the Greek by the Roman? which the Prophet Daniel presents unto us by the Gold, Silver, brass and Iron whereof Nebuchadnezzars Image consisted, Dan. 2.32. The dissolution of one, as in natural things, so here, being still the generation of another; and again the erection of the later being the destruction of the former.  

I. Flor. in aditu ad hist.  And as for the roman Monarchy, their own Historian can tell us of that, how it had both its Infancy, 
Imperiorum nunc floret fortuna, nunc senescit, nunc interit, Patere. hist. lib. 2.  Youth, Manhood, and Old age as it were by turns. As its Infancy under Kings, its Youth under Consuls, its Manhood from the first punic war unto the time of Augustus Caesar, and from that time its Old age under the succeeding Emperours; until at length that solid Body was torn asunder by the strugglings of her own Children, into the Eastern and Western Empires, whereof the former was soon eaten out by the Turks and Saracens, and the later also fell away much after a little revolution of time, by the falling off of divers Nations from her, each of which after they had plucked off their own feathers from the Roman Eagle, left her almost naked; As the Franks and Burgundians in France, the Goths in Spain, the Normans and Lombards in Italy, together with the English and Scots in Britain: until at the last cast the Roman Monarchy began a little to recall her self into Germany, where she hath held up since little more then the bare name of the Empire. So that Vicissitude you see is the great Empresse of the world, unto whose unstay'd dominion all earthly Powers and Principalities must be subject, even those that are of the first Magnitude, much more others that move in a lower orb.  
And of these I shall single out only three, which I conceive most eminent, to be instanced in for this point.  
The first is Judea, whose government was Monarchically settled by God himself; 
See 1 Sam. cap. 10.  yet how oft did she change her Lords and Masters, yielding her self as it were successively first to the Babylonian, and after that to the Roman, Persian, Saracen, Christian, egyptian, and now to the Turkish power? That as the 
Ovid.  Poet spake of Troy, fuit Ilium; so may we of Jerusalem, her Metropolis, fuit Hierosolyma, that Jerusalem was, She was great among the Nations, 
Lam. 1.1.  or Domina Gentium, the Lady of the Nations, as the Vulgar Latin reads it. But now, Non sic ut olim, It hath not been with her for these many generations past as in former days,( to use Job's words in his twenty ninth chapter, second and third verses) when God preserved her, when his Candle shined upon her head, and when by that light she walked through darkness; 
Lam. 5.8.  but Servants have ruled over her, and there was none to deliver her out of their hands. Which is a good lecture of Mutability to other kingdoms and their Mother-cities. For Jerusalem was once a holy and happy city, and had been happy still, had she but continued holy; but that failing, 
Lam. 4.1.  How is her Gold become dim, how is her fine Gold changed into dross! as she complains her self.  
The second Example I produce here is Naples, 
As Pertinax the Emperour was called Pila Fortunae; Nam quod Ethnici Fortunam, nos Christiani providentiam appellamus. Aurel. Vict. epitome.  which we may well call the Ball of Providence: And indeed so it was, being bandyed from one Lord to another ten several times, before it came to lye( as now it doth) at the foot of Spain. For being a country at first diversely peopled, it was upon the division allotted to the Eastern Emperours, but from them forced by the Almains, and so to the Greeks and Saracens, and then successively hurried about to the Normans, Germans, Frenc● Hungarians, Arragonoys, and from them to the French again; till in the end the Spaniard seized upon it: and whether it will continue long with him or no, is very uncertain; especially if we remember how of late years a poor Fisherman, 
See Howels relation of it lately printed. ( Massinello by name) snatched up the reins of Government from; him&( had not God otherwise determined of that kingdom by infatuating that mushroom King) for ought we know, he might have run quiter away with them, so slippery are all earthly kingdoms!  
3. But not to look out any longer to other nations of christendom,( methinks) we may instance this best by reflecting upon ourselves. For you all know( I suppose) how the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans had each of them their several and alternate dayes of Lordship over this Nation; but yet because they did not know in those their days the things that belonged unto their Peace, how do we see the shadows of the night stretched out upon them, their Suns set with us, and their days shut in!  

Josh. 10.13.  The longest day we red of was that in Josuah's time, wherein though the Sun stood still in Gibeon for the space of a whole day, yet set it did at last.  

See our Engl. Chronicle.  The day of the Romans was long upon our Horizon, for the Sun of their prosperity shone here for the space of four hundred years and more; Yet did it then go down as to us in this Nation, and darkness here now doth lye upon it.  
Again, the day of the Saxons continued five hundred years and upwards; 
So long they tyrannized here, but reigned only twenty six under Canute, Harold and hardy Canute.  That of the Danes two hundred fifty five years or thereabouts.  
And how long the day of the Normans hath lasted every petty almanac can tell us. I, and if none of those Suns come to rise again within our Hemisphere( when the sins of this Nation are ripe, and call for Gods sickle to cut them down) its beside his ordinary rule, which usually runs out all human things by a changeable circumference; for so Solomon tells us in his book of Ecclesiastes, That the Sun rises, 
Chap. 1. vers. 5.  and the Sun goes down,& hasteth to the place where he arose.  
Neither is this all, that the Powers and Principalities on earth are upon a daily turn, but as the Primum Mobile( you know) carries about the other Spheres; so do these carry about many other changes and alterations with them: As that of Religion, Laws, Liberties, Sciences, Customs and such like. Nay, even the Houses of God, which before to violate was held a crime inexpiable, yet are they now upon such removes broken down without scruple; 
The heathen therefore did superscribe their Urns thus, Diis munibus Sacrum: And the Christians set Deo Opt. Max. Sacrum upon their tombs and Gravestones.  and the very Urns of the Dead, which have been always looked upon as sacred Cabinets to preserve the bodies of Gods Saints in for Eternity, yet are they now broken up, and their Ashes thrown about( such is the unsettledness of all things here below) even as the vilest Dust upon the face of the earth.  
Beloved, it hath been ever thus upon the conversion of such great bodies, 
Res Deus nostras celeri citatas turbine versavit. Sen. in Thyest.  and it is so still: For never was there any conversion in this Land like to that our eyes have seen of late; That if any one should have slept but some few years last past( as the Ancients fain of Epimenides) and should have awaked again in these times, 
Quinquaginta annos dormiisse fingitur.  how would he wonder at those strange Metamorphoses that are now among us, there being Nova rerum facies, A new face of things both in Church and State! 
I heard Mr Harding say. He sought for Rome in Rome and could not find her. Juel in his Apology, 2. part, divis. 21.  Insomuch( as Mr Harding spake sometimes of Rome, That he did quaerere Romam in Roma, That he did seek Rome in Rome, and could not find it,) so may we say now, That we may quaerere Angliam in Anglia, That we may now seek for old England in our new England, and yet go without it, it is so much changed from what it was before.  
And as we have seen much of this already, so who knows but we may come to see a great deal more hereafter? Since we know not what a Day may bring forth.  
Secondly, Neither is this true only in Empires and Monarchies, but also in Cities and their popular Governments. Etiam summis negatum est urbibus stare diu, says the Moralist. 
Seneca.  And to this purpose tends that of the author to the Hebrews, Heb. 13.14. 
Cain therefore says Saint Augustine, built a city, but Abel none. Civitas enim Sanctorum superna. Lib. 15. de Civit. Dei cap. 1.  We have here no abiding city, but we look for one to come, whose foundation is in the heavens.  
There is then no City on earth, nor any kind of Government in it that ever stood up long in one posture, none that ever was, or shall be abiding. pass ye up to Calneh and see, says the Prophet, Amos 6.2. and from hence go to Hemath the Great, and so to Gath of the philistines. So pass ye up to Athens, the eye of Greece for Knowledge and human Literature, and see, and from thence go to Rome, the head of the Western Empire, and so come to Florence, the beauty of Italy;( for I forbear to name more, Examples in this kind being almost infinite) in all which you may red this truth at large.  
And first for Athens: How many changes of Governours and Governments did she endure? putting her self off from hereditary Kings to Archons, or aristocratical Lords, who governed first for term of life, then decennially, and after these to democratical Rulers.  
Next for Rome; 
By Brennus King of the Gauls Anno Mundi 3562; By Alaricus King of the Goths An. Christ. 410. By Gensericus King of the Vandals 447. &c. and by the Duke of bourbon An. 1527. vide plura in Bucholcer. chronol.  how oft hath that city been altered by Gauls, huns, Goths and Vandals?  
Yea how oft hath the Government of it been passed away from one hand to another.  
It is mystically represented to us Rev. 17.3. by the Beast of seven heads, which is there interpnted by the seven Hills it is built upon, 
Idèo dicta est Roma urbs Septicollis, Godwin Antiq. lib. 1. cap. 1.  to be Rome: And according to the number of those Hills, to so many masters did it submit itself, who had their several turns of supreme power and regiment over her; 
Vide Tacit. ad initium hist.  as Kings, Consuls, Dictators, Decemviri, Tribunes, Emperous and Popes: under the last of which I do not find that it was ever besieged by any that took it not; 
Downh. de Antich. lib. 1. c. 4.  such strange ebbings hath that Sea had experience of!  
Last of all for Florence. It is strange to tell what various whirlings about that hath had in point of supreme rule and power. For at first the Nobility ruled it in an aristocratical way. B●t a little after some Grandees among the people wrested it to themselves: who being tired out with continual quarrelings one with another,( for the people were divided into three ranks) the middle sort of them took upon them the management of the State. And these also falling quickly together by the ears, the third and lowest sort became masters of it. Which holding not long by reason of their mutual discords, they yield themselves and the government of their City unto Charles of France, 
Vide Machiavils Hist. of Florence.  brother to Lewis the ninth; who within a short time being invited to the kingdom of Naples, and leaving only Deputies at Florence, the Florentines return to their Popular Government, and renew their civill warres among themselves. For redress whereof they sand for the Duke of Athens, and give up all to him. But shortly they supposing themselves to be brought in bondage, and to be despoiled of their liberty by the fear of his guard, banish him the City, and within less then one years space shake off his government over them. After which they come to an aristocracy again, devising new Names and Officers for their Magistrates, and changing and rechanging them so oft, that sometimes their State was no better ordered then if it had been committed to mad men or children without discretion, the city scarce twenty yeares together keeping the same form of State: but as sick men in fevers( says 
Lib. 4. de Rep. cap. 1.  Bodinus) desire to be removed now hither, 
Quid refert quod alibi fuerit aeger, cum non alius, locumve mutârit, cum non exuat aegritudinem? Lipsius de Const. Quocunque aegrum transtuleris, secum morbum transferet. Sen. Epist. 17.  and by and by thither, or from one bed to another, as if the disease were in the places where they lay, and not in the intralls of their own bodies; so were the Florentines still turning their State, till they turned it into the hands of the Medices, who now hold it. A thing almost incredible( says he) did not their own Recorder leave it recorded to posterity.  
But in the second place let us descend to Families or razes of men that are lineally successive for Name and greatness.  
And here let me ask, where are those Illustrious Families cried up so much in former times, and famous in their generations?  
As the courageous Family of the Maccabees in Jewry, 
Eight Maccabean Princes and Kings swayed the sceptre of Jewry one after another: So also did eleven Ptolemies in egypt, till the Romans made themselves heires to it.  and of the Ptolemies in egypt.  

The Zelzuccian Line or Family gave way to the Oguzian or O●toman Family that now reigns: So did the Palaeologi after seven successions.  Again, where is the Zelzuccian Family in the lesser Asia, and the imperial Family of the Palaeologi in Greece?  

There were 21 Kings of this line in France one after another descended from Meroveu●; These yielded to Pippin the first of the second race, whose line ended in Ludovicus the fifth, and then came in the Capets, the present King being the thirtieth from Hugh Capet, and of the French blood.  That of the Merovignians in France?  
Of the Plantagenets in England, 
The Name and Glory of the Plantagenets was swallowed up of the Tudors in Henry the seventh, who married Elizabeth the Heir of the Yorkish House. Heil. Geogr.  with many more of this rank I might name, did not the narrow compass of so small a Treatise bound me?  
Tell me, is not the Name and greatness of these Families long since expired, the Roots and Branches of them quiter removed, and others planted in their rooms? Examples of this sort are innumerable, as Elihu says in Job: 
Job 34.24.  He breaks in pieces mighty men without number;( so mighty Families without number) and sets up others in their stead.  
And as for such Families as are of a lower form, we need not go far, since our own knowledge here will led us to continual changes and alterations,  
For thou hast seen it may be many Families heretofore in this Nation, brim full of earthly happiness, and running over; and now upon thy second view of them behold there is no such thing, but they are much altered, and running very low in the world, if not clean run out.  
So that prosperity( you see) was never yet so entailed upon any Family, and the Heirs thereof, but within a little time some one or other hath cut it off.  
But last of all, if we look upon particular persons, this will appear most evident; but especially if we consider them three ways. In respect of their Bodies, Minds, and Estates.  
Gregory Nazianzen hath an excellent saying of the two former jointly considered, which is this; 
In his Oration de Spiritu Sancto.  {αβγδ}. i. e. We are not mixed creatures only, but also contrary both to others and ourselves: not continuing truly the same no not so much as one day; but both in regard of our bodies and minds perpetually flowing and perpetually changing.  
And we can instance this in all the stages of our life, wherein by the ordinary course of nature, we are first weak, and then strong, and after weak again. As in our Childhood we are then weak both in Body and Mind; in our Youth, strong in Body and weak in Mind; and in our Manhood strong in both; but in our Old age strong in Mind and weak in Body; and in our Decrepit, 
Senes bis pueri.  weak again in both, as we were in our Childhood at the first.  
But to leave this general consideration of them, and to look upon them now more distinctly and severally by themselves. And first for the change of particular Persons in regard of their Bodies.  

In his Epist.  And here it is true of them what Seneca affirms, viz. That no man is the same to day, he was yesterday: Ego ipse( says he) dum haec loquor mutari, mutatus sum. Our Bodies( says he) are like a River, which keeps nothing but the bare name that was first given it; for as touching the present individual matter which is the watery substance of it, this is always transient, and other comes into its room: And so it is with the Body of man, which is always receiving in new air and life, and venting the former. Which makes David profess of himself, that he was tossed up and down like the locust; and Job compare man for his bodily substance to a Flower that never continues in one stay, Job 14.2. For now we are strong, and by and by weak; now beautiful, and presently deformed. A little Fit of the fever, Small Pox, or the like, alters us so, as if we were not the same men we were before; insomuch that we hear some speaking thus unto us, 
Ovid. — Heu quantum mutatus ab illo! Alas, how hath this fit altered you from what you were in your health! for how are your lips grown pallid, your cheeks discoloured, your eyes sunk into their holes, and your face quiter disfigured! And others there be of our acquaintance that like Jobs three friends do lift up their eyes afar off, 
Job 2.12.  and know us not; so much are we changed in respect of our Bodies!  
But secondly, Let us consider it also in respect of mens minds.  
And here( to say nothing of a moral change, 
Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut Orbis, ut quemadmodum temporum vices, ita& Morum vertantur: Tacit. Annal. lib. 3.  which is obvious every where) as on the one side we find nothing more notable Quinquennio Neronis, then the first five years of Nero's reign, and more excellent then his Youth; Yet afterwads having well tasted the sweet morsel of sovereignty, 
Bodin. de rep. lib. 4. cap. 1.  he became( says one) the most detestable Tyrant that ever was: And so also of Herod the Great Philo says, that he reigned six years as a good and just Prince, presenting the Protasis of his Reign with a large Fringe of goodness about it;( as Joaz, Amazias, and Ozias did) but as for the Catastrophe of it, that was very sad and fearful. So on the other side, we find Manasseh and Paul soaking the forepart of their lives in blood, being no better at first then Nero was at the last, even a piece of day tempered with blood; 
Lutum fanguine commixtum. Saeton. in vita.  yet was their end like the end of Davids good man, The end of that man is peace. Psal. 37.37.  
But to wave these,( whereof much might be said, did it not quiter lie out of my road I am now in,) and to insist only upon the changeableness that doth naturally adhere to the Mind of man.  
Now tell me, if any thing in the world may be said to be more movable then the Mind of man.  
It is a spiritual substance, and so is always moving( though insensibly) from one thing unto another, never resting, until at last like Noah's dove it be taken into the Heavenly Ark. 
Talis est mens cum pennas acceperit. Homil. 22. ad Hebraeos.  S. Chrysostome therefore compares it to a bide which flies in a moment of time over mountains and hills, over seas and rocks, without any hindrance: for now it is upon the lowest Shrub, and presently upon the highest branch of the tallest Cedar; now upon heavenly, and within the twinkling of an eye upon earthly things; now at Dan, and in a trice at Beersheba; now at one part of the earth, and then at another; for sometimes it is soaring after Principalities and Powers, 
Eph. 6.12.  and spiritual Wickednesses in high places, as the Apostle speaks, then after Riches, and by and by after Pleasures; now rejoicing, and then sorrowing; now quieted, and immediately troubled, and as soon pacified again; now hoping, and straightway fearing those hopes; now loving, and then hating what it loved before: Sic omnia mutabilitati subjacent( says Saint Augustine. 
In his second soliloquy. ) Thus do all things lye down under mutability! And it amazed Saint Bernard much to consider how in the same moment of time his mind was not only diversely, 
Illud supra modum stupendum, quod sub eodem momento contrariis affectibus distrahor; Bern. de inter. dom. c. 64. ubi plura.  but likewise contrarily affencted, and as it were pulled a pieces betwixt love and hatred, joy and sorrow, fear and hope, having as many varieties of affections within him, as there were diversities of things in the world for them to light upon.  
So that you see how the several Passions of our Minds do in a breath, and with the turning of a hand steer divers ways, first looking one way and then another, according as they are wheeled about with the motions of outward Contingencies.  
But in the last place we shall add unto the former the great changes that particular men are subject to in regard of their outward Estates and Fortunes. 
Habet suas vices conditio mortalium, ut adversa ex secundis, ex adversis itidem secunda nascantur, Plin. jun. in his Panegyr. to Trajan.  For the condition of Mortals( says a heathen man) hath its turns and returns, both of Prosperity and Adversity.  
That as in a military skirmish there be some come up to discharge, while others fall off: so is it in the World's Militia.  
One there is that is raised out of the Dust to sit among Princes: whereas there is another that is flung down from the pinnacle of worldly joy and prosperity, and stated, as Job was, upon the Dunghill. 
Ecelesiast. cap. 4. ver. 14.  And this doth the Preacher tell us among the rest of those changes that fell under his observation, That one comes out of Prison to reign,( as Queen Elizabeth did out of the Tower to the Throne) whereas also there is he that is born in his kingdom and becomes very poor; 
{αβγδ} pag. 110. ( as our Henry the third was, while he lived sometimes on the Churches Alms.)  
God hath appointed us( saith one well) all our parts to play, 
sir Walt. Rawl. in Praef. to bis hist. of the world.  and hath not in their distribution been either spare-handed to the meanest, nor yet partial to the greatest.  
He gave Caius Marius at first the part of a Carpenters son, but afterwards the part of one that was seven times Consul. So also Agathocles the part of a Potters son at the first, but afterwards of the King of Sicily.  
So also on the other side Darius played the part one while of the greatest Emperour, and another time of the most miserable Beggar, begging but a little water to quench the drought of Death. And Bajazet played the Grand signor in the morning, but in the evening stood for Tamerlains footstool.  
And Jane Shore, Edward the fourths Minion, acts now as mistress of a stately palace, and a little after dies in a ditch for want of a house; 
Ovid. Epist.  and( as he said of Icarus) so may we of her, that— Nomina fecit aquis, she gave name to the place where she died, it being called from her Shore-ditch to this day.  
But I forbear, since there is enough recorded for our use in the sacred Scriptures to this purpose; where we find an example of the one in David, 
Psal. 78.71.  who says that God took him from following the Ewes with young, and set him upon the Throne; there to feed( as he says) Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. And to go lower yet, not only from the sheepfold, so he says Psal. 113.7. and 8 verses; God takes the poor out of the Dust, and the needy out of the Dunghill: That he may set him among Princes, even with the Princes of his people. 
Sterquilinio abjectior. Erasm. Adag. pag. 110.  Now more vile and contemptible then the Dust we tread upon, which the least breath of wind commands any way, or then the worst of dust which is that of the Dunghill, we cannot be; yet these are they( says the Psalmist) whom he sets among Princes, even with the Princes of his people.  
An example of the other we have in Antiochus, 
Luxuriant animi rebus plerumque secundis, Ovid. lib. 2. de Art. Amandi.  2 Mac. 9.9. who was so filled with Pride through the rankness of his Prosperity, that he thought he might command the Sea,( so proud was he, says the Text, beyond the condition of man) and further, that he could weigh the Mountains in a balance, and reach up to the stars of heaven: Yet by and by is his comb cut, all his Glory worm-eaten, and none able to endure him for the filthiness of his smell.  
add to this the example of balthasar, Dan. 5.5. who was now carousing in the consecrated Vessels that nabuchadnezzar his Grandfather had plundered the Temple of and House of God at Jerusalem, as you may see 2 Kings chap. last. But in the same hour( says the Text) came out the hand-writing of the wall against him, and then was the Kings countenance changed, his thoughts troubled, the joints of his loins loosed, and his kingdom given away to the Medes and Persians.  
Thus are we for outward things like so many Counters, which stand one while for a pound, and another for a penny.  
That as we see commonly in highways, where one man hath set his foot, another presently follows him and treads it out again; so is it usually, That if one man beat out an Honour or Estate to himself, 
Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli Dictus, said nulli proprius— Horat. serm. lib. 2. satire. 2.  another comes after and treads out that impression, and whose it shall be next there is no man knows. Nay Lucan, Ipsa vices natura subit— Even the whole course of nature runs about in a circular motion; Our Bodies, Minds, and outward felicities, whatsoever we are, or whatsoever we have, are all subject to change in such wise, that we can have no assurance of them, no not for a day. We know not what a Day may bring forth.  
And so much for the demonstration of this truth, viz. That there is such a Vicissitude.  
The next thing is the Efficient Causes of it. For we never know any thing thoroughly, 
Scire est per causam scire, Arist. phies. 2. cap. 3. ( says the Philosopher) until we know the Causes of it.  
Now in speaking to this, I shall proceed fiirst, negatively; secondly, affirmatively.  
First, Negatively, in showing what have been thought to be the causes of all Changes and Alterations, yet are not so indeed. And here the Epicures and vulgar Heathen have thought Fortune to be the cause of them; 
Sors omnia versat, Virgil. Bucolic. Eglog. 9.  And they define it thus, to be An Event of things without Reason.  
But how unreasonable it is to say that an Event of things without a Cause, 
Si eventum nulla causarum connexione productum, casum esse definias, nihil omnino casum esse confirmo. Boët. de consol. philos. l. 5. pros. 1.  should be the Cause of all Events, judge ye.  
For it was only the ignorance of the true Causes that made the name of Fortune; there being nothing fortuitous in itself, but only to us and our ignorance; since the power and providence of God hath the ordering and disposing of all things here below. And this did the wiser sort among them confess, as the satirist tells us.  
Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia, 
Juvenal. satire. 10.  said te  
Nos facimus Fortuna Deam—  
Others again, as the stoics, 
Regitur fatis mortal genus, nec sibi quisquam spondere potest firmum ac stabile. Sen. trag. Octav. Non illa Deo vertisse licet quae nexa suis currunt causis. Sen. in OEdip. Fatum Stoicum definite Senec. Necessitatem rerum omnium Deum ipsum& actiones omnes huic fato subjicientem. vid. Lips. lib. 1. de Const. cap. 17. 18.  make Fate or Destiny the cause of all Alterations, which they say is An Event that necessary falls out from a certain inevitable order and connection of natural Causes, working without the will of God, as the supreme Orderer and Disposer of them, he being subjected to them, and not they to him: whereby they take away the very nature of the Godhead, which is to be a most powerful and free Agent, that works what, and by what means it pleases; all secondary causes depending upon that, and that upon none.  
But enough of these; For I must remember myself, that I am now speaking to Christians, who aclowledge the Divine Providence in all things; and therefore shall speak no more of these Negative and supposed Causes, but shall now give you the true Efficient Causes of them by way of Affirmation.  
And here know that Logicians tell us of two Efficient Causes; principal, and less principal: And this is twofold, Impulsive and instrumental.  
First then, the principal Cause of all Changes and Alterations is God; for so said the Heathen man, 
Horat. Carm. l. 1. Ode 34.  
— Valet ima summis  
Mutare,& insignem attenuat Deus,  
Obscura promens—   
But why borrow I weapons from the philistines forge, when as there is enough for this that may be drawn out of Gods armoury of the Scriptures? as Psal. 75. the 6. and 7. verses: Promotion, says the Prophet, comes neither from the East, nor from the West, nor from the South; but God is the Judge, he puts down one, and sets up another. So also Job 34. vers. 29. When he gives quietness, who can make Trouble? and when he hides his face, who can behold him; whether it be done( says Elihu) against a nation, or against a particular man only? Again Amos 5.8. He makes the Seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of Death into the morning: The Lord is his Name.  
The orator expresses this well, 
Ut hominum membra nulla contentione mente ipsa ac voluntate moventur: Sic divino numine moventur ac mutantur omnia, Tully lib. 5. de natura Deorum.  by comparing Gods omnipotency to the power of the soul over the members of the body, which upon the least intimation of the mind do turn and move about with all facility. Now God( says he) is the sole mind of the Universe, and hath all parts and parcels thereof at his beck and pleasure, to be turned into any shape or form at his disposal.  
Nay, it is no dishonour for God to cast the eye of his providence upon the alteration even of the meanest things: for who is like, says the Psalmist, to the Lord our God, 
Psal. 113. ver. 5, 6.  who hath his dwelling on high, and yet humbles himself to behold the things in Heaven and Earth? Not only to behold the things in Heaven, which is a great condescension to him, 
1 Reg. 8. vers. 27.  whom the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain; but also the things in Earth. Now how unworthy these are of his taking notice of, you may see by those diminutive expressions of them compared with Gods greatness, Isa. 40.15. where the Prophet says, Behold, the Nations are but as the drop of a Bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; Behold, he takes up the Isles as a very little thing. And if this be not low enough for them, he says further, verse 17. That all Nations before him are as nothing, and are counted to him as less then nothing. Now look what a wide difference there is betwixt the Sea and a Bucket of water, yea the Drop of a Bucket; or betwixt a heap of dust, and the small dust of the balance; betwixt very great and very little; betwixt all things and nothing at all, yea less then nothing,( if less could be:) so vast is the disproportion betwixt God and all Nations, which are the greatest among all earthly things. And yet for all this, is God pleased so far to extenuate his own greatness, and to take off from it, as to look after them, and run them about in their several stages from one point unto another.  
And if you would have this truth to be made out further unto you, our Saviour doth it mat. 10.29. by two several instances.  
The one is of two Sparrows, which are little birds and of small value; but the Greek yet runs it more diminutively, 
Diminutivum à {αβγδ}.  {αβγδ} two little sparrows; and so they must needs be, for they were sold both even for a Farthing, and this is price little enough. Yet the arabic makes it less, and hath for it Phals, which is the least piece of money that can be; and accordingly expresses the two Mites spoken of Mark 12.42.( which make both but one Farthing) by Phalsain in the dual number, as a late and learned Expositor notes. 
Dr. Hammond in locum.   
The other is of the hairs upon our Heads, 
Our hairs are things slighted even to a proverb, Ne pili facio; Erasm. Adag. sub loco commun. contemptus& vilitatis.  being a kind of Excrement belonging to our bodies,& no integral or necessitous part of them,( as the Heart, Hands and Feet are;) and yet he tells us that God numbers these, and takes such a particular account of them, that not one of them falls to the ground without his disposal.  
In the vision of the Wheels we red of a wheel within a wheel. 
Ezek. 1.16.  Now the wheel within is the wheel of Gods Providence, that turns about the wheels of all outward things, be they never so low and mean. For as God doth not labour in doing the greatest things, so neither doth he disdain, either to do or undo the least; but as he made the small and great,( says the book of wisdom) so also doth he care for both alike. 
Wisd. 6.7.  The Potter having power over his day, 
Rom. 9.21.  either to make of it a vessel of honour or dishonour, and being made, either to preserve it in that form and being he hath bestowed upon it, or else to deform and destroy it, since it is equitable that every one should do with his own as he pleases. Nay, as he says of the gnat, that Nusquam potentior natura quam in minimis; 
Pliny nar. Hist.  So may we say, that God doth no ways advance his Power and wisdom more, then in ordering of the least accidents to be disposed of to his Glory, and the good of his Children. And so much for the principal Efficient cause.  
The less principal follows; which( as I said) is either Impulsive or instrumental.  
Now the Impulsive cause of all Changes and Alterations is the sin of man. This ushered them in at the first, and so it doth still. For before Adam sinned, he enjoyed a Paradise of constant and uninterrupted happiness; but so soon as he sins against God, then follows a great change presently: 
Gen. 3.16.17.  For the Earth all fruitful before, now becomes barren, himself subject to labour, his wife to travail and sorrow, and both to cares and troubles, to weakness and dissolution. And so it is also with Nations and kingdoms. If they be changed at any time, sin is the cause of it; and the greater their sin is, the greater usually is their change. Great sinnings are the flood-gates to let in great Alterations upon them. For it is not a bare sinning in a Nation,( from which there is none that could ever pled exemption,) but a sinning in some high measure, that is an in-let to Changes in the highest kind. Which made David say Psal. 107.34. That a fruitful land is turned into barrenness for the wickedness of those that dwell therein. which the vulgar latin reads Propter malitiam, i.e. for the malicious wickedness of those that dwell therein; which notes a sin of a high nature, viz. such a one as is persisted in both against Knowledge& Conscience. And therefore it is a good observation which Musculus hath upon the words; 
Musculus in locum. Hujusmodi mutationes terrarum non ob id tantum fiunt propterea quod homines peccant,( id quod fit toto terrarum orb) said quod malitiose.  These strange Alterations, says he, of Nations and kingdoms, are not for the sinning of them,( from which no Nation can be free) but for their malicious sinning. And this you may see further in Jerusalem, Ezek. 21. where we red of a very great Judgement that should befall her from the Babylonian, viz. Utter Destruction, expressed by the threefold Overturn wherewith God threatens her vers. 27. And vers. 24. he lays down the Impulsive cause that moved him to it; and this is an impudent and shameless sinning against God: for they did not commit their sin in a corner, as those that were ashamed of it, but( brazen-faced Wretches as they were) they declared their sin as Sodom, and discovered it openly in the face of the sun: and this they did too not only in one or two particular acts, but generally, says the Text, in all their doings.  
Now there is some hope of a modest and bashful, but none at all of a shameless and obdurate Sinner. Thus the Father, when his son hath done amiss, yet is he well persuaded of his amendment, 
Erubuit, salva res est. Terent. in Heautont.  if he but see him once blushy upon his reproving of him. 
Jer. 3.3.  But when like Judah, he hath once a whores forehead, and refuses to be ashamed, then doth he give him over as a lost child, and not to be recovered.  
So that from hence we see, that in what place soever we find such a Turn, such an Eversion as this, where all is turned upside down) there hath been without question some great Aversio a Creatore ad Creaturam, some great sinning against God( as the Schoolmen call it.) Which was the reason that when the English were( now upon their quitting of France, in Henry the sixth's dayes) demanded of the French by way of derision, 
Heilens Geogr. in descript. of France.  when they would make their return thither; it was feelingly answered by one of our nation thus, When your sins are greater then ours.  
It is sin then that ruins particular Persons, that subverts Families, that periods kingdoms, that wheels about Governments, that overturns States, that disjoints commonweals, and says unto them as to the proud waves, 
Job 38.11.  Thus far ye shall go, and no further.  
And so I have done with the Impulsive Cause, and come next to the instrumental causes, or means which God uses in effecting his Changes here; and they are two.  
The first is the Motion and Influences of the celestial Bodies.  
And this will the better appear, if we consider their forcible workings upon the Mind of man. For though they cannot work immediately upon it, because it is immaterial; yet may they, and do work mediately upon it, as by the Body, which is the Instrument of the Soul to work by, and the Case wherein it is put up here for a time; and so make it either well or ill affencted, according to the Bodies present temper. By which means it comes to pass many times, that not only the dispositions of particular men, but also of whole multitudes collected together in a politic body, are much altered and changed, either to Labour or Sloth, to Peace or Disquiet, to good or evil actings, according as they are inclined by the motions of the Heavenly Bodies.  
And that these celestial Bodies have their energy upon all Sublunary things, is plain,  
First, by Scripture; as Job 38.33. where the Lord speaks thus to Job, Know'st thou the ordinances of Heaven? and canst thou set the dominion thereof in the Earth? which implies,  
1. That the Heavens have power and dominion in the Earth.  
2. That this power of theirs is set them from Gods ordinance and appointment. 
Astra regunt homines, said regit Astra Deus.   
Secondly, by the constant Observation and Experience of all Ages. 
In lib. 4, de Rep. cap. 2.  Bodinus the French Lawyer speaks well to this point; Many err( says he) greatly, who think the influence of the celestial Spheres to be nothing, whenas their strength hath ever been most effectual, as in Sacred Writ is to be seen:& he cites the 38. chap. of Job before mentioned to prove the same. Adding further, that many ancient Writers have noted the great changes in Cities& kingdoms upon the conjunction of the superior Planets, but to them only where they have been deputed of God to that end and purpose. And that they have been instrumental towards the working of such effects, he shows by an induction of some particular instances; As that before the translation of the Roman sovereignty unto Caesar, there was a great conjunction of the superior Planets met together in scorpion: which fell out again seven hundred yeares after, when the Arabian Legions received the law of Mahomet, rebelled against the Greek Emperours,& subdued the Eastern Asia from the Christians.  
The same also came about again anno Christi 1464. after which Ladamachus King of the Tartars was by his Subjects thrust out of the chair of sovereignty, and Friderick the third driven out of Hungary by mathias Corvinus, 
Qui volet, in eodem capite plura legate.  who from a prisoner stepped up to the royal Throne, &c.  

Alstedius( vir undequaque doctus) ait conjunctionem Saturni& Jovis in Ariete( igneae triplicitatis signo) Anno Christi 1642. novi alicujus imperii revolutionem portendere; cujus effectum verisimile est, nos in nuperis ab eo tempore motibus& mutationibus in Anglia nostra, satis superque vidisse, necdum videmus terminari. Nunt. Prophetic. pag. 34.  And Alstedius tells us, that the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in February 1642. did foretell and portend the revolutition of some new Empire and Government to fall out after it in Europe. The effect whereof in part( its like) we have seen in this nation already, and may live( if God so dispose of us) to see further of it yet in time to come.  
But to pass this, and to come to that daily and usual course of Gods proceedings with us in the world. Here methinks there should be few,( though of ordinary capacities among us) but( if we be a little observing) may see this truth made good by the eye of our own experience, which tells us that the earth is either fruitful or barren, and the air either wholesome or infectious, suitably to that measure and manner of influence they receive from them.  
And therefore when God will at any time bring about some great change in the world, it is then easy to see how usually he fits his inferior means, according to their several natures, for the orderly transacting of it in those stations wherein he hath set them. As when he will turn a fruitful land into barrenness, and again, a barren land into fruitfulness,( which he promised his own people, Hos. 2.21.) there he tells them in what order he will work it; I will hear( says he) the Heavens, and they shall hear the Earth, and they shall hear Jezreel. For this is a sure rule, That the supreme cause of all doth not take away the natures and workings of secondary causes, but rather establish them: which is the reason of that speech of God to Job in the ordinary revolution of the times and seasons of the year, Job 38.31. Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and loose the bonds of Orion?  
Now the Pleiades are those we commonly call the Seven stars, that have their influence on the earth by producing sweet showers to the opening and refreshing of it, about the Spring of the year, and Orion is a Constellation most conspicuous in the Winter season, as having a commissionary power to bind up the earth with Frosts. Again, canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season; i.e. the twelve signs successively after one another; 
Quid de his stellis subtilius dicant Astronomi, non est hic nostrum tractare accuratius: tantum dicemus id quod locus hic postulat, non ab alio quam Deo vim illam stellis pluviam& frigus generandi datam. Sanct. in Job. ) or guide Arcturus with his Sons?( i.e. the Polar star, as some will have it, with those ignes minores that wait upon him; or Bootes, as others. It is not then so much the Earth, as the Heavens that give us either fruit, or withhold it; they being the first ordinary means, whereby God uses to work out alterations in sublunary things.  
The second instrumental cause of these strange Vicissitudes here below, is the Will of Man; For though it have not a liberty to spiritual, yet all grant it a liberty to external acts, and moral goodness. And this Liberty of mans will doth God use as an under-wheel to turn about most of those Alterations that are in the world.  
It is true, that health and sickness, peace and war, plenty and scarcity, riches and poverty, proceed from God as the principal Efficient cause; but yet for all this we deny not but that God makes use both of ourselves and others, as to the means of bringing them about. The life of Joseph was checkered with variety of accidents; for he is now a Slave to the Ismaelites, and by and by a Prince in egypt. Now these although they proceeded from God as the author, yet was the will of his Brethren, as the will of Reuben and Judah, 
Gen. c. 37.  the instruments of preserving his life, and the wills of his other Brethren the means of selling him into egypt.  
Now because it is the Nature of Instruments to be subservient to the principal Agent, 
Instrumentum nisi à principally agent motum, non operatur, Aquin. 3. part. Summae quaest. 62. Art. 4.  and to be determined by it; therefore give me leave here by the way to fasten this exhortation upon you, That in all Changes whatsoever you will look beyond the Instruments of them, unto God the principal Agent. For so did Job in his losses, beyond the plundering Chaldeans and Sabeans, unto Dominus abstulit, The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; 
Job 1.21.  looking upon them as we use to do upon an Index, tantum in ordine ad Librum, only in order to the Book itself, et in transitu ad Deum, in his passage unto God, who sets them a-work, as to their natural powers and faculties, though to the evil of them no otherwise, then by ordering and over-ruling it to the good of his Children. And hence it is that the wicked are called Gods Sword, as in the 17 Psalm verse 13. Deliver my soul( says David) from the wicked which is thy Sword. And so must we in all those Losses that befall us here, have in our eye not so much the Sword, as the Hand that holds it; which will be one means, and a good one too, to bring us to Davids calm temper in the 39. Psal. 19. who says in the like condition, That he was dumb, and did not open his mouth, nor let fall an impatient word in it, because it was Gods doing: And therefore when Abishai would have taken away Shimei's life for cursing of David, No,( says he) Let him alone, Jussit enim Dominus, for the Lord hath bidden him curse; 
● Sam. 1●. 11.  who then shall say, Wherefore hast thou done so? q. d. Who then dare expostulate with God, or call him to account about it, as if he were unrighteous in it; since evil men are but Swords in Gods hand, who, when he hath once done his work by them, will either put them up again into his Scabbard, and lay them by, or else so blunt the edge of their power, that it shall not cut, or else break them a pieces, and throw them quiter away? And so much for the Efficient Causes of Vicissitudes.  
Next I shall speak to the Ends, or final Causes of them.  
And these are either Ex parte Dei, or Nostri; In respect of God, or ourselves.  
First, In respect of God; and so the principal End why God rings such Changes upon all earthly things, and will have them disposed of after so various a manner, is to make them by it the more tuneable to his own Glory, which by this means is exceedingly magnified, and advanced: but especially in the Attributes of his Power, Truth, wisdom and goodness.  
1. In his Power and Omnipotency: that so he may let the world know, that the Finger of his Power is in all transactions; and that he can do whatsoever he will, both in heaven and earth, and yet changes not.  
For why else did God work so many miraculous Changes in egypt by the hand of Moses?  
Why turned he Moses Rod into a Serpent, and the egyptian Waters into blood?  
Why their Dust into Lice and Flies, and their Light into darkness for the space of three dayes together?  
Why else created he a new generation of Frogs and Locusts among them?  
Why unheard of diseases upon themselves and upon their cattle?  
Why destroyed he their Herbs and Fruit-trees with Hail, and their First-born with untimely death?  
In a word, Why caused he the Red-sea to go out of its natural course and channel, whereby it became a wall to the Israelites, and a grave to the egyptians?  
Did not God all this to make known the glory of his power, in the preservation of the one and destruction of the other? Yes; 
Exod. 9.16.  For this cause( says God to Moses) I have raised thee up, to show in thee my power, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.  
2. He advances also his Glory this way, by manifesting his Truth and Faithfulness: in that those things which are accidental in regard of us, and seem as impossible, yet are they exactly brought to pass in their due times and seasons. As in the bringing of the Israelites out of egypt, wherein God was full as good as his word, and kept touch with them to a day in their Deliverance; as you may see Exod. 12.41. where we red, That it came to pass in the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out of the land of egypt. All Pharaoh's oppositions and tergiversations could not prorogue their Bondage so much as one day beyond the time prefixed of God, but served only to fill up that Interim, or voided space of time betwixt Gods Promise made to Abraham and his performance of it. 
Gen. 15.13.   
And if you ask by what intervals of time the truth of this promise came about so punctually, 
Vide nuperrimas Annotationes in Gen. 15.13.  Divines will tell you, That from Abraham's receiving of the promise, unto the birth of Isaac, were five and twenty years; sixty from thence to Jacobs birth; and to his death( which fell out presently upon their entrance into egypt) a hundred and thirty yeares. After which unto the death of Levi, who was Ultimus Patriarcharum, the last of the patriarches that survived, and in which space the Israelites were kindly entreated for Joseph's sake, were ninety four years; and a hundred and one and twenty more of cruel Bondage, until Moses came to deliver them from it in the reign of Pharaoh Cencres.  
All which particulars being gathered up together, do make up the complete sum of four hundred and thirty yeares, and may serve to justify God in all his sayings, and to clear his truth in the least circumstance and punctilio of time, when it shall come to be judged.  
For when once Gods appointed time is come to introduce a change, either for better or worse, among any people, then shall every breath of wind, how cross soever it seems to blow at the present, yet be so far from hindering Gods work in it, as that one way or other you shall find it in the sequel, to contribute its help and assistance to it.  
3. God advances also his Glory this way, in the manifestation of his wisdom and goodness; in that he makes a sweet harmony of so many different cords and changes, and frames a most admirable Order out of a seeming Disorder and Confusion.  
Many and divers are the qualities of Herbs, yet if a skilful Simpler hath the mixing of them, he knows how to make of them a well-relish'd and wholesome Sallade: So, many were the interchangeable passages that happened to Joseph; and had we the same, it may be we should think them very confused ones; but yet let the wisdom and goodness of God but lay them together, and we shall presently find, as Joseph did, the close of them all in a sweet diapason.  
For though all things, as to us, are floating up and down, to and again, by chance as it were and accident; {αβγδ}, 
G. Nazian. in Invect. in Julianum.  says Gregory Nazianzen; yet if we look to the order and appointment of Gods Providence,( which doth always most wisely contrive all events for the good of his Children,) they are fixed and stable, howbeit they may seem to go contrary at the present.  
And of Gods dealing in this kind we have Job an eminent example; who is to day the greatest man for Wealth and Honour in all the East,( and a tablet of this his greatness you may see in his nine and twentieth chapter, which I desire you to red over at your leisure,) wherein you shall find a whole series of worldly Prosperity to wait upon him;) yet to morrow he is poor, even to a by-word and proverb, 
Chap. 30.  As poor as Job: insomuch as he spends all the next chapter in bemoaning his sudden change, beginning it with a But; which though a small monosyllable, yet as the helm of a Ship turns about the vessel any way, so doth this But turn about Job and all his former Honour and Prosperity, into the extremest contempt and adversity. 
Job 30. verse 1.  But now, says he, they that are younger then I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my Flock; and ending it with this doleful accent, verse last, versa est cithara mea in luctum,& organum in vocem flentium; My harp is turned into mourning, and my organ into the voice of those that weep.  
Yet all is well( we say) that ends well; and so it was with Job, which makes Saint James say by way of support unto Gods people in their afflictions, 
James 5.11.  Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; i.e. what good end God gave him in it; for the next day God brings a great deal of Light out of this darkness, by a wise and gracious disposing of all that evil to him for the best, 
Job last, verse 12.  in giving him twice as much as he had at the first, and blessing his later end more then his beginning.  
So that although for a time all those sad Changes that befell Job, seemed even to cross the ordinary course of Gods care and Providence to him; yet in the conclusion you see how his wisdom and goodness cut them all out, and made them serve to his greater Honour and Abundance.  
And so much for the Ends or final Causes in respect of God.  
They follow now in respect of ourselves.  
And these are two: first to confirm our Faith; secondly to reform our lives, and to work out by them good to his servants.  
First, to confirm our Faith.  
And so God brings many times great Changes into the world, to try, if amid those shakings of outward things among us, we will be shaken in our Faith, or not. That as the Apostle speaks of heresies 1 Cor. 11.19. Oportet esse Haereses, There must be Heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest; so say I, Oportet esse mutationes, There must be Changes: and these not so much in respect of the things themselves, which are in their own natures liable to alteration and dissolution; as in respect of Gods end in it, that they which are approved and sincere in the faith, may be manifested to be so, by their constancy and perseverance in it. That as there is a necessity of Fire to try Gold, whether it be true or else counterfeit; so also is there a necessity of Changes: for by these it will appear, whether we will measure our Religion by outward things, and in the loss or enjoyment of them be lost in our Protestant Faith, yea or no.  
There is nothing, Beloved, more discovers the Hypocrite then his Ingenium versatile,( as Livy said of Cato) then his turning humour in Religion: for which I do not say he shall be plagued in Hell, 
Plutarch feigns Thespesius returning from Hell, and telling( among other things he saw there inflicted on evil men) that hypocrites were there punished by turning up and down continually. Plut. De his qui sero puniuntur, pag. 203.  by being wheeled about there continually without any relaxation,( though that may seem a punishment somewhat suitable to his Weathercock-disposition here upon earth;) no, Hoc nimis Ethnicum, This is too heathenish: but rather with the Prophet David, That he shall turn into Hell with all those that forget God, 
Psal. 9.17.  which is that portion of Hypocrites mentioned by our Saviour Mat. 24. last.  
For if an Apple be rotten at the coare, it will not hold long upon the three, but upon the least Wind will fall from it. And so it is with the rotten-hearted Hypocrite; if a little cross wind do but blow upon him, oh how soon doth he fall off from the three of Life, and become a wind-fall in his Religion, for the Devil that old Serpent to prey upon!  
Every Cock-boat( you know) will bear up well enough in a calm sea: but that is a stout vessel that can live in the most troubled water. 
Vid. Cyprian de lapsis;& Fox Martyr. p. 1362.  And too too many there were in the Primitive times that, like Dr Pendleton in Queen Maries dayes, boasted much of their Constancy in the Orthodox Faith during Constantines dayes, so long as God hedged about his Vineyard with Peace and Prosperity; but so soon as that Hedge was broken down, 
Psalm 80.12. and 13 verses.  and erroneous, yea heretical Doctrines were let in like so many Beasts of prey to devour, then how quickly did these prove Turncoats, and Apostates from the Faith!  
But as for the true Christian, he is like a Rock— mediis immotus in undis: 
Virgil.  That although the waves are always swelling against him, yet is he the same man still in his Reformed Religion, and wavers not: or else like that House built upon the Rock, 
Mat 25.7.  against which the floods came, and the Winds blew, but it fell not, because it was built upon a Rock.  
And such a well-built house was Saint Basil, who being threatened with death by Valens if he would not advice further and turn Arrian, answered with this brave resolution, 
Sozom. hist. lib. 6. c. 16. In hoc mihi consilio non est opus: nam idem qui jam sum, cras etiam futurus sum.  I need not any further advice then I have taken already about this matter; for to morrow I shall be the same man that I am to day therein, and no other.  
And here know that some things are of Necessity, wherein we cannot but change, as in natural, civill and moral things, and to change in these is only human.  
Others again are of Duty: and these either prohibited, or enjoined.  
1. Prohibited, as in evil and erroneous things: and to change here is pious and divine; and not to change, either weakness or Obstinacy.  
2. enjoined, as in sacred and religious: and to change here is impious and diabolical; and not to change, true Christian Fortitude and Constancy.  
Whatsoever things we see then wheeling about in the world, as Governments, Families and the like, nay howsoever we may change ourselves or be changed in somethings of an indifferent nature, by those that have dominion over our Bodies and Estates; yet is there no man that hath dominion over our Faith: 
2 Cor. 1. last.  But this is Gods peculiar, and therefore in this we must not change.  
It is not with saving Truths as it is with Clothes, which alter every year as the fashion doth: 
1 John 2.17.  for the fashion of the world passes away( says Saint John;) but true Religion is ever in fashion with good men and alters not.  
And herein we may justly take occasion to bewail the unsteadinesse of some in these times, who are more sceptics in Religion, always conceiving some new Opinions in it, and always in pain till they be delivered of their new conceptions, though never so monstrous and deformed.  
That which was truth with them yesterday, 
The Magdeburgenses tell us Cent. 4. c. 11. that such was Eustathius Bishop of Sebaste, who was one day for the Homousian, and another for the Homoiusian Confession, accordingly as they suited best with his present turn.  is no such thing to day; and what is so to day is otherwise to morrow; such Changelings there be in this last Age, who like the Moon do never appear the same two dayes together! And I would to God, 
Atque utinam vel sic mutentur: Haec enim cito ad plenitudinem suam redit, hi vero nec sero convertuntur. Ambros. Pro variis actionibus conc. 4. in Tom. 5.  says Saint Ambrose, that their change were no worse then that of the Moon; for she returns again within a little time to her full light, but these never.  
And he is blind that sees not this among us,( namely) how some turn every day to Popish Superstition, but more to anabaptistical Fancies; some unto Socinian Blasphemies, but most unto atheistical Notions, and all into Sensuality; this being the Common sure into which all the former run, and are ultimately resolved.  
But as Saint Paul said to his Galathians, so do I to such, 
Galat. 3.1.  O foolish Galathians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the Gospel? And it is a metaphor, says one, 
Leighs Annotat. in locum.  from Sorcerers, who use to cast a mist before the peoples eyes, that so they may not take a right view of what is presented to them: As if he had said, Who hath cast a mist before the eyes of your understandings, to make that appear unto you for truth which indeed is not? What? Are ye so foolish, that having begun in the spirit, ye will be perfected in the flesh? So, Are ye so foolish, that having begun in truth, ye will end in falsehood? or can ye be so simplo, as to exchange Gold for Dirt, Wheat for chaff, and your precious Faith, as Saint Peter calls it, 
2 Pet. 1.1. Heb. 11.1.  which is the substance of things hoped for, for errors of all sorts, and more shadows of Truth? I trow not. For if error( as our Kingly Divine said well) have any advantage, 
{αβγδ}, pag. 137.  it consists in Novelty: or if Truth any, it consists in Constancy.  
Was the Doctrine then of the Reformed Churches, and the Harmony of our Confessions grounded upon evident and pregnant Scriptures, maintained by the Orthodox and primitive Fathers, and conveyed to us by the constant tradition of the universal Church, the Faith of Christ once delivered to the Saints, and the Truth of God yesterday? why, so it is to day, and will be to morrow also. And therefore to day in our profession of it we must be as yesterday, and to morrow as this day: 
Heb. 13.8.  because as God is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever; so also is the Truth of God, That which was once so, 
Veritas Dei una semperque sui similis: In praefat. aed Harm. confess.  will be so always, and cannot be otherwise.  
Oh that we would then be exhorted in the Apostles words, 
Ephes. 4.14.  To stand fast in the Faith, to quit ourselves like men, and be strong: and not to be as children, 
{αβγδ}. Metaphora a rota, quae motu continuo circumacta partes summas& imas semper commutat, Pareus in locum.  tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of Doctrine; 
1 Cor. 14.20.  but to be as men in understanding, steadfast and immovable; that so God may have cause to glory on our behalf, as he did on Jobs, 
Job 2.5.  Hast thou considered( says God to satan) my servant Job? So, hast thou considered such a servant of mine? Seest thou to how many changes I have subjected him? to changes in his Children, to changes in his Estate, to changes in his Liberty, to changes in his Friends and Acquaintance? Nay, seest thou how many of his Brethren are changed of late, from a febrish distemper before, now into a sleepy lethargy? Seest thou how indifferent they are for their religion round about him, and how many shaken reeds there are on every side of him? 
Nec iratum colere destitit numen. Sen. ad Marc. cap. 13.  And yet for all this, as my servant Job did, so doth he still hold his integrity. But enough of this.  
Secondly, Gods end also in it is, To reform our lives, and do us good by his so various dispensations towards us. 
Huic affine est illud Amos 9. v. 9. ubi dvo consideranda; vel purgatum frumentum à sordibus, vel exagitatum à cribrante, dum ab uno cribri later in alterum propellitur. Sanct. in locum.  Hence we red Isa. 30.28. of a sieve of vanity, wherein God says he will sift the Nations, and shake them to and fro one after another, that so he may winnow them from that chaff of sin that is within them. For why was Moab at ease from his youth? why settled he upon his lees, and held still his corrupt taste? but because he was never disquieted, nor emptied from vessel to vessel, Jer. 48.11. Thus a sedentary life we find very subject to Diseases; and a long standing Prosperity to a Nation, is like a standing Pool, whose water doth soon puddle and putrefy. And this is the reason of that speech of David Psal. 55.19. Because they have no Changes therefore they fear not God; making by it the uncheckt prosperity of worldly men a great occasion of their continuance in sin, and so an Index of Gods Wrath upon them, rather then of his special Favour to them.  
And therefore now we have seen the Angel of God moving the waters of this Church and State by intestine war, new Opinions in Religion, by Sects, divisions and the like; it will be good for us to meditate, how God hereby intends to purge us from that sinful filth that adheres to us as our disrespect to Gods Ministers, and contempt of his Word, our Cruelty and Oppression, our Pride and Security, our worldly-mindedness and hypocrisy.  
Indeed men, who are the instruments of them, may have other ends in such Alterations, as to wreak their own spleen upon their adversaries, to unhorsed others, and get themselves into the saddle either of Profit or Preferment;( That as Demetrius the Silversmith said, We get our gains by this means; 
Acts 19.25.  so say they, We get our Honours and Estates by these means, for if the waters had not been troubled, we had catched nothing;) or else to satisfy their own corrupt wills and pleasures; as the author to the Hebrews says of earthly parents, 
Hebrews 12.10.  That they chasten their children after their own pleasure, but God who is the supreme Agent, he doth it for our profit, and not his own; there being no ends of gold and silver, no more will or revenge in his end, but only our profit, 
Prov. 25.4.  and to take away the dross from the silver, that so he may bring forth( to use Solomon's expression) a Vas electum a chosen Vessel, 
Prov. 25.4. Acts 9.15.  as S. Paul was, and fit for the Finer.  
Thus the Scripture tells us of Joseph, how he was passed over from his brethren to the Ismaelites, and from them to Potiphar; and his brethren had one end in it, but God another: for they did it for evil against him, 
Gen. last, ver. 20. ( as he tells them himself,) and to get twenty Pieces by the sale of him; but as for God, he meant it to him for good, and to save much people alive.  
And so also was Christ the Antitype of Joseph, thrust( as we say) from post to pillar, viz. from Judas to Caiaphas, from him to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, from Herod back again to Pilate, and then into the hands of the clamorous and unreasonable multitude to be crucified: and Judas had one end in Christ's death, but God another. The end of Judas in it was to silver his bag with thirty Pieces, 
Mat 26.9.  but Gods end was to satisfy his own Justice, and to save mankind by it.  
So that let mens sinful ends in these Changes and Alterations be what they will, yet is Gods end in it the gaining of glory to himself, by his taking away that sin and corruption which he sees contracted in us by a long standing security. And if these changes of his be not as a gentle fire to purify us, they shall be as a consuming fire to destroy us.  
And so much for the Efficient and final causes of Vicissitudes.  
The Uses follow; And they are three.  
First, To take us off from our greedy desire of worldly things.  
Secondly, To unpride us in a prosperous condition.  
Thirdly, To comfort and support us in an afflicted one.  
And to this purpose there is a good saying of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the best of all the Heathen Emperours, which is this,  
Meditate( says he) with thyself how swiftly all things that subsist are carried away: 
In his Meditat. translated by Merric Casaubon lib. 5. cap. 19.  for both the substances themselves are in a continual flux, and all actions in a perpetual change, yea the causes of them also subject to a thousand alterations, neither is there any thing that can be said to be settled or at a stand.  
And from hence he draws this inference: Art thou not then unwise, who for these things art either distracted with cares, puffed up too much with pride, or dejected with troubles?  
And it may put many of us Christians to the blushy, who seldom make so good use of it as this Heathen did, though we have a far clearer light then he had to guide us to it.  
First then, the consideration of this point, viz. 
Brevis est& caduca hujus seculi gloria: igitur despice transitoria, ut habeas aeterna. Bern. lib. de mod. vivend. Serm. 8.  The great Vicissitude and Inconconstancy of all earthly things, may serve to wean our hearts from the pleasing teat of this World, and to raise them up to that place where only fixed good is found.  
Here we are all too apt with the rich fool to set down our rests, when( God knows) we have little or no cause so to do. Nescis enim, 
Horat.  ah nescis serus quid vesper ferat; Since we do not know what the midwifery of this evening, nay less of this hour, or moment may help to bring forth.  
It may be a change of our Estates into beggary by Fire, Thieves, and the like; or else of our Liberty into thraldom; or of our Health into sickness; all these successively wheeling about, until at last our great change come from Life to Death, and swallow up the rest, as the sea doth the waters that fall into it.  
Alas! here we are subject to a thousand casualties; but in Heaven, there, there we shall meet with no such alterations; 
{αβγδ}, A kingdom that is not floating up and down, as earthly kingdoms are in the sea of this world with every tempest.  for that is a kingdom that cannot be shaken as earthly kingdoms are, 
Heb. 12.28.  either by war, factions, all-eating time, or the like. No; but there is Peace without War, Quiet without Trouble, freedom without thraldom, Day without Night, Health without sickness, and Life without Death: whereas here it is far otherwise; for God takes away one it may be, 
Hunc necat febribus, illum opprimit doloribus; hunc flammis, illum gladio, &c. Augustin. in 2 Soliloq.  with a Fever, another with the Sword, as S. Augustine reckons them up. Nay, he cuts off the spirits of Princes( says the Psalmist; 
Psal. 76. ver. 12. ) which Junius and Tremelius translate by Vindemiat. i. e. he slips them off as a Vintager doth a Bunch of Grapes from a three, it is so quickly done. Even the highest enterprizes that the greatest Magnifico's of the earth undertake, God doth but blow upon them a little with the breath of his displeasure, and how soon are they blasted and shrink away to nothing!  
An example of this we have in Xerxes, 
Justin. hist. lib. 2.  who went against Greece with a million of men, and as many ships as covered the Hellespont; as if he would have subdued the Sea, have put a hook into her jaws, and have lead her away in triumph: yet how soon was his over-bold pride dashed in pieces by a handful of Greeks! 
Quem dies vidit veniens superbum, Hunc dies vidit fugiens jacentem. Sen. trag. in Thyest. act. 3.  One and the same day saw him both happy and miserable; using him as a tender and indulgent Mother in the morning, but in the evening as a cruel and hard Stepdame.  
Oh the folly then of those that lie always sucking at these earthly flowers, which are as various in their shapes, as ever Proteus was, and constant in nothing save in their inconstancy!  
It was the saying of Maximilian the second, That every year of our life was a climacterical year, and brought with it some great change or other.  
And if every year be so changeable, what fools then are they that join land to land, and house to house, that they may dwell alone in the earth! yea what mean great men to pride it so much in their Babels here below, and out of a greedy desire of gain to run out of their own channels, 
Quid quod ultra limits clientium salis avarus, parum locuples continent ripa? Horat. lib. 2. ode 18.  and to call their lands by their own names? For they that do thus, declare plainly that they think themselves to enjoy a settled estate here on earth, 
Quasi aut nunquam essent mutabiles, aut vitam coelestem non expectarent. Bellarm. lib. 2. de aetern. faelicit.  as if they should never see a change, or at least did not for the present look for in heaven a better and more enduring substance, as the author to the Hebrews speaks, Heb. 12.34.  
And yet as the Prophet Isaiah complains, so may we, Quis credidit auditui nostro? 
Isa. 53.1.  who hath believed our report? or to whom is this truth of God revealed? For it is strange to see how few among us do believe this, that both in our persons and estates we are so changeable.  
But this is their way, says David, this is their foolishness. 
Psal. 49.13.   
For how soon did Galba start aside from the Empire, 
Tacit. Annal. lib. 6.  Degustans Imperium, tasting it only, as Jonathan did the Honey with the end of his Spear! How soon was Haman changed from the Minion of the Court, to be the hang-by of the world!  
Again, how soon was nabuchadnezzar changed, even from a man to a Beast; and Herod from the highest of men, to be meat even for the lowest of Reptiles? And the prosperity of Richard the third was so short( says our incomparable historian) that it took end ere himself could well look over it. 
Sir Walt. Rawl. Pref. to the worlds hist.  
Ostenditur tantum, non possidetur;& dum placet, transit; Sen. Epist. 110.   
There is not any thing then that we can call constant here on earth; which makes the author to the Hebrews, speaking of Abraham, say, That he looked for a City having foundations: 
Bellarm. in eodem loco. Vere civitas coelestis proprie fundamentum habet, &c.  Upon which one gives us this note; That the Heavenly City can only be said to have properly a Foundation, whereas those Cities that are on earth, do show plainly by their daily ruins that they have no sure foundation to rest upon.  
Oh let this be a means to take off the wheels of our Affections from their eager pursuit after earthly things, and set them upon things above, where the moth cannot come at them, 
Mat. 6. v. 19.  nor thieves break through to steal. And let us look to that charge of the Apostle, 1 Tim. 6.17. Charge those that are rich in the world, that they trust not in uncertain Riches; or rather in riches which are Uncertainty itself in the abstract;( for so the Greek runs it, {αβγδ}. i. e. in the uncertainty of Riches.) And that we may in no wise doubt of this their uncertainty, the Wise man prefixes a note of certainty before this uncertainty, 
Prov. 23.5.  Certainly,( says he) Riches make themselves wings, and fly away as an Eagle towards heaven: as if he should have said, Certainly Riches, and all worldly things are as uncertain as a bide that is upon the wing: 
Psal. 62.10.  and therefore we must not set our hearts upon them; but our daily prayer and practise must be, So to pass through things temporal, 
4 Coll. post Trin.  that so we do not loose those things that are eternal: or else with David let us beseech God to incline our hearts unto his Testimonies, 
Psal. 119.36.  and not to covetousness. Now this inclining our hearts unto Gods Testimonies, is nothing else but that holy and penitential change of heart and life, or else that turning unto God with all our hearts, which God calls for at our hands, and expects from us in all his changes, whether personal or else national. which if he find in us, then let what changes soever fall, they shall all work together for our good: but if not, we must then look to be as a rolling ston, and to have our daily turns and changes in this life from one degree of misery to another, until at last we turn into Hell, as David speaks, with all those that forget God.  
Secondly, The consideration of this point may be a good antidote against Pride in a prosperous Condition, 
Nemo confidat nimium secundis, rotat omne fatum, Sen. Thyest. trag. 2. , since God hath so ordered the Web of our lives, as that Adversity as well as Prosperity is interwoven in it: For there is nothing that swells us up so much as prospering here in worldly things; 
Hen caecae mentes tumefactaque corda secundis. Silius 1.  and nothing again that is more effectual to assuage this swelling in us, then to consider the brevity and mutability it is subject to.  
Now it swells us up with a high opinion either of our own goodness above others, or else of our own greatness.  
1. Our prospering in worldly things swells us up with a high opinion of our own goodness above others; as  
1. It makes us think ourselves the only good men in Gods eye, because we are prosperous in the worlds; whereas indeed, this can be no certain rule to measure out any such thing by, since the world and the prosperity of it is so variable and uncertain.  
And therefore, when at any time God shall water us more then others with the lower springs of his earthly Blessings, we are not therefore to have an overweening conceit of ourselves, and our own causes, above others,( as if God upon this ground had tied his special love either to us, or them:) For you know that when God would choose a King for Israel, he choose him not by outward and perishing excellencies, 
1 Sam. c. 16. vers. 8.9. and 10.  for then he would have chosen in the room of Saul, Eliab, Aminadab, or Shammah, who were the three elder brothers of David, and men of goodly personages to look upon; yet God choose none of these,( says the Text) but David the youngest of them, though not so outwardly, yet inwardly glorious, being a man after his own heart?  
It is the chief argument the Turks use at this day, to prove themselves the only Musselmen, or true believers; We thrive( say they) and prosper in the world; for how hath our Mahometanisme over-run all Asia, afric, and the greater part of Europe too! And do not they among us then reason more like Turks then Christians, who speak after this manner, Come, see how we bear down all before us, and ride upon the backs of the poor in triumph! Thus, and thus do we prosper in the world, and do even what we list; and is not this an evident sign we are Gods children, and that the right end of the staff is ours? Sure, if we were other then Gods peculiar people, he would not bless us so much as he doth.  
But to these I answer, That these and such like are only Bona Scabelli,( as Divines distinguish well out of that place of Isaiah,) and not Bona Throni, 
Isa. 66.1.  the goods of Gods Footstool,( but earthen ware,) and not the good things of his Throne, which are Grace and Glory; and therefore can set upon us only an earthly mark for men here to take notice of us, but not any heavenly cognizance for God to look upon us, as upon his dear and elect children. For else it would easily follow, That the Alchoran were better then the Bible, and the Turks fancy better then our Faith of Christianity.  
And were there no other signal place of Scripture for this, then that of the Prophet David in his 73. 
consul Ecclesiastes 7. vers. 15. See Ecclesiastes chap. 8. vers. 14. Malachy 3. vers. 13. and 15. Luke 16.25. Remember how thou in thy life receivedst thy good things, &c.  Psalm,( as indeed there are very many;) this alone( methinks) were enough to impress this as a truth upon us, where he speaks of some that are not in trouble like other men, but pride compasseth them about as a chain, violence covers them as a garment, their eyes stand out with fatness, and they have more then their heart can wish; yet these ( says he) vers. 12. are the ungodly who prosper in the world. And the Prophet Jeremy makes bold to question with God about it, in these words, Jer. 12.1. and 2. verses: Wherefore, says he, doth the wicked prosper? and why are all they in wealth that rebelliously transgress? and he rests satisfied with this, vers. 3. That God did by that prosperity of theirs fatten them as sheep to the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of destruction. And this is that prosperity of fools that the Wise man speaks of, which will destroy them. Prov. 1.32.  
It is not then our thriving in temporals, but in spirituals, that speaks us and our Faith to be accepted of God.  
For the truth of Grace or Religion, and the goodness of a mans cause, is not measured by the Souldiers Sword, but by the Word of God, which is the Sword of the Spirit.  
God Saints no man for his goodly parsonage, 
Ethnicus Deum sic loquentem inducit: Isti quos pro felicibus aspicitis, si non qua occurrunt, said qua latent videritis, vere sunt miseri; Intus enim omne posui bo●um. Sen. lib. de proved. cap. 6.  for his riches, for his politic head-piece of contriving, and bringing about his own worldly and sinister ends, or for his arms and conquests; for then Saul and Craesus, Ahitophel and Alexander the Great had been high in Gods book: but he valves men only by their spirituals, as their graces of Faith, Humility, Patience, meekness, Obedience, and the like: and where he finds these,( how unfurnished soever they are otherwise,) yet these are mine saith the Lord; 
Malachy 3.17.18.  and in that day when I shall make up my Jewels, I will spare them, even as a Father doth his son; and then shall ye discern between the righteous and the wicked, betwixt him that feareth God, and him that feareth him not.  
Indeed God may sometimes, permit evil to prosper in the world, but never approve of it: for so acknowledges the Jewish Church, Lament. 3.35. To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, or to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approves it not. And therefore to argue from Gods permission to his approbation, 
Psal. 55.3.  is a gross Non sequitur, nay more, a laying our iniquity on Gods back, as if he would take it well at our hands to be made a Pack-horse at every turn to bear all our execrable burdens, 
Psal. 50.21.  and were( as David speaks) such a one as ourselves, to favour evil courses, or else to own them as his offspring.  
Which made Dionysius the elder conclude sacrilege to be no sin, 
Videtis( inquit) quam prospera navigatio à Diis immortalibus detur Sacrilegis. Valer. Max. lib. 1. cap. 3.  when he had robbed the Temple at Locri, because the Gods seemed( as it were) to smile upon the action, in giving them fair Winds and Weather, both in their voyage thither and return back again.  
But, as it was a great blasphemy( says one) for the devil to personate God, 
sir Franc. Bacon Essay 3.  when he would be similis Altissimo; so is it greater to make God personate the Devil. And yet this he doth, that makes God patronise his evil, 
Prosperum scelus virtus vocatur. Sen. trag. in Herc. fur.  because he prospers in it; for this brings in God saying, That he will be like the Prince of darkness, and makes the Holy Ghost to leave his Dove-like shape, and come only to us in the form of a greedy Raven or vulture.  
2. As our prospering in worldly things swells us up too high with an opinion of our own goodness, and makes us think better of ourselves then is meet; so also doth it on the other side lift us up too far with thoughts of evil towards our brethren, and make us think worse of them, and the ways of God they walk in, then we should, by charging them as utterly deserted of God, 
Adversae res etiam bonos detrectant. sallust.  because we see not now the same hedge of Gods favour about them as heretofore we did, but the stakes that then prop'd them up, are now thrown away as useless and unserviceable. Whereas Afflictions on this hand are every way as temporary and transient, as Prosperity was on the other; and being so, must needs be as a broken reed, or a reed of egypt, wherewith we cannot exactly measure Gods Temple, nor the spiritual estate of his Children.  
It was a hard stumbling-block to the Prophet David for a time, 
Psal. 73. ver. 2.  when he says that his feet were almost gone, and his footsteps had well-nigh slipped, upon his sight of the wickeds prosperity; until he went into the Sanctuary of Gods Word, where he learnt to settle his wavering and distrustful thoughts: for there he saw that notwithstanding his outward afflictions, that God held him up under that sore temptation with his right hand, 
ver. 23.  and would( in opposition to transitory goods, which are the proper blessings of the wicked, because they have no others but these to trust unto) guide him with that which should infinitely exceed them, to wit, his counsel here, and his Glory hereafter.  
And it was the great question so much agitated betwixt Job and his Friends, Whether those doleful changes that befell him were the cognizance of his insincerity to God, and of Gods disfavour to him upon it, yea or no. His Friends taking advantage upon his present weakness and distemper, maintain it strongly against him in the affirmative, that they were: until at length God himself steps in to the rescue of the weaker side, and makes the conclusion( as all logical conclusions do) to follow the weaker part, 
Conclusio sequitur debiliorem partem. Kick. log. pag. 424.  determining it for Job against his Opponents in the negative, and telling them, that they spake not of Job, nor of his proceedings towards him that which was right. Job last. vers. 7.  
Seneca a stoic Philosopher hath a set discourse to this purpose, 
In libro de proved. cap. 4.  Cur bonis viris mala eveniant, why the evils of this life most commonly fall out to good men: and he concludes it thus, That temporal evils are no sign of Gods hatred to them. 
Numquid tu invisot esse Lacedemoniis suos liberos credit, querum experiuntur indolem publice verberibus admotis? Non est hoc saevitia; certamen est.  For, dost thou think( says he) that the Lacedemonians hated their Children, when as they experimented their disposition to virtue by stripes in public? No, So do we think Gods children in disfavour with him, because he lays here sore blows upon their bodies and estates by evil men, 
So Tametlain the Scythian was called Flagellum Dei.  as his rods and scourges in it? No; for we see and feel many times( says an experimental patient of our own well) the deep lines and stroke of Gods hand upon us, 
Sir I. M.  when as we cannot by our skill in palmistry decipher his meaning in it, no more then the Malteses could by the viper upon Saint Pauls hand judge of his condition to God-ward. 
Acts 28.4.   
For God sometimes( that we may not thus judge) inverts human order, and runs out his dealings towards us in the ordinary channel of his universal providence, justice and equity, by which he waters here all alike.  
Indeed they may seem( I grant) to go counter to our apprehended rules of common right: yet are they always agreeing both with Gods secret and revealed will, though( like the sun in its sphere) not perceptible to us, because too mysterious and dazzling: however many pretend to interpret them by a blaze of fire lighted at the natural pride of their own private spirits, and that dim twilight of knowledge which is in them; whenas they are altogether in the dark to the true light of Gods word and works herein.  
And here take in the opinion also of Epictetus another Steick and Heathen man, 
Pia Epicteti sententia, Non esse omnes Deo ex osos, qui aerumnarum varietate luctantur, said esse arcanas causas, ad quas pancorum potest pervenire curiositas. Aus. Gell. noct. Att. lib. 2. cap. 18.  which speaks most Christianly to this point, namely, That all are not hated of God, who do wrestle here with variety of Miseries: but that there are with God good causes of it, though so secret that few can reach them.  
And therefore, albeit we cannot see how these actings of God may stand with his tender love to his children, and so may conceive an ill opinion of them; yet when we shall think seriously, 
Isa. 55.8.  that Gods thoughts and ways are not as ours, it will teach us to give them a more favourable interpretation.  
For how dare human rashness( says Saint Bernard) reprehend that which it cannot comprehend; 
Quomodo humana temeritas audet reprehendere quod comprehendere non potest! De Consid. l. 2.  in giving demonstrative reason why worldly prosperity should be virtues stepdame, 
Noverca virtutis prosperitas. P. Chrysol. lib. 1. de curial. nugis.  and not her natural mother!  
But( to close up this discourse) you see here by what hath been said, that it is a great error( howbeit now grown more then popular) to judge of persons and causes by the events, whenas all outward things( says Solomon) fall alike to all, neither can any judge of love or hatred by what is before him; 
Ecclesiast. c. 9. ver. 1.  
See also Mat. 5.45. He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, &c.  Prosperity and Adversity being but separable accidents to them, and no essential properties of them, because they are grounded upon worldly things that have so loose and mouldering a foundation, as that a man cannot tell concerning them what a day may bring forth Again  
2. As worldly prosperity swells us up with a high opinion of our own goodness above others, so likewise of our own greatness. And this makes us slight those that are under us, and deal hardly with them,( as to temporal things,) which we would not do, if we once considered the mutability of it.  
And therefore if at any time God shall give up unto us those we conceit our enemies, to be dealt with( if we will) by all harshness and extremity; yet are not we then to trample upon them in the pride of our hearts, not to add more load to that which God hath already laid upon them, but rather to take off from it what we can, 
As the virtue of adversity is fortitude: so is temperance and moderation of prosperity. Sir Francis Bacon, Essay 5.  and to use them with all gentleness and compassion, with all mildness and moderation, as considering ourselves, that we are not here to live always as Gods upon earth, the same yesterday, to day and for ever: but what is the bitter cup of their portion to day, may be ours to morrow.  
It speaks out but a course and ignoble spirit, 
Faciles motus mens generosa capit. Ovid. Trist. lib. 3. eleg. 5.  to crow and insult over those that are down. The very Heathen thought it so, who had only the glimmering of nature to guide them; much more ought we Christians, whom the Apostle exhorts, that our moderation may be known to all men. 
Philipp. 4.5.  That as the Apostle will have his Corinthians to use the world with a tanquam, as if they used it not; so must they among us, 
1 Cor. 7.31.  that have wealth, power and authority, to use them, as if they used them not: that so when they shall fail us,( as they will ere long, 
The wind goeth towards the South, and turneth about unto the North; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returns again( says the Preacher) according to his circuits. Ecclesiastes 1.6.  since the wind blows not always out of one and the same favourable quarter) we may then be able to say with comfort, That we never missimployed those talents of Gods outward favour to us unto the pressure and destruction of our brethren, but only to their relief and preservation.  

Vers. 4. 5. and 6.  The Prophet David, in his tenth Psalm, speaks of some, who through the pride of their countenance do not seek after God, neither is God in all their thoughts. But their ways are always grievous; they puff at their enemies, and say in their hearts, they shall never be moved, nor be in Adversity.  
And such were the Babylonians, who( besides their barbarous cruelty to the Israelites under captivity) added this above all, 
The School-men say Irrisio is mortal peccatum in the Agent: Sure I am, it is mortal supplicium in the Patient; for Ego illam anum irridere me ut sinam?( says he in the comedy;) satius est mihi quovis exitio interire. Terent. in Andria.  that they scoffed and jeered at them in their miseries, 
Psal. 137.3.  with Sing us now one of the songs of Sion. So also were the Edomites vers. 7. who cried over Jerusalem in the day of her visitation, Rase it, rase it even to the foundations.  
And were we sure that the sun of our earthly happiness would always stand still in this our Gibeon, it may be we might take liberty to do the like, and think we did well in it too. But when as we come to consider seriously, that there is no Solstice here upon earth, but so soon as the Sun is come to his furthest Summer-point in our Horizon, it is then presently vertical, and turning again to make Winter-weather with us, how will this assuage that swelling of pride that is within us, and make us humble?  
To this purpose there is a memorable history of Caganus King of the Huns, 
Bucholc. chronol. pag. 669.  unto whom Theodorus Medicus being sent in an embassy from Mauritius the Emperour, to divert those swarms of people wherewith Caganus at that time threatened to storm the Empire, he applied himself to him in these words; 
Vid. Herodot. hist.  Audi, Cagane, utilem narrationem Sesostris, &c. Hear, says he to Caganus, a profitable narrative of Sesostris King of egypt, who being lifted up too high with his great successses against his enemies, caused four Kings taken prisoners to draw his triumphal Chariot, wherein one of them looked back with smiles to the wheel of the Chariot, and being demanded his reason for it, answered; That he smiled to see the speak of the wheel now at the top, to be presently at the bottom; and again that which is now at the bottom, to be by and by at the top. The very hearing whereof did so mollify, and keep down the haughty princes spirit, that it drew him a little to forbear his acts of hostility against the Emperour.  
And from this topic also of volubility, 
Idem histor. lib. 1.  did Craesus draw an argument to dissuade Cyrus from his intended inroad into Scythia, For if thou didst led( says he) an immortal army, then is there no need for thee to ask my advice in it; but if thou dost aclowledge thyself a man, and a leader of mortals, then think that there is a wheel of human affairs that turns about continually, and suffers nothing here below to stand long upon the same bottom.  
But this advice of Craesus took no place with Cyrus: If it had, he would have kept himself( as the Tortoise doth) intra testudinem, within his own shell, within his own dominions, and not have causelessly usurped upon the rightful possessions of others to his own destruction; for see the issue and event of it.  
Even that God who is infinite in his wisdom, and terrible in his Power and Justice, He that resists the proud, 
Psal. 138.6.  and looks upon them afar off; He( I say) made the pride of Cyrus serve as a snare to take himself in, 
Alios in cladem meritam praecipitavit indign aucta faelicitas. Boer. de Consol. philos. l. 4. pros. 6.  and to work his ruin: for he was no sooner entred Scythia, but he found by sad experience how unconstant the world was, not looking now upon him with that smiling aspect it did before; but the wind was now in another quarter, 
Prov. 23.5.  and( as the Wise man says of Riches, that they make themselves wings and fly away,) so did his former prosperity betake her self now to her wings, and flew away, 
consul Justin. hist. lib. 1.  his whole army being quiter defeated, and himself slain by Tomyris Queen of Scythia.  
A good example to make the secure wretch-look about him, and to pull down the high looks of the proud.  
And therefore when ever any flushing of pride begins to rise within thee, and to bud forth, as it is in Ezekiel, 
Ezek. 7.10.  into violence, and oppression of others, then think thou hearest some Monitor calling unto thee, as King Philip's page. did to him, Memento te esse mortalem, 
Q. Curt.  remember that thou art mortal: so, remember that thou art changeable as well as others, and this will be an excellent means to keep it in.  
For tell me, would Cyrus, think you, have invaded Scythia, had he thought so sad a fate would have attended him in it?  
Or would Pharaoh have oppressed the Israelites so much, had he thought that God would have tumbled him up and down so much as he did, from one plague to another, 
Exod. 5. chap.  and at last made the sea his champion to revenge their injuries upon him?  
Or would Joseph's brethren have persecuted him as they did, if they had thought he should afterwards have been lord over them?  
Or the Gileadites have expelled Jephtha, 
judge. chap. 11.  had they known he would have been such a shelter against a storm, and of such use unto them against the Ammonites?  
Or( to say no more) would Darius have called Alexander Philip's boy in derision of him, 
Q. Curt.  had he known that he should have been conquered by him?  
No; Little do proud men think that the water which is now in the float, will presently be in the ebb; and that the spoke of the wheel which is now at the top, may quickly be at the bottom: and then he that is the greatest now among us, may come( how soon he knows not) to stand in need of the meanest creature whom he now despises.  
It is wisdom then for every Christian, 
Sapienter omnes contrabant vento nimium secundo turgida vela, Hor. carm. l. 2. odd. 10.  whenas he is at the top of the wheel, and may lord it over those that are beneath, yet not to overlook them with a scornful eye, but to let down his spirit, and( as the Apostle exhorts us) to condescend to men of low degree: 
Rom. 12.15.  For one scale is not always in depression. No; This were dura infaelicitas, a very hard and high measure of infelicity. Neither is the other always in elevation: This were faelicitas miseranda, a happiness to be pitied. But the alternate wave of the beam keeps them both in awe, and especially the proud person, who seems unto me as a bide tied to a string, which if i● fly too high, the hand draws in the string and pulls it down again. And so if we shall let out our spirits too high with pride, God hath then a line of vicissitude in his hand to pull us in at his pleasure.  
The Prophet David said in his prosperity, that he should never be moved, 
Psal. 30.6.  his mountain was made so strong; yet God did but hid his face from him a little, and he was troubled.  
Naturally then we are too apt to know no measure in a high fortune; 
Res secundae non habent unquam modum. Sen. in OEpid.  but( as a person of Honour and Piety in this nation said) Although in the heat of summer we easily believe there will come after it a could season of frost and snow: 
The Lord C. in his 74 meditat.  yet are we so stupid as in Prosperity not to consider of Adversity, though the one be as successive as the other. And this makes us to exalt ourselves so much above all that is called God. That as it is observable touching the book of Esther( which is nothing else but a Declaration of acts done in reference to the greatness, Power and Glory of Ahasuerus the Persian Monarch, as to the principal instrument of them) that in that whole book the name of God is not so much as mentioned at all: So doth it also commonly fall out, that while we are here in the ruff of our worldly Glory and Prosperity, we seldom or never speak of God, and as seldom think of him, but set ourselves up in his room, as nabuchadnezzar did, who spake too big, and too much of himself, saying, Is not this great Babel that I have built for the house of my kingdom, 
Dan. 4.30.  by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? As the fly said in the Apologue when it was got up to the top of the wheel, 
Quam magnam vim pulveris excitavi! Aesop. fab. pag. 62.  See what a dust I make! So, see what a dust makes this poor Worm, what a Mying there is with him in the height of his pride! nothing but my kingdom, my Power, and my Majesty: but as for God, 
Erasm. Adag. pag. 674.  Ne gry quidem, There is not a word of him; He is not in all his thoughts.  
And therefore how soon the house of his kingdom fell upon his head, yea how short-lived the might of his power was, and the honour of his majesty, you may see by the next verse, where it is said, That while the word was in the Kings mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, O nabuchadnezzar, to thee be it spoken, Thy kingdom is departed from thee.  
The world then may well be compared to the sea of glass which Saint John saw in his vision, Revelat. 4.6. and there be also, 
lo his Conc. funeb. in obit. Doctoris Featlaei.  that from the resemblance of the one to the other, interpret it thus. For  
First, It resembles the sea either for its ebbing and flowing: or else for the sudden change of it: for how soon is the face of the sea altered? 
Nunc strato aequore blanditur mere: nunc fluctibus inhorrescit. Boet. de Consolat. Philosoph. lib. 2. pros. 2.  In one and the same hour( it may be) thou mayest see her smiling upon thy vessel, and frowning too; playing with it, and swallowing it up. Noli igitur( says the Moralist) tranquillitati ejus credere. 
Sen. de tranquil. animi. Eodem die quo tibi luserant navigia, sorbentur.  i. e. Do not therefore trust too much to her smooth and calm looks; in hoc enim momento mere evertitur, for in one moment doth she appear wrinkled with billows, and turns about from a calm unto a storm.  
Secondly, In resembles also glass, 
We say therefore of glass usually, that it stands in harm way; and some melancholy persons have conceited their bodies to be of a glassy substance, and would not let any man touch them for fear of breaking. See Burton's Melancholy.  and that either for its brittleness, because nothing is sooner broken: or else for its slipperiness, because he that walks upon glass can have no sure footing; and therefore for any man to presume upon the steadinesse of it must needs be very dangerous.  
That as the ancient Romans used to distinguish their dayes into Dies albi and Dies atri, 
Godwin Rom. Antiq. lib. 2.§. 3. cap. 1.& Erasm. Adag. pag. 105.  white and black dayes: so doth God, and there is no man but hath the later of these as well as the former, his black as well as his white dayes.  
Oh the madness then of wicked men, who are always plotting against the righteous, and gnashing upon them with their teeth! At ridebit Deus, says David, 
Psal. 37.12.  But God shall laugh at them for it: and he gives this reason vers. 13. because he sees that their day is coming. i. e. he sees clearly that their black and dismal day is coming upon them, though themselves will not see it through the pride and security of their spirits; yea, and he knows also punctually when it will be: though we know it not, for though to day may be fair and shining, yet may to morrow be dark and tempestuous with them; Since we know not what a day may bring forth.  
Last of all( because I am loth that my sun should set in a cloud;) The consideration of this point may serve as a good antidote against despair in an afflicted condition; 
Nemo desperet meliora lapsus— prohibet Clotho stare fortunam, Sen. Thyest. trag. 2.  or as a cordial to stay up our spirits in the saddest and most distressed times, and to teach us patience and contentedness in them: that so as in prosperity we should not say, we shall never be moved, so neither in adversity, that we shall never be delivered; when we shall consider, that what weight of affliction soever we ly under, 
Non si male nunc,& ●lim sic erit. Horat. lib. 2. ode 10.  is not of a continuant, but of a changeable nature. And to this end we have the sure staff of Gods promise unto his children to lean upon, as in the tenth chapter to the Hebrews, where he says thus, Yet a little while, or rather as it runs in the Greek, 
{αβγδ}, Heb. 10.37.  yet how very very little while,( with a double diminutive) and he that shall come, will eome, and will not tarry. And in the precedent verse he tells them, they have need of patience, that they may receive this promise. And in the twelfth chapter to the Hebrews the Apostle takes up an exhortation to it from the Wise man, 
Prov. 3.11.  and makes a consolatory use of it to his Hebrews, withall taking them to task for their forgetfulness of it; 
Heb. 12.5.  And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you, as unto children: My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint, or be not broken in mind, 
Ne animo frangitor; sic Beza. ( as others translate it) when thou art rebuked of him. For we had( says he) the fathers of our flesh, who verily chastened us a few dayes after their own pleasure, and we were patient under their rod, 
See the 9. and 10. verses.  and gave them reverence, but God a few dayes only, for our profit. Shall we not then be much rather in subjection to him who is the father of spirits, and live?  
Thus when Boetius, that Christian Consul and Martyr at Rome, was wrongfully deprived by Theodoricus of his Honours, Estate and Liberty, Philosophy brings in what we call Gods providence, comforting him in these words;  
I turn about my wheel continually, 
Rotam meam volubili orb semper verso, infimis summa, summisque infima mutare gaudens. Quid igitur animo contabescis, &c. Boet. de Consol. lib. 2. pros. 2.  and delight to tumble things upside down: why then doth thy heart shrink within thee, when as this changeableness of mine is cause enough for thee to hope for better things?  
And so also, when many of our brethren were heretofore in exile for their Religion in Queen Marie's dayes, what( I pray) did that jewel of our Church comfort them with, but only this, 
In Juelli vita.  Haec non durabunt, aetatem These will not endure an Age? as indeed you know they did not, her reign being not full out six years time.  
And with the same consideration also should we cheer up ourselves now under that black cloud that hangs over the Church, 
Non semper imbres nubibus hispidos manant in agros. Hor. lib. 2. ode 9.  that it will not endure an Age, but be as Ephraim's righteousness was, 
Hos. 6.4.  even like the morning cloud; or as the early due that passes away.  
To this end, it will not be amiss to note, how the afflictions of Gods people in the Scripture, are run out not by any long tract of time, as by an Age, Year, month, Week or the like; but by the shortest measures that can be, as by a Day: now a Day( you know) holds not long, but is quickly gone, even as a flying bide, or a post that runneth by. And this good Hezekiah calls the time of Sennacheribs rage against Judah, a Day of trouble, Isa. 37. vers. 3.  
Or if this be not enough, you have them then contracted within a lesser room, and measured only by a Night, which is no more but the dark side of a natural day, and therefore is a great deal shorter. And this made the Prophet David say, Psal. 30. vers. 5. That heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. The time then that heaviness shall endure to the Godly can be but a Night at the longest, but whether it shall be so long or no, the Prophet is very uncertain and unsatisfied, for which cause he expresses it here with a May be, heaviness may endure for a night.  
But if this expression be not full enough to set forth the brevity of them, our Saviour doth it then by an Hour, which is shorter yet, and but the four and twentieth part of a natural Day; for so he calls the time of his persecution by the High Priests and Elders of the people, Their hour, and the power of darkness. Luk. 22.53.  
Or, if this be yet too long a space to set forth the brevity of their afflictions, and to give a through Comfort to Gods people, their little continuance is then expressed by a Moment, which I am sure is short enough; so you have it Isa. 54. vers. 7. For a small moment( says God to his Church) have I forsaken thee, but with great mercy will I gather thee: And again vers. 8. In a little wrath I hide my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon thee.  
Or last of all, if any time can be shorter then this, it must then be the present time; yet such are the sufferings of Gods children, in Saint Pauls account, but the Sufferings of the present time, Rom. 8.18. and a shorter time then this there cannot be. For as the French our neighbours are said to be for their inconsiderateness, 
howel in the life of Lewis the thirteenth.  Animalia sine praeterito& futuro, Creatures that have respect neither to time past nor time to come: so may we say of the present time, That it is as short a measure as can possibly be imagined, having in it nothing either of time past or future, the first of the two being dead already, and the later of them being not yet born unto us. And yet we see here for all this that Saint Paul, when he had cast up the account of all which he suffered in the cause of Christ, how he reckons and concludes it to be only the suffering of the present time, and not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed.  
He that observes the wind( says Solomon) shall never sow, 
Ecclesiast. c. 11. v. 4.  and he that observes the clouds shall never reap. Such are our Troubles, such our Afflictions, which although they blow strong against us, yet like some high and mighty wind, they will not hold; yea though they fall upon us as thick as hail, yet are they not so fixed for ever, but a change shall come. which should make us in any temptation to despair and distrust of Gods providence, check and chide our spirits, as the prophet David did his with that objurgation,( which for the remarkablenesse of it is thrice repeated, in the two and fortieth and three and fortieth Psalms; 
Psal. 42. vers. 5. and 11. Again Psal. 43. last verse. ) Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Still hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.  
Scaliger tells us of one Palavicine an Italian, and kinsman of his, 
In lib. 18. subtle.  that had in one night his hair metamorphosed from black to white: And I apply it thus, That although now Gods people may ly, as the Israelites did, among the pots,( to use the Prophets words, 
Psal. 68. vers. 13. ) and be like some Scullion fullied and blacked with the burning coals of Affliction; yet may one day of Gods favour to us work a great alteration with us, and put such a candy of Prosperity upon us, as that we shall be, as it is there vers. 14. even as white as the snow in Salmon.  
And therefore, as Jobs resolution was, 
Job 14. vers. 14.  to wait all the dayes of his appointed time, until his change should come; so should every good man wait upon God all the dayes that he shall be pleased to lay trouble upon him, whether immediately by himself, 
Accepimus peritura perituri: quid querimur? Ad hoc instituti sumus. Sen. lib. de proved. c. 6.  or else mediately by the hands of evil men as his instruments in it; as knowing that it is appointed but for a little while, at the most but a biduum or a triduum, and then a change shall come, and bring him deliverance from it.  
For in mount Sion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, 
Joel 2.32.  as the Lord hath said: neither shall the rod of the ungodly always lie upon the back of the righteous: 
Psal. 125.3.  but after two dayes he will revive us, 
Hos. 6.2.  and the third day we shall live in his sight.  
Wherefore seeing we are compassed about,( as the author to the Hebrews speaks) with such a cloud of witnesses, 
Heb. 12.1.2. and 3.  let us run on with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the beginner and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross and despised the shane. Yea let us consider him that endured such contradictions of sinners, that so we may not be faint and weary.  
And now Comfort Jerusalem ( saith my God) yea comfort her at the very heart, 
Isa. 40.1, 2.  and tell her that her sins are pardonned, and her warfare is accomplished. For the Lord knows, says Saint Peter, 
2 Pet. 2.9.  how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to make a way for them to escape: That as the sufferings of Christ in them do abound, so hath God many ways to make their consolations abound also. 
2 Cor. 1.5.  If the Devil and his Engineers have mill nocendi artes, a thousand ways to hurt and destroy them, God will either find or make as many ways to preserve them: whereof some he will have to be more secret and under ground, others again more open and obvious to the eyes of the world; as either by restraining the fury and malice of their persecutors, and stoping their mouths, that they shall not hurt them, as he did the mouths of the Lions from hurting Daniel; or else by taking them off by his destroying hand of judgement in the full career of their pride, as he did Pharaoh, Antiochus, Herod, Agrippa, Julian the Apostate, and many such like; or if none of these ways, yet by ingratiating them, and giving them favour in the sight of their enemies, as he did the Israelites in the eyes of the egyptians.  
And as God knows how to deliver the godly, so also when to do it; and a great deal sooner it may be then they expect, even within the space and turning about of one day: Since none of us know what a day may bring forth.  
Trin-uni Deo Gloria.