ESSAYS IN DIVINITY; By the late Dr DONNE, Dean of S Paul's. BEING Several DISQUISITIONSS, Interwoven with MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS:  
Before he entered into Holy Orders.  
Now made public by his Son J. D. Dr of the Civil Law.  
LONDON, Printed by T. M. for Richard Marriot, and are to be sold at his Shop in St Dunstan's Churchyard Fleetstreet. 1651.   

that in owning these lesle, yet more lawful issues of this modern Author, you will prove a greater Maecenas than those former Writers ever had, in giving a livelihood to these Offsprings, that had no provision left them by their Father.  
And to beg this favour, they come (Sir) with the greater confidence, because being writ when the Author was obliged in Civil business, and had no engagement in that of the Church, the manner of their birth may seem to have some analogy with the course you now seem to steer; who being so highly interessed in the public Affairs of the State, can yet allow so much time to the exercise of your private Devotions; which, with the help of your active wisdom, hath so settled us, as the tempestuous north-winds are not like to blast in the Spring before it come to a full growth, nor the South to over-ripen, till it arrive at such a perfection as may equal the birth of PALLAS; which could be produced from nothing but the very brains of JUPITER; who although she came armed from thence, yet it had not been sufficient to have had a God for her Father, if she had not had METIS to her Mother. Which shows us, that the Union is so inseparable between Counsel and Strength, that our Armies abroad of this Book to your protection, and of myself to your Commands.  
Your most humble Servant, JOHN DONNE.   

To the Reader.  
IT is thought fit to let thee know, that these Essays. were printed from an exact Copy, under the Authors own hand: and, that they were the voluntary sacrifices of several hours, when he had many debates betwixt God and himself, whether he were worthy, and competently learned to enter into Holy Orders. They are now published, both to testify his modest Valuation of himself, and to show his great abilities; and, they may serve to inform thee in many Holy Curiosities.  
Farewell.   

ESSAYS IN DIVINITY.  
In the Beginning God created Heaven and Earth. Gen. 1.1. 
I Do not therefore sit at the door, and meditate upon the threshold, because I may not enter further; 
Apoc. 3.7.  For he which is holy and true, and hath the key of David, and openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth; hath said to all the humble in one person, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou hast a little strength. 
Lyra.  And the holy Scriptures, signified in that place, as they have these properties of a well provided Castle, that they are easily defensible, and safely defend others. So they have also this, that to strangers they open but a little wicket, and he that will enter, must stoop and humble himself. To reverend Divines, who by an ordinary calling are Officers and Commissioners from God, the great Doors are open. Let me with Lazarus lie at the threshold, and beg their crumbs. Discite à me, says our blessed Saviour, Learn of me, as Saint Augustine enlarges it well, 
Mat. 11.  not to do Miracles, nor works exceeding humanity; but, quia mitis sum; learn to be humble. His humility, to be like us, was a Dejection; but ours, to be like him, is our chiefest exaltation; and yet none other is required at our hands. Where this Humility is, 
Prov. 11.  ibi Sapientia. Therefore it is not such a grovelling, frozen, and stupid Humility, as should quench the activity of our understanding, or make us neglect the Search of those Secrets of God, which are accessible. For, Humility, and studiousness, 
Tho. 2a, 2 ae. 161. & 166.  (as it is opposed to curiosity, and transgresses not her bounds) are so near of kin, that they are both agreed to be limbs and members of one virtue, Temperance.  
These bounds Daniel exceeded not; 
Dan. 10.11.  and yet he was Vir Desideriorum, and in satisfaction of so high Desires, to him alone were those visions discovered. And to such desires and endeavours the Apostle encourageth the Corinth's, 
1 Cor. 12.31.  Aemulamini Charismata meliora, Desire you better gifts, and I will yet show you a better way. It is than humility to study God, and a strange miraculous one; for it is an ascending humility, which the Devil, which emulates even God's excellency in his goodness, and labours to be as ill, as he is good, hath corrupted in us by a pride, as much against reason; for he hath filled us with a descending pride, to forsake God, for the study and love of things worse than ourselves. This averts us from the Contemplation of God, and his Book. In whose inwards, and Sanctum Sanctorum, what treasure of saving mysteries do his Priests see, when we at the threshold see enough to instruct and secure us? for he hath said of his laws, 
Deut. 6.9.  Scribes ea in limine; And both the people, and Prince himself, 
Ezek. 46.  were to worship at the threshold.  
Before we consider each stone of this threshold, which are 

1. The time, In the beginning:  
2. The person, God:  
3. The Action, He created: And  
4. the Work, Heaven and Earth;   we will speak of two or three other things, so many words. Of the Whole Book; Of the Author of those first 5 Books; And of this first book. For earthly princes look for so many pauses and reverences, in our accesses to their table, though they be not there.  

Of the Bible.  
God hath two Books of life; that in the Revelation, and else where, 
Apoc. 3.5.  which is an eternal Register of his Elect; and this Bible. For of this, it is therefore said, 
Joh. 5.39.  Search the Scriptures, because in them ye hope to have eternal life. And more plainly, when in the 24. of Ecclesiasticus Wisdom hath said in the first verse, Wisdom shall praise herself, saying, He created me from the beginning, and I shall never fail, v. 12. I give eternal things to all my Children, and in me is all grace of life and truth, v. 21. They that eat me shall have the more hunger, and they that drink me shall thirst the more, v. 24. At last, in v. 26. All these things are the book of life, and the Covenants of the most high God, and the law of Moses. And as our orderly love to the understanding this Book of life, testifies to us that our names are in the other; so is there another book subordinate to this, which is liber creaturarum. Of the first book, we may use the words of Esay, 
Isa. 29.11.  It is a book that is sealed up, and if it be delivered to one (Scienti literas) that can read, he shall say, I cannot, for it is sealed. So far removed from the search of learning, are those eternal Decrees and Rolls of God, which are never certainly and infallibly produced and exemplified in foro exteriori, but only insinuated and whispered to our hearts, Ad informandum conscientiam Judicis, which is the Conscience itself. Of the Second book, which is the Bible, we may use the next verse; The book shall be given (As interpreters agreed, open) Nescienti literas, to one which cannot read: and he shall be bid read, and shall say, I cannot read. By which we learn, that as all mankind is naturally one flock feeding upon one Common, and yet for society and peace, Propriety, Magistracy, and distinct Functions are reasonably induced; so, though all our souls have interest in this their common pasture, the book of life, (for even the ignorant are bid to read;) yet the Church hath wifely hedged us in so far, that all men may know, and cultivate, and manure their own part, and not adventure upon great reserved mysteries, nor trespass upon this book, without inward humility, and outward interpretations. For it is not enough to have objects, and eyes to see, but you must have light too. The first book is than impossible; The second difficult; But of the third book, the the book of Creatures, we will say the 18th. verse, The deaf shall hear the word of this book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity. And so much is this book available to the other, that Sebund, 
Ray. Seb. in prolo.  when he had digested this book into a written book, durst pronounce, that it was an Art, which teaches all things, presupposes no other, is soon learned, cannot be forgotten, requires no books, needs on witnesses, and in this, is safer than the Bible itself, that it cannot be falsified by Heretics. And ventures further after, 
Tit. 166.  to say, That because his book is made according to the Order of Creatures, which express fully the will of God, whosoever doth according to his book, fulfils the will of God. Howsoever, he may be too abundant in affirming, that in libro creaturarum there is enough to teach us all particularities of Christian Religion, 
De immanifesto Deo manifestissimo.  (for Trismegistus going far, extends not his proofs to particulars;) yet St Paul clears it thus far, that there is enough to make us inexcusable, if we search not further. 
Rom. 2.  And that further step is the knowledge of this Bible, which only, after Philosophy hath evicted and taught us an Unity in the Godhead, shows also a Trinity. 
Greg. Hom. 35. in Evang.  As than this life compared to blessed eternity, is but a death, so the books of Philosophers, which only instruct this life, have but such a proportion to this book: Which hath in it Certainty, for no man assigns to it other beginning than we do, though all allow not ours: Dignity, for what Author proceeds so sine teste? (and he that requires a witness, believes not the thing, but the witness;) And a non Notis; (for he which requires reason believes himself, and his own approbation and allowance of the reason.) And it hath Sufficiency; for it either rejecteth or judgeth all Traditions. It exceeds all others in the object, for it considers the next life; In the way, for it is written by revelation; yea the first piece of it which ever was written, which is the Decalogue, by Gods own finger. And as Lyra notes, being perchance too Allegorical and Typick in this, it hath this common with all other books, that the words signify things; but hath this particular, that all the things signify other things.  
There are but two other books, (within our knowledge) by which great Nations or Troops are governed in matter of Religion; The Alcoran, and Talmud; of which, the first is esteemed, only where ours is not read. And besides the common infirmity of all weak, and suspicious, and crazy religions, that it affords salvation to all good men, in any Religion, yea, 
Epist. Pii secundi ad Morisb. Tunam.  to Devils also, with our singular Origen, is so obnoxious, and self-accusing, that, to confute it, all Christian Churches have ever thought it the readiest and presentest way to divulge it. And therefore Luther, after it had received Cribrationem, a sifting by Cusanus, 
Praefat. ad lect. ad lib. de moribus Turcarum.  persuades an Edition of the very Text, because he thinks the Roman Church can no way be shaked more, than thus to let the world see, how Sister-like those two Churches are. But that man of infinite undertaking, and industry, and zeal, and blessings from the Highest, had not seen the Alcoran when he writ this, though he mention it: Nor Cusanus his book certainly; for else he could not have said, that the Cardinal had only excerpted and exhibited to the world the infamous and ridiculous parts of it, and slipped the substantial; for he hath deduced an harmony, and conformity of Christianity out of that book. Melancthon also counsels this Edition, 
Praemonit. ad Edit. Alcor.   sciamus quale Poema sit. And Bibliander observes, that it is not only too late to suppress it now, but that the Church never thought it fit to suppress it; 
Apolog. pro Edit. Alcor.  because (saith he) there is nothing impious in it, but is formerly reprehensively registered in the Fathers. As Cusanus hath done from the Alcoran, Galatinus hath from the Talmud deduced all Christianity, 
De arcanis Cathol. veritatis.  and more. For he hath proved all Roman traditions from thence. We grudge them not those victories: but this flexibility and appliableness to a contrary religion, shows perfectly, how leaden a rule those laws are. Without doubt, their books would have been received with much more hunger than they are, if the Emperor Maximilian, by Reuchlyus' counsel, had not allowed them free and open passage. If there were not some compassion belonged to them who are seduced by them; I should profess, that I never read merrier books than those two. Ours therefore, begun, not only in the first stone, but in the entire foundation, by Gods own finger, and pursued by his Spirit, is the only legible book of life; and is without doubt devolved from those to our times. For God, who first writ his Law in the Tables of our hearts; and when our corruption had defaced them, writ it again in Stone-tables; 
Exod. 31.18.  and when Moses zealous anger had broken them, writ them again in other tables, 
Exod. 34.1.  leaves not us worse provided, whom he loves more, both because he ever in his providence foresaw the Jews defection, and because in a natural fatherly affection, he is delighted with his Sons purchases. For that interruption which the course of this book is imagined by great Authors to have had, 
Irenaeus. Tertul. Clem. Al. Euseb. Hiero. etc.  by the perishing in the Captivity, cannot possibly be allowed, if either God's promise, or that history be considered; nor, if that were possible, is it the less the work of God, if Esdras refreshed and recompiled it by the same spirit which was in the first Author; Nor is it the less ancient, not more than a man is the less old, for having slept, than walked out a day. Our age therefore hath it; and our Church in our language; for since the Jesuit Sacrobosous, 
Def. Conc. Trid. c. 1.  and more late interpreters of the Trent Council, have abandoned. their old station, and defence of the letter of the Canon, pronouncing the vulgate Edition to be authentic, (which they heretofore assumed for the controverted point) and now say, that that Canon doth only prefer it before all Latin Translations; and that not Absolutà, (so to avoid barbarismes) but In ordine ad fidem & mores; and have given us limits and rules of allowable infirmities in a Translation, as corruptions not offensive to faith, observing the meaning, though not the words, If the Hebrew text may bear that reading, and more such: We might, if we had not better assurances, rely upon their words, that we have the Scripture, and nearer perfection, than they.   

Of Moses.  
The Author of these first five books is Moses. In which number, composed of the first even, and first odd, because Cabalistick learning seems too most Occupatissima vanitas, I will forbear the observations, both of Picus in his Hepsaplus, and in the Harmony of Francis George, that transcending Wit, 
In Gen. l. 1. c. 8.  whom therefore Pererius charges to have audax nimis, & ad devia & abruta opinionum praeceps ingenium, though they have many delicacyes of honest and serviceable curiosity, and harmless recreation and entertainment. For as Catechisers give us the milk of Religion, and positive Divines solid nutriment, so when our conscience is sick of scruples, or that the Church is wounded by schisms, which make solutionem continui, (as Chirurgeons speak) though there be proper use of controverted Divinity for Medicine, yet there be some Cankers, (as Judaisme.) which cannot be cured without the Cabal; which is (especially for those diseases,) the Paracelsian Physic of the understanding, 
Archangelus Apol. Cabal.  and is not unworthily (if it be only applied where it is so medicinable) called praeambulum Evangelii. 
Apoc. 5.9.  [They of the Synagogue of Satan, which call themselves Jews, and are not, but do lie] as though they were still in the desert, and under the incommodities of a continual straying and ignorance of their way, (and so they are, and worse; for than they only murmured against their guide, for not performing God's promises, now, they have no promise) are not content with their Pillar of fire, this Moses, but have condensed to themselves a Pillar of Cloud, Rabbi Moses, 
Drus. in Not. ad nomen Tetra.  called the Egyptian, but a Spaniard. [A Mose ad Mosem non surrexit qualis Moses] they say. This man quarrelling with many imperfections, and some contradictions in our Moses works, and yet concurring with the Jews in their opinion of his perfectness, if he were understood, accomplished and perfected their legem Oralem; which they accounted to be delivered by God to our Moses in his forty day's conversation with him, and after delivered to Esdras, and so descended to these Ages. His lateness and singularity, makes him not worth thus many words: We will therefore leave this Moses, and hasten to the dispatch of the other. Who, because he was principal Secretary to the Holy Ghost, (I dispute not other dignities, but only priority in time) is very credible, though he be his own Historiographer. Therefore, though his own books best show who, and what he was, let us endeavour otherwise to bring those men to some reverence of his Antiquity, who bring no taste to his Philosophy, nor faith to his Story. Pererius seems peremptory that no Author is elder. 
In Goe c. 1.  I think it moved him, that Henoch's book, mentioned in the Epistle of Judas, is perished: 
Epist. Jud.  So is the book of the Battles of the Lord (for any thing we know,) and that is not spoken of till Num. 21.14. and than as of a future thing. He makes it reasonable evident, that Linus, 
Num. 21.14.  Orpheus, and all Greek learning came after, and from him. But if we shall escape this, that Abraham's book De formationibus is yet alive, by suspecting and pronouncing it suppositious, (yet Archangelus says, he hath it, and hath commented it, 
Apol. Cabal. Problem.  and Francis George often vouches it;) how shall we deliver ourselves from Zoroasters Oracles? whom Epiphanius places in Nembrots time, 
Fra. Patricius.  and Eusebius in Abraham's; since his language is , his works miraculously great, 
Heurnius de Philoso. Barbaric. l. 2.  (for his Oracles are twenty hundred thousand verses, and his phrase more express, and clear, and liquid, in the Doctrine of the Trinity, than Moses? For where says this, as the other, [Toto mundo lucet Trias, cujus Monas est princeps?] From whence shall we say that Hermes Trismegistus sucked his not only Divinity, but Christianity? in which no Evangelist, no Father, no Council is more literal and certain. Of the fall of Angels, Renovation of the world by fire, eternity of punishments, his Asclepius! is plain. 
Asclep Dial.  Of Regeneration who says more than [Nemo servari potest ante nogenerationem, 
De regenerate. & silentio.  & regenerationis generator est Dei filius, homo unus?] Of imputed Justice, with what Author would he change this sentence; 
De fato.  [Justificati sumus in Justitia absent?] Of our corrupt will, and God's providence he says, [Anima nostra relicta à Deo, eligit corpoream naturam; at electio ejus est secundùm providentiam Dei.] To say with Goropius, that there was no such man, because the public pillars and statues in which were engraved moral Institutions were called Hermae, is improbable, to one who hath read Patricius his answers to him. And if it be true which Buntingus in his Chronology undisputably assumes, that he was the Patriarch Joseph, as also that Goropius confounds Zoroaster and Japhet, than Moses was not the first Author. But Hermes his naming of Italy, 
Minerva mundi.  and the 12. Constellations in the Zodiaque, are Arguments and impressions of a later time. To unentangle our selus in this perplexity, is more labour than profit, or perchance possibility. Therefore, as in violent tempests, when a ship dares bear no main sail, and to lie still at hull, obeying the uncertain wind and tide, puts them much out of their way, and altogether out of their account, it is best to put forth such a small rag of sail, as may keep the bark upright, and make her continued near one place, though she proceed not; So in this question, where we cannot go forward to make Moses the first Author, for many strong oppositions, and to lie hulling upon the face of the waters, and think nothing, is a stupid and lazy inconsideration, which (as Saint Austin says) is the worst of all affections, 
Rom. 1.  our best firmament and arrest will be that reverend, and pious, and reasonable credulity, that God was Author of the first piece of these books, the Decalogue: and of such Authors as God preordained to survive all Philosophers, and all Tyrants, and all Heretics, and be the Canons of faith and manners to the world's end, Moses had the primacy. So that the Divine and learned book of Job, must be content to be disposed to a later rank, (as indeed it hath somewhat a Greek taste) or to accept Moses for Author. For to confess, that it was found by Moses in Madian, were to derogate from the other prerogative generally afforded to him. 
Epist. ad Paul. de lib. Divin.  Here therefore I will temperately end this inquisition. Hierom tells me true, [Puerile est, & circulatorum ludo simile, docere quod ignores.] And besides, 
Deu. 3 4 6.  when I remember that it was God which hide Moses' body; 
Jud. 1.5.  And the Devil which laboured to reveal it, I use it thus, that there are some things which the Author of light hides from us, and the prince of darkness strives to show to us; but with no other light, than his firebrands of Contention, and curiosity.   

Of Genesis.  
Picus Earl of Mirandula (happier in no one thing in this life, 
S ● John Moore.  than in the the Author which writ it to us) being a man of an incontinent with, and subject to the concupiscence of inaccessible knowledges and transcendencies, 
In fine Heptaph.  pursuing the rules of Cabal, out of the word Bresit, which is the title of this first Book, by vexing, and transposing, and anagrammatizing the letters, hath expressed and wrung out this Sum of Christian Religion [The Father, in and through the Son, which is the beginning, end, and rest, created in a perfect league, the head, fire and foundation (which he calls Heaven, Air and Earth) of the great man] (which he calls the World.) And he hath not only delivered Moses form any dissonance with other sound Philosophers, but hath observed all other Philosophy in Moses' words; and more, hath found all Moses's learning in every verse of Moses. But since our merciful God hath afforded us the whole and entire book, why should we tear it into rags, or rend the seamless garment? Since the intention of God, through Moses, in this, was, that it might be to the Jews a Book of the generation of Adam; 
Gen. 5.1.  since in it is purposely propounded, That all this Universe, Plants, the chiefest contemplation of Natural Philosophy and Physic, and no small part of the Wisdom of Solomon, 
1 Reg. 4.33.  [who spoke of plants, from Cedar to Hyssop:] And Beasts, who have often the honour to be our reproach, accited for examples of virtue and wisdom in the Scriptures, and some of them seposed for the particular passive service of God in Sacrifices (which he gave to no man but his Son, and with held from Isaac:) And Man, who (like his own eye) sees all but himself, in his opinion, but so dimly, that there are marked an hundred differences in men's Writings concerning an Antw And Spirits, of whom we understand not more, than a horse of us: and the receptacles and theatres of all these, Earth, Sea, Air, Heaven, and all things were once nothing: That Man choosing his own destruction, did what he could to annihilate himself again, and yet received a promise of a Redeemer: That God's mercy may not be disinherited, nor his Justice tempted, since the general: Deluge, and Josoph's preservation are here related, filling an History of more than 2300 years, with such examples as might mollify, the Jews in their wandering. I say, since this was directly and only purposed by Moses; to put him in a winepress, and squeeze out Philosophy and particular Christianity, is a degree of that injustice, which all laws forbidden, to torture a man, sine indiciis aut semiprobationibus. Of the time when Moses writ this book, there are two opinions which have good guides, and good followers. I, because to me it seems reasonable and clear, that no Divine work preceded the Decalogue, have before engaged myself to accompany Chemnitius, who is persuaded by Theodoret, 
Exam. Conc. Trid.  Bede, and Reason (because here is intimation of a Sabbath, and distinction of clean and unclean in beasts,) that this book was written after the law; And leave Pererius, whom Eusebius hath won to think this book was written in Madian, induced only by Moses forty years' leisure there; and a likelihood, that this Story might well conduce to his end, of reclining the Jews from Egypt.  
And thus much necessarily, or conveniently, or pardonably, may have been said, before my Entrance, with out disproportioning the whole work. For even in Solomon's magnificent Temple, the Porch to the Temple had the proportion of twenty Cubits to sixty. Our next step is upon the threshold itself, In the beginning, etc.   

PART. 1.  

In the Beginning.  IN the Beginning whereof, O only Eternal God, of whose being, beginning, or lasting, this beginning is no period, nor measure; which art no Circle, for thou hast no ends to close up; which art not within this All, for it cannot comprehend thee; nor without it, for thou fillest it; nor art it thyself, for thou madest it; which having decreed from all eternity, to do thy great work of Mercy, our Redemption in the fullness of time, didst now created time itself to conduce to it; and madest thy glory and thy mercy equal thus, that though thy glorious work of Creation were first, thy merciful work of Redemption was greatest. Let me in thy beloved Servant Augustine's own words, 
Conf. lively c. 3.  when with an humble boldness he begged the understanding of this passage, say, Moses writ this, but is gone from me to thee; if he were here, I would hold him, and beseech him for thy sake, to tell me what he meant. If he spoke Hebrew, he would frustrate my hope; but if Latin, I should comprehend him. But from whence should I know that he said true? Or when I knew it, came that knowledge from him? Not, for within me, within me there is a truth, not Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin, nor barbarous; which without organs, without noise of Syllables, tells me true, and would enable me to say confidently to Moses, Thou sayest true. Thus did he whom thou hadst filled with faith, desire reason and understanding; as men blessed with great fortunes desire numbers of servants, and other Compliments of honour. But another instrument and engine of thine, 
Aq. 2. q. 46. A. 2.  whom thou hadst so enabled, that nothing was too mineral nor centric for the search and reach of his wit, hath remembered me; That it is an Article of our Belief, that the world began. And therefore for this point, we are not under the insinuations and mollifying of persuasion, and conveniency; nor under the reach and violence of Argument, or Demonstration, or Necessity; but under the Spiritual, and peaceable Tyranny, and easy yoke of sudden and present Faith. Nor doth he say this, that we should discharge ourselves upon his word, and slumber in a lazy faith; for no man was ever more endeavourous than he in such inquisitions; nor he in any, more than in this point. But after he had given answers to all the Arguments of reasonable & natural men, for a beginning of this world; to advance Faith duly above Reason, he assigns this with other mysteries only to her comprehension. For Reason is our Sword, Faith our Target. With that we prevail against others, with this we defend ourselves: And old, well disciplined Armies punished more severely the loss of this, than that.  
This word, In the beginning, is the beginning of this book, which we find first placed of all the holy books; And also of the Gospel by Saint John, which we know to be last written of all. But that last beginning was the first; for the Word was with God, before God created Heaven and. Earth. And Moses his In the Beginning, hath ever been used powerfully, and prosperously, against Philosophers and Heretics relapsed into an opinion of the world's eternity. But Saint John's In the Beginning, hath ever had strength against the Author of all error, the Devil himself, if we may believe the relations of exorcists, who in their dispossessings, mention strange obediences of the Devil at the naked enunciation of that word. It is not than all one Beginning; for here God Did, there he Was. That confesses a limitation of time, this excludes it. 
Caninius Conc. To. 1. De Conc. Nic.  The great Philosopher, (whom I call so, rather for his Conversion, than his Arguments) who was Arius his Advocate at the first Nicene Council, assigned a beginning between these two beginnings; saying, that after John's eternal Beginning, & before Moses' timely beginning, Christ had his beginning, being than created by God for an instrument in his general Creation. But God forbidden that any thing should need to be said against this, now. We therefore confessing two Beginnings, say, that this first was simul cum tempore, & that it is truly said of it, Erat quando non erat, and that it instantly vanished; and that the last Beginning lasts yet, and ever shall: And that our Merciful God, as he made no Creature so frail and corruptible as the first Beginning, which being but the first point of time, died as soon as it was made, flowing into the next point; so though he made no creature like the last Beginning, (for if it had been as it, eternal, it had been no creature;) yet it pleased him to come so near it, that our soul, though it began with that first Beginning, shall continued and ever last with the last. We may not dissemble, nor dare reprove, nor would avoid another ordinary interpretation of this Beginning, because it hath great and agreeing authority, and a consonance with our faith: which is, that by the beginning here, is meant the Son our Saviour; for that is elsewhere said of him, 
Rev. 1.8.  I am first and last, which is, and was, and is to come. And hereby they would establish his coeternity, and consubstantialness, because he can be no creature, who is present at the first Creation. But because although to us, whom the Spirit hath made faithfully credulous, and filled us with an assurance of this truth, every conducing, and convenient application governs and commands our assent, because it doth but remember us, not teach us. But to the Jews, who roundly deny this Exposition, & to the Arians, who accept it, and yet call Christ a creature, as fore-created for an Assistant in this second Creation; these detortions have small force, but as Sunbeams striking obliquely, or arrows diverted with a twig by the way, they lessen their strength, being turned upon another mark than they were destined to. And therefore by the Example of our late learned Reformers, I forbear this interpretation; the rather, because we are utterly disprovided of any history of the World's Creation, except we defend and maintain this Book of Moses to be Historical, and therefore literally to be interpreted. Which I urge not with that peremptoriness, as Bellarmine doth, 
De Purg. l. 1. c. 15.  who answers all the Arguments of Moses' silence in many points maintained by that Church, with this only, Est liber Historiarum, non Dogmatum. For than it were unproperly argued by our Saviour, If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me, 
John 5.  for he writ of me. There is than in Moses, both History and Precept, but evidently distinguishable without violence. That than this Beginning was, is matter of faith, and so, infallible. When it was, is matter of reason, and therefore various and perplexed. In the Epistle of Alexander the Great to his Mother, remembered by Cyprian and Augustin, there is mention of 8000. years. The Chaldeans have delivered observations of 470000 years. And the Egyptians of 100000. The Chineses vex us at this day, with irreconciliable accounts. And to be sure, that none shall prevent them, some have called themselves Aborigenes. The poor remedy of Lunary and other planetary years, the silly and contemptible escape that some Authors speak of running years, some of years expired and perfected; or that the account of days and months are neglected, cannot ease us, nor afford us line enough to fathom this bottom. The last refuge uses to be, that profane history cannot clear, but Scripture can. Which is the best, 
Bib. Sanct. l. 5.  because it is half true; But that the later part is true, or that God purposed to reveal it in his Book, it seems doubtful, because Sextus Senensis reckons almost thirty several supputations of the years between the Creation, and our blessed Saviour's birth, all of accepted Authors, grounded upon the Scriptures; and Pererius confesses, he might have increased the number by 20. And they who in a devout melancholy delight themselves with this Meditation, that they can assign the beginning of all Arts which we use for Necessity or Ornament; and conclude, that men which cannot live without such, were not long before such inventions, forget both that many Nations want those commodities yet, & that there are as great things perished and forgotten, as are now remaining. Truly, the Creation and the last Judgement, are the Diluculum and Crepusculum, the Morning and the Evening twilights of the long day of this world. Which times, though they be not utterly dark, yet they are but of uncertain, doubtful, and conjectural light. Yet not equally; for the break of the day, because it hath a succession of more and more light, is clearer than the shutting in, which is overtaken with more and more darkness; so is the birth of the world more discernible than the death, because upon this God hath cast more clouds: yet since the world in her first infancy did not speak to us at all (by any Authors;) and when she began to speak by Moses, she spoke not plain, but diversely to divers understandings; we must return again to our strong hold, faith, and end with this, That this Beginning was, and before it, Nothing. It is elder than darkness, which is elder than light; And was before Confusion, which is elder than Order, by how much the universal Chaos preceded forms and distinctions. A beginning so near Eternity, that there was not Than, nor a minite of Time between them. Of which, Eternity could never say, To morrow, nor speak as of a future thing, because this Beginning was the first point of time, before which, whatsoever God did, he did it uncessantly and unintermittingly; which was but the generation of the Son, and procession of the Spirit, and enjoying one another; Things, which if ever they had ended, had begun; And those be terms incompatible with Eternity. And therefore Saint Augustin says religiously and examplarily, 
Conf. l. 11. cap. 12.  If one ask me what God did before this beginning, I will not answer, as another did merrily, He made Hell for such busy inquirers: But I will sooner say, I know not, when I know not, than answer that, by which he shall be deluded which asked too high a Mystery, and he be praised, which answered a lie.   

PART. 2.  
NOw we have ended our Consideration of this beginning, we will begin with that, which was before it, and was Author of it, God himself; and bend our thoughts first upon himself, than upon his Name, and than upon the particular Name here used, Elohim.  

Of God.  
Men which seek God by reason, and natural strength, (though we do not deny common notions and general impressions of a sovereign power) are like Mariners which voyaged before the invention of the Compass, which were but Costers, and unwillingly left the sight of the land. Such are they which would arrive at God by this world, and contemplate him only in his Creatures, and seeming Demonstration. Certainly, every Creature shows God, as a glass, but glimeringly and transitiorily, by the frailty both of the receiver, and beholder: Ourselves have his Image, as Medals, permanently and preciously delivered. But by these meditations we get not further, than to know what he doth, not what he is. But as by the use of the Compass, men safely dispatch Ulysses dangerous ten years' travel in so many days, and have found out a new world richer than the old; so doth Faith, as soon as our hearts are touched with it, direct and inform it in that great search of the discovery of God's Essence, and the new Jerusalem, which Reason durst not attempt. And though the faithfullest heart is not ever directly, & constantly upon God, but that it sometimes descends also to Reason; yet it is thereby so departed from him, but that it still looks towards him, though not fully to him: as the Compass is ever Northward, though it decline, and have often variations towards East, and West. By this faith, as by reason, I know, that God is all that which all men can say of all Good; I believe he is somewhat which no man can say nor know. For, si scirem quid Deus esset, Deus essem. For all acquired knowledge is by degrees, and successive; but God is impartible, and only faith which can receive it all at once, can comprehend him. Canst thou than, O my soul, when faith hath extended and enlarged thee, not as wind doth a bladder (which is the nature of human learning) but as God hath displayed the Curtain of the firmament, and more spacionsly; for thou comprehendest that, and him which comprehends it: Canst thou be satisfied with such a late knowledge of God, as is gathered from effects; when even reason, which feeds upon the crumbs and fragments of appearances and verisimilitudes, requires causes? Canst thou rely and lean upon so infirm a knowledge, as is delivered by negations? 
Dyon. 2. ca Coel. Hierar.  And because a devout speculative man hath said, Negationes de Deo sunt verae, affirmationes autem sunt inconvenientes, will it serve thy turn, to hear, that God is that which cannot be named, cannot be comprehended, or which is nothing else? When every negation implies some privation, which cannot be safely enough admitted in God; and is, besides, so inconsiderable a kind of proof, that in civil and judical practice, no man is bound by it, nor bound to prove it. Can it give thee any satisfaction, to hear God called by concrete names, Good, Just, Wise; since these words can never be without confessing better, wiser, and more just? Or if he be called Best, etc. or in such phrase, the highest degree respects some lower, and mean one: and are those in God? Or is there any Creature, any Degree of that Best, by which we should call God? Or art thou got any nearer, by hearing him called Abstractly, Goodness; since that, and such, are communicable, and daily applied to Princes? Art thou delighted with Arguments arising from Order, and Subordination of Creatures, which must at last end in some one, which ends in none? Or from the preservation of all this Universe, when men which have not had faith, and have opposed reason to reason, have escaped from all these, without confessing such a God, as thou knowest; at lest, without seeing thereby, what he is? Have they furthered, or eased thee any more, who not able to consider whole and infinite God, have made a particular God, not only of every power of God, but of every benefit? And so filled the world (which our God alone doth better) with so many, that Varro could accounted 30000. and of them 300 Jupiter's. Out of this proceeded Dea febris, and Dea fraus, and Tenebris, and Onions, and Garlic. For the Egyptians, most abundant in Idolatry, were from thence said to have Gods grow in their gardens. 
Apol. l. 5.  And Tertullian, noting that Gods became men's Creatures, said, Homo incipit esse propitius Deo, because Gods were beholden to men for their being. And thus did a great Greek General, when he pressed the Islanders for money, tell them, that he presented two Gods, Vim & Suasionem; and conformably to this they answered, that they opposed two Gods, Paupertatem & Impossibilitatem. And this multiplicity of Gods may teach thee, that the resultance of all these powers is one God, and that no place nor action is hid from him: but it teacheth not, who, nor what he is. And too particular and restrained are all those descents of God in his word, when he speaks of a body, and of passions, like ours. And such also is their reverend silence, who have expressed God in Hieroglyphics, ever determining in some one power of God, without larger extent. And lastly, can thy great capacity be fulfilled with that knowledge, which the Roman Church affords of God? which, as though the state of a Monarchy were too terrible, and refulgent for our sight, hath changed the Kingdom of heaven into an Olygarchy; or at lest, given God leisure, and deputed Masters of his Requests, and Counsellors in his great Starr-chamber? Thou shalt not than, O my faithful soul, despise any of these erroneous pictures, thou shalt not destroy, nor demolish their buildings; but thou shalt not make them thy foundation. For thou believest more than they pretend to teach, and art assured of more than thou canst utter. For if thou couldst express all which thou seest of God, there would be something presently beyond that. Not that God grows, but faith doth. For, God himself is so unutterable, that he hath a name which we cannot pronounce.   

Of the Name of God.  
Names are either to avoid confusion, and distinguish particulars, and so every day begetting new inventions, and the names often overliving the things, curious and entangled Wits have vexed themselves to know, whether in the world there were more things or names;) But such a name, God who is one needs not; Or else, names are to instruct us, and express natures and essences. This Adam was able to do. And an enormous pretending Wit of our nation and age undertook to frame such a language, herein exceeding Adam, that whereas he named every thing by the most eminent and virtual property, our man gave names, by the first naked enuntiation whereof, any understanding should comprehend the essence of the thing, better than by a definition. And such a name, we who know not God's essence cannot give him. So that it is truly said, 
Aq. 1. q. 13. Ar. 1.  there is no name given by man to God, Ejus essentiam adaequatè representans. And Hermes says humbly and reverently, 
Dial. As. clep.  Non spero, I cannot hope, that the maker of all Majesty, can be called by any one name, though compounded of many. I have therefore sometimes suspected, that there was some degree of pride, and overboldness, in the first naming of God; the rather, because I mark, that the first which ever pronounced the name, 
Gen. 3.1.  God, was the Devil; and presently after the woman; 
Gen. 4.1.  who in the next chapter proceeded further, and first durst pronounce that sacred any mystic name of four letters. 
Gen. 32.29.  For when an Angel did but Ministerially represent God wrestling with Jacob, he reproves Jacob, for ask his name; Curio quaeris nomen meum? And so also to Manoah, Why askest thou my Name, quod est mirabile? 
Jud. 13.18.  And God, to dignify that Angel which he promises to lead his people, says, Fear him, provoke him not, 
Exod. 23.20.  etc. For my Name is in him; but he tells them not what it is. But since, necessity hath enforced, and Gods will hath revealed some names. For in truth, we could not say this, God cannot be named, except God could be named. To handle the Mysteries of these names, is not for the straitness of these leaves, nor of my stock. But yet I will take from Picus, 
Proem. in Heptap.  those words which his extreme learning needed not, Ex lege, spicula linquuntur pauperibus in mess, the richest and learnedst must leave glean behind them. Omitting therefore God's attributes, Eternity, Wisdom, and such; and his Names communicable with Princes, and such; there are two Names proper, and expressing his Essence: One imposed by us, God; The other taken by God, the Name of four letters; for the Name, Lam, is derived from the same root. The Name imposed by us, comes so near the other, that most Nations express it in four letters; and the Turk almost as Mystically as the Hebrew, in Abgd, almost in effably: And hence perchance was derived the Pythagorean oath, by the number of four. And in this also, that though it be given from God's Works, not from his Essence, (for that is impossible to us) yet the root signifies all this, Curare, Ardere, 
Aq. 1. q. 13. Ar. 8.  and Considerare; and is purposed and intended to signify as much the Essence, as we can express; and is never afforded absolutely to any but God himself. And therefore Aquinas, after he had preferred the Name I am, above all, 
Ar. 11.  both because others were from forms, this from Essence; they signified some determined and limited property, this whole and entire God; and this best expressed, that nothing was passed, nor future to God; he adds, yet the Name, God, is more proper than this, and the Name of four letters more than that.  

Tetragr. Reuclin. de verbo. Mirifico. l. 1. c. 6. 2 Pet. 1.4.  Of which Name one says, that as there is a secret property by which we are changed into God, (referring, I think, to that, We are made partakers of the godly nature) so God hath a certain name, to which he hath annexed certain conditions, which being observed, he hath bound himself to be present. This is the Name, which the Jews stubbornly deny ever to have been attributed to the Messiah in the Scriptures. This is the name, which they say none could utter, but the priests, and that the knowledge of it perished with the Temple. And this is the name by which they say our Blessed Saviour did all his miracles, having learned the true use of it, by a Schedule which he found of Solomon's, and that any other, by that means, might do them.  
How this name should be sounded, is now upon the anvil, 
Jehovah.  and every body is beating and hammering upon it. That it is not Jehova, this governs me, that the Septuagint never called it so; Nor Christ; nor the Apostles, where they vouch the old Testament; Nor Origen, nor Hierome, curious in language. And though negatives have ever their infirmities, and must not be built on, this may, that our Fathers heard not the first sound of this word Jehova. For (for any thing appearing,) Galatinus, in their Age, was the first that offered it. For, that Hierome should name it in the exposition of the eighth Psalm, 
De Noie Tetrag.  it is peremptorily averred by Drusius, and admitted by our learnedst Doctor, that in the old Editions it was not Jehova. 
Rainolds de Idol. 2, 2, 18.  But more than any other reason, this doth accomplish & perfect the opinion against that word, that whereas that language hath no natural vowels inserted, but points subjected of the value and sound of our vowels, added by the Masorits, the Hebrew Critics, after Esdras; and therefore they observe a necessity of such a natural and infallible concurrence of consonants, that when such and such consonants meet, such and such vowels must be imagined, and sounded, by which they have an Art of reading it without points; by those rules, 
Genebr. de leg. Orient. sivepunctis.  those vowels cannot serve those Consonants, nor the name Jehova be built of those four letters, and the vowels of Adonay.  
Elohim.  
Of the name used in this place, much needs not. But as old age is justly charged with this sickness, that though it abound, it ever covets, though it need lesle than youth did: so hath also this decrepit age of the world such a sickness; for though we have now a clearer understanding of the Scriptures than former times, (for we inherit the talents and travels of all Expositors, and have overlived most of the prophecies,) and though the gross thick clouds of Arianism be dispersed, and so we have few enemies; yet we affect, and strain at more Arguments for the Trinity, than those times did, which needed them more. Hereupon hath an opinion, that by this name of God, Elohim, because it is plurally pronounced in this place, and with a singular verb, the Trinity is insinuated, first of any begun by Peter Lombard, 
L. 1. Sent. Dist. 2.  been since earnestly pursued by Lyra, Galatin, and very many And because Calvin, in a brave religious scorn of this extortion, and beggarly wresting of Scriptures, denies this place, with others usually offered for that point, to concern it, and his defender Paraeus denies any good Author to approve it, Hunnius opposes Luther, and some after, 
Antipar. fo. 9  but none before, to be of that opinion. But, jest any should think this a prevarication in me, or a purpose to show the nakedness of the Fathers of our Church, by opening their disagreeing, though in no fundamental thing, I will also remember, that great pillars of the Roman Church differ with as much bitterness, and lesle reason in this point. For, when Cajetan had said true, that this place was not so interpretable, but yet upon false grounds, That the word Elohim had no singular, 
Eloah. Job. 2. & 36.  which is evidently false, Catharinus in his Animadversions upon Cajetan, reprehends him bitterly for his truth, and spies not his Error: And though Tostatus long before said the same, and Lombard were the first that writ the contrary, he denies any to have been of Cajetan's opinion. It satisfies me, for the phrase, that I am taught by collation of many places in the Scriptures, that it is a mere Idiotism. And for the matter, that our Saviour never applied this place to that purpose: And that I mark, the first place which the Fathers in the Nicen Council objected against Arius his Philosopher, was, Faciamus hominem, and this never mentioned. Thus much of him, who hath said, I have been found by them which have not sought me: 
Isa. 65.  And therefore most assuredly in another place, If thou seek me, thou shalt find me. I have adventured in his Name, upon his Name. Our next consideration must be his most glorious work which he hath yet done in any time, the Creation.    

PART. 3.  
MVndum tradidit disputationi eorum, 
Sirac. 3.11  ut non inveniat homo opus quod operatus est Deus ab initio usque ad finem. So that God will be glorified both in our searching these Mysteries, because it testifies our liveliness towards him, and in our not finding them. Lawyers, more than others, have ever been Tyrants over words, and have made them accept other significations, than their nature inclined to. Hereby have Casuists drawn the word Anathema, which is consecrated or separated, and separated or seposed for Divine use, to signify necessarily accursed, and cut of from the communion of the Church. Hereby Criminists have commanded Heresy, which is but election, (and thereupon Paul gloryed to be of the strictest Heresy, a Pharisee; 
Act. 6.5. ) and the Sceptics were despised, because they were of no Heresy) to undertake 
Laert.  a capital and infamous signification. Hereby also the Civilists have dignified the word Privilege, 
Acacius de Privil. l. 1. cap. 1.  whose ancientest meaning was, a law to the disadvantage of any private man (and so Cicero speaks of one banished by privilege, and lays the names, cruel and capital upon Privilege) and appointed it to express only the favours and graces of Princes. Schoolmen, which have invented new things, and found out, or added Suburbs to Hell, will not be exceeded in this boldness upon words. As therefore in many other, so they have practised it in this word creare: which being but of an even nature with facere, or producere, they have laid a necessity upon it to signify a Making of Nothing; 
Scot 2. Sent. Dist. 1. q. 5. Pererius.  For so is Creation defined. But in this place neither the Hebrew nor Greek word afford it; neither is it otherwise than indifferently used in the holy books. Sometimes of things of a preexistent matter, He created man of Earth, 
Sirach. 17.1.  and he created him a helper out of himself. Sometimes of things but than revealed, They are created now, 
Isa. 48.7.  and not of old. Sometimes of that, whereof God is neither Creator, nor Maker, nor Concurrent, as of Evil; faciens Pacem, 
Isa. 45.5.  & creans malum: And sometimes of that which was neither created nor made by God, nor any other, as darkness, which is but privation; formans bucem, 
Isa. 54.7.  & creans tenebras. And the first that I can observe to have taken away the liberty of this word, and made it to signify, of Nothing, 
Aq. 1. q. 45 ar. 1.  is our countryman Bede upon this place. For Saint Augustin was as opposite and diamitrall against it, 
Aug. contr. advers. leg. & proph.  as it is against truth. For he says, facere est quod omnino non erat; creare verò est, ex eo quod jam erat educendo constituere. Truly, it is not the power and victory of reason, that evicts the world to be made of Nothing; for neither this word creare enforces it, nor is it expressly said so in any Scripture. When Paul says himself to be Nothing, 
1 Cor. 22.11.  it is but a diminution on and Extenuation (not of himself, for he says there, I am not inferior to the very chief of the Apostles, but) of Mankind. Where it is said to Man, Your making is of Nothing, it is but a respective, and comparative undervaluing; 
Isa. 41.24.  as in a lower descent than that before, All Nations before God are lesle than Nothing. 
Isa. 40.17.  As in another place by a like extreme extending it is said, Deus regnabit in aeternum & ultra: 
Ex. 15.18.  Only it is once said, 
Machab. 2.7.28.  Ex nihilo fecit omnia Deus; but in a book of no strait obligation (if the matter needed authority) and it is also well translated by us, Of things which were not. But therefore we may spare Divine Authority, and ease our faith too, because it is present to our reason. For, Omitting the quarrelsome contending of Sextus Empiricus the Pyrrhonian, (of the Author of which sect Laertius says, that he handled Philosophy bravely, having invented a way by which a man should determine nothing of every thing) who with his Ordinary weapon, a twoedged sword, thinks he cuts of all Arguments against production of Nothing, by this, Non fit quod jam est, Nec quod non est; 
Ca de Ortu & interit.  nam non patitur mutationem quod non est; And omitting those Idolaters of Nature, the Epicureans, who pretending a mannerly lothness to trouble God, because Nec bene promeritis capitur, 
Lucret.  nec tangitur ira, indeed out of their pride are loath to be beholden to God, say, that we are sick of the fear of God, 
Horace.  Quo morbo mentem concusse? Timore Deorum; And cannot therefore admit creation of Nothing, because than Nil semine egeret, but far omnes omnia possent, And subitò exorirentur, incerto spacio, 
Lucret.  with such other dotages. To make our approaches nearer, and batter effectually, let him that will not confess this Nothing, assign something of which the world was made. If it be of itself, it is God: and it is God, if it be of God; who is also so simple, that it is impossible to imagine any thing before him of which he should be compounded, or any workman to do it. 
Boet. de Consol. 5. pros. 6.  For to say, as one doth, that the world might be eternal, and yet not be God, because God's eternity is all at once, and the world's successive, will not reconcile it; for yet, some part of the world must be as old as God, and infinite things are equal, and equals to God are God. The greatest Dignity which we can give this world, is, that the Idea of it is eternal, and was ever in God: And that he knew this world, not only Scientiâ Intellectus, by which he knows things which shall never be, and are in his purpose impossible, though yet possible and contingent to us; but, after failing, become also to our knowledge impossible, (as it is yet possible that you will read this book thorough now, but if you discontinue it (which is in your liberty) it is than impossible to your knowledge, and was ever so to Gods;) but also Scientiâ Visionis, by which he knows only infallible things; and therefore these Ideas and eternal impressions in God, may boldly be said to be God; for nothing understands God of itself, but God; and it is said, Intellectae Jynges à patre, 
Zoroast. Oracul. 4.  intelligunt & ipsae: And with Zoroaster (if I misconceive not) Jynx is the same as Idea with Plato. The eternity of these Ideas wrought so much, and obtained so high an estimation with Scotus, that he thinks them the Essence of this world, and the Creation was but their Existence; which Reason and Scaliger reprehend roundly, when they do but ask him, whether the Creation were only of accidents.  
But because all which can be said hereof is cloudy, and therefore apt to be misimagined, and ill interpreted, for, obscurum loquitur quisque suo perieulo, I will turn to certain and evident things; And tell thee, O man, which art said to be the Epilogue, and compendium of all this world, and the Hymen and Matrimonial knot of Eternal and Mortal things, whom one says to be all Creatures, 
Picus.  because the Gospel, of which only man is capable, is sent to be preached to all Creatures; 
Mar. 16.  And wast made by God's hands, not his commandment; and hast thy head erected to heaven, and all others to the Centre; that yet only thy heart of all others, points downwards, and only trembles. And, o ye chief of men, ye Princes of the Earth, (for to you especially it is said, Terram dedit filiis hominum; for the sons of God have the lest portion thereof; And you are so Princes of the Earth, as the Devil is Prince of the Air, it is given to you to raise storms of war and persecution) know ye by how few descents ye are derived from Nothing? you are the Children of the Lust and Excrements of your parents, they and theirs the Children of Adam, the child of dirt, the child of Nothing. Yea, our soul, which we magnify so much, and by which we consider this, is a verier upstart than our body, being but of the first head, and immediately made of Nothing: for how many souls hath this world, which were not nothing a hundred years since? And of whole man compounded of Body and Soul, the best, and most spiritual and delicate parts, which are Honour and Pleasure, have such a neighbourhood and alliance with Nothing, that they lately were Nothing, and even now when they are, they are Nothing, or at lest shall quickly become Nothing: which, even at the last great fire, shall not befall the most wretched worm, nor most abject grain of dust: for that fire shall be a purifier, not consumer to nothing. For to be Nothing, is so deep a curse, and high degree of punishment, that Hell and the prisoners there, not only have it not, but cannot wish so great a loss to themselves, nor such a frustrating of God's purposes. Even in Hell, where if our mind could contract and gather together all the old persecutions of the first Church, where men were tormented with exquisite deaths, and oftentimes more, by being denied that; And all the inhumanities' of the Inquisition, where repentance increaseth the torture, (for they die also, and loose the comfort of perseverance;) And all the miseries which the mistake, and furies, and sloth of Princes, and infinity and corrosiveness of officers, the treachery of women, and bondage of reputation hath laid upon mankind, since it was, and distil the poison and strength of all these, and throw it upon one soul, it would not equal the torment of so much time as you sound one syllable. And for the lasting, if you take as many of Plato's years, as a million of them hath minutes, and multiply them by Clavius his number, which expresses how many sands would fill the hollowness to the first Mover, 
In Sacrobos.  you were so far from proceeding towards the end, that you had not described one minute. In Hell, I say, to escape which, some have prayed to have hills fall upon them, and many horrors shadowed in the Scriptures and Fathers, none is ever said to have wished himself Nothing. Indeed, as reposedly, and at home within himself no man is an Atheist, however he pretend it, and serve the company with his braveries (as Saint Augustine says of himself, 
Conf. l. 2. cap. 3.  that though he knew nothing was  but vice, yet he seemed vicious, jest he should be ; and feigned false vices when he had not true, jest he should be despised for his innocency;) so it is impossible that any man should wish himself Nothing: for we can desire nothing but that which seems satisfactory, and better to us at that time; and whatsoever is better, is something. Doth, or can any man wish that, of which, if it were granted, he should, even by his wishing it, have no sense, nor benefit? To speak truth freely there was no such Nothing as this before the beginning: for, he that hath refined all the old Definitions, hath put this ingredient Creabile, (which cannot be absolutely nothing) into his Definition of Creation: 
Piccolomin. Defin. Create.  And that Nothing which was, we cannot desire; for man's will is not larger than God's power; and since Nothing was not a pre-existent matter, nor mother of this All, but only a limitation when any thing began to be; how impossible is it to return to that first point of time, since God (if it imply contradiction) cannot reduce yesterday? Of this we will say not more; for this Nothing being no creature, is more incomprehensible than all the rest: but we will proceed to that which is All, Heaven and Earth.   

PART 4.  
ONe says in admiration of the spirit and sublimeness of Abbot Joachim his Works, 
Picus.  that he thinks he had read the Book of life. Such an acquaintance as that should he need, who would worthily expound or comprehend these words, Heaven and Earth. And Francis George in his Harmony says, That after he had curiously observed, that the Ark of Noah, and our body had the same proportion and correspondency in their parts, he was angry, when he found after, that St Augustine had found out that before. So natural is the disease of Meum & Tuum to us, that even contemplative men, which have abandoned temporal propriety, are delighted, and have their Complacentiam, in having their spiritual Meditations and inventions known to be theirs: for, qui velit ingenio cedere, rarus erit. But because to such as I, who are but Interlopers, not staple Merchants, nor of the company, nor within the commission of Expositors of the Scriptures, if any licence be granted by the Spirit to discover and possess any part, herein, it is conditioned and qualified as the Commissions of Princes, that we attempt not any part actually possessed before, nor disseise others; therefore of these words, so abundantly handled, by so many, so learned, as no place hath been more traded to, I will expositorily say nothing, but only a little refresh, what others have said of them, and than contemplate their immensity. All opinions about these words, whether of Men too suppling and slack, and so miscarried with the stream and tide of elder Authority; or too narrow and slavish, and so coasting ever within the view and protection of Philosophy; or too singular, and so disdaining all beaten paths, may fall within one of these expositions. Either in these words Moses delivers roundly the entire Creation of all, and after doth but dilate and declare the Order; which is usually assigned to chrysostom and Basil, governed by the words in Gen. 2.4. In the day that the Lord God made the Earth and the Heavens; and of these, He that liveth for ever made all things together; 
Sirach. 18.1.  and because the literal interpretation of successive days cannot subsist, where there are some days mentioned before the Creation of these Planets which made days. Or else, (which Augustine authorizeth) the Heaven signifies Angels, and the Earth Materiam primam, out of which all things were produced; which Averro hath called Id ens quod mediat inter non esse penitus, 
In 1ᵒ Phys. 70.  & esse Actu. And another hath afforded it a definition, which Divines have denied to God: for he says, Est nullum praedicamentum, 
Arist. 7. Met. Piccolom. de Defin. Mat. primae  neque Negatio. And therefore that late Italian Distiller and Sublimer of old definitions hath riddled upon it, That it is first and last; immortal and perishable; form and formelesse; One, four, and infinite; Good, bad, and neither; because it is susceptible of all forms, and changeable into all. Or else Heaven must mean that Coelum Empyraeum (which some have thought to be increate, and nothing but the refulgence of God) which is exempt from all alteration even of motion; and the Earth to design the first Matter. And in this channel came the tide of almost all accepted Expositors, till later ages somewhat diverted it. For with, and since Lyra, (of whom his Apologist Dornike says, Dilirat qui cum Lyra non sentit) they agreed much, that Heaven and Earth in this place, is the same which it is now; And that the substantial forms were presently in it distinctly, but other accidental properties added successively. And therefore Aquinas having found▪ danger in these words, 
1. q. 65. Ar. 1.  Praecessit informitas materiae ejus formationem, expounds it, Ornatum, not formam. So that this Heaven and Earth, being themselves and all between them, is this World; the common house and City of Gods and men, in Cicero's words; 
Nat. Dear. 2.  and the corporeal and visible image and son of the invisible God, in the description of the Academics: which being but one, (for Vniversum est omnia versa in unum) hath been the subject of God's labour, and providence, and delight, perchance almost six thousand years; whose uppermost first moving Orb is too swift for our thoughts to overtake, if it dispatch in every hour three thousand times the compass of the Earth, 
Gilbert. de Magn. l. 6. c. 3.  and this exceeds fifteen thousand miles. In whose firmament are scattered more Eyes (for our use, not their own) than any Ciphers can esteem or express. For, how weak a stomach to digest knowledge, or how strong and misgoverned faith against common sense hath he, that is content to rest in their number of 1022 Stars? whose nearer regions are illustrated with the Planets, which work so effectually upon man, that they have often stopped his further search, and been themselves by him deified; And whose navel, this Earth, which cannot stir, for every other place is upwards to it, and is under the water, yet not surrounded, and is man's prison and palace, yea man himself, (for terra est quam calco, 
Conf. 12.  & terra quam porto, says Augustin:) A world, which when God had made, he saw it was very good; and when it became very bad, because we would not repent, he did: and more than once; for he repent that he made it, and than that he destroyed it; becoming for our sakes, who were unnaturally constant (though in sinning) unnaturally changeable in affection: And when we dis-esteemed his benefits, and used not this world aright, but rather chose Hell, he, to dignify his own work, left Heaven itself, to pass a life in this world: Of the glory of which, and the inhabitants of it, we shall best end in the words of Sirach's Son, When we have spoken much, 
Ch. 43.27.  we cannot attain unto them; but the sum of all is, that God is all. But because, as the same man says, When a man hath done his best, 
Cham 18.6.  he must begin again; and when he thinks to come to an end, he must go again to his labour; let us further consider what love we may bear to the world: for, to love it too much, is to love it too little; as overpraysing is a kind of libelling. For a man may oppress a favourite or officer with so much commendation, as the Prince neglected and diminished thereby, may be jealous, and ruin him. Ambassadors in their first accesses to Princes, use not to apply themselves, nor divert their eye upon any, until they have made their first Dispatch, and found themselves next the Prince; and after acknowledge and respect the beams of his Majesty in the beauties and dignities of the rest. So should our soul do, between God, and his Creatures; for what is there in this world immediately and primarily worthy our love, which (by acceptation) is worthy the love of God? Earth and Heaven are but the footstool of God: But Earth itself is but the football of wise men. How like a Strumpet deals this world with the Princes of it? Every one thinks he possesseth all, and his servants have more at her hand than he; and theirs, than they. They think they compass the Earth, and a Job is not within their reach. 
Malaguzzi. Theso. Polit. par. 2. fo. 60.  A busy Wit hath taken the pains to surveyed the possessions of some Princes: & he tells us, that the Spanish King hath in Europe almost three hundred thousand miles, and in the new world seven millions, besides the borders of afric, and all his Lands: And we say, the Sun cannot hid himself from his Eye, nor shine out of his Dominions. Yet let him measure right, and the Turk exceeds him, and him the Persian; the Tartar him, and him Prete-Jan. There came an Edict from the Emperor (saith the Gospel) that the whole world should be taxed: 
Luk. 2.1.  And when the Bishop of Rome is covetous of one treasure, and expensive of another, he gives and applies to some one the Indulgences Vrbis & Orbis. And alas, how many greater Kingdoms are there in the world, which know not that there is such a Bishop or Emperor? Ambition rests not there: The Turk, and lesle Princes, have styled themselves King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and chosen to God. Christian Princes, in no impure times, have taken (nay given to themselves) 
a Justinian. Proem.  Numen nostrum, and 
b Acacius l. 1. c. 6. Cassan. Cat. glow. Mud. P. 5. Cons. 24.50.  Divina Oracula, and Sacra Scripta to their Laws. Of them also some speak so tremblingly, that they say, to dispute their Actions is sacrilege. And their 
c De nova forma fidelit. c. 1. Extra Jo. 22. ca cum Intergloss.  Baldus says of him, Est omnia, & super omnia, & facit ut Deus; habet enim coeleste arbitrium. But more roundly the Canonists of their Bishop, Qui negat Dominum Deum nostrum Papam, etc. which title the Emperor Constantine also long before afforded him. 
Distin. 96. l. Satis. And Martial to Domitian, l. 8.2.  But alas, what are these our fellow-ants, our fellow-durt, our fellow-nothings, compared to that God whom they make but their pattern? And how little have any of these, compared to the whole Earth? whose hills, though they erect their heads beyond the Country of Meteors, and set their foot, in one land, and cast their shadow into another, are but as warts upon our face: And her vaults, and caverns, the bed of the winds, and the secret streets and passages of all rivers, and Hell itself, though they afford it three thousand great miles, 
Munster l. 1. c. 16.  are but as so many wrinkles, and pock-holes. A prince is Pilot of a great▪ ship, a Kingdom; we of a pinnace, a family, or a lesle skiff, ourselves: and howsoever we be tossed, we cannot perish; for our haven (if we will) is even in the midst of the Sea; and where we die, our home meet us. If he be a lion and live by prey, and waste amongst Cedars and pines, and I a mole, and scratch out my bed in the ground, happy in this, that I cannot see him: If he be a butterfly, the son of a Silkworm, and I a Scarab, the seed of dirt; If he go to execution in a Chariot, and I in a Cart or by foot, where is the glorious advantage? If I can have (or if I can want) those things which the Son of Sirach calls principal, water, fire, and iron, 
C. 39.26.  salt and meal, wheat and honey, milk, and the blood of grapes, oil, and clothing; If I can prandere Olus, 
Horace.  and so need not Kings; Or can use Kings, and so need not prandere Olus: In one word, if I do not frui (which, is, set my delight, and affection only due to God) but Vti the Creatures of this world, 
Lombard. l. 1. Dist. 1.  this world is mine; and to me belong those words, Subdue the Earth, 
Gen. 1.28.  and rule over all Creatures; and as God is proprietary, I am usufructuarius of this Heaven and Earth which God created in the beginning. And here, because Nemo silens placuit, 
Auson.  multi brevitate, shall be the end.  
O Eternal and Almighty power, which being infinite, hast enabled a limited creature, Faith, to comprehend thee; And being, even to Angels but a passive Mirror and lookingglass, art to us an Active guest and domestic, (for thou hast said, I stand at the door and knock, 
Rev. 3.20.  if any man hear me, and open the door, I will come in unto him, and sup with him, and he with me, and so thou dwellest in our hearts; And not there only, but even in our mouths; for though thou be'st greater, and more removed, yet humbler and more communicable than the Kings of Egypt, or Roman Emperors, which disdained their particular distinguishing Names, for Pharaoh and Caesar, names of confusion; hast contracted thine immensity, and shut thyself within Syllables, and accepted a Name from us; O keep and defend my tongue from misusing that Name in lightness, passion, or falsehood; and my heart, from mistaking thy Nature, by an inordinate preferring thy Justice before thy Mercy, or advancing this before that. And as, though thyself hadst no beginning thou gavest a beginning to all things in which thou wouldst be served and glorified; so, though this soul of mine, by which I partake thee, begin not now, yet let this minute, O God, this happy minute of thy visitation, be the beginning of her conversion, and shaking away confusion, darkness, and barrenness; and let her now produce Creatures, thoughts, words, and deeds agreeable to thee. And let her not produce them, O God, out of any contemplation, or (I cannot say, Idaea, but) Chimaera of my worthiness, either because I am a man and no worm, and within the pale of thy Church, and not in the wild forest, and enlightened with some glimerings of Natural knowledge; but merely out of Nothing: Nothing prexistent in herself, but by power of thy Divine will and word. By which, as thou didst so make Heaven, as thou didst not neglect Earth, and madest them answerable and agreeable to one another, so let my Soul's Creatures have that temper and Harmony, that they be not by a misdevout consideration of the next life, stupidly and treacherously negligent of the offices and duties which thou enjoinest amongst us in this life; nor so anxious in these, that the other (which is our better business, though this also must be attended) be the lesle endeavoured. Thou hast, O God, denied even to Angels, the ability of arriving from one Extreme to another, without passing the mean way between. Nor can we pass from the prison of our Mother's womb, to thy palace, but we must walk (in that pace whereto thou hast enabled us) through the street of this life, and not sleep at the first corner, nor in the midst. Yet since my soul is sent immediately from thee, (let me for her return) rely, not principally, but wholly upon thee and thy word: and for this body, made of preordained matter, and instruments, let me so use the material means of her sustaining, that I neither neglect the seeking, nor grudge the missing of the Conveniencies of this life: And that for fame, which is a mean Nature between them, I so esteem opinion, that I despise not others thoughts of me, since most men are such, as most men think they be: nor so reverence it, that I make it always the rule of my Actions. And because in this world my Body was first made, and than my Soul, but in the next my soul shall be first, and than my body, In my Exterior and moral conversation let my first and presentest care be to give them satisfaction with whom I am mingled, because they may be scandalised, but thou, which seest hearts, canst not: But for my faith, let my first relation be to thee, because of that thou art justly jealous, which they cannot be. Grant these requests, O God, if I have asked fit things fitly, and as many more, under the same limitations, as are within that prayer which (As thy Manna, which was meat for all tastes, and served to the appetite of him which took it, and was that which every man would) includes all which all can ask, 
Sap. 16.20  Our Father which art, etc.    
EXODUS C. 1. V 1. Now these are the Names of the Children of Israel which came into Egypt, etc. 
IN this book our entrance is a going out: 
Of Exodus  for Exodus is Excitus. The Meditation upon God's works is infinite; and whatsoever is so, is Circular, and returns into itself, and is every where beginning and ending, and yet no where either: Which the Jews (the children of God by his first spouse the Law, as we are by Grace, his second) expressed in their round Temples; for God himself is so much a Circle, as being every where without any corner, (that is, never hid from our Inquisition;) yet he is no where any part of a strait line, (that is, may not be directly and presently beheld and contemplated) but either we must seek his Image in his works, or his will in his words; which, whether they be plain or dark, are ever true, and guide us aright. For, aswell the Pillar of Cloud, as that of Fire, did the Office of directing. Yea, oftentimes, where fewest Expositors contribute their helps, the Spirit of God alone enlightens us best; for many lights cast many shadows, and since controverted Divinity became an occupation, 
Controversies.  the Distortions and violencing of Scriptures, by Christians themselves, have wounded the Scriptures more, than the old Philosophy or Turcism. So that that is appliable to us, which Seneca says of Csaears' murderers, Plures amici quam inimici eum interfecerunt. From which indulgence to our own affections, that should somewhat deter us, which Pliny says of the same business, jisdem pugionibus quibus Caesarem interfecerunt, sibi mortem consciverunt. For we kill our own souls certainly, when we seek passionately to draw truth into doubt and disputation.  
I do not (I hope) in undertaking the Meditation upon this verse, incur the fault of them, 
Shore Texts.  who for ostentation and magnifying their wits, excerpt and tear shapeless and unsignificant rags of a word or two, from whole sentences, and make them obey their purpose in discoursing; The Soldiers would not divide our Saviour's garment, though passed his use and his propriety. No garment is so near God as his word: which is so much his, as it is he. His flesh, though dignified with unexpressible privileges, is not so near God, as his word: for that is Spiritus Oris. And in the Incarnation, the Act was only of one Person, but the whole Trinity speaks in every word. They therefore which stub up these several roots, and mangle them into chips, in making the word of God not such, 
Literal Sense.  (for the word of God is not the word of God in any other sense than literal (and that also is not the literal, which the letter seems to present, for so to divers understandings there might be divers literal senses; but it is called literal, to distinguish it from the Moral, Allegorical, and the other senses; and is that which the Holy Ghost doth in that place principally intent:) they, I say, do what they can this way, to make God, whose word it is pretended to be, no God. They which build, must take the solid stone, not the rubbish. Of which, though there be none in the word of God, yet often unsincere translations, to justify our perjudices and foreconceived opinions, and the undermine and batteries of Heretics, and the curious refinings of the Allegorical Fathers, which have made the Scriptures, which are strong toils, to catch and destroy the bore and bear which devast our Lord's vineyard, fine cobwebs to catch flies; And of strong gables, by which we might anchor in all storms of Disputation and Persecution, the threads of silkworms, curious vanities and excesses (for do not many among us study even the Scriptures only for ornament?) these, I say, may so bruise them, and raise so much dust, as may blind our Eyes, and make us see nothing, by coveting too much. He which first invented the cutting of Marble, had (says Pliny) importunum ingenium; a wit that would take no answer nor denial. So have they which break these Sentences, importuna ingenia, unseasonable and murmuring spirits. When God out of his abundance affords them whole Sentences, yea Chapters, rather than not have enough to break to their auditory, they will attempt to feed miraculously great Congregations with a loaf or two, and a few fishes; that is, with two or three incoherent words of a Sentence. I remember I have read of a General, who, having at last carried a town, yet not merely by force, but upon this article, That in sign of subjection they should admit him to take away one row of stones round about their wall, chose to take the undermost row, by which the whole wall ruined. So do they demolish God's fairest Temple, his Word, which pick out such stones, and deface the integrity of it, so much, as neither that which they take, nor that which they leave, is the word of God. In the Temple was admitted no sound of hammer, nor in the building of this great patriarchal Catholic Church, of which every one of us is a little chapel, should the word be otherwise wrested or broken, but taken entirely as it is offered and presented. But I do not at this time transgress this rule, 
Of this Text.  both because I made not choice of this unperfect sentence, but prosecute my first purpose of taking the beginning of every book: and because this verse is not so unperfect, but that radically and virtually it comprehends all the book; which being a history of God's miraculous Mercy to his, is best intimated or Epitomised in that first part, which is insinuated in this verse, from how small a number he propagated so great a Nation. Upon this confidence, and conscience of purposing good, 
Unvocall preaching.  I proceed in these Sermons; for they are such, in the allowance of him whom they have styled resolutissimum et Christianissimum Doctorem; 
Gers. de laude Scr. consid. 1a. a.  for he says Scriptor manu praedicat. And that to writ books, though one gain and profit temporally by it, yet if the final respect be the glory of God, is latriae veneratio, and more honourable to the Church, than the multiplication of vocal prayers, Imo, quam insolens Missarum inculcatio. Did the Author of that book, the Preacher, make vocal Sermons? Though these lack thus much of Sermons, that they have no Auditory, yet as Saint Bernard did almost glory, that Okes and Beeches were his Masters, I shall be content that Okes and Beeches be my scholars, and witnesses of my solitary Meditations. Therefore, 
Division.  after I shall have spoken a few words in general of this book, I will proceed to a nearer consideration of this verse; first, As it gins to present a Register of their Names, whom God appointed to be the foundation of his many great works; And than, As it doth virtually comprehend those particular testimonies of God's love to his people.  
In the first, we will look Why God is willing, that those through whom God prepares his miracles, should be named. Secondly, why they are in divers places diversely named. Than, why their number is expressed; And why that also diversely, in divers places. And lastly, whether there be no Mystery in their Number, Seventy.  
In the second part, wherein out of this verse radically will arise to our consideration, all his favours to his chosen, expressed in this book, we shall have occasion to contemplate God's Mercy, and that, In bringing them into Egypt, In propagating them there, In delivering them from thence, and in nourishing them in the wilderness. Secondly his Power, Expressed in his many Miracles: Thirdly his Justice, in their pressures in Egypt, and the wilderness: And lastly his Judgements, in affording them a law for their direction.  

Exodus.  
When this Book became a particular book, that is, 
Of Moses five Books  when Moses his book was divided into five parts, I cannot trace. Not only the first Christian Counsels, which established or declared the Canon of Scripture, and all the earlyest Expositors thereof, whether Christians or Jews, but the Septuagint, almost 300. years before Christ, acknowledge this partition. Yet, that Moses left it a continued work, or at lest not thus distributed, it seems evident, both because the Hebrew names of these books are not significant, but are only the first words of the book, (as we use to cite the Imperial and the Canon laws) And because by Conradus Pellicanus I am taught, 
Comment. in Pentat.  that Moses, according to the 52. Hebdomades, distinguished the Pentateuch into so many sections, of which this is the 13. And Josephus Simlerus notes, that the first letter here, which ordinarily hath no use, but grace, hath in this place the force of a conjunction. And so Lyra, and many others acknowledge, that this is but a continuing of the former History Besides the reasons which moved those times to make this a singular Book, I may add this, That God, when he had in that part of Moses book which we call Genesis, expressed fully, that by creating from Nothing, before Nature was, he needed not her to begin his glorious work; so in this he declares especially, that he hath not so assumed Nature into a Collegueship with himself, that he cannot leave her out, or go besides her, and neglect her, or go directly against her when it pleases him. And therefore this book is, more than any other, a Register of his Miracles. Of which book this is notable, it consisting of the most particular ceremonial parts, wherein the Jews yet persist, and we faithfully see already accomplished, and therefore likeliest to minister matter of quarrel and difference between us, of all other books in the Bible, is best agreed upon; and lesser differences between ours and their Copies than in any other book: so equally careful have all parties been to preserve the Records of his Miracles intemerate.   

PART. 1.  
I Come now to the first Part: 
Names.  In which, the first Consideration is, Why God would have them named? These are the Names, 
Antiq. l. 2. c. 4.  etc. Josephus delivering the same History, says, that he would not have ascribed the Names, because they are of an hard and unpleasant sound, but that some had defamed the Nation, as Egyptians; and denied them to be Mesopotamians. It hath therefore one good use, to distinguish them from profane Nations: But the chiefest is, That they are inserted into this Book for an everlasting honour both to God and them. Amongst men, all Depositaries of our Memories, all means which we have trusted with the preserving of our Names, putrify and perish. Of the infinite numbers of the Medals of the Emperors, some one haypy Antiquary, with much pain, travel, cost, and most faith, believes he hath recovered some one rusty piece, which deformity makes reverend to him, and yet is indeed the fresh work of an Impostor.  
The very places of the Obelises, and Pyramids are forgotten, and the purpose why they were erected. Books themselves are subject to the mercy of the Magistrate: and as though the ignorant had not been enemy enough for them, the Learned unnaturally and treacherously contribute to their destruction, by rasure and misinterpretation. Caligula would abolish Homer, Virgil, and all the Lawyer's Works, and eternize himself and his time in Medals: The Senate, after his death, melted all them: Of their brass his Wife Messalina made the Statue of her beloved Player; and where is that? But Names honoured with a place in this book, cannot perish, because the Book cannot. Next to the glory of having his name entered into the Book of Life, this is the second, to have been matriculatted in this Register, for an example or instrument of good. Lazarus his name is enroled, but the wicked rich man's omitted. How often in the Scriptures is the word Name, for honour, fame, virtue? How often doth God accurse with abolishing the Name? Thou shalt destroy their Name, Deut. 7.24. And, I will destroy their Name de sub coelo, Deut. 9.14. And, Non seminabitur de Nomine tuo, Nah. 1.14. With which curse also the civil Ephesian Law punished the burner of the Temple, that none should name him. And in the same phrase doth God express his blessings to Abraham, Gen. 12.2. and often elsewhere, I will make thy Name great. Which, without God, those vain attempters of the Tower of Babel endeavoured: for it is said, Gen. 11.4. They did it, to get themselves a Name. Whether Nomen be Novimen, or Notamen, it is still to make one known: and God, which cannot be known by his own Name, may nearlyest by the names and prosperity of his. And therefore, for his own sake, he is careful to have his servants named. He calleth his own sheep by name; And, 
Joh. 10.  Scribe Nomen Diei hujus, says he to Ezekiel, c. 24.2. Of all Nations, the Jews have most chastely preserved that Ceremony of abstaining from ethnic Names. 
Ethnic Names.  At this time, when by their pressures they need most to descend to that common degree of flattery, to take the names of the Princes by whose leave they live, they do not degenerate into it, when almost all Christendom hath strayed into that scandalous fashion, of returning to heathen Names, as though they were ashamed of their Examples. And almost in all their Names, the Jews have either testified some event past, or prophesied or prayed for some good to come: 
Significant. Names.  In no language are Names so significant. So that if one consider diligently the senes of the Names registered here, he will not so soon say, That the Names are in the History, as that the History is in the Names. For, Levi is coupled to God, which notes God's calling. Simeon, hearing and obedient, where their willingness is intimated. Juda is confessing and praising, which results of the rest. Zebulon is a dwelling, because they are established in God: in whom, because they have both a Civil policy, and a Military, Dan is a Judgement, and Gad, a Garrison. In which, that they may be exercised in continual occasions of meriting, Naphthali is a wrestling. And to crown all, Asher is complete blessedness. The other Names have their peculiar force, which will not come into this room: but I entered the rather into this Meditation and opinion, because I found the Scriptures often to allude to the Name, and sometimes express it, as 1 Sam. 25.25. As his name is, so is he, Nabal, a fool. And in Exod. 15.23. Therefore the name of the place was called bitter. And the Romans also had so much respect to the ominousness of good Names, that when in Musters every Soldier was to be called by Name, 
Cic. l. 1. de Divinat.  they were diligent to begin with one of a good and promising Name, which Festus reckons to be Valerius, Salvius, Statorius, and such. And I have read in some of the Criminalists, that to have an ill Name, in this sense, not malae famae, was Judicium ad torturam. 
Hom. 8. in Gen.  Origen exaggerating pathetically the gradations of Abraham's sorrow at the immolation of his son, after he hath expostulated with God why he would remember him of the Name son, and why of Beloved son, rests most upon the last, that he would call him by his Name Isaac, which signifies joy, in a commandment of so much bitterness. It may be than some occasion of naming them in this place, that as these men were instruments of this work of God, so their names did sub-obscurely foresignify it. For Reason, the common soul to all laws, forbids that either great punishments should be inflicted otherwise than Nominatim; Non nisi nominatim liberi exheredandi: 
Briss. form. so. 604.  Or that great benefits should be in any other sort conferred. For conformably to this case, which now we consider, of delivering persons from bondage, the law is, 
Lex Fus. Can.  Servis non nisi Nominatim libertas danda est. Of this Honour to his servants, to be remembered by Name, God hath been so diligent, that sometimes himself hath imposed the Name before the birth, 
Changed Names.  and sometimes changed it to a higher signification, when he purposed to exalt the person. It is noted, 
Fr. George pro fo. 17.  that to Abrams Name he added a letter, whose number made the whole Name equal to the words, Creavit Hominem. So that the multiplying of his seed, was a work not inferior to the Creation. And from Sarai's Name he took a letter, which expressed the number ten, and reposed one, which made but five; so that she contributed that five which man wanted before, to show a mutual indigence and Supplement. How much Schismatic disputation hath proceeded from the change of Simon's Name into Peter? 
Mat. 15.  What a Majestic change had James and John into the Sons of Thunder? 
Mar. 13.  yet God not only forbore ever such vast Names, as Pharaoh gave Joseph, 
Goe 41.41.  which is not only Expounder of secrets, 
Addition to Names.  but Saviour of the world: which also the Roman Emperors assumed in many Coins, (AEternitas Caesaris, And Caesar salus, And Servator, And Restaurator Orbis;) but (to my remembrance, and observation) he never added other Name, as a pronomen, or cognomen, or such: To show (I think) that man brought not part of his Dignity, and God added; but that God, when he will change a man, begins, and works, and perfects all himself. For though corrupt custom hath authorised it now, And, 
Robortellus de Nominibus.  Gaudent pronomine molles auriculae; yet the Romans themselves, from whom we have this burden of many Names, till they were mingled with the Sabius, used but one Name. 
Politianus Miscel. c. 31  And before that Custom got to be noble, their slaves, only when they were manumitted, were forced to accept three names. In this Excess of Names the Christians have exceeded their patterns: for to omit the vain and empty fullness in Paracelsus Name, which of the Ancients equals that grave, wise Author, which writes himself, Pulmannus Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius? But God hath barely and nakedly, but permanently engraved these Names. Which shall never be subject to that obscurity, which Ausonius imputes to one who was Master to an Emperor, and rewarded with a Consulship, but overswayed with his Colleague, that men were feign to inquire, Quibus Consulib. gesserit consulatum. But wheresoever these Names shall be mentioned, the Miraculous History shall be called to memory; And wheresoever the History is remembered, their Names shall be refreshd.  

Diversity in Names.  
Our next consideration is, Why they are diversely named? and not always alike, in Gen. 46. and here, and in Deuteronomy, and the other places where they are spoken of? And this belongs not only to this case, but to many others in the Holy Bible. Josua and Jesus is all one. So is Chonia, and Jechonias. And how multinominous is the father in law of Moses? And the name Nebrycadrozor is observed to be written seven several ways in the Prophets. To change the Name, in the party himself is, by many laws, Dolus; and when a Notary doth it, he is falsarius; faults penal and infamous. And therefore laws have provided, that in instruments of contract, and in public Registers, all the Names, Sur-names and additions shall be inserted; and they forbidden Abbreviations; and they appoint a more conspicuous and more permanent Character to express them. So necessary is a certainty and constancy in the Names. Some late interpreters of the law, 
Acacius de privil. Juris.  teach, that false Latin in Grammar, in Edicts or Rescripts from the Imperial Chamber, or any other secular Prince or Court, doth not annihilate or vitiate the whole writing, because all they may be well enough presumed not to understand Latin; But the Bulls of the Popes, and decrees in the Court of Rome are defeated and annulled by such a corruption, because their sufficiency in that point being presumed, it shall be justly thought subreptitious, what ever issues faulty and defective in that kind. So, though Error and variety in Names, may be pardonable in profane Histories, especially such as translate from Authors of other language, yet the wisdom and constancy of that one Author of all these books, the Holy Ghost, is likely to defend and establish all his instruments, chosen for building this frame of Scriptures, from any uncertain waverng and vacillation.  
The Cabalists therefore, which are the Anatomists of words, and have a Theological Alchemy to draw sovereign tinctures and spirits from plain and gross literal matter, observe in every variety some great mystic signification; but so it is almost in every Hebrew name and word. Lyra, who is not so refined, yet very Judaick too, thinks, that as with the Latin, Cholaus, Choletus, Cholinus, and Nicolaus is one Name; so it is in the variation of names in the Scriptures. But oftentimes, neither the sound, nor letter, nor signification, nor beginning nor ending, nor root, nor branch, have any affinity: as himself (though corruptly) says, that Esau; Seir, and Edom are one name. 
Gen. 36.  It may be some laziness to answer every thing thus, It is so, because God would have it so; yet he which goes further, and asks, Why Gods will was so, inquires for something above God. For, found me something that inclines God, and I will worship that. since therefore this variety of Names falls out in no place, where the certainty of the person or History is thereby offuscate, I incline to think, that another useful document arises from this admitting of variety; which seems to me to be this, 
Difference in things not essential.  that God in his eternal & ever-present omniscience, foreseeing that his universal, Christian, Catholic Church, imaged, and conceived, and begotten by him in his eternal decree, born and brought to light when he travailed and laboured in those bitter agonies and throes of his passion, nourced ever more dilicately and preciously than any natural children, (for they are fed with their Mother's blood in their womb, but we with the blood of our most Blessed Saviour all our lives,) foreseeing, I say, that this his dearly beloved Spouse, and Sister, and Daughter, the Church, should in her latter Age suffer many convulsions, distractions, rents, schisms, and wounds, by the severe and unrectified Zeal of many, who should impose necessity upon indifferent things, and oblige all the World to one precise form of exterior worship, and Ecclesiastic policy; averring that every degree, and minute and scruple of all circumstances which may be admitted in either belief or practice, is certainly, constantly, expressly, and obligatorily exhibited in the Scriptures; and that Grace, and Salvation is in this unity and no where else; his Wisdom was mercifully pleased, that those particular Churches, devout parts of the Universal, which, in our Age, keeping still the foundation and corner stone Christ Jesus, should piously abandon the spacious & specious superedifications which the Church of Rome had built thereupon, should from this variety of Names in the Bible itself, be provided of an argument, That an unity and consonance in things not essential, is not so necessarily requisite as is imagined. Certainly, when the Gentiles were assumed into the Church, they entered into the same fundamental faith and religion with the Jews, as Musculus truly notes; and this conjunction in the root and foundation, fulfilled that which was said, Fiet unum Ovile, 
Joh. 10.16  & unus Pastor, One fold, and one shepherd. For, by that before, you may see that all Christ's sheep are not always in one fold, Other sheep have I also, which are not of this fold. So, all his sheep are of one fold, that is, under one Shepherd, Christ; yet not of one fold, that is, not in one place, nor form. For, that which was strayed and alone, was his sheep; much more any flock which harken together to his voice, his Word, and feed together upon his Sacraments. Therefore that Church from which we are by God's Mercy escaped, because upon the foundation, which we yet embrace together, Redemption in Christ, they had built so many stories high, as the foundation was, though not destroyed, yet hid and obscured; And their Additions were of so dangerous a construction, and appearance, and misapplyableness, that to tender consciences they seemed Idolatrous, and are certainly scandalous and very slippery, and declinable into Idolatry, though the Church be not in circumstantial and deduced points, at unity with us, nor itself; (for, with what tragic rage do the Sectaries of Thomas and Scotus prosecute their differences? and how impetuously doth Molinas and his Disciples at this day, impugn the common doctrine of grace and freewill? And though these points be not immediately fundamental points of faith, yet radically they are, and as near the root as most of those things wherein we and they differ;) yet though we branch out East & West, that Church concurs with us in the root, and sucks her vegetation from one and the same ground, Christ Jesus; who, as it is in the Canticle, lies between the breasts of his Church, 
Cant. 1.12  and gives suck on both sides. And of that Church which is departed from us, disunited by an opinion of a necessity that all should be united in one form, and that theirs is it, since they keep their right foot fast upon the Rock Christ, I dare not pronounce that she is not our Sister; but rather as in the same Song of Solomon's, 
Cant. 8.9.  We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: if she be a wall, we will build upon her a silver palace. If therefore she be a wall, That is, Because she is a wall; for so Lyra expounds those words, as on her part, she shall be safer from ruin, if she apply herself to receive a silver palace of Order, and that Hierarchy which is most convenient and proportional to that ground and state wherein God hath planted her; and she may not transplant herself: So shall we best conserve the integrity of our own body, of which she is a member, if we laboriously build upon her, and not tempestuously and ruinously demolish and annul her; but rather cherish and foment her vital and wholesome parts, than either cut, or suffer them to rot or moulder of. As natural, so politic bodies have Cutem, & Cuticulam. The little thin skin which covers all our body, may be broken without pain or danger, and may reunite itself, because it consists not of the chief and principiant parts. But if in the skin itself, there be any solution or division, which is seldom without drawing of blood, no art nor good disposition of Nature, can ever bring the parts together again, and restore the same substance, though it seem to the eye to have soddered itself. It will ever seem so much as a deforming Scar, but is in truth a breach. Outward Worship is this Cuticula: and integrity of faith the skin itself. And if the first be touched with any thing too corrosive, it will quickly pierce the other; and so Schism, which is a departure from obedience, will quickly become Heresy, which is a wilful deflexion from the way of faith? Which is not yet, so long as the main skin is inviolate: for so long that Church which despises another Church, is itself not other than that of which the Psalm speaks, Ecclesia Malignantium. Thus much was to my understanding naturally occasioned and presented by this variety of Names in the Scriptures: For, if Esau, Edom, and Seir were but one man; Jethro and Revel, etc. but one man, which have no consonance with one another, and might thereby discredit and enervate any History but this, which is the fountain of truth; so Synagogue and Church is the same thing, and of the Church, Roman and Reformed, and all other distinctions of place, Discipline, or Person, but one Church, journeying to one Jerusalem, and directed by one guide, Christ Jesus; In which, though this Unity of things not fundamental, be not absolutely necessary, yet it were so comely and proportional with the foundation itself, if it were at Unity in these things also, that though in my poor opinion, the form of God's worship, established in the Church of England be more convenient, and advantageous than of any other Kingdom, both to provoke and kindle devotion, and also to fix it, that it stray not into infinite expansions and Subdivisions; (into the former of which, Churches utterly despoiled of Ceremonies, seem to me to have fallen; and the Roman Church, by presenting innumerable objects, into the later.) And though to all my thanksgivings to God, I ever humbly acknowledge, as one of his greatest Mercies to me, that he gave me my Pasture in this Park, and my milk from the breasts of this Church, yet out of a fervent, and (I hope) not inordinate affection, even to such an Unity, I do zealously wish, that the whole catholic Church, were reduced to such Unity and agreement, in the form and profession Established, in any one of these Churches (though ours were principally to be wished) which have not by any additions destroyed the foundation and possibility of salvation in Christ Jesus; That than the Church, discharged of disputations, and misapprehensions, and this defensive war, might contemplate Christ clearly and uniformly. For now he appears to her, as in Cant. 2.9. He standeth behind a wall, looking forth of the window, showing himself through the grate. But than, when all had one appetite, and one food, one nostril and one purfume, the Church had obtained that which she than asked, Arise o North, 
Cant. 4.10.  and come o South, and blow on my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. For than, that savour of life unto life might allure and draw those to us, whom our dissensions, more than their own stubborness withhold from us.   

Of Number.  
As God Registers the Names of his Elect, and of his Instruments, so doth he the Number, He counteth the Number of the stars, and calleth them by their Names, says the Psalmist; 
Ps. 147.4.  which many Expositors interpret of the Elect. Of which Saint John expresses a very great Number, 
Rev. 7.6.  when he says, I heard the number of them which were sealed 144000. But after in the ninth verse, A Multitude in white before the Lamb, which none could Number. In that place of Genesis, 
Gen Pererius.  when Abram took 318. to rescue Lot (which Number hath been, not unusefully observed to accord with the Number of the Fathers in the first Necene Council, where Christianity was rescued from Arius) the Septuagint have Numeravit, and Saint Ambrose says, the Hebrew word signifies Elegit; as though it were so connatural in God, to number and to Elect, that one word might express both. And because Christ knew how rigorous an account God took of those whom he had made Governors of his, 
Joh. 17.12.  in his prayer, that they might be after preserved, he says, I have kept them, and none of them are lost, except, etc. How often doth God iterate this way also of expressing his love to Abraham, that he will multiply his posterity? If a man can number the dust of the earth, than shall thy seed be numbered, Gen. 13.16. And jest he should have seemed to have performed that promise when he had only multiplied their Number, and yet left them to be trod under foot by the Egyptians, because that comparison of Dust might import and insinuate so much; he chooses after another of infinite Number and Dignity together; Tell the Stars, if thou be able to number them: So shall thy seed be, Gen. 15.5. David, to let them see what a blessing their increase in number was, bids them remember what they were, 
Ps. 105.12.  Cum essent Numero brevi. And Jeremy, as though they did not else concur with God in his purpose to restore them to greatness, when they were in Babylon, says to them, 
Jer. 26.6.  Nolite esse pauci Numero. Upon this love of God to see his people prospero, says Rabbi Solomon,  homo habens peculium: or, As a man which hath a Stock of cattles which he loves, reckons them every day; so doth God his people. Hence is it, that so many times God commands his people to be numbered. Insomuch, that that which we call the Fourth book of Moses, 
Prologo.  in which Saint Jerom saith are contained totius Arithmeticae Mysteria, hath the denomination from Numbering. In the first entrance whereof, God commands his to be numbrd, and to be numbered by Name: And the number in that place, when the old and young, 
Fr. George Prob. 376.  and women are added to it, one very curious, following those rules by which the Hebrews have learned the number of the Angels in heaven, hath found to accord precisely with that number of Angels intimated in Dan. 7. This Order, of being first Named, and than Numbered; or first Numbered, and than Named, Antichrist perverts by Anticipation, and doing both at once; for his Name is a Number. The Devil, who counterfeits God, put a desire into David to number his people; who was than only in his right Arithmetic, when he prayed to find the number of his days. 
Psal. 39.5. 1 Chr. 21.1.  But when Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number his people, he entered a work of such glory and ostentation, that Joab was nine months and twenty days in doing that service. 
2 Sam. 24.8.  But God would number also; and because David would not attend his leisure, he changed his fashion, and brought upon them that number, which he after threatens again in Isaiah, 
Isa. 65.11.  Numerabo vos in gladio.  

Of this Number.  For the Number registered in this History, As God had well provided for their Honour, by entering their Names in this everlasting record: so (I think) he provided for his own Honour, of which he is ever jealous, in expressing the Number; that all posterity might be awakened to a reverend acknowledgement of his greatness and goodness, by seeing, from what a small Number, in how short a time, how numerous a people, through how great pressures, and straits, were by him propagated and established. For, since he is content to receive his Honour from us, (for although all cause of Honour be eternally inherent in himself, yet that Act proceeds from us, and of that Honour, which is in Honorante, he could have none, till he had made Creatures to exhibit it;) his great work of Creation, which admits no arrest for our Reason, nor gradations for our discourse, but must be at once swallowed and devoured by faith, without mastication, or digestion, is not so apt to work upon us, for the provoking of our Acts of Honour, as those other miracles are, which are somewhat more submitted to reason, and exercise and entertain our disputation, and spiritual curiosity by the way, and yet at last go as far beyond reason, as the other; as all miracles do equally. Of that kind this is; because a mighty People is miraculously made, not of Nothing, (upon which, Consideration can take no hold) but of a disproportionall, and incompetent littleness. And in these, where the smallness of the root, or seed, is a degree of the miracle, the Spirit of God uses to be precise in recording it. And therefore, in the greatest of that kind, which is the fulfilling and replenishing the world, after that great exinanition by the general deluge, though Moses say twice or thrice, that Noah, and his sons, and his and their wives went into the Ark, and came out; yet, because the Miracle of propagating consists in the Number, Almighty God is pleased, by his ordinary way of expounding his word, (which is, to explicate and assure one place by another) to teach us, that this Number was but eight: for St. Peter says, In the Ark but few, that is, 
1 Pet. 3.  but Eight were saved. In like manner, I mean with like preciseness, after the Miracle in Mat. 14. was precisely recorded, how many loafes, how many fishes, how many Eaters, how many baskets of fragments; In the next chapter, another Miracle of the same kind, being to be registered, though it be less than the other, (for their is more meat, lesser eaters, and lesser fragments) yet God seems careful in the particular Numbers. This therefore I take to be some reason of inserting this Number; which being somewhat discordantly, and differently set down, as the collation of places manifests, and the Spirit of God doing nothing falsely, inordinately, negligently, dangerously, or perplexedly, to an humble and deligent understanding; we will in the next Section consider the Variety in this Number.   

Variety in the Number.  
Numbering is so proper and peculiar to man, who only can number, that some philosophical Inquisitors have argued doubtfully, whether if man were not, there were any Number. And error in Numbering is De substantialibus, as lawyers say, and sometimes annuls, ever vitiates any Instrument, so much, as it may not be corrected. Nothing therefore seems so much to endanger the Scriptures, and to submit and tender them obnoxious to censure and calumniation, as the appearance of Error in Chronology, or other limbs and members of Arithmetic: for, 
August. in Enchirid.  since Error is an approbation of false for true, or incertain for certain, the Author hath erred (and than the Author is not God) if any Number be falsely delivered; And we err, if we arrest ourselves as upon certain truth (as we do upon all the Scriptures,) when there is sufficient suspicion of Error, (abstracting the reverence of the Author,) and a certain confession and undeniableness of uncertainty. And as a man delated juriddically, or by fame, or by private information of any Crime, must, when Canonical purgation is required at his hands, not only swear his own innocency himself, but produce others of his neighbourhood and friendship, to swear that they think he swears true; and if they concurred not with him, this would have the nature of a half-proof, and justify a further proceeding to his condemnation: so when any profane History rises up against any place of Scripture, accusing it to Human Reason, and understanding, (for though in our supreme Court in such cases, for the last Appeal be Faith, yet Reason is her Delegate) it is not enough that one place justify itself to say true, but all other places produced as handling the same matter, must be of the same opinion, and of one harmony. I have therefore wondered that Althemerus, pretending to reconcile all apparent discordances in the Scriptures, hath utterly pretermitted all variety in Numbering: Of Examples whereof, the comparing of the Historical books, would have afforded him great plenty, and worthy of his travel. The general reasons why God admits some such diversities in his book, prevail also for this place which is now under our consideration; which are, first, To make men sharp and industrious in the inquisition of truth, he withdraws it from present apprehension, and obviousness. For naturally great wits affect the reading of obscure books, wrestle and sweated in the explication of prophecies, dig and thresh out the words of unlegible hands, resuscitate and bring to life again the mangled, and lame fragmentary images and characters in Marbles and Medals, because they have a joy and complacency in the victory and achievement thereof. Another reason is, That as his elect children are submitted by him to the malice and calumny of the Reprobate, and are not only ragefully tempested with storms of persecution, but contemptuously and scornfully (which is oftentimes the greater affliction) insimulated of folly and silliness, are in his knowledge, and often so declared in this world to abound in the treasure of richeses and wisdom: So he is pleased that his word should endure and undergo the opinion of contradiction, or other infirmiries, in the eyes of Pride (the Author of Heresy and Schism) that after all such dissections, & ●ribrations, and examining of Heteticall adventures upon it, it might return from the furnace more refined, and gain lustre and clearness by this vexation. But the most important and useful reason is, that we might ever have occasion to accustom ourselves, to that best way of expounding Scriptures, by comparing one place with another. All the doubts about this place determine in two. First, why the Number is in so many places said to be Seventy, as Gen. 46.27. and in this place of Exodus, and in Deut. 10.22. And yet Gen. 46.26. the Number is said to be but 66. And in all the process of time from Moses' to Stephen's martyrdom, recorded Act. 7. there could be no other doubt but this one, to them which understood Hebrew, and were not misgoverned by the translation of the Septuagint. And this first doubt is no sooner offered, than answered; for in the 46. of Gen. the 26 verse speaks of 66, and considers not Joseph and his two sons, which were already in Egypt, in which the 27. verse doth, and adding Jacob himself, perfects the Number 70. of which it speaks. So that here is no dissonance in the Number, but only the Spirit of God hath used his liberty, in the phrase, reckoning some born in Egypt among the souls which came into Egypt. The other Doubt, which hath more traveled the Expositors, is, why Stephen, referring to Moses, 
Act. 7.  should say, they were 75. The occasion of this mistaking (for so I think it was) was given by false Copies of the Septuagint's translation, than in most use. For the Hebrew text was long before so far out of ordinary use, that we see our Saviour himself, in his allegations, follows the Septuagint. And in my mind, so much reverence is due to that translation, that it were hard to think, that they at first added five to Moses Number. For, that which is said for that opinion (though by Saint Hierome) which is, that they comprehend some nephews of Joseph, hath no warrant; and all the rest of the brethrens were likely to have nephews at that time also. And against this opinion it prevails much with me, that, by Saint Hieromes testimony, that translation in his time, in the other place, Deut. 10.22. had but 70, conform to Moses: And any reason which might have induced them to add 5 in Genesis, had been as strong for Deuteronomy. Junius, scarce exceeded by any, 
L. 1. Par. 92.  in learning, sharpness, and faith, thinks that Stephen neither applied his speech to that account of those that were issued from Jacob's loins, which were indeed but 66, nor to the addition of the three in Egypt, which, with Jacob himself accomplished the number of 70; but that, insisting precisely upon Moses syllables, he related so many as were expressed by name by Moses in that Chapter, to have been of Jacob's Family; which were Jacob's four wives, and the two sons of Judah, which make up 75. But with that modesty wherein he asks leave to departed from the Fathers, I must departed from him: for Joseph could not 'cause these two sons of Judah to be brought into Egypt, (as appears in the Text he did, for all the number there intended,) since they were dead in Canaan before, as is evident, Genes. 46. Others therefore have thought, that Saint Luke reported not the words out of Stephen's mouth, but by view of Moses his text, and that but in the Translation; because being but a Proselyte, he had no perfection, nor was accustomed to the Hebrew. And others, that indulgently he descended to that text which was most familiar, and so most credible to them. For, though this be either an apparent Error in the Septuagint at first, (which is hard to allow, if we believe half of that which uses to be said, in proof; that the Holy Ghost assisted them) Or a corruption insinuated after, (as it is easy, when Numbers are expressed by numerant letters,) yet that translation, so corrupted, had so much weight, that all than followed it; and it maintained that authority so long, that even in Lyra's time the Latin obeyed it. For he reads in this place of Exodus, 75. though he there confess the Hebrew hath but 70. This in my understanding may safelier be admitted, than to decline so far as Master Calvin doth, who thinks it possible that Saint Luke reposed the true Number 70; but some other exscriber, ignorant of Hebrew, and obedient to the Septuagint, reform it deformly since his writing; for this seems to me to open dangerously a way to the infringing, or infirming many places of Scripture. The Number being than certainly 70, since by the hardness and insolence of the Phrase, there seems some violence and force, to raise the Number to 75. (for it may seem hard, that Joseph, which sent for these 70, should be called one of the 70 which came; And that his two Sons already in Egypt, should be two of them which came into Egypt; And that Jacob should be one of these 70 which issued out of Jacobs loins;) in a few words we will consider, 
Of the Number 70.  whether any Mystery reside in that chosen Number; the rather because very many remarkable things, and passages in History, seem to me to have been limited in that Number, which therefore seems more Periodick than any other.  
But because any over curious and Mysterious consideration of this Number 70. though it be composed of the two greatest Numbers (for Ten cannot be exceeded, but that to express any further Number you must take a part of it again; and Seven is ever used to express infinite,) be too Cabalistick and Pythagorick for a vulgar Christian, (which I offer not for a phrase of Diminution or Distrust, that such are unprovided of sufficient defences for themselves, or are ignorant of any thing required in such as they, for salvation; But that there is needed also a Meta-theology, and super-divinity, above that which serves our particular consciences, in them, who must fight against Philosophers and Jews) because I am one, and in a low degree, of the first and vulgar rank, and writ but to my equals, I will forbear it, as mis-interpretable; since to some-palates it may taste of Ostentation; but to some, of distraction from better contemplations, and of superstition to others: yet, we may, as well with reverence to the things, as respect to the Number, rest a little upon those works of God, or his Servants, which this Number, at lest, reduces to our memory.  
First therefore, Those Fathers of the world, 
70. Patriarches.  to whom God affords a room by name in the 10th. of Gen. from whom are derived all Nations, all extinguished and forgotten, all now eminent and in actions, and all yet undiscovered, and unbeing; They to whose Sons he hath given the earth, utterly wasted before, and hath reserved rooms in Heaven, from whence their betters are dejected, are reckoned there to be 70. After, when the children of Israel's murmuring kindled Moses zeal to expostulate with God, 
70. Elders.  thus, Have I conceived all this people, or have I begotten them, that I should bear this? I am not able to bear all this alone; therefore, if thou deal thus with me, if I have found favour in thy sight, I pray thee kill me, that I behold not my misery. When by this importunity Moses had extorted from God another form of policy, the Number amongst which God would divide Moses' labour, and Moses' spirit, was 70. The barbarous cruelty of Adonibezek, 
70. Kings slain. Judg. 6.1.  confessed by himself, was than accomplished, and ripe for God's vengeance, when he had executed it upon 70. Kings. Moses, 
70. years our life.  though his words, Gen. 6. Man's days shall be 120. years, are by many, and may well be expounded to be the ordinary term of man's life after the flood, (though ordinarily they are said to design the years from that speech to the flood.) And though at that time when he writ the 89th. Psalms, (for he writ the Pentateuch first, and that after his going out of Egypt) he was more than 80 years old) yet in that Psalm, he pitches the limits of man's life 70 years. 
In 70. David died.  Though David were not Author of that Psalm, he was an Example of it; for, though in a Kingdom which had but newly taken that form, and was now translated to David's Family, and vexed with the discontentments of Saul's friends, and his own son's ambitions, a longer life, and longer reign might seem to many to have been requisite, yet he ended his years in 70. David was thirty when he began to reign, 
2 Sam. 5.4  and he reigned forty; 
70000. of the plague.  After he had seen the anger of God, punishing his confidence in the number of his men, 
2 Sam. 24.31.  by diminishing them, limit and determine itself in 70 thousand. And in that great Captivity of Babylon, 
70. years in Babylon.  in which (as many think) the word of God himself, the Text of Scriptures perished, that great and pregnant Mother, and Daughter of Mysteries, (for how many Prophecies were fulfilled and accomplished in that, and how many conceived but than, which are not yet brought to light?) the chosen people of God, were trodden down 70. years. To which foreign sojourning, for many concurrences, and main circumstances, many have assimilated and compared the Roman Churches straying into France, 
70. in Avignon.  and being empounded in Avignon 70. years; And so long also lasted the Inundation of the Goths in Italy. 
70. the Goths in Italy.  In that dejection and bondage in Babylon, God afforded to Daniel that vision and voice, 
70. Hebdomad.  than which nothing is more mysterious, nothing more important for our assurance, nothing more advantageable against the Jews, which is the seventy Hebdomades. Than, 
70. Disciples.  those Disciples, supplyers and fellow-workers with the Apostles, equal to them in very many things (and, men dispute, whether not in all) whom our most Blessed Saviour instituted, 
Luk. 10.1.  were also of this Number, 70. And so having refreshed to your memory, upon this occasion of the Number 70. these stories out of the Bible, we will end with this observation, that when God moved Ptolomeus to a desire of having the Bible translated, 
Septuagint.  he accited from Jerusalem 72, for that glorious and mystic work; And these, though they were 72, either for affection to conform themselves to a number so notorious, or for some true mystery in it, or for what else, God knows; have ever retained the name of Septuagint.  
And so having delivered what by God's grace I received, of this book in general, and of the reason of registering the names, and why there is therein some variety. Why also they are summed and numbered up; and why variously; And lastly, noted those special places, which the Number 70. presented; I will now pass to that which I destined for a second Part, because it is radically and contractedly in that first verse, but diffused and expansively through the whole book; The Mercy, Power, Justice, and Judgement of God: of which, if nothing can be said new, nothing can be said too often.    

PART. 2.  
THough God be absolutely simple, 
Composition in God's actions.  yet since for our saks in his Scriptures he often submits himself to comparisons and similitudes, we may (offencelesly (since there is nothing but himself, so large as the world) thus compare him to the world: That his eternal Prescience is the Celestial world, which admits no alteration, no generation of new purposes, nor corruption of old; and those four, Mercy, Power, Justice, Judgement, are the Elementary world, of which all below is composed, and the Elemented world are his particular extrinsic actions: In which, though they be so complexioned, that all are mingled equally, yet in every one of them, every one of these four concur. For, in every work of God there is mercy and justice, 
Aq. qu. 21. ar. 4.  so, as they presuppose one another. And as in his created Elements, so in these there is a condensing and a rarifying, by which they become and grow into one another. For often that action which was principally intended for a work of Justice against one Malefactor, extends itself to an universal Mercy, by the Example. And the children of God know how to resolve and make liquid all his Actions. They can spy out and extract Balms, and Oils from his Vinegers; and suppling, and cure with his corrosives. Be he what he will, they will make him Merciful, if Mercy be than wholsomest for them. For so that brave Macabee interpreted Gods daily afflicting them; The Lord doth not long wait for us, as for other nations, whom he punisheth when they come to the fullness of their sins; but he never withdraweth his Mercy from us. And in like manner out of his Mercies they can distil Justice, when presumption upon Mercy needs such a corrective. For so says Saint Ambrose, 
De Paradiso. De poenit. dist. 1. Serpens.  Cain indignus judicatus est, qui puniretur in peccato; because he was not so much spared, as reserved to a greater condemnation. And upon like reason, the Imperial laws forbidden a servant in an Inn to be accused of incontinency, because (in those times) custom had made them all such, and therefore unworthy of the laws cognisance. Yet of all these four Elements Mercy is the uppermost and most Embracing. 
Of Mercy.  Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus. And, 
Psal. 144.  Quanta Magnitudo, as great as his greatness (which is infinite) is his Mercy. And as great as his power, 
Eccl. 2.17.  which is omnipotent: for it is therefore said, Misereris omnium, 
Sap. 11.  quia omnia potes. Before there was any subject of his mercy, he was merciful; for Creation itself is one of the greatest of his Mercies. And it is Misericordia Domini, 
Three. 9  quia non sumus consumpti; so that our preservation is also from mercy. And therefore will the Lord wait that he may have mercy upon you; 
Isa. 30.18.  and, miserans miserabitur, in the next verse. God is the Lord of Hosts, and this world a warfare. And as the Imperial Armies had three Signa Militaria to be given them, 
Veget. l. 3. cap. 5.  so hath God's mercy afforded us. They had Signa Vocalia, the express word of the Commander, which office the word of God doth to us; And Semivocalia, which were the sound of trumpets & other instruments, and such to us are traditions and Sermons, partaking of God and man: And they had Signa muta, which were the Colours and Ensigns, and such to us are the Creatures and works of God. His Mercy is infinite in Extent: for it is in all places; yea, where there is no place: And it is infinite in Duration; For as it never begun, (for the Ideating of this world, which was from everlasting, was a work of mercy) and as the interruptions which by acts of Justice it seems to suffer here, discontinue it not, (for though God say, For a moment in mine anger I hid my face from thee; 
Isa. 54.8.  yet he adds there, yet with everlasting Mercy have I had compassion on thee;) so also is it reasonable to think, that it shall never have end. And because in heaven there can be no distinct and particular act of Mercy from God, because there shall be no demerit in us, nor possibility of it, after judgement; Therefore, and from the Psalm, Non continebit in ira sua misericordias suas, some (but too licentiously) have concluded a determination and ending of the pains of the damned; and others learned and pious, and accused by no body for this opinion, evict from hence, certain intervalla, and relaxations in the torments of Hell, 
Lomb. l. 4. Dist. 46. ex August.  after the general Judgement, as all confess a diminishing of the pains there, and that the punishment is citra condignum, by the benefit of the passion of our Blessed Saviour. That which is Mercy in God, in us is Compassion. And in us, it hath two steps. To rest upon the first, which is but a sadness, and sorrow for another's misery, is but a dull, lazy, and barren compassion. Therefore it is elegantly expressed in the Psalm, 
Psal. 111.  Jucundus homo, qui miseretur, & commodat; for that is the second and highest step in Compassion, Alacrity, and cheerfulness to help. And as God, delighting most in mercy, hath proposed to himself most way for the exercise thereof, so hath he provided man of most occasions of that virtue. Every man contributes to it, by being Agent, or Patient. Certainly, we were all miserable, if none were; for we wanted the excercise of the profitablest virtue. For though a Judge may be just, though none transgress; and we might be merciful, though none wanted, by keeping ever a disposion to be such, if need were; yet what can we hope would serve to awake us than, which snort now under the cries of the wretched, the testimony of our own consciences, the liberal promises of reward from God, and his loud threaten for such omissions? Amongst the Rules of State, it is taught and practised for one, That they which advance and do good, must do it immediately from themselves, that all the Obligation may be towards them: But when they will destroy or do hurt, they must do it instrumentally by others, to remove and alienate the envy. Accordingly, when Princes communicate to any Jura Regalia, by that they are authorised to apprehended, accuse, pursue, condemn, execute, and dispoil, but not to pardon. God doth otherwise; for, for our first sin, himself hath inflicted death, and labour upon us. And, as it were to take from us all occasion of evil, he doth all the evil of which his nature is capable, which is but Malum poenae. But of the treasures of his mercy, he hath made us the Stewards, by dispensing to one another. For first, he hath redeemed man by man, and than he hath made Hominem homini Deum. And proportional to this treasure, he hath made our necessities and miseries infinite. So much, that an Egyptian King forbade Hegesias the Philosopher to speak publicly of human misery, 
Val. Max. l. 8. c. 9  lest every one should kill himself. All consists of givers and receivers: and to contract it closer, every man is both those; and therefore made so, because one provokes the other: for, Homo indigus, 
Prov. 19  misericors est. And it is therefore that Aquinas says, 
2a. 2ae. q. 30. ar..  that old men, and wise men, are aptest to this virtue, because they best foresee a possibility of needing others compassion. And if thou hadst nothing to give, or knewest not want in any other, thou hast work enough within doors; Miserere animae tuae. But towards ourselves, 
Eccles. 30.  or persons almost ourselves, there is not properly mercy, but grief; 
Aqu. ibid.  therefore we must go to seek guests. And to such a cheerful giver, God gives himself; 
Paulinus: Homil. de Gazophilactio. l. 4. c. 5.  Et quid non possidet, qui ipsum possi●●● possidentem? says a contemplative wise man. And for such a giver to work upon. God makes others needy; Fecit mileroes, at agnosceret misericordes, says the same man, in the same book. In the first constitution of the Roman Empire, by the general corruption of all men, which is to give more to them which abound, they easily foresaw, that men would soon decline and stray into a chargeable and sumptuous worship of their Gods; And therefore they resisted it with this law, Deos frugi colunto. This moderated their sacrifices, but yet withheld them not from the superfluous adorning the Temples and Images of their Gods. But in our reformed Christian Religion, which is the thriftiest and cheapest that ever was instituted, (for our Sacrifices grow within us, and are our own creatures, prayer and praise; and since our Bessed Saviour hath given himself for us, we are now as men which had paid a great fine, and were bound to no other rent, than acknowledgements and services) now that we have removed the expensive dignising of images, and relics, what other exercise is there left for our charity, than those nearer images both of God, and of ourselves, the poor? Be merciful than, as your Father in heaven is merciful. And how is he? homines & jument a salvabis, Deus, Psal. 35. and by jumenta are understood men not yet reduced to the knowledge of God. Give than thy counsel to the ignorant, thy prayers to the negligent, but most thy strength to the oppressed and dejected in heart; for surely, oppression maketh a wise man mad, Eccl. 7.9. how tempestuously will it than work upon a weaker? let no greatness retard thee from giving, as though thou wert above want. Alas, our greatness is Hydroptick, not solid: we are not firm, but puffed, and swollen; we are the lighter, and the lesser for such greatness. Alcibiades bragged how he could walk in his own ground; all this was his, 
Aelian. l. 3. c. 28.  and no man a foot within him; and Socrates gave him a little map of the world, and bid him show him his territory there; and there an Ant would have overstrid it. Let no smallness retard thee: if thou be'st not a Cedar to help towards a palace, if thou be'st not Amber, Bezoar, nor liquid gold, to restore Princes; yet thou art a shrub to shelter a lamb, or to feed a bird; or thou art a plantain, to ease a child's smart; or a grass to cure a sick dog. Love an asker better than a giver: which was good Agapetus counsel to Justinian: Yea rather, prevent the ask; and do not so much join and concur with misery, as to suffer it to grow to that strength, that it shall make thy brother ask, and put him to the danger of a denial. Avoid in giving, that which the Canonists express by Cyminibilis, which is a trifling giver. And give not (as Seneca calls them) panes lapidosos; which are benefits hardly drawn, which have only the shape, not the nourishment of benefits: But give as thou wouldst receive. For thou givest not, but restorest, yea thou performest another duty too, thou lendest. Thou dost not waste, but lay up; and thou gainest in losing. For to this giving most properly squares Plato's definition of liberality, that it is, studium lucrandi ut decet. I need not much fear that any man is too much inflamed to a wasteful charity by this; yet it is an affection capable of sin. And therefore, as waggoners in steep descents, tie the team behind, not to draw it up, but to stop sudden precipitations downward, so, only to prevent such slippery downfals, I say, That as the Holy Ghost forbids, Eccl. 7.18. Be not just orvermuch, so one may be charitable overmuch. His aptness to give, may occasion another's sloth, and he may breed the worms which shall eat him; and produce the lean kine, which shall devour the fat. And so, as Paulinus says, 
Ad Severum.  In charitatem de charitate peccat. And in another place, 
De Monachata.  Multa charitas pene delirum, & pietas stultum fecit. For, God would not, saith Saint Ambrose, that we should pour out, 
De Officiis.  but distribute our wealth. So that for precise Moderation herein precept will not serve; but that prayer of that most devout Abbot Antony, (of whom Saint Augustine says, 
De Doctrina Christiana.  that without knowledge of letters, he rehearsed, and expounded all the Scriptures) Deus det nobis gratiam Discretionis. For, the same B. Dorothaeus which says wisely, God requires not that you should fly, but that you should not fall, 
Doctrine. 14  says also devoutly, 
Doctrin. 1.  That they which do what they are commanded of Christ, pay their tribute justly, but they which perform his counsels, bring him presents. But in this we may insist not longer: we shall best know what we should do, by considering what God hath done, and how he expressed his mercies towards his Israelites.  

His Mercy in bringing them to Egypt.  He brought them into the Land of Egypt. For though in the Scriptures, when God would excite his children, he uses to remember them that he is that God which brought them out of the Land of Egypt; yet, that he brought them into that Land, was more simply, absolutely, and entirely a work of Mercy. For, in the other he exercised his Justice upon Pharaoh; and his Power in Miracles. And Miracles must not be drawn into consequence; No man may argue to himself, God hath miraculously preserved me, therefore he will do so still. Miracles are to our apprehension incoherent & independent things with the rest of Nature. They seem none of the links of that great chain of providence, and connexion of causes. Therefore he which hears them, believes them but so far as he believes the reporter; and he which sees them, suspects his sense in the apprehending, and his judgement in the inquisition and pursuit of the causes; or goes more roundly to work, and imputes it all to the Devil. But this work of bringing them into Egypt, was only a work of a familiar and fatherly Providence: and, though it were greater than the other (for in coming from Egypt they were but redeemed from serving, here from perishing) yet there is nothing in the History, which a mere natural man would grudge to believe. From what kind of Destruction did he than deliver them? 
Famine.  From famine; One of those three afflictions, which God in a diligent and exquisite revenge presented to David's choice. And one of those two, in comparison whereof, David chose a pestilence of uncertain lasting and intenseness. An affliction so great, as God chooses that comparison to express his greatest affliction of all, which is a famine of his word. 
Amos.  An affliction which defeats all Magistracy; for in it one may lawfully steal. All propriety; for in it all things return to their primative community. All natural affection; for in it fathers may cell their children, by human laws; and divine books have Examples where they have eaten them. An affliction, 
Sueton. Calig. 26.  which Caligula, to exceed his predecessors and his own Examples, studied out, when to imitate the greatest power of all, praeclusis horreiss, indixit populo famem. An affliction with which our law revenges herself when a delinquent which had offended her before, doth after in contempt of her stand mute at the bar. It is a Rack, without either Engine or Executioner; a devouring poison, and yet by substraction; and a way to make a man kill himself by doing nothing. Such are all extreme famines, and such was this. For it was no particular curse upon one country; for famine was in all the Land, 
Gen. 41.54. ver. 57  says the text. And all Countries came to Egypt to buy corn. It was no natural disease or infirmity in the earth or air: but as the Psalmist expresses it, 
Ps. 105.16  God had called a famine upon the land, and utterly broke the staff of bread. Egypt herself, which uses to brag, 
Paneg. Plin. in Iracund.  Nihil se imbribus coeloque debere, and whose inundations are fertilities, felt the barrenness, though by Josephs providence it felt not the penury. In this affliction, in this distress, the sons of Jacob must go into a strange land, where they had no friend whom they knew, but (to speak humanely) an enemy whom they knew not. And yet God, as though their malice against their brother Joseph, and as though this curse upon the whole land had been ordained by him for their advantage, (for so it may seem by those words of Joseph, You sent me not hither, 
Gen. 45.8  but God; and in the Psalm, 
Psal. 105.  God sent a man before them) appears to Jacob, persuades the journey, assures him and his safe going, great propagation, and safe return.  

His Mercy in propagating them in Egypt.  Propagation is the truest Image and nearest representation of eternity. For eternity itself, that is, the Deity itself seems to have been ever delighted with it: for the producing of the three Persons in the Trinity, 
Propagation of God.  which is a continuing and undeterminable work, is a propagation of the Deity. And next to this contemplation, that God, which is full, and perfect, and All, should admit a propagation, it may deserve a second place to consider, that that which is merely and utterly Nothing, 
Of Sin.  which is Sin, (for it is but privation) hath had the greatest propagation that can be. And between these two extreme Miracles, A propagation in that which is already All, and a propagation in that which is always. Nothing, we may wonder at a propagation in that which is but one half; which is, those Religious Orders, 
Of religious Orders.  & devout professions, which multiply without Mothers. Of which (not to speak of late times, when that profession was become a disease and contagion, and so no wonder though they infected, and possessed, and devoured whole territories; but in their primitive institution and practice, how infinite was the propagation? we cannot discredit those stories (for being disinteressed in our late-sprung Controversies they could not speak prejudicially) which reckon 5000. in some one Monastery; and 500 Monasteries under one Abbot. These who had no wives, had infinite spiritual children; and having nothing in the world, had a great part of it. Within one mile of Alexandria, there were 500 Monasteries pene contigua. So that, it is truly said of them, they had Oppida extra Mundum. And when the only tribe of the Benedictins was in full height, 
Azor. l. 12  it had not many less than 40000 Monasteries. And not only the Christian Church, the easiness of whose yoke might invite them to these counsels, but the Jews under an insupportable law, would ever supererrogate in this kind. Of whose one sect, the Esseni, 
L. 5. c. 17.  Pliny says, per multa seculorum millia, gens aeterna, in qua nemo nascitur; and he gives no other mother to such an increase than this, Tam foecunda illis aliorum vitae poenitentia. Of these men, (if they will accept that name,) (except such of them as being all born to sail in the same ship as we, and to suffer with us, have so sublimed their wits with a contempt of ours, that they steal from us in a Calenture; or so stupefied themselves, that they forsake their partnership in our labours and dangers, in a lazy Scurvy,) I dare not conceive any hard opinion: For though we be all God's tenants in this world, and freeholders for life, and are so bound amongst other duties, to keep the world in reparation, and leave it as well as we found it, (for, ut gignamus geniti) yet since we have here two employments, one to conserve this world, another to increase God's Kingdom, none is to be accused, that every one doth not all, so all do all. For as, though every particular man by his diet and temperance, should preserve his own body, and so observe it by his own experience of it, that he might ordinarily be his own Physician; yet it is fit, that some sepose all their time for that study, and be able to instruct and reform others; So, though every one should watch his own steps, and serve God in his vocation; yet there should be some, whose Vocation it should be to serve God; as all should do it, so some should do nothing else. But, because, our esse must be considered before our bene esse, and to our esse properly conduce all things which belong to our preservation here, (for, the first words that ever God said to man, were, 
Gen. 1.28  Bring forth, and multiply, and fill the earth, which was propagation; And than presently, subdue it, and rule, which is Dominion. And than, Every thing which hath life, shall be to you for meat; which is not only sustenance, but lawful abundance and delicacy.) Therefore to advance propagation, laws have been diligent and curious. Some have forbidden a man to divide himself to divers women, because, though God in his secret ends have sometimes permitted it to the Patriarches, and though (being able to make contraries serve to one end) he threatens in another place, that ten women shall follow one man; yet ordinarily this liberality of a man's self, frustrates propagation, and is in itself a confession, that he seeks not children. 
Maximiniano's, & Constantino.  And therefore the Panegyric justly extols that Emperor, who married young; Novum jam, tum miraculum, juvenis uxorius. And some laws in the Greek States enforced men to marry: and the Roman law pretended to have the same ends, but with more sweetness, by giving privileges to the married: but ever increasing them with their number of children, of which to have had none, threw a man back again into penalty; for of the estate of such, a tenth part was confiscate; for to have children, is so much of the essence of the lawfulness of that act, that Saint Augustine says, Si prolem ex conditione vitant, 
De bono Conjugali.  non est matrimonium; for that is a condition destroying the nature of matrimony; of which, and of the fruits thereof, how indulgent the Romans were, this one law declares; That to Minors they allowed so many years more than they had, as they had children.  

Of this propagation.  Of this propagation, which is our present contemplation, many think devoutly, that the smallness of the first number, and the shortness of the time, are the remarkable and essential parts. To advance their devotion, I will remember them, that the number of 430. years divers times spoken of, is from Abraham's coming to Canaan; 
Exod. 12.41.  for the time of this propagation in Egypt, was but 215. years. And the number of men, which is 600000. is only of fight men, 
Numb. 1.  which cannot well be thought a fist part of all the souls. The whole number Josephus, proportioning 10. to a paschal lamb, as the Rabbins do, brings to be 3700000. yet to me these seem no great parts of God's exceeding Mercy in this History; for from so many, in such a space, God, without miracle, by affording twins, and preserving alive, might ordinarily have derived more men than ever were at once upon the whole earth. But whether his decree have appointed a certain number which mankind shall not exceed, (as it seems to be a reasonable conjecture of the whole, because in the most famous parts it is found to have held; Rome, and Venice, and like States never exceeding that number to which they have very soon arrived:) Or that the whole earth is able to nourish not more, without doubt it is evident, that the world had very long since as many souls as ever it had, or may be presumed to have ever hereafter. And it is a very probable conjecture, that the reason, why, since wolves produce oftener, and more than sheep, and more sheep are killed than wolves, yet more sheep remain, is, because they are cherished by all industry. For only there men increase, where there is means for their sustentation. That therefore which God did mercifully in this, was, that he propagated them to such numbers under such oppressions and destructions: for the Egyptians cruelly caused them to serve, 
Exod. 1.  and made them weary of their lives by sore labour, with all manner of bondage: yea, their devotion was scornfully misinterpreted, Because you are idle, you say, let us go offer to our Lord. 
Exod. 12.  And yet, the more they vexed them, the more they grew; 
Ps. 105.24  and he made them stronger than their oppressors; And this, though that desperate law of destroying all their male children, had been executed among them.  

His Mercy in bringing them from Egypt.  Now follows his bringing them from Egypt: And though that were properly a work of Justice, because it was the performance of God's promise, yet that promise was rooted in Mercy: And though he brought them out In Manu forti, as it is very often repeated, and by effect of miracles, and so showed his power, (for it is written, 
Psa. 106.7  he saved them for his Names sake, that he might make his power to be known. And in another place, 
Exo. 14.4  I will get me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host) yet respecting the time when he did it, (to which his promise had not limited him) and for whom he did it, we can contemplate nothing but Mercy. For in the same place, it is said, Our Fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt, neither remembered the multitude of thy Mercies: so that, diversely beheld, the same Act might seem all Power, and all Mercy. And at this time we consider, not that those plagues afflicted Egypt, but the land of Goshen felt none; and we hear not now the cries and lamentations for the death of the firstborn, but we remember, that not a dog opened his mouth against the children of Israel. 
Exod. 11.  He delivered them than from such an oppressor, as would neither let them go, nor live there. From one who increased their labours, and diminished their numbers. From one who would neither allow them to be Naturals, nor Aliens. So ambiguous and perplexed, and wayward is human policy, when she exceeds her limits, and her subject. But God, though his mercy be abundantly enough for all the world, (for since he sweat, and bled Physic enough for all, it were more easy for him, to apply it to all, if that conduced to his ends,) yet because his children were ever froward, and grudged any part to others in this their Delivery, pours out all his sea of Mercy upon them, and withdraws all from the Egyptians. Therefore he is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart. Which because it is so often repeated (at lest nine times) was done certainly all those ways by which God can be said to harden us. 
Induration.  Either Ad captum humanum, when God descends to our phrase of speech, and serves our way of apprehending; Or permissively, when God, as it were looks another way, 
Corn. Cell. 5.3.  & agrees with that counsel of the Physician, It is a discreet man's part to let him alone, which cannot be cured; Or substractively, when he withdraws that spiritual food, which, because it is ordained for children, must not be cast to dogs; Or Occasionally, when he presents grace proportioned to a good end, in its own nature and quality, which yet he knows the taker will corrupt and envenom it, (for so, a Magistrate may occasion evil, though neither he may, nor God can 'cause any;) Or else Ordinately and instrumentally, when God, by this Evil, works a greater good; which yet was not Evil where it first grew, in the Paradise of God's purpose and decree (for so no simple is Evil) but becomes such, when it comes to our handling, and mingling▪ and applying. Yea, that very Act which God punished in Pharaoh, which was the oppression, proceeded from God. For the Psalmist says, He hardened their heart to hate his people, 
Ps. 105.25  and to deal craftily with his servants. 
Percrius Ex. 1.  That so by this Violence and this Deceit, they might have a double title to proffess themselves of the Egyptians treasure. And accordingly for all their pressures, he brought them away sound; and rich, for all their deceit: 
Ps. 105.37  He brought them forth with silver and gold, and there was none feeble in their tribes. Yea it is added, Egypt was glad at their departing; which God intimated, when he said, 
Exo. 11.1  when he letteth you go, he shall at once chase you hence. Only to paraphrase the History of this Delivery, without amplifying, were furniture and food enough for a meditation of the best perseverence, and appetite, and digestion; yea, the lest word in the History would serve a long rumination. If this be in the bark, what is in the tree? If in the superficial grass, the letter; what treasure is there in the hearty and inward Mine, the Mistick and retired sense? Dig a little deeper, O my poor lazy soul, and thou shalt see that thou, and all mankind are delivered from an Egypt; and more miraculously than these. For, Almightiness is so natural to God, that nothing done by his power, is very properly miracles, which is above all Nature. But God delivered us, by that which is most contrary to him; by being impotent; by being sin; by being Dead. That great Pharaoh, whose Egypt all the world is by usurpation, (for Pharaoh is but exemptus, 
Acacius de privilegiis.  and privilegiatus; and that Name, (I hope not the Nature) is strayed into our word Baro) whom God hath made Prince of the air, and Prince of Darkness; that is, of all light and airy illusions, and of all sad and earnest wickedness, of Vanity, and of sin; had made us fetch our own straw, that is, painfully seek out light and blazing Vanities; and than burn his brick, which is, the clay of our own bodies with concupiscences and ambitions, to build up with ourselves his Kingdom; He made us travel more for hell, than would have purchased Heaven; He enfeebled us from begetting or conceiving Male children, which are our good thoughts, and those few which we had, he strangled in the birth: And than, camest thou, O Christ, thine own Moses, and deliveredst us; not by doing, but suffering; not by killing, but dying. Go one step lower, that is higher, and nearer to God, O my soul, in this Meditation, and thou shalt see, that even in this moment, when he affords thee these thoughts, he delivers thee from an Egypt of dulness and stupidity. As often as he moves thee to pray to be delivered from the Egypt of sin, he delivers thee. And as often as thou promisest him not to return thither, he delivers thee. Thou hast delivered me, O God, from the Egypt of confidence and presumption, by interrupting my fortunes, and intercepting my hopes; And from the Egypt of despair by contemplation of thine abundant treasures, and my portion therein; from the Egypt of lust, by confining my affections; and from the monstrous and unnatural Egypt of painful and wearisome idleness, by the necessities of domestic and familiar cares and duties. Yet as an Eagle, though she enjoy her wing and beak, is wholly prisoner, if she be held by but one talon; so are we, though we could be delivered of all habit of sin, in bondage still, if Vanity hold us but by a silken thread. But, O God, as mine inward corruptions have made me mine own Pharaoh, and mine own Egypt; so thou, by the inhabitation of thy Spirit, and application of thy merit, hast made me mine own Christ; and contenting thyself with being my Medicine, allowest me to be my Physician. Lastly, descend, O my Soul, to the very Centre, which is the very Pole, (for in infinite things, incapable of distinction of parts, Highest and lowest are all one) and consider to what a land of promise, and heavenly Jerusalem God will at last bring thee, from the Egypt of this world, & the most Egyptiacal part, this flesh. God is so abundantly true, that he ever performs his words more than once. And therefore, as he hath fulfilled that promise, Out of Egypt have I called my Son; 
Mat. 2.15.  So will he also perform it in every one of his elect; and as when Herod died, his Angel appeared to Joseph in Egypt in a dream, to call him thence; So when our persecutor, our flesh shall die, and the slumber of death shall overtake us in this our Egypt, His Angels, sent from Heaven, or his Angels newly created in us, (which are good desires of that dissolution,) or his Ministerial Angels in his militant Church, shall call and invite us from this Egypt to that Canaan. Between which (as the Israelites did) we must pass a desert; a disunion and divorce of our body and soul, and a solitude of the grave. In which, the faithful and discreet prayers of them which stay behind, may much advantage and benefit us, and themselves, if thereby God may be moved to hasten that judgement which shall set open Heavens greater gates, at which our Bodies may enter, and to consummate and accomplish our salvation.  

His Mercy in their Preservation.  The next place is, to consider his Mercy in their preservation in the Desert. For God hath made nothing which needs him not, or which would not instantly return again to nothing without his special conservation: Angels and our Souls are not delivered from this dependency upon him. As therefore Conservation is as great a work of Power as Creation; so the particuliar ways of Gods preserving those special people in the Wilderness, are as great works of Mercy, as the Delivery from Egypt. And though this book of Exodus embrace not all those, yet here are some instances of every kind; as well of preservation from extrinsic violences of War, as intrinsic of Famine; and mixed, of infirmities and diseases. And because God's purpose had destined them to an offensive War at last, let us mark by what degrees he instructed and nursed them to it. They had been ever frozen in slavery, without use of Arms, or taste of Honour, or Glory, or Victory. And because they were therefore likely to forsake themselves, and dishonour him, God (faith the History) carried them not by the way of the Philistims Country, 
Exod. 13.17.  though that were nearer, jest they should repent when they see War, and turn again into Egypt. But presently after, when he had contracted himself to them, and affirmed and affianced his presence by the Sacrament of the Pillar, he was than content that they should see an Army pursuing them; which was not so much terrible to them as they were Enemies, as that that they were their Masters. For than they exclaimed to Moses, 
Exod. 14.11.  Hast thou brought us to die in the wilderness, because there were no graves in Egypt? Did not we say, let us be in rest, that we may serve the Egyptians? So soon did a dejection make them call their former bondage, rest; and sink down to meet and invite death, when the Lord of life upheld them. And at this time, God used not their swords at all, yet gave them a full victory. But when this had warmed them, as soon as the Amalekites made towards them, they feared not, murmured not, retired not; nay, they expected not: but saith Moses, to Joshuah, Choose us men, and go, 
Exod. 17.9  fight with Amalek. Which victory, jest they should attribute to themselves, and so grow too forward in exposing themselves, and tempting God; the lifting up, or falling down of Moses' hands in prayer, that day, swayed and governed the battle. Which therefore God was especially careful that the soldier should know; for so he commanded Moses, Writ that for a remembrance in the book, 
Exod. 17.14.  and rehearse it to Joshuah. To their other wars this book extends not: but is full of examples of his other mercies towards them, though they murmured; yea, by the words it may well seem, they were done because they murmured: In the Morning ye shall see the glory of God, (says Moses to them) for, 
Exod. 16.7  he hath heard your grudging against him. And again, At evening shall the Lord give you flesh; 
Ver. 8.  for the Lord hath heard your murmuring. They murmured for water, 
Exod. 15.24.  saying, What shall we drink? and than God presented water; but jest they should attribute all that to the nature of the place, those waters were too bitter to be drunk. Than God would sweeten them; yet not by Miracle; but to incline them to a reverence of Moses, he informed him, what would do it naturally; as it appears in another place, where the Art of physic is extolled: Was not the water made sweet with wood, 
Eccl. 38.5.  that men might know the virtue thereof? And yet, the next time that they murmured for water, he gave it them miraculously from the rock; to show, that though Moses was enabled to all natural works, yet he withdrew not his miraculous presence from them. And than, when they murmured desperately for meat, O that we had died in the Land of Egypt, 
Exo. 16.2.  when we sat by fleshpots, etc. the Lord, as though nothing in use, or in nature, had been precious enough for them, reigned down such fowls, as no Naturalist since can tell what they were: and such a grain, as though it abide the interpretation of panis fortium, and panis Angelorum, yet, saith a curious observer of those subtleties, the name signifies, 
Fra. Geor problem. fol. 45.  Quid est hoc? which is easily gathered from the very Text, When they saw it, they said to one another, 
Exod. 16.15.  it is Man; for they witted not what it was. In which, 
Probl. 351  the same Problamist observes this wonder, that every man took a like proportion, and all were alike satisfied, though all could not be of alike appetite and digestion. And a greater wonder, and by a better Author is observed in it, That it was meat for all tastes, 
Sap. 16.20  and served to the appetite of him which took it, and was that which every man would. Yet this heavenly food they injured with a weariness of it; and worse, with their comparisons; for they cried, We remember the flesh we are in Egypt for naught, 
Num. 11.5.  the cucumbers, pepons, leeks, onions, and garlic. As though they had been less worth, or they had paid more for it. If than they could chide him into mercy, and make him merciful not only to their sin, but for their sin, where or when may we doubt of his mercy? Of which, we will here end the consideration; not without an humble acknowledgement, that it is not his least mercy, that we have been thus long possessed with the meditation thereof: for thus long we have been in the Harbour, but we launch into a main and unknown Sea, when we come to consider his Power.  
Of all the ways in which God hath expressed himself towards us, we have made no word which doth less signify what we mean, than Power: for Power, which is but an ability to do, ever relates to some future thing: and God is ever a present, simple, and pure Act. But we think we have done much, and gone far, when we have made up the word Omnipotence, which is both ways improper; for it is much too short, because Omnipotence supposes and confesses a matter and subject to work upon, and yet God was the same, when there was nothing. And than it over-reaches, and goes downwards beyond God: for God hath not, or is not such an Omnipotence, as can do all things; for though squeamish and tenderer men think it more mannerly to say, This thing cannot be done, than, God cannot do this thing; yet it is all one: And if that be an Omnipotence, which is limited with the nature of the worker, or with the congruity of the subject, other things may encroach upon the word Omnipotent; that is, they can do all things which are not against their nature, or the nature of the matter upon which they work. Beza therefore might well enough say, That God could not make a body without place; And Prateolus might truly enough infer upon that, 
Verbo Bezanitae.  that the Bezanites (as he calls them) deny omnipotence in God; for both are true. And therefore I doubt not, but it hath some mystery, that the word Omnipotence is not found in all the Bible; nor Omnipotent in the New Testament. And where it is in the Old, it would rather be interpreted All-sufficient, than Almighty; between which there is much difference. God is so all-sufficient, that he is sufficient for all, and sufficient to all: He is enough, and we are in him able enough to take and apply. We fetch part of our wealth, which is our faith, expressly from his Treasury: And for our good works, we bring the metal to his Mint, (or that Mint comes to us) and there the Character of Baptism, and the impression of his grace, makes them currant, and somewhat worth, even towards him. God is all-efficient: that is, hath created the beginning, ordained the way, fore-seen the end of every thing; and nothing else is any kind of cause thereof. Yet, since this word efficient, is now grown to signify infallibility in God, it reaches not home to that which we mean of God; since man is efficient cause of his own destruction. God is also all-conficient: that is, concurs with the nature of every thing; for indeed the nature of every thing is that which he works in it. And as he redeemed not man as he was God, (though the Mercy, and Purpose, and Acceptation were only of God) but as God and man; so in our repentances and reconciliations, though the first grace proceed only from God, yet we concur so, as there is an union of two Hypostases, Grace, and Nature. Which, (as the incarnation of our Blessed Saviour himself was) is conceived in us of the Holy Ghost, without father; but fed and produced by us; that is, by our will first enabled and illumined. For neither God nor man determine man's will; for that must either imply a necessiting thereof from God, or else Pelagianisme) but they condetermine it. And thus God is truly all-conficient, that is, concurrent in all; and yet we may not dare to say, that he hath any part in sin. So God is also all-perficient: that is, all, and all parts of every work are his entirely: and jest any might seem to escape him, and be attributed to Nature or to Art, all things were in him at once, before he made Nature, or she Art. All things which we do to day were done by us in him, before we were made. And now, (when they are produced in time, as they were foreseen in eternity,) his exciting grace provokes every partiticular good work, and his assisting grace perfects it. And yet we may not say, but that God gins many things which we frustrate; and calls when we come not. So that, as yet our understanding hath found no word, which is well proportioned to that which we mean by power of God; much lesle of that refined and subtle part thereof, which we chief consider in this place, which is the absolute and transcendent power of Miracles, with which this History abounds. For whatsoever God did for his Israelits, beside Miracles, was but an extension of his Mercy, and belongs to that Paragraph which we have ended before.  
Nature is the Common law by which God governs us, and Miracle is his Prerogative. For Miracles are but so many Non-obstantes upon Nature. And Miracle is not like prerogative in any thing more than in this, that no body can tell what it is. For first, Creation and such as that, are not Miracles, because they are not (to speak in that language) Nata fieri per alium modum. And so, only that is Miracle, which might be done naturally, and is not so done. And than, jest we allow the Devil a power to do Miracles, we must say, that Miracle is contra totam Naturam, against the whole order and disposition of Nature. For as in Cities, a father governs his family by a certain Order, which yet the Magistrate of the City may change for the City's good, and a higher Officer may change the City's Order; but none, all, except the King: so, I can change some natural things (as I can make a stone fly upward) a Physician more, and the Devil more than he; but only God can change all. And after that is out of necessity established, that Miracle is against the whole Order of Nature, I see not how there is left in God a power of Miracles. For, the Miracles which are produced to day, were determined and inserted into the body of the whole History of Nature (though they seem to us to be but interlineary and Marginal) at the beginning, and are as infallible and certain, as the most Ordinary and customary things. Which is evicted and approved by that which Lactantius says, and particularly proves, 
De vera Sap. c. 15.  that all Christ's Miracles were long before prophesied. So that truly nothing can be done against the Order of Nature. For, Saint Augustine says truly, 
Cont. Faustum l. 26. c. 3.  That is Natural to each thing, which God doth, from whom proceeds all Fashion, Number and Order of Nature: for that God, whose Decree is the Nature of every thing, should do against his own Decree, if he should do against Nature. As therefore if we understood all created Nature, nothing would be Mirum to us; so if we knew God's purpose, nothing would be Miraculum. For certainly, those Miracles which Moses did, after God had once revealed to Moses, that he would do them, were not Miracles to him, not more than the works of the Conjurers, which ex Ratione Rei, were as true as his. But the expressing of his power at this time was, that in the sight of such understanders and workmasters, as the Magis were, he would do more without any Instrument conducing to those ends, than they could do by their best instrument, the Devil; and so draw from them that confession, Digitus Dei hìc est: for else who could have distinguished between his and their works, or denied the name of Miracle to theirs? for they (not to departed at this time from vulgar Philosophy; not that I bind your faith to it, but that if we abandon this, it is not easy and ready to constitute another so defensible) by their power of local Motion, and Application of Active and passive things, could oppose matter to heat, and so produce frogs truly; yea, when such things are brought together by such a workman, he can by them produce greater effects than nature could. As an Axe and timber being in the hand of a Statuary, he can make an Image; which they two, or a lesle skilful Agent could not do. But God wrought not so: But, as Arnobius says, he did them, Sine vi carminum, 
Adversus Gent. l. 1.  sine herbarum aut graminum succis, sine ulla observatione sollicita: 
De vera sap. c. 15.  but verbo, & jussione, as Lactantius notes. By which means Arnobius pronounces, none of the Philosophers could cure an Itch; 
Adu. gent. l. 2.  Nemo Philosophorum potuit unquam scabiem, unâ interdictione sanare. Another expressing of his power, was in this, that when he would, he intercepted their power; which was, when they attempted to make Cyniphs'. For that is a kind of treason, and clipping God's coin, to say, that they were hindered by natural causes, for, if those Cyniphs' werelice, (as many Translations call them) and if sweated be the matter of them, and the Devil could not ordinarily provide store of that, yet I say, their credit stood not upon the story, but the fact: And than the Devil knew natural means, to warm and distil multitudes of men into sweats: And last, if they were such vermin, yet they are agreed to be of that kind which infested dogs; and they never sweated. And if by Cyniph be expressed some fly, not made till than, and than of putrefaction (for it were too much to allow creatures of a new Species,) certainly, the Devil can produce all such. Either than the creature being merely new, the Devil understood not of what it was composed; Or God changed the form of Dust into another form, which the Devil could never do; or else, God manacled his hand in the easiest thing, to confounded him the more; for after this, it appears not that the Magis attempted to do any more Miracles. To discountenance than their deceits, and withal to afflict the Land of Egypt, was the principal purpose of God in these Miracles: not to declare himself, or beget faith; for he doth not always bind miracles to faith, nor faith to miracles. He will sometimes be believed without them; and sometimes spend them upon unbelievers; jest men should think their faith gave strength to his power. For though it be said, 
Mark 6.5.  Christ could do no great works in his own country, for their unbelief: yet he did some there; which Saint Hierom says, 
Ema. Sacrâ, in hunc locum.  was done, jest they should be excusable, having seen no Miracle: And he did not many, lest, as Theophylact says, he should after many Miracles resisted, have been forced in justice to a severer punishment of them. But because the danger of believing false miracles is extremely great, and the essential differences of false and true, very few, and very obscure, (for what human understanding can discern, whether they be wrought immediately, or by second causes; And than for the end to which they are addressed, what sect of Christians, or what sect departed from all Christians, will refuse to stand to that law? If there arise a Prophet, and he give a wonder, 
Deut. 13.1.  and the wonder come to pass, saying, let us go after other Gods, that Prophet shall be slain.) I incline to think, that God for the most part, works his miracles rather to show his Power, than Mercy, and to terrify enemies, rather than comfort his children. For miracles lessen the merit of faith. And our Blessed Saviour said to the Pharisees, An evil anoadulterous generation seeketh a sign, And John Baptist, 
Mat. 12.38 Joh. 10.  in whom there seems to have been most use of Miracles, did none. And though in this delivery from Egypt, for Pharaoh's hardness, God abounded in Miracles, yet in their delivery from Babylon, (of which in respect of this, the Prophet says, The day shall come, 
Her●. 16.  saith the Lord, that it shall not more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought his sons out of the land of Egypt; But the Lord liveth, that brought his sons out of the land of the North) God proceeded without Miracles. And though in propagation of Christian Religion in the new discoveries, the Jesuits have recorded infinite Miracles, yet the best amongst them ingenuously deny it; 
Jo. Acosta. de procur. Jud. sal. l. 2. c. 9  And one gives this for a reason, why Miracles are not afforded by God now, as well as in the primitive Church, since the occasion seems to be the same, That than ignorant men were sent to preach Christianity amongst men armed and instructed against it, with all kinds of learn and philosophies; but now learned men are sent to the ignorant; and are superior to them in Reason and in Civility, and in Authority; and besides, present them a Religion lesle incredible than their own. I speak not thus, to cherish their opinion, who think God doth no Miracle now: that were to shorten his power, or to understand his counsels; but to resist theirs, who make Miracles ordinary. For, besides that it contradicts and destroys the Nature of Miracle, to be frequent, God at first possessed his Church, (Fortiter) by conquest of Miracles; but he governs it now, (suaviter) like an indulgent King, by a law which he hath let us know. God forbidden I should discredit or diminish the great works that he hath done at the tombs of his Martyrs, or at the pious and devout commemoration of the sanctity and compassion of his most Blessed Mother. But to set her up a Bank almost in every good Town, and make her keep a shop of Miracles greater than her Sons, 
Miracula B. Virg. ab Anno 1581. ad 1605. fo. 150.  (for is it not so, to raise a child, which was born dead, and had been buried seventeen days, to so small end?) (for it died again as soon as it was carried from her sight) is fearful and dangerous to admit. God forbidden, I should deny or obscure the power and practice of our blessed Saviour, and his Apostles, in casting out Devils in the primitive Church: but that the Roman Church should make an Occupation of it, and bind Apprentices to it (for such are those little boys whom they make Exorcists) and than make them free when they receive greater Orders, and yet forbidden them to set up, or utter their ware but where they appoint, is scarce agreeable to the first Examples, I dare not say, Institution; for I see not that this Order had any. Why we do not so, the reason is, because non fuit sic ab initio: And no hardness of heart is enough to justify a toleration of these devout deceits and holy lies, as they are often called amongst themselves. The Power of God, which we cannot name, needs not our help. And this very History (in expounding of which Pererius inculcates so often, Non multiplicanda miracula) which seems the principallest record of God's Miracles, though literally it seem to be directed to his enemies, by often expressing his power; yet to his children it insinuates an Admonition, to beware of Miracles, since it tells them how great things the Devil did: And that his giving over in no great thing, but the lest of all, shows, That that was not a cancelling of his Patent, which he had in his Creation, but only a Supersedeas not to execute it at that time. For, (excepting the staying of the Sun, and carrying it back (if it be clear that the body of the Sun was carried back, and not the shadow only) and a very few more) it appears enough, that the Devil hath done oftener greater Miracles, than the children of God: For God delights not so much in the exercise of his Power, as of his Mercy and Justice, which partakes of both the other: For Mercy is his Paradise and garden, in which he descends to walk and converse with man: Power his Army and Arsenel, by which he protects and overthrows: Justice his Exchequer, where he preserves his own Dignity, and exacts our Forfeitures.  
Even at first God intimated how unwillingly he is drawn to execute Justice upon transgressors; for he first exercised all the rest: Mercy, in purposing our Creation; Power, in doing it; and Judgement, in giving us a Law: Of which the written part was in a volume and character so familiar and inward to us (for it was written in our hearts, and by Nature) as needed no Expositor: And that part which was vocal, and delivered by Edict and Proclamation, was so short, so perspicuous, and so easy (for it was but prohibitory, and exacted nothing from Man) as it is one of the greatest strangenesses in the Story, that they could so soon forget the Text thereof, and not espy the Serpent's additions and falsifications. And than at last God interposed his Justice; yet not so much for Justice sake, as to get opportunity of new Mercy, in promising a Redeemer; of new Power, in raising again bodies made mortal by that sin; and of new Judgements, in delivering, upon more communications, a more particular law, apparelled with Ceremonies, the cement and mortar of all exterior, and often the inflamer of interior Religion. So that almost all God's Justice is but Mercy: as all our Mercy is but Justice; for we are all mutual debtors to one another; but he to none. Yea, both his Nature, and his will are so conditioned, as he cannot do Justice so much as man can. For, for his will, though he neither will nor can do any thing against Justice, he doth many things beside it. Nothing unjustly, but many things not justly: for he rewards beyond our Merits, and our sins are beyond his punishments. And than, we have exercise as well of Commutative Justice as Distributive; God only of the later, since he can receive nothing from us. And indeed, Distributive Justice in God, is nothing but Mercy. So that there is but one limb of Justice left to God, which is Punishment; And of that, all the degrees on this side final condemnation, are acts of Mercy. So that the Vulture, by which some of the Ancients figured Justice, was a just symbol of this Justice; 
Pierius lively 18.  for as that bird prays only upon Carcases, and upon nothing which lives; so this Justice apprehends none but such as are dead and putrified in sin and impenitence.  
To proceed than: All ordinary significations of Justice will conveniently be reduced to these two, Innocence, which in the Scriptures is every where called Righteousness: or else Satisfaction for transgressions, which, though Christ have paid aforehand for us all, and so we are rather pardoned than put to satisfaction; yet we are bound at God's tribunal to pled our pardon, and to pay the fees of contrition and penance. For, since our justificaon now consists not in a pacification of God, (for than nothing but that which is infinite could have any proportion) but in the application of the merits of Christ to us, our contrition (which is a compassion with Christ, and so an incorporating of ourselves into his merit) hath aliqualem proportionem to God's Justice; and the passion of Christ had not aequalem, but that God's acceptation (which also dignifies our contrition, though not to that height) advanced it to that worthiness. To inquire further the way and manner by which God makes a few do acceptable works; or, how out of a corrupt lump he selects and purifies a few, is but a stumbling block and a tentation: Who asks a charitable man that gives him an alms, where he got it, or why he gave it? will any favourite, whom his Prince only for his appliableness to him, or some half-vertue, or his own glory, burdens with Honours and Fortunes every day, and destinies to future Offices and Dignities, dispute or expostulate with his Prince, why he rather chose not another, how he will restore his Coffers; how he will quench his people's murmur, by whom this liberality is fed; or his Nobility, with whom he equals new men; and will not rather repose himself gratefully in the wisdom, greatness & bounty of his Master? Will a languishing desperate patient, that hath scarce time enough to swallow the potion, examine the Physician, how he procured those ingredients, how that soil nourished them, which humour they affect in the body, whether they work by excess of quality, or specifically; whether he have prepared them by correcting, or else by withdrawing their Malignity; and for such unnecessary scruples neglect his health? Alas, our time is little enough for prayer, and praise, and society; which is, for our mutual duties. Moral Divinity becomes us all; but Natural Divinity, and Metaphysic Divinity, almost all may spare. Almost all the ruptures in the Christian Church have been occasioned by such bold disputations De Modo. One example is too much. That our Blessed Saviour's body is in the Sacrament, all say; The Roman Church appoints it to be there by Transubstantiation. The needless multiplying of Miracles for that opinion hath moved the French and Helvetick reformed Churches to found the word Sacramentally; which, because it puts the body there, and yet not nearer than Heaven to Earth, seems a riddle to the Saxon and such Churches; whose modesty (though not clearness) seems greatest in this Point; since believing the real being of it there, they abstain generally (though some bold adventurers amongst them also do exorbitate) from pronouncing De Modo. The like tempests hath the inquisition De Modo, raised in the article of Descent into Hell, even in our Church; and of the conveyance of God's grace (which was the occasion of this digression) in the Roman at this day. But to decline this sad contemplation, and to further ourselves in the Meditation of God's justice declared, in this History, let me observe to you, that God in his Scriptures hath Registered especially three symbols or Sacraments, of use in this matter. One in Genesis, of pure and mere Justice, 
Cham 3.22.  vindicative, and permanent; which is, The Cherubin and fiery sword placed in Paradise, to keep out, not only Adam, but his Posterity. The second in Exodus, of pure and only Mercy, 
Ch. 25.17  which is the model and fabric of the Mercy seat, under the shadow of two Cherubims wings. The third, partaking of both Mercy and Justice, and a Memorial and seal of both, is the Rainbow after the Deluge. 
Gen. 9.14.  The first of these, which is of mere Justice, is so figurative, and so mystic, and so unfit for Example or consequence, and so disputable whether it lasted long, or ever were literally, that it seems God had no purpose to deliver any evident testimony of so severe and mere Justice. But that of mere Mercy, he made so familiar, that only devising the form himself, he committed the making of it to man: and so affiancing and binding his Mercy to man's work, did, as it were, put his Mercy into our hands. Yet that also is long since translated from us: and there remains only the middle one, more convenient, and proportional, and useful. For, as it betokens his Justice in the precedent deluge, or his Merey in assuring us from any future; so is it made of natural and well known causes, (and thereby familiar to us) and yet became a Sacrament by God's special institution than. 
Hom. 28. in Gen.  And, though it should be true which chrysostom says, That it was a new miracle than, and never appeared before; 
De No & Area, cap. 27  yea, though that could be true which Ambrose, somewhat against the text, and directly against the other Expositors, says, That the Bow mentioned there was not a Rainbow, but that A bow in the clouds, signifies only, The power of God in persecution, and thereupon he observes, that God says, A Bow, but says not Arrows, to inflict terror, not wounds; Every way, I say, it doth the office of remembering God's Justice and Mercy together. And accordingly, in this large and particular History of God's Justice and Persecution, both towards his children, and his enemies, if we consider their laborious waste and macerating of their bodies by hot and intemperate labour; All their contempts, and scorns, and aviling, and annihilating in the eye of the Egyptians; All their Orbity, and enfeebling their race by the Edict of destroying their male children; All their deviations and strayings forty years, in a passage of a few days; and all their penuries and battles in that journey; And than for the Egyptians, if we look upon all their afflictions, first of plagues hateful to their senses, than noisome to their fruits, than to their , than to their bodies, than to their posterity, than to their lives, excepting only the drowning of the Egyptians in the sea, and the kill of the Israelites by their own hands in their guiltiness of Idolatry with the Calf, it will scarce be found that any of the afflictions proceeded from mere Justice, but were rather as Physic, and had only a medicinal bitterness in them. It remains, for determination of this Meditation, that we speak a little of God's Judgements.  
And at this time, (as by infinite places in the Scriptures we are directed) we call Gods Judgements, all those laws and directions by which he hath informed the Judgements of his children, and by which he governs his Judgements with or against them. For otherwise this word Judgement hath also three profane, and three Divine acceptations. Of the first sort, the first serves contemplations only, and so, Judgement is the last act of our understanding, and a conclusive resolution: which both in private studies, and at Counsel tables, many want, though endued with excellent abilities of objecting, disputing, infirming, yea destroying others allegations; yet are not able to establish or propose any other from themselves. These men, whether you consult them in Religion, or State, or Law, only when they are joined with others, have good use, because they bring doubts into disceptation; else, they are, at lest unprofitable: and are but as Simplicists, which know the venom and peccant quality of every herb, but cannot fit them to Medicine; or such a Lapidary, which can soon spy the flaw, but not mend it with setting. Judgement in the Second acceptation serves for practice, and is almost synonimous with Discretion; when we consider not so much the thing which we than do, as the whole frame and machine of the business, as it is complexioned and circumstanced with time, and place, and behoders: and so, make a thing, which was at most but indifferent, good. The third way, Judgement serves not only present practice, but enlightens, and almost governs posterity; and these are Decrees and Sentences, and Judgements in Courts. The phrase of Divinity also accepts Judgement three ways; for sometimes it is severe and mere Justice, as, [Judgement must begin at the house of God,] 
1 Pet. 4.7.  And many such. And Judgement in this sense, is deep and unsearchable. For, though Solomon pronounce, 
Eccl. 7.17.  [There is a just man that perisheth in his justice, and there is a wicked man that continueth long in his malice;] yet he inquires for no reason of it: 
Psa. 36.6.  For, [Gods righteousness is like the mountains] eminent and inviting our contemplation towards Heaven; but, [his Judgements are like a great deep,] terrible and bottomless, and declining us towards the centre of horror and desperation. These judgements we cannot measure nor fathom; yet, for all that, we must more than believe them to be just; for the Apostle says, We know the Judgement of God is according to truth. 
Rom. 2.2.  But yet oftentimes Judgement signifies not mere Justice, but as it is attempered and sweetened with Mercy. For, by the phrase of the Psalmist, [Judicabit populum in Justitia, 
Psa. 72.2.  & pauperes in Judicio] and many such, 
Reuch. de Art Cabul. l. 1.  the Cabalists (as one which understood them well, observes) have concluded, that the word Judgement applied to God, hath every where a mixed and participant nature, and intimates both Justice and Mercy. And thirdly, the Talmudists have straitened the word, and restrained Judgement to signify only the Judicial part of the law: and say, the Holy Ghost so directed them, in Deut. [These are the commandments, and the Ceremonies, and the Judgements, which the Lord commanded.] And they proceed further; for, 
Deu. 4.13.  Because God's Covenant and his ten Commandments are said simply to be given them, and without any limitation of time or place, they confess, they are bound to them ever, and every where; but, because his Ordinances and his law, (which in the Original is, Ceremonies and Judgements) are thus delivered, 
Ver. 5.  [You shall keep them in the Land which you go to possess] they therefore now cut of Ceremonies and Judgements, from the body of the law, 
Galatinus, l. 11. c. 3.  and in their dispersion bind not themselves to them, but where they may with convenience enough. But here we take the word Judgement entirely, to signify all the law: for, so the Psalmists speaks, 
Ps. 147.19  [He shows his word unto Jacob, his Statutes and his Judgements unto Israel; he hath not dealt so with every Nation, nor have they known his Judgements]. For here Judgements are as much as all the rest. And God himself in that last piece of his which he commanded Moses to record, 
Deut. 32.4  that Heavenly Song which only himself composed, (for though every other poetic part of Scripture, be also God's word, and so made by him, yet all the rest were Ministerially and instrumentally delivered by the Prophets, only inflamed by him; but this which himself calls a Song, was made immediately by himself, and Moses was commanded to deliver it to the Children; God choosing this way and conveyance of a Song, as fittest to justify his future severities against his children, because he knew that they would ever be repeating this Song, (as the Delicacy, and Elegancy thereof, both for Divinity and Poetry, would invite any to that) and so he should draw from their own mouths a confession of his benenefits, and of their ingratitude;) in this Song, I say, himself best expresses the value of this word thus, [All my ways are Judgement.]  
The greatness of this benefit or blessing of giving them a law, was not that salvation was due to the fulfilling of it; nor were they bound to a perfect fulfilling of it upon damnation; for, Salvation was ever from a faith in the promise of the Messiah; and accordingly the Apostle reasons strongly, [The promise of Christ to Abraham was 430 years before the law, 
Gal. 3.17.  and therefore this cannot disannul that] and yet this to Abraham was but an iteration of the promise formerly given, and iterated often. But one benefit of the Law was, that it did in some measure restore them towards the first light of Nature: For, if man had kept that, he had neeeded no outward law; for than he was to himself a law, having all law in his heart; as God promiseth for one of the greatest blessings under the Gospel, when the Law of Nature is more clearly restored: 
Jer. 13.31.  [I will make a new Covenant, and put my law in their inward parts, and writ it in their hearts:] So that we are brought nearer home, and set in a fairer way than the Jews; though their and our Law differ not as divers in species; 
Tho. 12 ae. q. 51.5.  but as a perfect and grown thing from an unperfect and growing: for to that first Law all Laws aspire. As we may observe in the Jews, who, after the Law of Nature was clouded and darkened in man by sin, framed to themselves many directive laws, before the promulgation of this Law in the Desert. 
Bretram. De politica Judaica. c. 2.  For we may easily trace out, besides Circumcision, (which was commanded) Sabbaths, Sacrifices of divers sorts, Expiatory and Eucharistical, Vows, Excommunication, Burial and Marriage, before the written Law. But these had but half the nature of Law; they did direct, but not correct; they did but counsel, not command: and they were not particular enough to do that office fully; for they showed not all. 
Ro. 3.20.  Therefore Saint Paul says of Moses' Law, and the sufficiency of it, 
Ro. 4.15.  By the Law comes the knowledge of sin. And in another place, Where no Law is, there is no transgression: And again, When the Commandment came, sin revived; that is, 
Rom. 7.9.  it revived to his understanding and conscience: For, that sin was before any written commandment, himself clears it; Unto the time of the Law was sin in the world; 
Ro. 3.15.  but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Not that God imputes it not; (for there is always enough within us for him to try us by; and his written Laws are but Declaratory of the former;) but we impute it not to ourselves, by confession and repentance. This therefore is the benefit of the Law, that (as Calvin upon this place says) Arguit, objurgat, & vellicando nos expergefacit. 
Leu. 24.10  We read in Leviticus, That a Blasphemer was stoned, and after his execution a law was made against Blasphemers: If it had been made before, perchance he had not perished. Oftentimes laws, though they be ambiguous, yea impossible, avert men from doing many things, which may, in their fear, be drawn within the compass of that Law. Not to go far for Examples; without doubt, our Law which makes Multiplication Felony, keeps many from doing things which may be so called, for any thing they know, though perchance no body know what Multiplication is. And our Law, which makes it Felony to feed a Spirit, holds many from that melancholic and mischievous belief of making such an express Covenant with the Devil, though every body know it is impossible to feed a spirit. Another benefit of the law, (taking the law at large, for all the Scriptures, as the Apostle doth, [Tell me, 
Galat. 4  you that are under the law, have you not read in the law, etc.] and than citys a place out of Genesis, before the law was given; And as Saint John says, 
Joh. 15.25  [It is written in the law] and than citys the 35 Psalms) is, that it hath prepared us to Christ, by manifold and evident prophecies. Which use the Apostle makes of it thus, [Before faith came (that is to say, 
Gal. 3.24  the fulfilling of faith, for faith was ever) we were kept under the law, and shut up unto the faith which should after be revealed: wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.] Lastly, the law benefits us thus, that it wrestles with that other law which St. Paul found himself not only subject to, but slave to, 
Rom. 7.13  [I am Captive to the law of sin.] And, [I serve in my flesh the law of sin.] These than were the advantages of the law; And had it any disadvantages? It is true, the laws were many; for, as the frame of our body hath 248 bones, 
Fra. Geor To. 2. prob. 8.  so the body of the law had so many affirmative precepts; and of the same number consisted Abraham's name, to whose seed the Messiah, to whose knowledge all the law conduced, was promised. It hath also 365 negative precepts; and so many sinews and ligatures hath our body, and so many days the year. But, not to pursue these curiosities, besides that, multiplicity of laws, (because thereby little is left to the discretion of the Judge) is not so burdenous as it is thought, except it be in a captious, and entangling, and needy State; or under a Prince too indulgent to his own Prerogative: All this great number of laws are observed by one, 
Galatinus. l. 11. c. 4.  who (Capnio says) was breathed upon by the Holy Ghost, to have been reduced by David to 11, by Esay to 6, by Micheas to 3, and by Abacuc to one. The Lawgiver himself reduced them in the Decalogue to ten, and therefore the Cabalists mark mysteriously, 
Fra. Geor ibid.  that in the Decalogue there are just so many letters, as there are precepts in the whole law. Yet certainly the number and intricacy and perplexity of these laws, (for their later Rabins, which make the Oral law their rule, 
Buxdorfius Synag. Jud. c. 4. fo. 44.  insist upon many both contradictions and imperfections in the letter of this law,) was extremely burdenous to the punctual observers thereof. Yet, to say peremptorily that it could not be observed, seems to me, hasty. Though Calvin, 
Marlorate in hunc locum.  citing Saint Hierome, [Si quis dixerit, impossibile esse servare legem, Anathema sit] say wisely and truly, that Hierom must not prevail so much as he which says, Why tempt you God, to lay a yoke upon the Disciples necks, 
Act 15.10.  which neither our Fathers nor we are able to bear? Yet that place in Deut. 30.8. hath as much Authority as this [Do all the Commandments which I command thee this day;] therefore they might be done. And in another verse it is said of all the Commandments, laws and Ordinances together, [This Commandment is not hid from thee, nor far of; It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, who shall go up, and bring it down; nor beyond sea, that thou shouldst say, who shall go beyond sea and fetch it: but it is near thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart.] For, though the Prophet in God's person say, 
Eze. 20.25  Dedi eis praecepta non bona; it was but in comparison of the laws of the Gospel: As our Saviour calls his Apostles evil comparatively; 
Mat. 7.11  [Ye which are evil, can give good things.] For simply, 
Homil. ad Rom. 13. in ver. 25. cap. 7. ad Rom.  the law was good; And, as chrysostom says, so easy, that they were easier things which were commanded by the written law, than by the law of Nature: As, to my understanding, in the point of concupiscence it is evident; which in the first law of Nature, and now in the Gospel, is prohibited, but was not so in the letter of the written law. 
Ibid.  So much therefore as was required of them, (for so Calvin says) that is, to make the law a bridle, and a direction to them, was possible to them: and he concludes this point, and I with him, That even the regenerate do but half that themselves, the grace of God perfecting the rest.   
FINIS.   

PRAYERS.  
O Eternal God, as thou didst admit thy faithful servant Abraham, to make the granting of one petition an encouragement and rise to another, and gavest him leave to gather upon thee from fifty to ten; so I beseech thee, that since by thy grace, I have thus long meditated upon thee, and spoken of thee, I may now speak to thee. As thou hast enlightened and enlarged me to contemplate thy greatness, so, O God, descend thou and stoop down to see my infirmities and the Egypt in which I live; and (If thy good pleasure be such) hasten mine Exodus and deliverance, for I desire to be, dissolved, and be with thee. O Lord, I most humbly acknowledge and confess thine infinite Mercy, that when thou hadst almost broke the staff of bread, and called a famine of thy word almost upon all the world, than thou broughtest me into this Egypt, where thou hadst appointed thy stewards to husband thy blessings, and to feed thy stock. Here also, O God, thou hast multiplied thy children in me, by begetting and cherishing in me reverend devotions, and pious affections towards thee, but that mine own corruption, mine own Pharaoh hath ever smothered and strangled them. And thou hast put me in my way towards thy land of promise, thy Heavenly Canaan, by removing me from the Egypt of frequented and populous, glorious places, to a more solitary and desert retiredness, where I may more safely feed upon both thy Mannaes', thyself in thy Sacrament, and that other, which is true Angel's food, contemplation of thee. O Lord, I most humbly acknowledge and confess, that I feel in me so many strong effects of thy Power, as only for the Ordinariness and frequency thereof, they are not Miracles. For hourly thou rectifiest my lameness, hourly thou restorest my sight, and hourly not only deliverest me from the Egypt, but raisest me from the death of sin. My sin, O God, hath not only caused thy descent hither, and passion here; but by it I am become that hell into which thou descendedst after thy Passion; yea, after thy glorification: for hourly thou in thy Spirit descendest into my heart, to overthrew there Legions of spirits of Disobedience, and Incredulity, and Murmuring. O Lord, I most humbly acknowledge and confess, that by thy Mercy I have a sense of thy Justice; for not only those afflictions with which it pleaseth thee to exercise me, awaken me to consider how terrible thy severe justice is; but even the rest and security which thou afford me, puts me often into fear, that thou reservest and sparest me for a greater measure of punishment. O Lord, I most humbly acknowledge and confess, that I have understood sin, by understanding thy laws and judgements; but have done against thy known and revealed william. Thou hast set up many candlesticks, and kindled many lamps in me; but I have either blown them out, or carried them to guide me in by and forbidden ways. Thou hast given me a desire of knowledge, and some means to it, and some possession of it; and I have armed myself with thy weapons against thee: Yet, O God, have mercy upon me, for thine own sake have mercy upon me. Let not sin and me be able to exceed thee, nor to defraud thee, nor to frustrate thy purposes: But let me, in despite of Me, be of so much use to thy glory, that by thy mercy to my sin, other sinners may see how much sin thou canst pardon. Thus show mercy to many in one: And show thy power and almightiness upon thyself, by casting manacles upon thine own hands, and calling back those Thunderbolts which thou hadst thrown against me. Show thy Justice upon the common Seducer and Devourer of us all: and show to us so much of thy Judgements, as may instruct, not condemn us. Hear us, O God, hear us, for this contrition which thou hast put into us, who come to thee with that watchword, by which thy Son hath assured us of access. Our Father which art in Heaven, etc.  
O Eternal God, who art not only first and last, but in whom, first and last is all one, who art not only all Mercy, and all Justice, but in whom Mercy and Justice is all one; who in the height of thy Justice, wouldst not spare thine own, and only most innocent Son; and yet in the depth of thy mercy, wouldst not have the wretched'st liver come to destruction; Behold us, O God, here gathered together in thy fear, according to thine ordinance, and in confidence of thy promise, that when two or three are gathered together in thy name, thou wilt be in the midst of them, and grant them their petitions. We confess, O God, that we are not worthy so much as to confess; lesle to be heard, lest of all to be pardoned our manifold sins and transgressions against thee. We have betrayed thy Temples to profaneness, our bodies to sensuality, thy fortresses to thine enemy, our souls to Satan. We have armed him with thy munition to fight against thee, by surrendering our eyes, and ears, all our senses, all our faculties to be exercised and wrought upon, and tyrannised by him. Vanities and disguises have covered us, and thereby we are naked; licentiousness hath inflamed us, and thereby we are frozen; voluptuousness hath fed us, and thereby we are sterved, the fancies and traditions of men have taught and instructed us, and thereby we are ignorant. These distempers, thou only, O God, who art true, and perfect harmony, canst tune, and rectify, and set in order again. Do so than, O most Merciful Father, for thy most innocent Sons sake: and since he hath spread his arms upon the cross, to receive the whole world, O Lord, shut out none of us (who are now fallen before the throne of thy Majesty and thy Mercy) from the benefit of his merits; but with as many of us, as begin their conversion and newness of life, this minute, this minute, O God, begin thou thy account with them, and put all that is passed out of thy remembrance. Accept our humble thanks for all thy Mercies; and, continued and enlarge them upon the whole Church, etc.  
O Most glorious and most gracious God, into whose presence our own consciences make us afraid to come, and from whose presence we cannot hid ourselves, hid us in the wounds of thy Son, our Saviour Christ Jesus; And though our sins be as read as scarlet, give them there another redness, which may be acceptable in thy sight. We renounce, O Lord, all our confidence in this world; for this world passeth away, and the lusts thereof: We renounce all our confidence in our own merits for we have done nothing in respect of that which we might have done; neither could we ever have done any such thing, but that still we must have remained unprofitable servants to thee; we renounce all confidence, even in our own confessions, and accusations of ourselves; for our sins are above number, if we would reckon them; above weight and measure, if we would weigh and measure them; and passed finding out, if we would seek them in those dark corners, in which we have multiplied them against thee: yea we renounce all confidence even in our repentances; for we have found by many lamentable experiences, that we never perform our promises to thee, never perfect our purposes in ourselves, but relapse again and again into those sins which again and again we have repent. We have no confidence in this world, but in him who hath taken possession of the next world for us, by sitting down at thy right hand. We have no confidence in our merits, but in him, whose merits thou hast been pleased to accept for us, and to apply to us, we have: no confidence in our own confessions and repentances, but in that blessed Spirit, who is the Author of them, and loves to perfect his own works and build upon his own foundations, we have: Accept them therefore, O Lord, for their sakes whose they are; our poor endeavours, for thy glorious Son's sake, who gives them their root, and so they are his; our poor beginnings of sanctification, for thy blessed Spirits sake, who gives them their growth, and so they are his: and for thy Son's sake, in whom only our prayers are acceptable to thee: and for thy Spirits sake which is now in us, & must be so whensoever we do pray acceptably to thee; accept our humble prayers for, etc.  
O Eternal & most merciful God, against whom, as we know & acknowledge that we have multiplied contemptuous and rebellious sins, so we know and acknowledge too, that it were a more sinful contempt and rebellion, than all those, to doubt of thy mercy for them; have mercy upon us: In the merits and mediation of thy Son, our Saviour Christ Jesus, be merciful unto us. Suffer not, O Lord, so great a waste, as the effusion of his blood, without any return to thee; suffer not the expense of so rich a treasure, as the spending of his life, without any purchase to thee; but as thou didst empty and evacuate his glory here upon earth, glorify us with that glory which his humiliation purchased for us in the kingdom of Heaven. And as thou didst empty that Kingdom of thine, in a great part, by the banishment of those Angels, whose pride threw them into everlasting ruin, be pleased to repair that Kingdom, which their fall did so far depopulate, by assuming us into their places, and making us rich with their confiscations. And to that purpose; O Lord, make us capable of that succession to thine Angels there; begin in us here in this life an angelical purity, an angelical chastity, an angelical integrity to thy service, an Angelical acknowledgement that we always stand in thy presence, and should direct all our actions to thy glory. Rebuke us not, O Lord, in thine anger, that we have not done so till now; but enable us now to begin that great work; and imprint in us an assurance that thou receivest us now graciously, as reconciled, though enemies; and fatherly, as children, though prodigals; and powerfully, as the God of our salvation, though our own consciences testify against us. Continued and enlarge thy blessings upon the whole Church, etc.  
FINIS.