EPISTLES, THE SECOND Volume: containing two decades. By joseph HALL.  
LONDON Printed by A. H. for Eleazar Edgar& Samuel Macham:& are to be sold at their shops in PAVLS church-yard.  
ANNO 1608.   

TO THE SAME MOST GRATIOVS PATRONAGE OF THE HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE, henry, PRINCE OF GREAT britain: HIS HIGHNESSES unworthy seruant, humbly prostrates himself, and his second labour, With continual Apprecations of all happiness.   

THE CONTENTS and subject of every Epistle.  

decade. III.  
EP. I. To Mr. SMITH,& Mr. ROB. Ringleaders of the late separation, at Amsterdam: Setting forth their injury done to the Church, the injustice of their cause, &c. 1  
EP. II. To St. ANDREW ASTELEY. A Discourse of our due preparation for death; and the means to sweeten it. 11  
EP. III. To Mr. SAM. BVRTON. Of the trial and choice of the true religion: justifying of all religions, the Christian; of all Christian, the reformed. 21  
EP. IV. To Mr. edmund SLEIGH. Of the hardness of true Christianity, and the abundant recompense in the pleasures and commodities thereof. 45  
EP. V. To Mr. W. L. Expostulating the cause of his vnsetlednesse in religion: where is shewed that our dissensions are no sufficient ground of his suspension. 55  
EP. VI. To Sr. EDMVMD LVCY. Of the different degrees of glory, and our mutual knowledge above. 65  
EP. VII. To Mr. T. L. advising concerning the matter of divorce in the case of known adultery. 75  
EP. jix. To Mr. ROBERT HAYE. Of the continual exercise of a Christian: whereby he may be preserved from hardness of heart, &c. 83  
EP. IX. To Mr. I. F. Merch. Of the lawfulness of conversation and trade with Infidels and heretics; how far it holdeth, and wherein. 91  
EP. X. To the Gentlemen of his Highnesses Court. A description of a good and faithful Courtier. 99   

decade. IV.  
EP. I. To Mr. WALTER FITZWILLIAMS. Of the true and lawful use of pleasures, &c. 113  
EP. II. To W. E. DD. to Mr. ROB. jermin. Of the bloody and sinful use of single combats: and the unjust pretences for this vnchristian and false manhood. 123  
EP. III. To Mr. MAT. MYLWARD. Of the pleasure of study and contemplation, &c. 137  
EP. IV. To M. I. P. Of the increase of popery; of the oath of allegiance; and the just sufferings of those that haue refused it. 145  
EP. V. To my brother Mr. SA. HALL. Of the charge and weight of the ministerial function: with directions for due preparation to it, and answerable carriage in it. 157  
EP. VI. To M. A. P. Of the signs and proofs of a true faith. 169  
EP. VII. To M. ED. ALLEYNE. A Direction how to conceive of God in our deuotions and meditations. 179  
EP. jix. To Mr. THOMAS james. Of the reason of the Papists confidence in appealing to the Fathers: applauding his worthy offers and endeavours of discovering the falsifications of antiquity. 187  
EP. IX. To M. E. A. Of fleeing or stay in the time of pestilence; whether lawful for Minister or people. 197  
EP. X. To M. R. B. A complaint of the iniquity of the Times; with a prescription of remedy. 205    

¶ The Third Decade.  

EPIST. I. To Mr. Smith, and Mr. Rob. Ring-leaders of the late separation; at AMSTERDAM.  
EP. I. Setting forth their injury done to the Church, the injustice of their cause, and fearfulness of their offence. Censuring and advising them.  
WEe hear of your separation, and mourn; yet not so much for you, as for your wrong: you could not do a greater injury to your mother, than to flee from her. Say she were poor, ragged, weak; say she were deformed; yet she is not infectious: Or if shee were, yet shee is yours. This were cause enough for you, to lament her, to pray for her, to labour for her redress, not to avoid her: This, unnaturalness is shameful; and more heinous in you, who are reported not parties in this evil, but authors. Your flight is not so much, as your mis-guidance. pled not: this fault is past excuse: If wee all should follow you, this were the way of a Church( as you pled) imperfect, to make no Church; and of a remedy, to make a disease. Still the fruit of our charity to you, is besides our grief, pity. Your zeal of truth hath mis-led you, and you others: A zeal, if honest, yet blindfolded, and lead by self-will: Oh that you loved Peace, but half so well as Truth: then, this breach had never been: and you that are yet brethren, had been still companions. go out of Babylon, you say; The voice not of schism, but of holinesse. Know you where you are? look about you, I beseech you, look behind you; and see if wee haue not left it vpon our backs. She herself feels, and sees that shee is abandoned: and complains to all the world, that wee haue not onely forsaken, but spoiled her; and yet you say, Come out of Babylon. And except you will be willingly blind; you may see the heaps of her altars, the ashes of her Idols, the ruins of her monuments, the condemnation of her errors, the reuenge of her abominations. And are wee yet in Babylon? Is Babylon yet amongst us? Where are the main buildings of that accursed city; those high and proud Towers of their universal Hierarchy, infallible iudgement, dispensation with laws of GOD, and sins of men; disposition of kingdoms, deposition of Princes, parting stakes with God in our conversion, through freedom of will; in our salvation, through the merit of our works? Where are those rotten heaps( rotten, not through age, but corruption) of transubstantiating of bread, adoring of Images, multitude of Sacraments, power of indulgences, necessity of confessions, profit of pilgrimages, constrained and approved ignorance, unknown deuotions? Where are those deep vaults( if not mines) of Penances and Purgatories,& whatsoever hath been devised by those Popelings, whether profitable or glorious, against the Lord, and his Christ? are they not all razed, and butted in the dust? Hath not the majesty of her gods, like as was done to Mythra, and Serapis, been long ago offered to the public laughter of the vulgar? What is this but to go, yea to run( if not to fly) out of Babylon? But( as every man is an hearty Patron of his own actions, and it is a desperate cause that hath no plea) you allege our consorting in Ceremonies, and say still wee tarry in the suburbs: Grant that these were as ill, as an enemy can make them, or can pretend them: You are deceived, if you think the walls of Babylon stand vpon Ceremonies. substantial errors are both her foundation, and frame. These ritual observations are not so much as Tile and Reed, rather like to some Fane vpon the roof; for ornament, more than use: Not parts of the building, but not-necessary appendances. If you take them otherwise, you wrong the Church; if thus, and yet depart, you wrong it and yourself: As if you would haue persuaded righteous Lot, not to stay in Zoar, because it was so near sodom. I fear, if you had seen the money-changers in the Temple, how ever you would haue prayed, or taught there: Christ did it, not forsaking the place, but scourging the offenders: And this is the valour of Christian teachers, to oppose abuses, not to run away from them: Where shall you not thus find Babylon? Would you haue run from Geneua, because of her wafers? Or from Corinth, for her disordered love-feasts? Either run out of the world, or your flight is in vain. If experience of change teach you not, that you shall find your Babylon every where, return not. Compare the place you haue left, with that you haue chosen; let not fear of seeming to repent ouer-soone, make you partial. Lo, there a common harbour of all opinions, of all heresies; if not a mixture: here you drew in the free and clear air of the gospel, without that odious composition of judaism, arianism, anabaptism: There you live in the stench of these and more. You are unworthy of pity, if you will approve your misery. Say if you can, that the Church of England( if shee were not yours) is not an heaven, to Amsterdam. How is it then, that our gnats are harder to swallow, than their camels? and that whiles all christendom magnifies our happiness, and applauds it; your handful alone, so detests our enormities, that you despise our graces? See whether in this you make not God a loser. The thank of all his favours is lost, because you want more: and in the mean time, who gains by this sequestration, but Rome and Hell? How do they insult in this advantage, that our mothers own children condemn her for unclean, that wee are daily weakened by our divisions, that the rude multitude hath so palpable a motive to distrust us? Sure, you intended it not: but, if you had been their hired Agent, you could not haue done our enemies greater service. The GOD of heaven open your eyes, that you may see the unjustice of that zeal which hath transported you; and turn your heart to an endeavour of al Christian satisfaction: Otherwise your souls shall find too late, that it had been a thousand times better to swallow a ceremony, than to rend a Church: yea, that even whoredoms and murders shal abide an easier answer than separation.  
I haue done, if onely I haue advised you of that fearful threatening of the wise man: The eye that mocketh his father, and despises the government of his mother, the ravens of the river shall pick it out, and the young Eagles eat it.   

To Sr. Andrew Asteley.  
EP. II. A Discourse of our due preparation for death, and the means to sweeten it to vs.  
SInce I saw you, I saw my father die: how boldly and merrily did he pass thorough the gates of death, as if they had had no terror, but much pleasure! Oh that I could as easily imitate, as not forget him! We know we must tread the same way; How happy, if with the same mind? Our life as it gives way to death, so must make way for it: It will be, tho we will not: it will not be happy, without our will, without our preparation. It is the best and longest lesson, to learn how to die; and of surest use: which alone if we take not out, it were better, not to haue lived. Oh vain studies of men, how to walk thorough Rome streets all day in the shade; how to square circles, how to salve up the celestial motions, how to correct miswritten copies, to fetch up old words from forgetfulness, and a thousand other like points of idle skill; whiles the main care of life and death is neglected! There is an arte of this, infallible, eternal, both in truth, and use: for tho the means be diuers, yet the last act is still the same, and the disposition of the soul need not be other: it is all one whether a fever bring it, or a sword; wherein yet, after long profession of other sciences I am still( why should I shane to confess?) a learner; and shall be( I hope) whilst I am: yet it shal not repent us, as diligent scholars repeat their parts unto each other, to be more perfect; so mutually to recall some of our rules of well dying: The first whereof is a conscionable life: The next, a right apprehension of life, and death: I tread in the beaten path, do you follow me. To live holily is the way to die safely; happily: If death be terrible, yet innocence is bold, and will neither fear itself, nor let us fear; where contrariwise wickedness is cowardly, and can not abide either any glimpse of light, or show of danger. Hope doth not more draw our eyes forward, than conscience turns them backward, and forces us to look behind us; affrighting us even with our past evils. Besides the pain of death, every sin is a new fury to torment the soul, and make it loth to part. How can it choose, when it sees on the one side, what evil it hath done, on the other, what evil it must suffer? It was a clear heart( what else could do it?) that gave so bold a forehead to that holy Bishop, who durst on his death bed profess, I haue so lived, as I neither fear to die, nor shane to live. What care wee when wee be found, if well doing? what care wee how suddenly, when our preparation is perpetual? what care we how violently, when so many inward friends( such are our good actions) give us secret comfort? There is no good Steward, but is glad of his Audit; his straight accounts desire nothing more than a discharge: only the doubtful and vntrustie fears his reckoning. Neither only doth the want of integrity make us timorous, but of wisdom, in that our ignorance can not equally value, either the life which wee leave, or the death wee expect. Wee haue long conversed with this life, and yet are unacquainted: how should wee then know that death we never saw? or that life which follows that death?  
These cottages haue been ruinous, and wee haue not thought of their fall: our way hath been deep, and we haue not looked for our rest. show me ever any man that knew what life was, and was loth to leave it? I will show you a prisoner that would dwell in his Gaole, a slave that likes to be chained to his Galley: what is there here, but darkness of ignorance, discomfort of events, impotency of body, vexation of conscience, distemper of passions, complaint of estate, fears and sense of evil, hopes and doubts of good, ambitious rackings, covetous toils, envious vnderminings, irksome disappointments, weary satieties, restless desires, and many worlds of discontentments in this one? What wonder is it that wee would live? we laugh at their choice that are in love with the deformed; And what a face is this we dote vpon? See if sins, and cares, and crosses, haue not( like a filthy morphew) overspread it, and made it loathsome to all judicious eyes. I marvell then, that any wise men could be other but stoics,& could haue any conceit of life, but contemptuous; not more for the misery of it, while it lasteth, than for the not lasting: we may love it, we can not hold it: What a shadow of a smoke, what a dream of a shadow is this, we affect? Wise Salomon says there is a time to be born, and a time to die: you do not hear him say, a time to live. What is more flitting than time? yet life is not long enough to be worthy the title of time. Death borders vpon our birth, and our cradle stands in our grave. We lament the loss of our parents: how soon shall our sons bewail ours? lo, I that writ this, and you that read it; how long are we here? It were well, if the world were as our tent, yea as our inn; if not to lodge, yet to bait in: but now it is only our thorow-faire, one generation passeth, another cometh; none stayeth. If this earth were a paradise, and this which we call our life were sweet as the joys above, yet how should this fickleness of it cool our delight? Grant it absolute; who can esteem a vanishing pleasure? How much more now, when the dooms of our hony are lost in pounds of gull; when our contentments are as far from sincerity as continuance? Yet the true apprehension of life( tho joined with contempt) is not enough to settle us, if either we be ignorant of death, or ill persuaded: for if life haue not worth enough to 'allure us, yet death hath horror enough to affright vs. He that would die cheerfully, must know death his friend: what is he but the faithful officer of our Maker, who ever smiles or frowns with his Master? neither can either show or nourish enmity, where God favours: when he comes fiercely, and pulls a man by the throat, and summons him to hell, who can but tremble? The messenger is terrible, but the message worse: hence haue risen the miserable despairs, and furious raving of the ill conscience; that finds no peace within, less without. But when he comes sweetly, not as an executioner, but as a guide to glori●, and proffers his service,& shows our happiness, and opens the door to our heaven; how worthy is he of entertainment? how worthy of gratulation? But his salutation is painful, if courteous; what then? The physician heals us; not without pain; and yet we reward him. It is unthankfulness to complain, where the answer of profit is excessive. Death paineth: how long? how much? with what proportion to the sequel of ioy? O death, if thy pangs be grievous, yet thy rest is sweet. The constant expectation that hath possessed that rest, hath already swallowed those pangs, and makes the Christian at once wholly dead to his pain, wholly alive to his glory. The soul hath not leisure to care for hir suffering, that beholds hir crown; which if she were enjoined to fetch thorough the flames of hell, her faith would not stick at the condition.  
Thus in brief, he that lives Christianly, shall die boldly; he that finds his life short and miserable, shall die willingly; he that knows death, and foresees glory, shall die cheerfully and desirously.   

To M. SAMVEL BVRTON, Archdeacon of gloucester.  
EP. III. A Discourse of the trial and choice of the True Religion.  
SIr: This Discourse enjoined by you, I sand to your censure, to your disposing; but to the use of others. Vpon your charge I haue written it for the wavering: If it seem worthy, communicate it; else, it is but a dash of your pen. I fear only the brevity: a Volume were too little for this subject. It is not more yours, than the Author. Farewell.  
WE do not more affect variety in all other things, than we abhor it in Religion. even those which haue held the greatest falshoods, hold that there is but one truth. I never red of more than one heretic, that held all Heresies true; neither did his opinion seem more incredible, than the relation of it. God can neither be multiplied, nor Christ divided: if his coat might be partend, his body was entire. For that then all sides challenge Truth, and but one can possess it; let us see who haue found it, who enjoy it.  
There are not many Religions that strive for it, tho many opinions. every heresy, albee fundamental, makes not a religion. We say not, The Religion of Arrians, Nestorians, Sabellians, Macedonians, but The Sect or heresy. No opinion challenges this name in our usual speech,( for I discuss not the propriety) but that which arising from many differences, hath settled itself in the world, vpon her own principles, not without an universal division: Such may soon bee counted: Tho it is true, there are by so much too many, as there are more than one. five religions then there are by this rule, vpon earth; which stand in competition for truth, jewish, Turkish, Greekish, Popish, Reformed; whereof each pleads for itself, with disgrace of the other. The plain Reader doubts, how he may sit judge, in so high a plea: GOD hath put this person vpon him; while he chargeth him to try the spirits; to retain the good, reject the evil: If still he pled with Moses, insufficiency; let him but attend, God shall decide the case 〈◇〉 his silence, without difficulty. The jew hath little to say for himself, but impudent denials of our Christ, of their Prophecies: whose very refusal of him, more strongly proves him the true messiah: neither could he be justified to be that saviour, if they rejected him not: since the Prophets foresaw, and foretold, not their repelling of him onely, but their reviling. If there were no more arguments, God hath so mightily confuted them from heaven, by the voice of his iudgement, that all the world hisseth at their conviction. lo, their very sin is capitallie written in their desolation,& contempt. One of their own late doctors seriously expostulates in a relenting Letter to another of his fellow rabbis, what might bee the cause of so long and desperate a ruin of their Israel; and comparing their former captivities with their former sins, argues( and yet fears to conclude) that this continuing punishment, must needs be sent for some sin so much greater than idolatry, oppression, Sabath-breaking; by how much this plague is more grievous than all the other: Which, his fear tells him( and he may beleeue it) can be no other, but the murder, and refusal of their true messiah. Let now all the doctors of those obstinate Synagogues, answer this doubt of their own objecting: But how past al contradiction is the ancient witness of all the holy Prophets, answered and confirmed by their events? whose foresayings verified in all particular issues, are more than demonstrative. No Art can describe a thing past, with more exactness, than they did this Christ to come. What circumstance is there, that hath not his prediction? Haue they not forewritten, who should be his mother; A Virgin: Of what tribe; of Iuda: Of what house; of david: What place; Bethleem: What time; when the sceptre should be taken from Iuda: Or after sixty nine weekes; What name; Iesus, Immanuel: What habitation; Nazareth: What harbinger; John, the second Elias: What his business; to preach, save, deliver: What entertainment; rejection: What death; the cross: What maner; piercing the body, not breaking the bones: What company; amid two wicked ones: Where; at jerusalem: Where abouts; without the Gates: With what words; of imploration: What draft; of vinegar and gull: Who was his Traitor, and with what success? If all the Synagogues of the Circumcision, all the gates of Hell, can obscure these evidences, let me be a proselyte. My labour herein is so much less, as there is less danger of judaism. Our church is well rid of that accursed nation, whom yet Rome harbours, and, in a fashion, graces; whiles in stead of spitting at, or that their Neapolitan correction whereof Gratian speaks; the Pope solemnly receives at their hands, that Bible which they at once approve, and overthrow. But would GOD there were no more Iewes than appear. even in this sense also he is a jew, that is one within: plainly, whose heart doth not sincerely confess his Redeemer. Tho a Christian jew, is no other than an Atheist; and therefore must bee scourged else-where. The jew thus answered: The turk stands out for his Mahomet, that cozening Arabian, whose religion( if it deserve that name) stands vpon nothing but rude ignorance, and palpable imposture. Yet lo ●eere a subtle divell, in a gross religion: For when he saw that he could not by single twists of heresy pull down the well-built walls of the Church; he winds them all up in one Cable, to see if his cord of so many folds might happily prevail: raising up wicked mohammed, to deny with Sabellius the distinction of persons, with Arrius Christs divinity, with Macedonius the deity of the Holy Ghost, with Sergius two wils in Christ, with martion Christs suffering: And these policies seconded with violence, how haue they wasted christendom? O damnable mixture, miserable successful! which yet could not haue been, but that it meets with sottish clients, and soothes up nature, and debars both all knowledge, and contradiction. What is their Alcoran, but a farthel of foolish impossibilities? whosoever shall hear me relate the Stories of angel Adriels death, Seraphuels trumpet, Gabriels bridge, Horroth and Marroths hanging, the moons descending into Mahumets sleeve, the Litter, wherein he saw God carried by eight Angels, their ridiculous and swinish Paradise, and thousands of the same bran; would say, that Mahomet hoped to meet either with beasts, or mad men. Besides these barbarous fictions, behold their laws, full of licence, full of impiety: In which, reuenge is encouraged, multitude of wives allowed, theft tolerated;& the frame of their opinions such, as well bewrays their whole religion to bee but the sorrel issue of an Arian, jew, Nestorian, and Arabian: A monster of many seeds, and all accursed; In both which regards, nature herself, in whose breast God hath written his royal Law( tho in part, by her defaced) hath light enough to condemn a turk, as the worst Pagan. Let no man look for further disproof. These follies, a wise Christian will scorn to confute, and scarce vouchsafe to laugh at.  
The Greekish Church( so the Russes term themselves) put in the next claim: but with no better success: whose infinite Clergy affords not a man that can give either reason or account of their own doctrine. These are the basest dregs of all Christians, so wee favourably term them; tho they perhaps in more simplicity than wilfulness, will admit none of all the other Christian world to their font, but those, who in a solemn renunciation spit at, and abjure their former God, Religion, baptism: yet peradventure wee might more justly term them Nicolaitans, for that obscure Saint( if a Saint; if honest) by an unequal division, finds more homage from them than his master. These are as ignorant as Turks, as idolatrous as Heathens, as obstinate as Iewes, and more superstitious than Papists. To speak ingenuously from that I haue heard and red; if the worst of the Romish religion, and the best of the Moscouitish be compared, the choice will be hard whether should be less ill. I labour the less in all these, whose remoteness and absurdity secure us from infection, and whose only name is their confutation. I descend to that main rival of Truth, which creeps into our bosom, and is not less near than subtle, the religion( if not rather the faction) of Papism; whose plea is importunate, and so much more dangerous, as it carries fairer probability. Since then of all Religions the Christian obtaineth, let us see of those that are called Christian, which should command assent and profession. every religion bears in hir lineaments the image of hir parent: the true Religion therefore is spiritual, and looks like God in hir purity: all false religions are carnal, and carry the face of Nature, their mother, and of him whose illusion begot them, Satan. In sum, Nature never conceived any which did not favour her, nor the Spirit any which did not oppugn her. Let this then be the Lydian ston of this trial; we need no more. Whether Religion soever doth more plausibly content Nature, is false; whether gives more sincere glory to God, is his truth. Lay aside prejudice: Whither I beseech you tendeth all Popery, but to make Nature either vainly proud, or carelessly wanton? What can more advance her pride, than to tell her, that she hath in her own hands freedom enough of will( with a little prevention) to prepare herself to her justification; that shee hath( whereof to rejoice) some-what, which shee hath not received; that if God please but to vnfetter her, she can walk alone? She is insolent enough of herself; this flattery is enough to make her mad of conceit. After this; That if God will but bear half the charges by his cooperation, she may undertake to merit her own glory, and brave God in the proof of his most accurate iudgement; to fulfil the whole royal law; and that from the superfluity of her own satisfactions she may be abundantly beneficial to her neighbors; that naturally without faith a man may do some good works; that we may repose confidence in our merits. Neither is our good only by this flattery extolled, but our ill also diminished: our evils are our sins; some of them( they say) are in their nature venial, and not worthy of death; more, that our original sin, is but the want of our first iustice; no guilt of our first-fathers offence, no inherent ill disposition, and, that by baptismal water is taken away what ever hath the nature of sin; that a mere man( let me not wrong S. Peters successor in so terming him) hath power to remit both punishment and sin, past and future; that many haue suffered more than their sins haue required; that the sufferings of the saints added to Christs passions, make up the treasure of the Church, that spiritual exchequer; whereof their Bishop must keep the key, and make his friends. In all these the gain of Nature( who sees not) is Gods loss? all her bravery is stolen from above: besides those other direct derogations from him; that his Scriptures are not sufficient; that their original fountains are corrupted, and the streams run clearer; that there is a multitude( if a finite number) of mediators. turn your eyes now to us, and see contrarily how wee abase Nature, how wee knead hir in the dust; spoiling hir of hir proud rags, loading hir with reproaches; and giuing glory to him that says he will not give it to another: whiles wee teach, that wee neither haue good, nor can do good of ourselves; that wee are not sick or fettered, but dead in our sin; that we can not move to good, more than we are moved; that our best actions are faulty, our satisfactions debts, our deserts damnation; that all our merit is his mercy that saves us; that every of our sins is deadly, every of our natures originally depraved, and corrupted; that no water can entirely wash away the filthiness of our concupiscence; that none but the blood of him that was God, can cleanse us; that all our possible sufferings are below our offences; that Gods written Word is all-sufficient to inform us, to make us both wise and perfect; that Christs mediation is more than sufficient to save us, his sufferings to redeem us, his obedience to enrich vs. You haue seen how Papistry makes Nature proud; now see how it makes hir lawless and wanton: while it teacheth( yet this one, not so universally) that Christ died effectually for all; that in true contrition an express purpose of new life is not necessary; that wicked men are true members of the Church; that a lewd mis-creantor infidel in the business of the Altar partakes of the true body and blood of Christ, yea( which a shane to tell) a brute creature; that men may save the labour of searching, for that it is both easy and safe( with that catholic Collier) to beleeue with the Church, at a venture: more than so, that devotion is the seed of ignorance; that there is infallibility annexed to a particular place and person; that the bare act of the Sacraments confers grace without faith; that the mere sign of the cross made by a jew or infidel, is of force to drive away divels; that the sacrifice of the mass in the very work wrought, avails to obtain pardon of our sins, not in our life only, but when we lye frying in purgatory; that wee need not pray in faith to be heard, or in understanding; that alms given merit heaven, dispose to justification, satisfy God for sin; that abstinence from some meats& drinks is meritorious; that Indulgences may be granted to dispense with all the penance of sins afterward to be committed; that these by a living man may be applied to the dead; that one man may deliver anothers soul out of his purging torments: and therefore, that he who wants not either money, or friends, need not fear the smart of his sins. O religion sweet to the wealthy, to the needy desperate! Who will now care henceforth how sound his deuotions be, how lewd his life, how heinous his sins, that knows these refuges? On the contrary, we curb Nature, we restrain, wee discourage, wee threaten hir, teaching hir not to rest in implicit faiths, or general intentions, or external actions of piety, or presumptuous dispensations of men: but to strive unto sincere faith, without which wee haue no part in Christ, in his Church, no benefit by Sacraments, prayers, fastings, beneficences: to set the hart on work in al our deuotions, without which the hand& tongue are but hypocrites: to set the hands on work in good actions, without which the presuming heart is but an hypocrite: to expect no pardon for sin before we commit it, and from Christ alone when we haue committed it, and to repent before we expect it: to hope for no chaffering, no ransom of our souls from below, no contrary change of estate after dissolution: that life is the time of mercy, death of retribution. Now let me appeal to your soul, and to the iudgement of all the world, whether of these two religions is framed to the humour of nature: yea let me but know what action Popery requires of any of hir followers, which a mere Naturalist hath not done, can not do? See how I haue chosen to beat them with that rod wherewith they think we haue so often smarted: for what cavil hath been more ordinary against us, than this of ease and liberty, yea licence given and taken by our religion? together with the vpbraidings of their own strict and rigorous austerenesse? Where are our penal works, our fastings, scourges, haircloth, weary pilgrimages, blushing confessions, solemn vows of willing beggary and perpetual continency? To do them right, we yield; in all the hard works of willworship they go beyond us: but( lest they should insult in the victory) not so much as the Priests of baal went beyond them. I see their whips: show me their knives. Where did ever zealous Romanist lance and carve his flesh in devotion? The Baalites did it, and yet never the wiser, never the holier. Either therefore this zeal in works of their own devising makes them not better than we, or it makes the Baalites better than they: let them take their choice. Alas, these difficulties are but a colour to avoid greater: No, no, to work our stubborn wills to subiection, to draw this untoward flesh to a sincere cheerfulness in Gods service: to reach unto a sound belief in the Lord Iesus, to pray with a true hart, without distraction, without distrust, without mis-conceit: to keep the heart in continual awe of God: These are the hard tasks of a Christian, worthy of our sweat, worthy of our rejoicing: all which that Babylonish religion shifteth off with a careless fashionablenesse, as if it had not to do with the soul. give us obedience: let them take sacrifice. Do you yet look for more evidence? look into particulars, and satisfy yourself in Gods decision, as Optatus advised of old. Since the goods of our father are in question, whither should wee go but to his Will and Testament? My soul bear the danger of this bold assertion: If we err, we err with Christ and his Apostles. In a word, against all staggering, our saviours rule is sure and eternal: If any man will do my Fathers will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.   

To M. edmond Sleigh.  
EP. IV. A discourse of the hardness of Christianity, and the abundant recompense in the pleasures and commodities of that profession.  
HOw hard a thing is it( dear uncle) to bee a Christian! Perhaps others are less dull, and more quiet; more waxed to the impressions of grace, and less troublesone to themselves. I accuse none, but whom I know, and whom I dare, myself. even easy businesses are hard to the weak: let others boast; I must complain. To keep our station is hard, harder to move forward: One while I scarce restrain my unruly desires, from evil; ofter, can find no lust to good. My hart will either be vain, or sullen: when I am wrought with much sweat to detest sin, and distaste the world; yet who shall raise up this dross of mine to a spiritual ioy? Sometimes I purpose well; and if those thoughts( not mine) begin to lift me up from my earth; lo, he that rules in the air, stoops vpon me with powerful temptations, or the world pulls me down with a sweet violence; so as I know not whether I bee forced, or persuaded to yield. I find much weakness in myself, but more treachery. How willing am I to be deceived! How loth to bee altered! Good duties seem harsh, and can hardly escape the repulse, or delay of excuses; and not without much strife grow to any relish of pleasure, and when they are at best, cannot avoid the mixture of many infirmities: which do at once disquiet, and discourage the mind, not suffering it to rest in what it would haue done, and could not. And if after many sighs, and tears, I haue attained to do well, and resolve better; yet this good estate is far from constant, and easily inclining to change. And whiles I strive, in spite of my natural fickleness, to hold my own with some progress, and gain; what difficulty do I find, what opposition? O GOD, what aduersaries hast thou provided for us weak men! what encounters! Malicious and subtle spirits, an alluring world, a serpentine and stubborn nature: Force and fraud do their worst to us; sometimes because they are spiritual enemies, I see them not, and complain to feel them too late: Other-whiles my spiritual eyes see them with amazement, and I( like a cowardly Israelite) am ready to flee,& pled their measure, for my fear: Who is able to stand before the sons of Anak? Some other times I stand still, and( as I can) weakly resist; but am foiled with indignation,& shane: Then again I rise up, not without bashfulness and scorn: and with more hearty resistance prevail, and triumph: when ere long surprised with a sudden& vnwarned assault, I am carried away captive, whither I would not: and mourning for my discomfiture, study for a feeble reuenge: My quarrel is good, but my strength maintains it not: It is now long ere I can recover this overthrow, and find myself whole of these wounds. Beside suggestions, crosses fall heavy, and work no small distemper in a mind faint and unsettled, whose law is such, that the more I grow the more I bear; and not seldom, when God gives me respite, I afflict myself: either my fear feigneth evils, or my unruly passions raise tumults within me, which breed much trouble, whether in satisfying or supressing: not to speak, that sin is attended, besides unquietness, with terror.  
Now you say, Alas christianity is hard: Igrant it; but gainful and happy. I contemn the difficulty, when I respect the advantage. The greatest labours that haue answerable requitals, are less than the least that haue no regard. Beleeue me, when I look to the reward, I would not haue the work easier. It is a good Master whom we serve, who not only pays, but gives; not after the proportion of our earnings, but of his own mercy. If every pain that we suffer were a death, and every cross an hell, wee haue amends enough. It were injurious to complain of the measure, when we aclowledge the recompense. Away with these weak dislikes: tho I should buy it dearer. I would be a Christian. Any thing may make me out of love with myself, nothing with my profession: I were unworthy of this favour, if I could repent to haue endured: herein alone I am safe, herein I am blessed. I may be all other things, and yet with that dying Emperour complain, with my last breath, That I am no whit the better: let me be a Christian, I am priuiledg'd from miseries; hell can not touch me; death can not hurt me. No evil can arrest me while I am under the protection of him, which overrules all good and evil: yea, so soon as it touches me, it turns good; and being sent and suborned by my spiritual aduersaries to betray me, now in an happy change it fights for me, and is driven rather to rebel, than wrong me. It is a bold and strange word: No price could buy of me the gain of my sins: That, which while I repented, I would haue expiated with blood; now after my repentance I foregoe not for a world; the fruit of having sinned,( if not rather, of having repented.) Besides my freedom, how large is my possession? All good things are mine, to challenge, to inoy. I can not look beyond my own, nor besides it; and the things that I can not see, I dare claim no less. The heaven that rolls so gloriously above my head is mine, by this right: yea those celestial spirits, the better part of that high creation, watch me in my bed, guard me in my ways, shelter me in my dangers, comfort me in my troubles, and are ready to receive that soul which they haue kept.  
What speak I of creatures? The God of spirits is mine,& by a sweet and secret union I am become an heir of his glory, yea( as it were) a limb of himself. O blessedness! worthy of difficulty, worthy of pain: What thou wilt, Lord, so I may be thine, what thou wilt. When I haue done all, when I haue suffered all, thou exceedest more than I want. Follow me then( dear uncle) or( if you will) lead me rather( as you haue done) in these steps, and from the rough way, look to the end: overlook these trifling grievances, and fasten your eyes vpon the happy recompense, and see if you can not scorn to complain. pity those that take not your pains; and persist with courage, till you feel the weight of your crown.   

To Mr. W. L.  
EP. V. Expostulating the cause of his vnsetlednesse in religion, which is pleaded to be our dissensions: showing the insufficiency of that motive, and comparing the estate of our Church herein, with the Romish.  
I Would I knew where to find you, then I could tell how to take a direct aim; whereas now, I must rove, and conjecture. To day you are in the tents of the Romanists; to morrow in ours; the next day between both, against both. Our aduersaries think you ours, wee theirs, your conscience finds you with both, and neither. I flatter you not: this of yours is the worst of all tempers: heat and could haue their uses; lukewarmness is good for nothing, but to trouble the stomach. Those that are spiritually hot find acceptation; those that are stark could, haue a lesser reckoning; the mean between both, is so much worse, as it comes nearer to good, and attains it not. How long will you halt in this indifferency? resolve one way, and know at last what you do hold; what you should. Cast off either your wings or your teeth; and loathing this Bat-like nature, be either a bide or a beast. To die wavering and uncertain, yourself will grant fearful. If you must settle, when begin you? If you must begin, why not now? It is dangerous deferring that, whose want is deadly, and whose opportunity is doubtful. God crieth with jehu, Who is on my side, who? look at last out of your window to him, and in a resolute courage cast down this jezabel that hath bewitched you. Is there any impediment, which delay will abate? Is there any which a just answer can not remove? If you had rather waver, who can settle you? But if you love not inconstancy, tell us why you stagger: Bee plain, or else you will never be firm; What hinders you? Is it our divisions? I see you shake your head at this, and by your silent gesture bewray this the cause of your distaste: Would God I could either deny this with truth, or amend it with tears: But I grant it, with no less sorrow, than you with offence. This ●arth hath nothing more lamentable, than the civil jars of one faith. What then? Must you defy your mother, because you see your brethren fighting? Their dissension is her grief: Must shee lose some sons, because some others quarrel? Do not so wrong yourself in afflicting her. Will you love Christ the less, because his coat is divided? Yea, let me boldly say; The hem is torn a little, the garment is whole; or rather it is fretted a little, not torn; or rather the fringe, not the hem. behold, here is one Christ, one Creed, one baptism, one heaven, one way to it; in sum, one religion, one foundation, and( take away the tumultuous spirits of some rigorous-Lutherans) one heart: our differences are those of Paul and Barnabas, not those of Peter and Magus: if they be some, it is well they are no more; if many, that they are not capital. show me that Church, that hath not complained of distraction; yea that family, yea that fraternity, yea that man that always agrees with himself. See if the Spouse of Christ, in that heavenly marriage-song do not call him, a young Hart in the mountaines of division. Tell me then, Whither will you go for truth, if you will allow no truth, but where there is no division? To Rome perhaps, famous for unity, famous for peace. See now how happily you haue chosen; how well you haue sped: lo there cardinal Bellarmine himself, a witness above exception, under his own hand acknowledgeth to the world, and reckons up two hundred thirty and seven contrarieties of doctrine among the Romish divines. What need we more evidence? O the perfect accordance of Peters See! worthy to be recorded for a badge of Truth. Let now all our aduersaries scrape together so many contradictions of opinions amongst us, as they confess amongst themselves, and be you theirs. No, they are not more peaceable, but more subtle; they haue not less dissension, but more smothered. They fight closely within doors, without noise; all our frays are in the field: would God we had as much of their cunning, as they want of our peace; and no more of their policy, than they want of our Truth. Our strife is in ceremonies, theirs in substance; ours in one or two points, theirs in all. Take it boldly from him that dares avouch it, There is not one point in all divinity( except those wherein wee accord with them) wherein they all speak the same. If our Church displease you for differences, theirs much more; unless you will be either wilfully incredulous, or wilfully partial: unless you dislike a mischief the less for the secrecy. What will you do then? Will you be a Church alone? Alas, how full are you of contradictions to yourself! how full of contrary purposes! How oft do you chide with yourself! how oft do you fight with yourself! I appeal to that bosom which is privy to those secret combats: beleeue me not, if ever you find perfect unity any where but above; either go thither, and seek it amongst those that triumph, or be content with what estate you find in this warfaring number. Truth is in differences, as gold in dross, wheat in chaff; will you cast away the best mettall, the best grain, because it is mingled with this off all? will you rather be poor and hungry, than bestow labour on the fan, or the furnace? Is there nothing worth your respect, but peace? I haue heard that the interlacing of some discords graces the best music; and I know not whether the very evil spirits agree not with themselves. If the body bee sound, what tho the coat be torn? or if the garment be whole, what if the lace be vnript? Take you peace; let me haue Truth; if I can not haue both. To conclude, Embrace, those goldsmiths that wee all hold, and it greatly matters not what you hold in those wherein wee differ; and if you love your safety, seek rather grounds whereon to rest, than excuses for your unrest. If ever you look to gain by the truth, you must both choose it, and cleave to it: mere resolution is not enough; except you will rather lose yourself, than it.   

To Sr. edmond Lucy.  
EP. VI. Discoursing of the different degrees of heavenly glory; and of our mutual knowledge of each other above.  
AS those which never were at home, now after much hear say traveling toward it, ask in the way, What maner of house it is, what seat, what frame, what soil; so do we in the passage to our glory: Wee are all pilgrims thither; yet so as that some haue looked into it a far thorough the open windows of the Scripture. Go to then, whiles others are enquiring about worldly dignities, and earthly pleasures, let us two sweetly consult of the estate of our future happiness; yet without presumption, without curiosity. Amongst this infinite choice of thoughts, it hath pleased you to limit our Discourse to two heads. You ask first, if the joys of the glorified Saints shall differ in degrees. I fear not to affirm it. There is one life of all, one felicity; but diuers measures. Our heaven begins here, and here varies in degree. One Christian an enjoys God above another, according as his grace, as his faith is more: and heaven is still like itself, not other above from that beneath. As our grace begins our glory, so it proportions it: blessedness stands in the perfect operation of the best faculties, about the perfectest object; that is, in the vision, in the fruition of God. All his Saints see him, but some more clearly; as the same sun is seen of all eyes, not with equal strength. Such as the eye of our faith was to see him that is invisible, such is the eye of our present apprehension to see as we are seen. Who sees not, that our rewards are according to our works? Not for them, as on merit: Woe be to that soul which hath but what it earneth: but after them, as their rule of proportion: and these, how sensibly unequal? One gives but a cup of cold water to a Disciple, another gives his blood for the Master. Different works haue different wages, not of desert, but of mercy. five talents well employed, carry away more recompense than two; yet both approved, both rewarded with their Masters ioy. Who can stick at this, that knows those heavenly spirits( to whom we shall be like) are marshaled by their Maker into several ranks? he that was rapt into their element, and saw their blessed orders, as from his own knowledge, hath styled them, Thrones, Principalities, Powers, Dominions. If in one part of this celestial family, the great householder hath thus ordered it, why not in the other? yea even in this he hath instanced; You shall sit on twelve Thrones, and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel. If he mean not some pre-eminence to his Apostles, how doth he answer, how doth he satisfy them? Yet more, Lazarus is in Abrahams bosom; therefore Abraham is more honoured than Lazarus. I shall need no more proofs; if from heaven you shall look down into the great gulf, and there see diversity of torments according to the value of sins. equality of offences, you aclowledge an idle Paradox of the stoics: to hold unequal sins equally punished, were more absurd, and more injurious to Gods iustice: There is but one fire, which yet otherwise burns the straw, otherwise wood and iron. He that made and commands this dungeon, these tortures, tells us that the wilfully disobedient shall smart with more stripes; the ignorant with fewer. Yet so conceive of these heavenly degrees, that the least is glorious. So do these vessels differ, that all are full: there is no want in any, no envy. Let us strive for a place, not strive for the order: How can we wish to be more than happy?  
Your other Question is of our mutual knowledge above; the hope whereof( you think) would give much contentment to the necessity of our parture: for both we are loth not to know those whom we love; and we are glad to think we shall know them happy: whereof( if it may comfort you) I am no less confident. If I may not go so far as with the best of the Fathers, to say wee shall know one anothers thoughts, I dare say, our persons we shall; our knowledge, our memory are not there lost, but perfected: yea I fear not to say we shall know both our miseries past, and the present sufferings of the damned. It makes our happiness not a little the sweeter, to know that wee were miserable, to know that others are and must be miserable: we shall know them; not feel them: Take heed, that you clearly distinguish betwixt speculation,& experience. Wee are then far out of the reach of evils: We may see them to comfort us, not to affect vs. Who doubts that these eyes shall see, and know the glorious manhood of our blessed saviour, advanced above all the powers of heaven? And if one body, why not more? And if our elder brother, why no more of our spiritual fraternity? Yea, if the twelve thrones of those Iudges of Israel, shall bee conspicuous; how shall wee not aclowledge them? And if these, who shall restrain us from more? You will easily grant, that our love can never fail: Faith and hope give place to sight, to present fruition: for these are of things not seen; but love is perpetual, not of GOD onely, but his Saints: For nothing ceases, but our earthly parts, nothing but what favours of corruption. Christian love is a grace, and may well challenge a place in heaven: and what love is there, of what we know not? More plainly, If the three Disciples in Tabor knew Moses and Elias, how much more shall we know them in Gods Sion? Lastly,( for it is a letter, not a volume, that I intended in this not necessary, but likely discourse) that famous parable can tell you, that those which are in Hell, may know singular and several persons, tho distant in place. The rich Glutton knows Lazarus and Abraham. I hear what you say; It is but a parable: neither will I press you with the contrary authority of Ambrose, Tertullian, Gregory, jerome, or any Father; nor with that universal rule of Chrysostome; that those onely are parables, where examples are expressed, and names concealed: I yield it; yet all holy parables haue their truths, at least their possibilities. deny this, and you disable their use, wrong their Author. Our saviour never said ought was done, that cannot be; and shall then the damned retain ought, which the glorified lose? No man ever held that the soul was advantaged by torment. Comfort you therefore in this; you shall know, and bee known. But far bee from hence all carnal and earthly thoughts; as if your affections should be( as below) doubled to your wife or child. Nature hath no place in glory: here is no respect of blood, none of marriage. This grosser acquaintance and pleasure is for the Paradise of Turkes, not the heaven of Christians. here is as no marriage,( save betwixt the lamb and his Spouse the Church) so no matrimonial affections: You shall rejoice in your glorified child; not as your child, but as glorified. In brief, let us so inquire of our company, that above all things we strive to be there ourselves, where we are sure, if we haue not what wee imagined, wee shall haue more than we could imagine.   

To Mr. T. L.  
EP. VII. Concerning the matter of divorce in the case of apparent adultery; advising the innocent party of the fittest course in that behalf.  
ALl intermeddling is attended with danger,& ever so much more, as the bond of the parties contending is nearer, and straighter: how can it then want peril to judge betwixt those which are, or should be one flesh? yet great necessities require hazard. My profession would justly check me, if I preferred not your conscience to my own love. I pity and lament, that your own bosom is false to you; that yourself, with shane, and with sin, are pulled from yourself, and given to whom you would not: An injury that cannot bee paralleled vpon earth; and such as may without our wonder, distracted you: slight crosses are digested with study, and resolution; greater, with time; the greatest, not without study, time, counsel. There is no extreme evil, whose evasions are not perplexed. I see here mischief on either hand: I see you beset, not with griefs onely, but dangers. No man ever more truly held a wolf by the ear; which he can neither stay, nor let go, with safety. Gods ancient Law would haue made a quick dispatch, and haue determined the case, by the death of the offender, and the liberty of the innocent;& not it alone: How many heathen Law-giuers haue subscribed to Moses? Arabians, Grecians, Romans, yea very goths, the dregs of barbarism, haue thought this wrong not expiable, but by blood. With us, the easiness of reuenge, as it yields frequency of offences, so multitude of doubts: Whether the wronged husband should conceal, or complain: complaining, whether he should retain, or dismiss: dismissing, whether he may mary, or must continue single: not continuing single, whether he may receive his own, or choose another: But your inquiries shal be my bounds. The fact( you say) is too evident. Let me ask you; To yourself, or to the world? This point alone must vary your proceedings. public notice requires public discharge: private wrongs are in our own power: public, in the hands of authority. The thoughts of our own breasts, while they smother themselves within us, are at our command, whether for suppressing, or expressing: But if they once haue vented themselves by words, unto others ears, now( as common strays) they must stand to the hazard of censure: such are our actions. Neither the sword, nor the keys, meddle within doors; and what but they without? If famed haue laid hold on the wrong, prosecute it, clear your name, clear your house, yea Gods. Else you shall bee reputed a Pander to your own bed: and the second shane s●all surpass the first, so much as your own fault can more blemish you, than anothers. If there were no more; He is cruelly merciful, that neglects his own famed. But what if the sin were shrouded in secrecy? The lothsomenesse of 'vice consists not in common knowledge. It is no less heinous, if less talked of. Report gives but shane: God and the good soul detest close evils. Yet then, I ask not of the offence, but of the offender; not of her crime, but her repentance. Shee hath sinned against heaven, and you: But hath shee washed your polluted bed with her tears? Hath her true sorrow been no less apparent, than her sin? Hath shee pieced her old vow, with new protestations of fidelity? do you find her at once humbled, and changed? Why should that ear bee deaf t● her prayers, that was open to her accusations? Why is there not yet place for mercy? Why do we Christians live as under martiall law, wherein wee sin but once? pled not authority: civilians haue been too rigorous: the merciful sentence of divinity shall sweetly temper human seuerenesse. How many haue we known the better for their sin? That Magdalene( her predecessor in filthiness) had never loved so much, if she had not so much sinned. How oft hath Gods Spouse deserved a divorce? which yet still her confessions, her tears haue reversed. How oft hath that scroll been written, and signed; and yet again canceled, and torn, vpon submission? His actions, not his words only, are our precepts: Why is man cruel, where God relents? The wrong is ours only, for his sake; without whose law were no sin. If the creditor please to remit the debt, do standards by complain? But if she be at once filthy, and obstinate, fly from her bed, as contagious. Now your benevolence is adultery, you impart your body to her; she her sin to you: A dangerous exchange; An honest body for an harlots sin: Herein you are in cause, that shee hath more than one adulterer. I applaud the rigor of those ancient Canons, which haue stil roughly censured even this cloak of 'vice: As there is a necessity of charity in the former, so of iustice in this. If you can so love your wife that you detest not her sin, you are a better husband than a Christian, a better bawd than an husband. I dare say no more vpon so general a relation; good Physitians in dangerous diseases dare not prescribe on bare sight of urine, or uncertain report, but will feel the pulse, and see the symptoms, ere they resolve on the receipt. You see how no niggard I am of my counsels; would God I could as easily assuage your grief, as satisfy your doubts.   

To Mr. Robert Haye.  
EP. jix. A Discourse of the continual exercise of a Christian, how he may keep his heart from hardness, and his ways from error.  
TO keep the heart in ure with God, is the highest task of a Christian. Good motions are not frequent, but the constancy of good disposition is rare and hard. This work must be continual, or else speedeth not: like as the body from a settled and habitual distemper must be recovered by long diets, and so much the rather, for that wee can not intermit here without relapses. If this field be not tilled every day, it will run out into thistles. The evening is fittest for this work, when retired into ourselves, wee must cheerfully, and constantly, both look up to God,& into our hearts; as we haue to do with both: to God in thanksgiving first, then in request. It shall be therefore expedient for the soul duly to recount to itself all the specialities of Gods favours: a confused thanks savours of carelessness, and neither doth affect us, nor win acceptance above. bethink yourself then of all these external, inferior, earthly graces: that your being, breathing, life, motion, reason is from him; that he hath given you a more noble nature, than the rest of the creatures, excellent faculties of mind, perfection of senses, soundness of body, competency of estate, seemliness of condition, fitness of calling, preservation from dangers, rescue out of miseries, kindness of friends, carefulness of education, honesty of reputation, liberty of recreations, quietness of life, opportunity of well-doing, protection of Angels. Then rise higher to his spiritual favours, tho here on earth, and strive to raise your affections with your thoughts: bless God that you were born in the light of the gospel, for your profession of the Truth, for the honour of your vocation, for your incorporating into the Church, for the privilege of the Sacraments, the free use of the Scriptures, the Communion of Saints, the benefit of their prayers, the aid of their counsels, the pleasure of their conversation; for the beginnings of regeneration, any footsteps of faith, hope, love, zeal, patience, peace, ioy, conscionablenesse, for any desire of more. Then let your soul mount highest of all, into her heaven, and aclowledge those celestial graces of her election to glory, redemption from shane and death, of the intercession of her saviour, of the preparation of her place; and there let her stay a while vpon the meditation of her future joys. This done, the way is made for your request; Sue now to your God; as for grace to answer these mercies, so to see wherein you haue not answered them: From him therefore, cast your eyes down vpon yourself, and as some careful Iustice● doth a suspected fellow, so do you strictly examine your heart, of what you haue done that day; of what you should haue done; inquire whether your thoughts haue been sequestered to God, strangers from the world, fixed on heaven; whether just, charitable, lowly, pure Christian; whether your senses haue been holily guided, neither to let in temptations, nor to let out sins; whether your speeches haue not been offensive, vain, rash, indiscreet, vnsauory, vnedifying; whether your actions haue been warrantable, expedient, comely, profitable. Thence, see if you haue been negligent in watching your heart, expense of your time, exercises of devotion, performance of good works, resistance of temptations, good use of good examples: and compare your present estate with the former, look iealously, whether your soul hath gained or lost; lost ought of the heat of her love, tenderness of conscience, fear to offend, strength of virtue; gained, more increase of grace, more assurance of glory. And when you find( alas who can but find?) either holinesse decayed, or evil done, or good omitted, cast down your eyes, strike your breast, humble your soul, and sigh to him whom you haue offended; sue for pardon as for life, hearty, yearningly: enjoin yourself careful amendment, redouble your holy resolutions, strike hands with God in a new covenant: My soul for your safety. Much of this good counsel I confess to haue learned from the Table of an unknown Author, at antwerp. It contented me: and therefore I haue thus made it( by many alterations) my own for form, and yours for the use: Our practise shall both commend it, and make us happy.   

To Mr. I. F. one of the company of the Turkish Merch.  
EP. IX. Discoursing of the lawfulness of conversation and trade with Infidels and heretics, and showing how far and wherein it is allowable.  
IN matter of sin I dare not discommend much fear: looseness is both a more ordinary fault, and more dangerous, than excess of care: yet herein the mind may be unjustly tortured,& suffer without gain. It is good to know our bounds, and keep them; that so we may neither bee carelessly offensive, nor needlessly afflicted. How far wee may travell to, and converse with Infidels, with heretics, is a long demand, and cannot bee answered at once. I see extremes on both hands, and a path of truth betwixt both, of no small latitude. First I commend not this course to you; it is well, if I allow it. The earth is large; and truth hath ample Dominions; and those not in commodious, not unpleasant. To neglect the main blessings with competency of the inferior; for abundance of the inferior, without the main, were a choice unwise and unequal. While we are free, who would take ought but the best? Whither go you? Haue we not as temperate a sun, as faire an heaven, as fertile an Earth, as rich a sea, as sweet companions? What stand I on equality? a firmer peace, a freeer gospel, an happier government than the world can show you? yet you must go: I give you my allowance; but limited, and full of cautions: like an inquisitive Officer, you must let me ask, who, how, when, whither, why, how long, and accordingly determine. To communicate with them in their false services, who will not spit at as impious? We speak of conversing with men, not with idolatries: civilly, not in Religion: not in works of darkness, but business of commerce, and common indifferencies. Fie on those Rimmonites, that plead an upright soul in a prostrate body: Hypocrites, that pretend a Nathaniel in the skin of a Nicodemus. God hates their secret halting, and will reuenge it. Let go their vices; speak of their persons: Those may be conversed with; not with familiarity, not with entireness: as men qualified, not as friends. traffic is here allowed, not amity; not friendship, but peace. Paul will allow you to feast at their table, not to frequent it: yet not this to all. Christianity hath all statures in it, all strengths: children, and men, weaklings, Giants. For a feeble ungrounded Christian, this very company is dangerous: safe for the strong and instructed. turn a child loose into an Apothecaries shop, or an Idiot: that gally-pot which looks fairest, shall haue his first hand, tho full of poisonous drugs: where the judicious would choose the wholesomest, lead not by sense, but skill. settledness in the truth will cause us to hate and scorn ridiculous impiety, and that hate will settle us the more; where the vnstayd may grow to less dislike, and endanger his own infection. He had need be a resolute Caleb that should go to spy the land of Canaan; yet not such a one, vpon every occasion: mere pleasure or curiosity I dare not allow in this adventure. The command of authority, or necessity of traffic I can not reject: Or if after sufficient prevention, desire to inform ourselves thoroughly in a foreign religion, or state( especially for public use) carry us abroad, I censure not. In all matter of danger, a calling is a good warrant; and it can not want peril to go unsent: Neither is there small weight in the quality of the place, and continuance of the time. It is one ease where the profession of our religion is free, another where restrained; perhaps not without constraint to idolatry: where we haue means for our souls, an allowed ministry, the case must needs differ from a place of necessary blindness, of peevish superstition. To pass thorough an infected place is one thing, to dwell in it another: each of these give a new state to the cause, and look for a diuers answer. But as in all these outward actions, so here, most force( I confess) lies in the intention; which is able to give not toleration onely to our travell, but praise; to converse with them without, but in a purpose of their conversion, and with endeavour to fetch them in, can be no other than an holy course: wherein that the jesuits haue been( by their own saying) more serviceable in their Indies and China; let them thank( after their number and leisure) their shelter of spain: the opportunity of whose patronage hath preferred them to us; not their more forward desires. In short, companying with Infidels may not be simply condemned; who can hold so, that sees Lot in Sodom, Israel with the Egyptians, Abraham and Isaac with their Abimelechs; Roses among thorns, and pearls among much mud; and, for all, Christ among Publicans and Sinners? so wee neither be infected by them, nor they further infected by our confirmation; nor the weak Christian by us infected with offence, nor the gospel infected with reproach; what danger can there be? If neither wee, nor they, nor the weak, nor( which is highest) the Name of God be wronged; who can complain? You haue mine opinion, dispose now of yourself as you dare: The earth is the Lords, and you are his; wheresoever he shall find you, be sure you shall find him every where.   

To the Gentlemen of his Highnesses Court.  
EP. X. A description of a good and faithful Courtier.  
WHiles I adventured other characters into the light, I reserved one for you; whom I account no small part of my ioy; The Character of What you are, of What you should be: Not that I arrogate to myself, more than ordinary skill in these high points; I desire not to describe a Courtier: How should I, that haue but seen and saluted the seat of Princes? Or why should I, whose thoughts are sequestered to the Court of heaven? But if I would decipher a good Courtier, who can herein control my endeavour? goodness in all forms is but the just subject of our profession: what my observation could not, no less certain rule shall afford me. Our Discourse hath this freedom, that it may reach beyond our eyes with belief. If your experience agree not with my speculation, distrust me. I care not for their barking, which condemn me, at first, of incongruity; as if these two terms were so dissonant, that one sentence could not hold them. The Poet slanders, that abandons all good men from Courts. Who knows not that the Egyptian Court had a Moses; the Court of Samaria an Obadiah; of jerusalem an Ebed-melech; of Damascus a Naaman; of Babylon a Daniel; of Ethiope a good Treasurer; and very Neroes Court in Pauls time, his Saints. That I may not tell, how the Courts of Christian Princes haue been likened by our ecclesiastical historians, to some royal Colleges for their order, gravity, goodness mixed with their majesty; and that I may willingly forbear to compare( as, but for envy, I durst) yours with theirs. I speak boldly, the Court is as nigh to heaven as the Cell, and doth no less require, and admit strict holinesse. I banish therefore hence all impiety, and dare presage his ruin whose foundation is not laid in goodness. Our Courtier is no other than virtuous, and serves the God of heaven as his first Master, and from him derives his duty to these earthen gods; as one that knows the thrones of heaven and earth are not contrary, but subordinate,& that best obedience springs from devotion: his ability and will haue both conspired to make him perfectly serviceable, and his diligence waits but for an opportunity. In the factions of some great rivals of honor, he holds himself in a free neutrality, accounting it safer in unjust frays to look on, than to strike; and if necessity of occasion will needs wind him into the quarrel, he chooses not the stronger part, but the better; resolving rather to fall with innocence and truth, than to stand with powerful injustice. In the changes of favours and frowns he changeth not; his sincere honesty bears him thorough all alterations, with wise boldness, if not with success: and when he spies clouds in the eyes of his Prince( which yet of long he will not seem to see) his clear heart gives him a clear face; and if he may be admitted, his loyal breath shall soon dispel those vapours of ill suggestion: but if after all attempts of wind and sun he sees them settled, and the might of his accusers will not let him seem as he is; he gives way in silence, without stomach, and waits vpon Time. he is not ouer-hastily intent vpon his own promotion, as one that seeks his Prince, not himself; and studies more to deserve than rise, scorning either to grow great by his own bribes, ot rich by the bribes of others. His officious silence craves more than others words; and if that language be not heard, nor understood, he opens his mouth, yet late and sparingly; without bashfulness, without importunity; caring only to motion, not caring to pled. He is affable and courteous, not vainly popular; abasing his Princes favour to woe the worthless applause of the vulgar; approving by his actions that he seeks one, not many; if not rather, one in many. His Alphabet is his Princes disposition; which once learned, he plies with diligent service, not with flattery; not commending every action as good, nor the best too much; and in presence. When he finds an apparent growth of favour, he dares not glory in it to others, lest he should solicit their envy, and hazard the shane of his own fall; but enjoys it in quiet thankfulness: not neglecting it, not drawing it on too fast: overmuch forwardness argues no perpetuity. How oft haue we known the weak beginnings of a likely fire scattered with ouer-strong a blast? And if another rise higher, he envieth not; onely emulating that mans merit, and suspecting his own. Neither the name of the Court, nor the grace of a Prince, nor applause of his inferiors, can lift him above himself, or led him to affect any other than a wise mediocrity. His own sincerity cannot make him ouer-credulous. They are few, and well tried, whom he dares use; or perhaps obliged by his own favours: so in all employments of friendship he is wary without suspicion, and without credulity charitable. He is free, as of heart, so of tongue, to speak what he ought, not what he might: never but( what Princes ears are not always enured to) mere Truth: yet that, tempered for the measure, and time, with honest discretion. But if he meet with ought that might bee beneficial to his master, or the state, or whose concealment might prove prejudicial to either, neither fear nor gain can stop his mouth. He is not basely querulous, not forward to spend his complaints on the disgraced, not abiding to build his own favours vpon the unjust ruins of an oppressed fortune. The errors of his fellowes he reports with favour; their virtues with advantage. he is a good husband of his houres; equally detesting idleness and base disports; and placing all his free time vpon ingenuous studies, or generous delights; such as may make either his body, or mind, more fit for noble service. He listeth not to come to counsel uncalled, nor unbidden to intermeddle with secrets, whether of person, or state; which yet once imposed, he manageth, with such fidelity and wisdom, as well argue him to haue refrained, not out of fear, but iudgement: He knows how to repay an injury with thankes, and a benefit with usury; the one out of a wise patience without malicious closeness; the other out of a bounteous thankfulness. His life is his own willing seruant, and his Princes free vassal; which he accounts lent to him, that he may give it for his master: the intercepting of whose harms he holds both his duty, and honour;& whether he be used as his sword, or his shield, he doth both with cheerfulness. He can so demean himself in his officious attendance, that he equally auoids satiety and oblivion; not needlessly lavish of himself, to set out and show his parts always at the highest; nor wilfully concealed in great occasions. he loues to deserve and to haue friends, but to trust rather to his own virtue. Reason and honesty( next under religion) are his counsellors, which he follows without care of the event, not without foresight. In a iudgement of vnkindnesse and envy, he never casts the first ston, and hates to pick thanks by detraction. He undertakes none but worthy suits, such as are free from baseness and injustice; such as it neither shane to ask, nor dishonour to grant; not suffering private affections to ouer-weigh public equity or convenience; and better brooking a friends want, than an ill precedent; and those which he yeeldeth to accept, he loues not to linger in an afflicting hope: a present answer shall dispatch the fears or desires of his expecting client. His breast is not a cistern to retain, but as a conduit-pipe, to vent the reasonable and honest petitions of his friend. Finally, he so lives, as one that accounts not Princes favours hereditary; as one that will deserve their perpetuity, but doubt their change; as one that knows there is a wide world beside the Court, and above this world an heaven.    

EPISTLES, THE fourth Decade.   

¶ The Fourth Decade.  

EPIST. I. To Mr. Walter Fitzwilliams. EP. I. A Discourse of the true and lawful use of pleasures; how we may moderate them, how we may enjoy them with safety.  
INdeed; wherein stands the use of wisdom, if not in tempering our pleasures and sorrows? and so disposing ourselves in spite of all occurrents, that the world may not blow vpon us with an unequal gale, neither tearing our sails, nor slackening them. events will varie; if we continue the same, it matters not: nothing can overturn him, that hath power over himself. Of the two, I confess it harder to manage prosperity, and to avoid hurt from good: strong and cold winds do but make us gather up our cloak more round, more close; but to keep it about us in a hote sunshine, to run and not sweat, to sweat and not faint; how difficult it is! I see some that avoid pleasures for their danger, and which dare not but abandon lawful delights, for fear of sin; who seem to me like some ignorant Metallists, which cast away the precious Ore, because they can not separate the gold from the dross; or some simplo jew, that condemns the pure streams of jordan, because it falls into the dead sea. Why do not these men refuse to eat, because meat hath made many Gluttons? Or, how dare they cover themselves, that know there is pride in rags? These hard Tutors, if not Tyrants, to themselves, whiles they pretend a mortified strictness, are injurious to their own liberty, to the liberality of their Maker: Wherefore hath he created, and given the choice commodities of this earth, if not for use? Or why placed he Man in a Paradise, not in a Desert? How can we more displease a liberal friend, than to depart from his delicate feast wilfully hungry? They are deceived that call this holinesse; it is the disease of a mind sullen, distrustful, impotent: There is nothing but evil, which is not from heaven; and he is none of Gods friends, that rejects his gifts for his own abuse. hear me therefore, and true philosophy; There is a nearer way than this, and a fairer: if you will be a wise Christian, tread in it. learn first by a just survey, to know the due and lawful bounds of pleasure; and then beware, either to go beyond a known more, or in the licence of your own desires, to remove it. That God, that hath curbed in the fury of that unquiet and foaming element▪ and said of old, here shalt thou stay thy proud waves, hath done no less for the rage of our appetite. behold, our limits are not obscure; which if wee once pass, our inundation is perilous and sinful. No just delight wanteth either his warrant, or his terms. More plainly, be acquainted both with the quality of pleasures, and the measure: many a soul hath lost itself in a lawful delight, through excess: and not fewer haue perished in those, whose nature is vicious, without respect of immoderation: Your care must avoid both. The taste of the one is deadly, of the other, a full carovie: and in truth, it is easier for a Christian, not to taste of that, than not to be drunk with this. The ill is more easily avoided, than the indifferent moderated. Pleasure is of a winding, and serpentine nature; admit the head, the body will ask no leave: and sooner may you stop the entrance, than stay the proceeding. Withall, her insinuations are so cunning, that you shall not perceive your excess, till you be sick of a surfet: A little honey is sweet; much, fulsome. For the attaining of this temper, then, settle in yourself a right estimation of that wherein you delight: resolve every thing into his first matter, and there will be more danger of contempt, than ouer-ioying. What are the goodly sumptuous buildings we admire, but a little burnt and hardened earth? What is the stately and wondrous building of this human body, whose beauty wee dote vpon, but the same earth we tread on, better tempered; but worse, when it wants his guest? What are those precious metals whom wee worship, but veins of earth better coloured? What are costly robes, but such as are given of worms, and consumed of moths? Then, from their beginning, look to their end, and see laughter conclude in tears; see death in this sweet pot. Thy conscience scourges thee with a long smart for a short liberty, and for an imperfect delight, gives thee perfect torment: Alas, what an hard penny-worth; so little pleasure for so much repentance! enjoy it, if thou canst; but if while the sword hangs over thee in an horses hair, still threatening his fall and thine, thou canst be securely jocund; I wonder, but envy not. Now I hear you recall me, and after all my discourse( as no whit yet wiser) inquire by what rule our pleasures shall be judged immoderate? Wee are all friends to ourselves, and our indulgence will hardly call any favor too much. I sand you not( tho I might) to your body, to your calling for this trial; while your delights exclude not the presence, the fruition of God, you are safe: the love of the medicine is no hindrance to the love of health: let all your pleasures haue reference to the highest good, and you can not exceed. You see the Angels sent about Gods messages to this earth, yet never out of their heaven, never without the vision of their Maker. These earthly things cause not distraction, if wee rest not in them, if wee can look thorough them, to their giver. The mind that desires them for their own sakes, and suffers itself taken up with their sweetness as his main end, is already drunken. It is not the use of pleasure that offends, but the affectation. How many great Kings haue been Saints? They could not haue been Kings without choice of earthly delights; they could not haue been Saints with earthly affections. If God haue mixed you a sweet cup, drink it cheerfully; commend the taste, and be thankful; but rejoice in it as his. use pleasures without dotage; as in God, from God, to God; you are as free from error, as misery.   

Written to W. F. and DD. to Mr. Robert Jermin.  
EP. II. A Discourse of the bloody use of single combats; the injustice of all pretences of their lawfulness; setting forth the danger and sinfulness of this false and vnchristian manhood.  
you haue received a proud challenge, and now hold yourself bound vpon terms of honour, to accept it. hear first the answer of a friend, before you give an answer to your enemy; receive the counsel of love, ere you enter those courses of reuenge: think not you may reject me, because my profession is Peace; I speak from him, which is not only the Prince of Peace, but the God of Hosts; of whom if you will not learn to manage your hand and your sword, I shall grieve to see, that courage hath made you rebellious. Grant once that you are a Christian, and this victory is mine; I overcome, and you fight not: would God the fury of mens passions could be as easily conquered, as their judgements convinced; how many thousands had been free from blood! This conceit of false fortitude hath cost wel-neere as many lives as lawful war, or, as opinion of heresy. Let me tell you with confidence, that all duels or single Combats are murderous; blanch them over( how you list) with names of honour, and honest pretences; their use is sinful, and their nature devilish.  
Let us two, if you please,( before hand) enter into these lists of words. Let reason( which is a more harmless fight) conflict with reason: Take whom you will with you into this field; of all the Philosophers, civilians, Canonists; for divines( I hope) you shall find none; and let the right of this truth be tried vpon a just induction.  
I only premise this caution,( lest wee quarrel about the cause of this quarrel) that necessity must be excluded from these unlawful fights; which ever alters their quality, and removes their evil: The defence of our life, the injunction of a Magistrate, are ever excepted: voluntary combats are onely questioned; or whose necessity wee do not find, but make. There are not many causes that can draw us forth single into the field, with colour of equity. Let the first be the trial of some hidden right; whether of innocence vpon a false accusation, or of title to inheritance, not determinable by course of laws. A proceeding not tolerable among Christians, because it wants both warrant and certainty. Where ever did God bid thee hazard thy life for thy name? Where did he promise to second thee? When thou art without thy commandement, without his promise, thou art without thy protection. He takes charge of thee, but when thou art in thy ways; yea in his. If this be Gods way, where did he chalk it out? If thou want his word, look not for his aid. Miserable is that man, which in dangerous actions, is left to his own keeping; yea how plainly doth the event show Gods dislike? How oft hath innocence lain bleeding in these combats, and guiltiness insulted in the conquest? Those very decretals( whom we oft city not, often trust not) report the inequality of this issue. Two men are brought to the bar, one accuses the other of theft, without further evidence, either to clear, or convince: The sword is called for, both witness, and judge: They meet, and combat: The innocent party is slain: The stolen goods are found after in other hands, and confessed. O the injustice of human sentences! O wretched estate of the party miscarried! His good name is lost with his life, which he would haue redeemed with his valour: he both dies and sins, while he strives to seem clear of a sin. Therefore men say he is guilty, because he is dead, while the others wickedness is rewarded with glory. I am deceived, if in this case there were not three murderers; the judge, the adversary, himself. Let no man challenge God for neglect of innocence, but rather magnify him for reuenge of presumption. What he enjoins, that he undertakes, he maintains: who art thou, o vain man, that darest expect him a party in thine own brawls? But there is no other way of trial: better none than this. innocency or land is questioned; and now we sand two men into the lists, to try whether is the better fencer: what is the strength of skill of the champians, to the iustice of the cause? Wherefore serve our own oaths, where to witness, records, lotteries, and other purgations? Or why put we not men as well to the old Saxon, or Liuonian, Ordalian trials of hote irons, or scalding liquours? It is far better some truths should be unknown, than unlawfully preached. Another cause seemingly warrantable may be the determining of war, prevention of common bloodshed: Two armies are ready to join battle, the field is sure to be bloody on both sides; either part chooses a champian; they two fight for all: the life of one shall ransom a thousand. Our Philosophers, our Lawyers shout for applause of this Monomachy, as a way near, easy, safe: I dare not: Either the war is just, or unjust: if unjust, the hazard of one is too much; if just, too little. The cause of a just war must be, besides true, important; the title common, wherein stil a whole state is interested; therefore may not, without rashness and tentation of God, be cast vpon two hands. The holy story never records any, but a barbarous Philistine, to make this offer, and that in the presumption of his vnmatchablenesse. Profane monuments report many,& some on this ground wisely rejected. Tullus challenged Albanus, that the right of the two hosts might be decided by the two captaines; he returned a grave reply( which I never red noted of cowardice) That this suit of honor stood not in them two, but in the two cities of Alba and Rome.  
All causes of public right are Gods: when we put to our hand in Gods cause, then may we look for his. In vain we hope for success, if we do not our utmost; wherefore either war must bee determined without swords, or with many: why should all the heads of the Common-wealth stand vpon the neck and shoulders of one Champian? If he miscarry, it is injury to lose her; if he prevail, yet it is injury to hazard her: yet respecting the parties themselves, I can not but grant it nearest to equity, and the best of combats, that some blood should bee hazarded, that more may bee out of hazard. I descend to your case, which is yet further from likelihood of approofe; for what can you pled but your credit? others opinion? You fight, not so much against anothers life, as your own reproach: you are wronged, and now if you challenge not; or you are challenged, and if you accept not, the world condemns you for a coward; who would not rather hazard his life, than blemish his reputation? It were well, if this resolution were as wise as gallant. If I speak to a Christian, this courage must be rectified. Tell me, what world is this, whose censure you fear? Is it not that, which God hath branded long ago with Positus in maligno? Is it not that which hath ever misconstrued, discouraged, disgraced, persecuted goodness? That which reproached, condemned your saviour? What do you under these colours, if you regard the favour of that, whose amity is enmity with God? What care you for the censure of him, whom you should both scorn and vanquish? Did ever wise Christians, did ever your Master allow either this manhood, or this fear? Was there ever any thing more strictly, more fearfully forbidden of him, than reuenge in the challenge; than in the answer, payment of evil; and murder in both? It is pity, that ever the water of baptism was spilled vpon his face, that cares more to discontent the world, than to wrong God: He saith, Vengeance is mine: and you steal it from him in a glorious theft, hazarding your soul more than your body. You are weary of yourself, while you thrust one part vpon the sword of an enemy, the other, on Gods. Yet, perhaps I haue yielded too much. Let go Christians; The wiser world of men( and who else are worth respect?) will not pass this odious verdict vpon your refusal: valiant men haue rejected challenges, with their honours untainted. Augustus, when he received a defiance, and brave appointment of combat from Antony, could answer him, That if Antony were weary of living, there were ways enough besides to death. And that Scythian King returned no other reply to John the Emperour of Constantinople. And Metellus challenged by Sertorius, durst answer scornfully, with his pen, not with his sword; That it was not for a captain to die a souldiers death. Was it not dishonourable for these wise and noble Heathens to turn off these desperate offers? What law hath made it so with us? Shall I seriously tell you? Nothing, but the mere opinion of some humorous gallants, that haue more heart than brain; confirmed by a more idle custom: worthy grounds, whereon to spend both life and soul; whereon to neglect God, himself, posterity. Go now& take up that sword, of whose sharpness you haue boasted, and hasten to the field; whether you die or kill, you haue murdered. If you survive, you are haunted with the conscience of blood; if you die, with the torments; and if neither of these, yet it is murder, that you would haue killed. See whether the famed of a brave fight can yield you a counteruailable redress of these mischiefs: how much more happily valiant had it been to master yourself, to fear sin more than shane, to contemn the world, to pardon a wrong, to prefer true christianity, before idle manhood, to live and do well!   

To Mr. Mat. Milward.  
EP. III. A Discourse of the pleasure of study and contemplation, with the varieties of Scholar-like employments, not without incitation of others thereunto; and a censure of their neglect.  
I Can wonder at nothing more, than how a man can be idle; but of all other, a Scholar; in so many improuements of reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety of studies, in such importunity of thoughts. Other artisans do but practise, we still learn; others run still in the same gyre, to weariness, to satiety, our choice is infinite: other labours require recreations, our very labour recreats our sports: we can never want, either somewhat to do, or somewhat that we would do. How numberless are those volumes which men haue written, of arts, of tongues! How endless is that volume which GOD hath written of the world! wherein every creature is a letter, every day a new page.: who can be weary of either of these? To find wit in poetry, in philosophy profoundness, in mathematics acuteness, in history wonder of events, in oratory sweet eloquence, in divinity supernatural light and holy devotion; as so many rich metals in their proper mines, whom would it not ravish with delight? After all these, let us but open our eyes, wee can not look beside a lesson, in this universal book of our Maker, worth our study, worth taking out. What creature hath not his miracle? what event doth not challenge his observation? And if weary of foreign employment we list to look home into ourselves, there we find a more private world of thoughts, which set us on work anew, more busily, not less profitable; now, our silence is vocal, our solitariness popular, and wee are shut up, to do good unto many. And if once wee be cloyed with our own company, the door of conference is open; here interchange of discourse( besides pleasure) benefits us: and he is a weak companion, from whom we return not wiser. I could envy, if I could beleeue, that Anachoret, who secluded from the world, and penned up in his voluntary prisonwalles, denied that he thought the day long, whiles yet he wanted learning to varie his thoughts. Not to be cloyed with the same conceit, is difficult above human strength; but to a man so furnished with all sorts of knowledge, that according to his dispositions he can change his studies, I should wonder, that ever the Sun should seem to place slowly. How many busy tongues chase away good houres in pleasant chat, and complain of the hast of night! What ingenuous mind can be sooner weary of talking with learned authors, the most harmless, and sweetest of companions? What an heaven lives a Scholar in, that at once in one close room can daily converse with all the glorious Martyrs and Fathers? That can single out, at pleasure, either sententious Tertullian, or grave Cyprian, or resolute jerome, or flowing Chrysostome, or divine Ambrose, or devout Bernard, or( who alone is all these) heavenly Augustine, and talk with them, and hear their wise and holy counsels, verdicts, resolutions: yea,( to rise higher) with courtly Esay, with learned Paul, withall their fellow-Prophets, Apostles: yet more, like another Moses, with God himself, in them both? Let the world contemn us; while we haue these delights, wee cannot envy them: wee cannot wish ourselves other than we are. Besides, the way to al other contentments is troublesone; the only recompense is in the end. To delve in the mines, to scorch in the fire for the getting, for the fining of gold, is a slavish toil; the comfort is in the wedge; to the owner, not the labourers; where our very search of knowledge is delightsome. Study itself, is our life; from which wee would not bee barred for a World. How much sweeter then is the fruit of study, the conscience of knowledge? In comparison whereof, the soul that hath once tasted it, easily contemns all human comforts. go now ye worldlings, and insult over our paleness, our neediness, our neglect. ye could not bee so jocund, if you were not ignorant: if you did not want knowledge, you could not overlook him that hath it: For me, I am so far from emulating you, that I profess, I had as leave be a brute beast, as an ignorant rich man. How is it then, that those gallants, which haue privilege of blood and birth, and better education, do so scornfully turn off these most manly, reasonable, noble exercises of scholarship? An hawk becomes their fist better than a book: No dog but is a better companion: Any thing, or nothing, rather than what wee ought. O mindes brutishly sensual! do they think that GOD made them for disport? who even in his Paradise, would not allow pleasure, without work. And if for business; either of body, or mind: Those of the body are commonly servile, like itself. The mind therefore, the mind onely, that honourable and divine part is fittest to be employed of those which would reach to the highest perfection of men, and would bee more than the most. And what work is there of the mind but the trade of a scholar, study? Let me therefore fasten this problem on our Schoole-gates, and challenge all comers in the defence of it; that, No Scholar can not be truly noble. And if I make it not good, let me never bee admitted further than to the subject of our question. Thus we do well to congratulate to ourselves, our own happiness; if others will come to us, it shall be our comfort, but more theirs; if not, it is enough that wee can ioy in ourselves, and in him in whom wee are that we are.   

To Mr. J. P.  
EP. IV. A Discourse of the increase of popery; of the Oath of allegiance; and the just sufferings of those which haue refused it.  
YOu say, your religion daily winneth: brag not of your gain: you neither need, nor can, if you consider how it gets,& whom: How, but by cunning sleights, false suggestions, impudent vntrueths? Who can not thus prevail against a quiet and innocent adversary? Whom, but sillie women, or men notoriously debauched? A spoil fit for such a conquest, for such Victours. Wee are the fewer, not the worse: if all our licentious hypocrites were yours, wee should not complain; and you might be the prouder, not the better. Glory you in this triumph, free from our envy, who know wee haue lost none, but( by whom you save nothing) either loose or simplo. It were pity that you should not foregoe some in a better exchange. The sea never incrocheth vpon our shore, but it loseth elsewhere: some we haue happily fetch't into the fold of our Church, out of your wastes; some others( tho few, and scarce a number) we haue sent into their heaven. Amongst these, your late second Garnet lived to proclaim himself a Martyr; and by dying, persuaded. poor man, how happy were he, if he might be his own judge. That which gave him confidence, would give him glory: you beleeue, and well-near adore him. That fatal cord of his, was too little for relics, tho divided into Mathematicke quantites. Whither can not conceit led us? whether for his resolution, or your credulity? His death was fearless: I commend his stomach, not his mind. How many malefactors haue we known that haue laughed vpon their executioner, and jested away their last wind? You might know. It is not long since our norfolk Arrian leap't at his stake. How oft haue you learned in martyrdom to regard not the death but the cause? else, there should be no difference in guilt and innocence, error and truth. What then? Died he for Religion? This had been but your own measure: wee endured your flames, which these gibbets could not acquit. But dare impudency itself affirm it? Not for mere shane, against the evidence of so many tongues, ears, records. Your prosperity, your numbers argue enough that a man may be a Papist in britain, and live. If treason be your religion, who will wonder that it is capital? defy that divell which hath mocked you with this mad opinion, that treachery is holinesse, devotion cruelty and disobedience. I foresee your evasion: Alas, it is easy for a spiteful construction to fetch Religion within this compass; and to say the swelling of the Foxes forehead is a horn. Nay then, let us fetch some honest Heathen to be judge betwixt us: mere nature in him shal speak unpartially of both. To hold and persuade, that a Christian King may, yea must at the Popes will be dethroned, and murdered; is it the voice of treason, or religion? And it traitorous, whether flatly or by misinferring? Besides his practices, for this he died; witness your own catholics. O God, if this be religion, what can be villainy! Who ever died a malefactor, if this be martyrdom? If this position be meritorious of heaven, hell is feared in vain. O holy Sillae, Mary, Catilines, Cades, Lopezes, Gowries, Vawxes, and who ever haue conspired against lawful majesty! all martyrs of Rome, all Saints of Beckets heaven. How well do those palms of celestial triumph become hands, red with the sacred blood of Gods anointed? I am ashamed to think, that humanity should nourish such monsters, whether of men, or opinions. But you defy this savage factiousnesse, this devotion of divels; and honestly wish both GOD and Caesar his own. I praise your moderation▪ but if you be true, let me yet search you: Can a man be a perfect Papist, without this opinion against it? If he may, then your Garnet and drury died not for religion: if he may not, then popery is treason. choose now whether you will leave your martyrs, or your religion. What you hold of merit, free will, transubstantiation, invocation of saints, false adoration, supremacy of Rome, no man presses, no man inquires: your present inquisition, your former examples would teach us; mercy will not let us learn. The only question is, Whether our King may live, and rule; whether you may refrain from his blood, and not sin: Would you haue a man deny this, and not die? Would you haue a man thus dying honoured? Dare you approve that religion, which defends the fact, canonizes the persons? I hear your answer, from that your great Champian, which not many dayes since, 
The iudgement of a catholic English man banished, &c. concerning the apology of the oath of allegiance, entitled Triplici nodo, &c.  with one blow hath driven out three( not slight) wedges: That not civil obedience is stood vpon, but positive doctrine: That you are ready to swear for the Kings safety, not against the Popes authority: King james must live and reign, but Paulus Quintus must rule and be obeied: and better were it for you to die, than your sworn allegiance should prejudice the See apostolic. An elusion fit for children. What is to dally, if not this? As if he said. The King shall live, unless the Pope will not; That he shal not be discrowned, deposed, massacred by your hands, unless your holy Father should command. But( I ask, as who should not?) What if he do command? What if your 5●● shall breath out( like his predecessors) not threatenings but strong bellowings of excommunications, of deposition of Gods anointed? What if he shall command( after that French fashion) the throats of all heretics to bleed in a night? Pardon you in this: Now it is grown a point of doctrinal divinity, to determine how far the power of Peters successor may extend: You may neither swear, nor say your hands shall not be steep't in the blood of your true sovereign; and to die rather than swear it, is martyrdom. But, what if heaven fall, say you? His holinesse( as you hope) will take none such courses. Woe were us, if our safety depended vpon your hopes, or his mercies. Blessed be that God, which malgrè hath made and kept us happy, and hath lift us above our enemies. But what hope is there, that he who chargeth subiects not to swear allegiance, will never discharge them from allegiance; that those who clamorously and shamelessly complain to the world of our cruelty, will forbear to solicit others cruelty to us? your hopes to you, to us our securities. Is this the religion you father vpon those Christian Patriarks of the primitive age? O blessed Irency, Clemens, Cyprian, Basil, Chrysostome, Augustine, jerome, and thou the severest exactor of just censures, holy Ambrose! how would you haue spit at such a rebellious assertion! What speak I of Fathers? whose very mention in such a cause were injury, were impiety. Which of those cursed heresies of ancient times( for to them I hold it fitter to appeal) haue ever been so desperately shameless, as to breed, to maintain a conceit so palpably unnatural; unless perhaps, those old Antitactae may vpon general tearm●s be compelled to patronise it, while they held it piety to break the laws of their Maker? For you, if you profess not to love willing errors, by this suspect, and judge the rest: you see this defended with equal resolution, and with no less cheerful expense of blood. In the body, where you see one monstrous deformity, you can not affect; if you can do so in your religion, yet how dare you? since the greater half of it stands on no other ground. Only God make you wise, and honest, you shall shake hands with this faction of popery; and I with you, to give you a cheerful welcome into the bosom of the Church.   

To my brother, Mr. Sa. Hall.  
EP. V. A discourse of the great charge of the ministerial function; together with particular directions for due preparation thereunto, and carriage therein.  
IT is a great and holy purpose( dear brother) that you haue entertained, of serving God in his Church: For what higher, or more worthy employment can there be, than to do these divine duties, to such a master, and such a mother? wherein yet I should little rejoice, if any necessity had cast you vpon this refuge: for I hate 〈◇〉 to think that any desperate mind should make divinity but a shift; and dishonour this mistress by being forsaken of the world. This hath been the drift of your education: to this you were born, and dedicated in a direct course. I do willingly encourage you, but not without many cautions. Enter not into so great a service, without much foresight: when your hand is at the plow, it is too late to loo●e back. bethink yourself seriously of the weight of this charge: and let your holy desire bee allayed with 〈◇〉 trembling. It is a foolish rashness of young heads, when they are in Gods chair, to wonder how they came thither, and to forget the awfulness of that place, in the confidence of their own strength; which is ever so much less, as it is more esteemed. I commend not the wayward excuses of Moses, nor the peremptory unwillingness of Ammonius, and friar Thomas, who maimed themselves, that they might be wilfully uncapable. Betwixt both these there is an humble modesty, and religious fearfulness, easily to bee noted in those, whom the Church honours with the name of her Fathers, worthy your imitation: wherein yet you shall need no precedents, if you well consider what worth of parts, what strictness of carriage, what weight of offices, God expects in this vocation. Know first, that in this place there will be more holinesse required of you, than in the ordinary station of a Christian: for whereas before you were but as a common line, now God sets you for a copy of sanctification unto others, wherein every fault is both notable, and dangerous. here is looked for a settled acquaintance with God, and experience both of the proceedings of grace, and of the offers and repulses of temptations; which in vain we shall hope to manage in other hearts, if we haue not found in our own. To speak by aim, or root, of repentance, of contrition, of the degrees of regeneration, and faith, is both harsh, and seldom when, not unprofitable. We trust those Physitians best, which haue tried the virtue of their drugs, esteeming not of those which haue only borrowed of their books. here will be expected a free and absolute government of affections; that you can so steer your own vessel, as not to be transported with fury, with self-love, with immoderation of pleasures, of cares, of desires, with excess of passions; in all which, so must you demean yourself, as one that thinks he is no man of the world, but of God; as one too good( by his double calling) for that, which is either the felicity, or impotency of beasts. Here must be continual and inward exercise of mortification, and severe christianity, whereby the heart is held in due awe, and the weak flames of the spirit quickened, the ashes of our dulness blown off; a practise necessary in him, whose devotion must set many hearts on fire: Here must be wisdom, and inoffensiuenesse of carriage, as of one that goes ever under monitours, and that knows other mens indifferencies are his evils. No man had such need to keep a strict mean. Setting aside contempt, even in observation, behold, we are made a gazing stock to the world, to Angels, to men. The very sail of your estate must be moderated; which if it bear too high( as seldom) it incurs the censure of profusion and epicurism; if too low, of a base and unbeseeming earthliness; your hand may not be too close for others need, nor too open for your own; your conversation may not be rough and sullen, nor over familiar and fawning; whereof the one breeds a conceit of pride, and strangeness; the other, contempt; not loosely merry, not Cynically vnsociable; not contentious in small injuries; in great, not hurtfully patient to the Church: your attire( for whither do not censures reach?) not youthfully wanton, not, in these yeeres, affectedly ancient, but grave and comely, like the mind, like the behaviour of the wearer; your gesture like your habit, neither savouring of giddy lightness, nor ouerly insolence; nor wantonness, nor dull neglect of yourself; but such, as may beseem a mortified mind, full of worthy spirits: your speech like your gesture, not scurrilous, not detracting, not idle, not boasting, not rotten, not peremptory; but honest, mild, fruitful, savoury, and such as may both argue and work grace: your deliberations mature, your resolutions well grounded; your devices sage and holy. 
Wherein let me aduise you, to walk ever in the beaten road of the Church; not to run out into singular paradoxes. And if you meet at any time with private conceits, that seem more probable, suspect them and yourself; and if they can win you to assent, yet smother them in your breast, and do not dare to vent them out, either by your hand or tongue to trouble the common peace. It is a miserable praise, to be a witty disturber.  Neither will it serve you to be thus good alone; but if God shall give you the honour of this estate, the world will look you should be the grave guide of a well-ordered family: for this is proper to us, that the vices of our charge reflect vpon us; the sins of others are our reproach. If another mans children mis-carry, the parent is pitied; if a Ministers, censured; yea, not our seruant is faulty without our blemish. In all these occasions( a misery incident to us alone) our grief is our shane. To descend nearer unto the sacred affairs of this heavenly trade; in a Minister, Gods Church is accounted both his house to dwell in, and his field to work in; wherein( vpon the penalty of a curse) he faithfully, wisely, diligently, devoutly deals with God for his people, with his people for and from God. Whether he instruct, he must do it with evidence of the spirit; or whether he reprove, with courage and zeal; or whether he exhort, with meekness,& yet with power; or whether he confute, with demonstration of truth, not with rage and personal maliciousness, not with a wilful heat of contradiction; or whether he admonish, with long suffering, and love, without prejudice, and partiality: in a word, all these he so doth, as he that desires nothing but to honor God, and save men. His wisdom must discern betwixt his sheep and wolves; in his sheep, betwixt the wholesome and unsound; in the unsound, betwixt the weak and tainted; in the tainted, betwixt the natures, qualities, degrees of the disease, and infection, and to all these he must know to administer a word in season. he hath Antidotes for all temptations, counsels for al doubts, euictions for all errors, for all languishings encouragements. No occasion from any altered estate of the soul may find him unfurnished: He must ascend to Gods Altar with much awe, with sincere and cheerful devotion; so taking, celebrating, distributing his saviour, as thinking himself at table in heaven with the blessed Angels. In the mean time, as he wants not a thankful regard to the Master of the feast, so not care of the guests. The greatness of an offender may not make him sacrilegiously partial, nor the obscurity negligent. I haue said little of any of our duties; and of some, nothing: yet enough, I think, to make you( if not timorous) careful. Neither would I haue you hereupon to hid yourself from this calling, but to prepare yourself for it. These times call for them that are faithful: And if they may spare some learning; conscience they can not. go on happily: it argues a mind Christianly noble, to be encouraged with the need of his labours, with the difficulties.   

To Mrs. A. P.  
EP. VI. A discourse of the signs and proofs of a true Faith.  
THere is no comfort in a secret felicity. To bee happy, and not know it, is little above miserable. Such is your state: only herein better than the common case of the most; that the well of life lies open before you; but your eyes( like Agars) are not open to see it: whiles they haue neither water, nor eyes. We do not much more want that which we haue not, than that which we do not know we haue. Let me sell you some of that spiritual eye-salve which the spirit commends to his Laodiceans; that you may clearly see how well you are. There is nothing but those scales betwixt you and happiness. think not much that I espy in you what yourself sees not. Too much nearness oft-times hindereth sight: and if for the spots of our own faces we trust others eyes, why not for our perfections? You are in heaven, and know it not: he that believes, is already passed from death to life: You beleeue, whiles you complain of unbelief. If you complained not, I should mis-doubt you more, than you do yourself, because you complain. Secure and insolent presumption hath killed many, that breaths nothing but confidence, and safety;& abandons al doubts, and condemns them. That man never believed, that never doubted. This liquour of faith is never pure in these vessels of day, without these lees of distrust. What then? think not that I encourage you to doubt more; but persuade you, not to bee discouraged with doubting. All uncertainty is comfortless: those that teach men to conjecture, and forbid to resolve, red lectures of misery. Those doubts are but to make way for assurance; as the oft-shaking of the three, fastens it more at the root. You are sure of God; but you are afraid of yourself. The doubt is not in his promise; but your application. look into your own heart. How know you that you know any thing, that you beleeue, that you will, that you approve, that you affect any thing? If a man, like yourself, promise you ought, you know whether you trust him, whether you rely yourself on his fidelity. Why can you not know it in him that is God& man? The difference is not in the act, but the object. But if these habits( because of their inward and ambiguous nature) seem hard to bee descried; turn your eyes to those open marks that cannot beguile you: How many haue bragged of their faith, when they haue embraced nothing but a vain cloud of presumption? every man repeats his Creed, few feel it, few practise it. Take two boughs in the dead of winter; how like is one wood to another? how hardly discerned? Afterwards, By their fruit you shall know them. That faith, whose nature was obscure, is evident in his effects. What is faith, but the hand of the soul? What is the duty of the hand, but either to hold, or work? This hand then holds Christ, works obedience and holinesse: and if this act of Apprehension be as secret, as the cause; since the closed hand hideth still what it holdeth; see the hand of faith open; see what it worketh, and compare it with your own proof. Deny if you can( yet I had rather appeal to any judge, than your prejudiced self) that in all your needs, you can step boldly to the Throne of heaven, and freely power out your enlarged heart to your God, and crave of him, whether to receive what you want, or that you may want; what you haue, and would not? Be assured from God, this can be done by no power, but( that you fear to miss) of faith. God, as he is not, so he is not called a father without this. In vain doth he pray, that can not call God father: No father, without the spirit of adoption; no spirit, without faith: without this, you may babble, you can not pray. Assume you that you can pray, I dare conclude vpon my soul, You beleeue. As little as you love yourself, deny if you can, that you love God. Say that your saviour from heaven should ask you Peters question, could your soul return any other answer, than Lord, thou knowest I love thee? Why are you else in such awe to offend, that a world can not bribe you to sin? Why in such deep grief when you haue sinned, that no mirth can refresh you? Why in such fervent desire of enjoying his presence? why in such agony when you enjoy it not? neither doth God love you, neither can you love God without faith. Yet more, do you willingly nourish any one sin in your breast; do you not repent of all? Do you not hate all, tho you can not leave all; do you not complain that you hate them no more? do you not, as for life, wish for holinesse, and endeavour it? Nothing but faith can thus cleanse the heart; that like a good hus-wife sweeps all the foul corners of the soul, and will not leave so much as one web in this roomie house. Trust to it, you can not hate sin for it own sake, and forsake it for Gods sake, without faith: the faithless hath had some remorse and fears, never repentance. Lastly, do you not love a good man for goodness, and delight in Gods saints? Doth not your love lead you to compassion; your compassion to relief? An heart truly faithful can not but haue an hand Christianly bountiful: charity and Faith make up one perfect pair of compasses, that can take the true latitude of a Christian heart: Faith is the one foot, pitched in the center vnmoueablie, whiles charity walks about, in a perfect circled of beneficence: these two never did, never can go asunder. Warrant you your love, I dare warrant your Faith: Wha● need I say more? This heat of your affections, and this light of your works, will evince against all the gates of hell, that you haue the fire of Faith: let your soul then warm itself with these sweet and cordial flames, against all those cold despairs, whereto you are tempted; say, Lord, I beleeue; and I will give you leave still to add, help my unbelief.   

To Mr. Ed. Alleyne.  
EP. VII. A direction how to conceive of God in our deuotions and meditations.  
YOu haue chosen, and judged well: How to conceive of the deity in our prayers, in our meditations, is both the deepest point of all christianity, and the most necessary: so deep, that if we wade into it, we may easily drown, never find the bottom: so necessary, that without it, ourselves, our services are profane, irreligious: we are all born Idolaters, naturally prove to fashion God to some form of our own, whether of an human body, or of admirable light; or if our mind haue any other more likely, and pleasing image. First then, away with all these wicked thoughts, these gross deuotions, and with jacob bury all your strange Gods under the oak of Shechem, ere you offer to set up Gods Altar at Bethel, and without all mental representations, conceive of your God purely, simply, spiritually; as of an absolute being, without form, without matter, without composition; yea, an infinite, without all limit of thoughts. Let your heart adore a spiritual majesty, which it can not comprehend, yet knows to bee; and, as it were, lose itself in his infiniteness. think of him, as not to be thought of, as one, whose wisdom is his iustice, whose iustice is his power, whose power is his mercy; and whose wisdom, iustice, power, mercy is himself: as without quality good, great without quantity, everlasting without time, present every where without place, containing all things without extent: and when your thoughts are come to the highest, stay there, and be content to wonder, in silence:& if you can not reach to conceive of him as he is, yet take heed you conceive not of him as he is not. Neither will it suffice your Christian mind, to haue this awful and confused apprehension of the deity, without a more special and inward conceit of three in this one; three persons in this one essence, not divided, but distinguished; and not more mingled than divided. There is nothing, wherein the want of words can wrong and grieve us, but in this: Here alone, as we can adore, and not conceive; so wee can conceive, and not utter; yea, utter ourselves, and not be conceived: yet as we may, think here of one substance in three subsistences; one essence in three relations; one Iehouah begetting, begotten, proceeding; Father, son, Spirit: yet so, as the son is no other thing from the Father, but another person; or the Spirit from the son. Let your thoughts here walk warily, the path is narrow: the conceit either of three substances or but one subsistence, is damnable. Let me lead you yet higher, and further, in this intricate way, towards the Throne of Grace: All this will not avail you, if you take not your Mediator with you: if you apprehended not a true manhood, gloriously united to the Godhead, without change of either nature, without mixture of both; whose presence, whose merits must give passage, acceptance, vigour, to your prayers.  
here must be therefore( as you see) thoughts holily mixed: of a Godhead and humanity: one person in two natures: of the same deity, in diuers persons, and one nature: wherein( if ever) heavenly wisdom must bestir itself, in directing us, so to sever these apprehensions, that none be neglected; so to conjoin them, that they be not confounded. O the depth of divine mysteries, more than can be woondred at! O the necessity of this high knowledge, which who attain not, may babble, but prayeth not! Still you doubt, and ask if you may not direct your prayers to one person of three. Why not? Safely, and with comfort: What need wee fear, while we haue our saviour for our pattern: O my Father( if possible) let this Cup pass: and Paul every where, both in thankes and requests: but with due care of worshipping all in one. Exclude the other, while you fix your heart vpon one, your prayer is sin; retain all, and mention one, you offend not. None of them doth ought for us, without all. It is a true rule of divines: all their external works are common: To solicit one therfore, and not all, were injurious. And if you stay your thoughts vpon the sacred humanity of Christ, with an inseparable adoration of the Godhead united, and thence climb up to the holy conceit of that blessed and dreadful trinity, I dare not censure, I dare not but commend your divine method. Thus should Christians ascend from earth to heaven, from one heaven to another. If I haue given your deuotions any light, it is well: the least glimpse of this knowledge, is worth all the full gleames of human and earthly skill. But I mistake, if your own heart wrought vpon with serious meditations( under that spirit of illumination) will not prove your best master. After this weak direction, study to conceive aright, that you may pray aright; and pray that you may conceive, and meditate that you may do both: and the God of heaven direct you, enable you, that you may do all.   

To Mr. Thomas james of OXFORD.  
EP. jix. A discourse of the grounds of the Papists confidence in appealing to the Fathers: applauding his worthy offers and endeavours of discovering the falsifications and deprauations of antiquity.  
SIr, I know no man so like as you, to make posterity his debtor. I do heartily congratulate unto you so worthy labours, so noble a project. Our aduersaries, knowing of themselves( that which Tertullian saith of all heresies) that if appeal bee made to the sacred bench of Prophets and Apostles, they cannot stand; remove the svit of Religion craftily, into the Court of the Fathers: A reverend trial, as any under heaven; where it cannot be spoken, how confidently they triumph ere the conflict. give us the Fathers for our Iudges( say Campian and possevine) the day is ours. And whence is this courage? Is antiquity our enemy, their advocate? certainly it cannot be truth that is new: We would renounce our Religion, if it could be ouer-look't for time. Let go equity, the older take both. There bee two things then, that give them heart in this provocation: One, the bastardy of false Fathers; the other, the corruption of the true. What a flourish do they make with usurped names? Whom would it not amaze to see the frequent citations of the Apostles own Canons, Constitutions, Liturgies, Masses: of Clemens, Dennys the Areopagite, Linus, Hippolytus, marshal of bordeaux, Egesippus: Donations of Constantine the great, and Lewis the godly: Of 50. Canons of Nice: of Dorotheus, Damasus his pontifical; Epistles decretal of Clemens, evaristus, Telesphorus, and an hundred other Bishops holy and ancient; of Euodius, Anastasius, Simeon Metaphrastes, and more yet than a number more; most whereof haue crept out of the Vatican, or Cloisters; and all carry in them manifest brands of falsehood,& supposition. That I may say nothing of those infinite writings, which either ignorance, or wilfulness, hath fathered vpon every of the Fathers, not without shameless importunity, and gross impossibilities: all which( as shee said of Peter) their speech bewrayeth; or( as Austen said of Cyprians style) their face. This fraud is more easily avoided: For as in notorious burglairies, oft times there is either an hat, or a glove, or a weapon left behind, which descrieth the authors; so the God of truth hath besotted these impostors, to let fall some palpable error( tho but of false calculation) whereby, if not their names, yet their ages might appear, to their conviction. Most danger is in the secret corruption of the true, and acknowledged issue of those gracious parents; whom, through close and crafty handling, they haue induced to bely those that begot them; and to betray their Fathers, either with silence, or false evidence. Plainly, how are the honoured volumes of faithful antiquity, blurred, interlined, altered, depraved by subtle treachery; and made to speak what they meant not? Fie on this, not so much injustice, as impiety, to race the awful monuments of the dead; to blot and change the original will of the deceased, and partially to insert our own legacies. This is done by our guilty aduersaries, to the injury not more of these Authors, than of the present and succeeding times. Hence those Fathers are some-where not ours: What wonder? while they are not themselves. Your industry hath offered( and that motion is lively, and heroical) to challenge all their learned and elegant pages, from injury of corruption; to restore them to themselves, and to us: that which all the learned of our times haue but desired to see done, you proffer to effect: your assay in Cyprian and Austen is happy, and justly applauded. All our Libraries, whom your diligent hand hath ransacked, offer their aid, in such abundance of manuscripts, as al Europe would envy to see met in one island. After all this, for that the most spiteful imputation to our Truth is novelty, you offer to deduce her pedigree from those primitive times, through the successions of all ages; and to bring into the light of the world many( as yet obscure) but no less certain and authentical Patrons, in a continued line of defence. You haue given proof enough, that these are no glorious vaunts, but the zealous challenges of an able Champian. What wanteth then? Let me say for you: Not an heart, not an head, not an hand; but( which I almost scorn to name in such a cause) a purse. If this continue your hindrance, it will not be more our loss than shane. hear me a little, ye great and wealthy: Hath God loaded you with so much substance; and will you not lend him a little of his own? Shall your riot be fed with excess; while Gods cause shall starve for want? Shall our aduersaries so insultingly out-bid us; and in the zeal of their profusion laugh at our heartless and could niggardliness? Shall heavenly truth lye in the dust for want of a little stamped earth to raise her? How can you so much any way honour God, yea yourselves, deserve of posterity, pleasure the Church, and make you so good friends of your Mammon? Let not the ●e●● age say, that she had so unkind predecessors. Fetch forth of your superfluous store, and cast in your rich gifts into this treasury of the Temple. The Lord and his Church haue need. For you, it angers me to see how that flattering Posseuinus smoothly entices you from us with golden offers, vpon the advantage of our neglect; as if he( measuring your mind by his own) thought that an Omnia dabo would bring you with himself on your knees to worship the divell, the beast, the image of both: as if we were not as able to encourage, to reward desert. Hath virtue no Patrons on this side the Alpes? Are those hills onely the thresholds of honour? I pled not, because I can not fear you: But who sees not how munificently our Church scattereth her bountiful favours vpon less merit. If your day be not yet come, expect it; God and the Church owe you a benefit; if their payment be long, it is sure. Only go you on with courage, in those your high endeavours; and in the mean time, think it great recompense to haue deserved.   

To Mr. E. A.  
EP. IX. A Discourse of fleeing or stay in the time of pestilence; whether lawful for Minister or people.  
HOw many hath a seduced conscience lead untimely to the grave? I speak of this sad occasion of pestilence. The angel of God follows you, and you doubt whether you should flee. If a lion out of the foreste should pursue you, you would make no question, yet could not he do it unsent. What is the difference? Both instruments of divine reuenge; both threaten death; one by spilling the blood, the other by infecting it. Who knows whether he hath not appointed your Zoar out of the lists of this destruction? You say, it is Gods visitation. What evil is not? It war haue wasted the confines of your country, you save your throats by flight: Why are you more favourable to Gods immediate sword of pestilence? Very leprosy, by Gods law, requires a separation; yet no mortal sickness. When you see a noted leper proclaim his uncleanness in the street, will you embrace him for his sake that hath strooken him, or avoid him for his sake that hath forbidden you? If you honor his rod, much more will you regard his precept. If you mislike not the affliction because he sends it, then love the life which you haue of his sending; fear the iudgement which he will sand, if you love it not. He that bids us flee when we are persecuted, hath neither excepted Angel nor man; whether soever, I fear our guiltiness, if wilfully wee flee not. But whither shall we flee from God? say you: where shall he not both find and led us? whither shall not our destiny follow us? vain men, we may run from our home, not from our grave; Death is subtle, our time is set; we can not, God will not alter it. Alas, how wise we are to wrong ourselves! Because death will overtake us, shall we run and meet him? Because Gods decree is sure, shall wee be desperate? Shall wee presume, because GOD changeth not? Why do we not try every knife and cord, since our time is neither capable of prevention nor delay: our end is set, not without our means. In matter of danger where the end is not known, the means must bee suspected; in matter of hope where the end is not known, means must be used. use then freely the means of your flight, suspect the danger of your stay; and since there is no particular necessity of your presence, know that God bids you depart and live. You urge the instance of your Minister: How unequally? There is not more lawfulness in your flight, than sin in ours: you are your own, we our peoples; you are charged with a body, which you may not willingly lose, not hazard by staying; we with all their souls, which to hazard by absence, is to lose our own; wee must love our lives, but not when they are riuals with our souls, or with others. How much better is it to be dead, than negligent, than faithless! If some bodies be contagiously sick, shall all souls be wilfully neglected? There can be no time wherein good counsel is so seasonable, so needful. every threatening finds impression, where the mind is prepared by sensible judgements. When will the iron hearts of men bow, if not when they are heat in the flamme of Gods affliction? Now then, to run away from a necessary and public good, to avoid a doubtful and private evil, is to run into a worse evil than we would avoid. He that will thus run from ninive to Tharsis, shall find a Tempest and a Whale in his way. Not that I dare be an Author to any of the private visitation of infected beds: I dare not, without better warrant. Who ever said wee were bound to close up the dying eyes of every departing Christian? and vpon what ever conditions, to hear their last groans? If we had a word, I would not debate of the success. Then, that were cowardliness, which now is wisdom. Is it no service, that wee publicly teach and exhort? that we privately prepare men for death, and arm them against it? that our comfortable letters, and messages stir up their fainting harts? that our loud voices pierce their ears afar; unless wee feel their pulses, and lean vpon their pillows, and whisper in their ears? Daniel is in the lions den; Is it nothing, that Darius speaks comfort to him thorough the grace, unless he go in to salute him among those fierce companions? A good Minister is the common goods, he can not make his life peculiar to one, without injury to many. In the common cause of the Church, he must be no niggard of his life; in the private cause of a neighbours bodily sickness, he may soon be prodigal. A good father may not spend his substance on one child,& leave the rest beggars. If any man be resolute in the contrary, I had rather praise his courage, than imitate his practise. I confess, I fear; not so much death, as want of warrant for death.   

To Mr. R. B.  
EP. X. A Complaint of the iniquity of the Times, with a prescription of the means to redress it.  
WHILES I accused the Times, you undertook their patronage. I commend your charity, not your cause. It is true: There was never any age not complained of; never any that was not censured, as worst. What is, we see; what was, we neither inquire, nor care. That which is out of sight and use, is soon out of mind, and ere long out of memory. Yet the iniquity of others can not excuse ours. And if you will be but as just as charitable, you shall confess, that both some times exceed others in evil, and these, all. This earthly moon the Church hath her fulles and wanings, and sometimes her eclipses; whiles the shadow of this sinful mass hides her beauty from the world. So long as shee wadeth in this planetary world, it should be vain to expect better: it is enough when she is fixed above, to be free from all change. This you yield, but nothing can persuade you, that shee is not now in the full of her glory. True: or else she were not subject to this darkening. There was never more light of knowledge; never more darkness of impiety: and there could not be such darkness, if there were not such light. goodness repulsed, gives height to sin: therefore are wee worse than our predecessors, because wee might bee better. By how much our means are greater, by so much are our defects. turn over all Records, and parallel such helps, such care, such cost, such expectation, with such fruit, I yield: We see but our own times: There was never but one Noah( whom the heathens celebrated under another name) that with two faces saw both before, and behind him: But lo, that Ancient of daies, to whom all times are present, hath  told us, that these last shall be worst: Our experience justifies him, with all but the wilful. This censure( lest you should condemn my rigour, as unnaturally partial) is not confined to our seas, but; free and common, hath the same bounds with the earth. I ioy not in this large society. Would God wee were evil alone. How few are those, whose carriage doth not say, that profession of any conscience is pusillanimity? How few that care so much, as to show well? And yet of those few, how many care only to seem? whose words disagree from their actions,& their hearts from their words? Where shall a man mew up himself, that he may not be a witness of what he would not? What can he see, or hear, and not bee either sad, or guilty? oaths strive for number with words; scoffs with oaths, vain speeches with both. They are rare hands, that are free either from aspersions of blood, or spots of filthiness. Let me be at once( as I use) bold and plain: Wanton excess, excessive pride, close atheism, impudent profaneness, unmerciful oppression, ouer-mercifull connivence, greedy covetousness, loose prodigality, simoniacal sacrilege, unbridled luxury, beastly drunkenness, bloody treachery, cunning fraud, slanderous detraction, envious vnderminings, secret idolatry, hypocritical fashionablenesse, haue spread themselves all over the world. The sun of peace looking vpon our unclean heaps, hath bread these monsters, and hath given light to this brood of darkness. look about you, and see if three great Idols, Honour, Pleasure, Gain, haue not shared the earth amongst them, and left him least, whose all is. Your denial drives me to particulars. I urge no further. If any adversary insult in my confession, tel him, that I account them the greatest part of this evil; neither could thus complain, if they were not. Who knows not, that as the earth is the dregs of the world, so Italy is the dregs of the earth, Rome of Italy? It is no wonder to find Satan in his hell; but to find him in Paradise, is uncouth, and grievous. Let them alone, that will die, and hate to be cured. For us: O that remedies were as easy as complaints! That wee could be as soon cleared, as convinced! That the taking of the medicine were but so difficult as the prescription! And yet nothing hinders us from health, but our will: Neither gospel, nor Grace, nor Glory, are shut up; only our hearts are not open. Let me turn my style from you, to the secure, to the perverse: tho why do I hope they will hear me, that are deaf to God? they will regard words, that care not for judgements? Let me tell them yet( if in vain) they must break, if they bow not: That if mercy may be refused, yet vengeance cannot bee resisted: That God can serve himself of them perforce, neither to their thank, nor ease: That the present plagues do but threaten worse. Lastly, that if they relent not, Hell was not made for nothing. What should be done then? Except wee would fain smart, each man amend one, and we all live. How commonly do men complain, and yet add to this heap? redress stands not in words. Let every man pull but one brand out of this fire, and the flamme will go out alone. What is a multitude, but an heap of unities? The more we deduce, the fewer we leave. O how happy were it then, if every man would begin at home, and take his own heart to task, and at once bee his own Accuser, and judge; to condemn his private errors, yea to mulct them with death! Till then, alas, what avails it to talk? While every man censures, and no man amends, what is it but busy trifling? But tho our care must begin at ourselves, it may not end there. Who but a Cain is not his brothers keeper? public persons are not so much their own, as others are theirs. Who sits at the common stern, cannot distinguish betwixt the care of his own safety, and his vessels: both drown at once, or at once salute the haven. Ye Magistrates( for in you stand all our lower hopes) whom God hath on purpose, in a wise surrogation, set vponn earth, to correct her disorders, take to yourselves firm foreheads, courageous hearts, hands busy, and not partial; to discountenance shameless wickedness, to resist the violent sway of evils, to execute wholesome laws, with strictness, with resolution. The sword of the spirit meets with such iron hearts, that both it enters not, and is rebated. lo, it appeals to your arm, to your aid. An earthen edge can best pierce this hardened earth: If iniquity die not by your hands, wee perish. And ye sons of levi gather to your Moses in the gate of the camp: consecrate your hands to God in this holy slaughter of 'vice: Let your voice be both a trumpet to incite, and a two edged sword to wound and kill. Cry down sin in earnest, and thunder out of that sacred chair of Moses; and let your lives speak yet louder. Neither may the common Christian sit still and look on in silence: I am deceived, if in this cause GOD allow any man for private. here must bee all Actors, no Witnesses. His discreet admonitions, seasonable reproofs, and prayers never unseasonable, besides the power of honest example, are expected as his due tribute to the common health: What if we cannot turn the stream? Yet wee must swim against it: even without conquest, it is glorious to haue resisted: In this alone, they are enemies, that do nothing: Thus, as one that delights more in amendment, than excuse, I haue both censured and directed. The favour of your sentence proceeds( I know) from your own innocent uprightness: So judge of my severe taxation. It shall bee happy for us, if we can at once excuse and diminish; accuse and redress iniquity. Let but the endeavour be ours, the success to God.    

EPISTLES, THE THIRD AND LAST VOLVME.  
CONTAINING two Decades.  
By joseph HALL Doctor of divinity.  
LONDON Printed for E. Edgar, and A. Garbrand, at the Wind-mill in Pauls Church yard. 1611.   

TO THE MOST HIGH AND EXCELLENT PRINCE, henry, Prince of Wales, all happiness.  
Most Gracious Prince,  
LET me not( whiles I desire to be dutiful) seem importunate, ●… n my dedications. I now ●… ring to your Highnesse ●… hese my last, and perhaps most material Letters: wherein, if I mistake not,( as, how easily are wee deceived in our own?) the pleasure of the variety shall strive with the importance of matter. There is no worldly thing, I confess, whereof I am more ambitious then of your Highnesses contentment; which tha●… you place in goodness, is not more your glory, then our ioy: Do so still, and heaven and earth shall agree to bless you, and us in you. For me, after this my officious boldness, I shall betak●… myself in silence, to some greater work, wherein I may approve my service to the Church, and to your Highnes, as her second ioy and care. My heart shall be always, and vpon al opportunities, my tongue and pen, shall no less gladly bee devoted to my gracious Master, as one  
Who rejoice to be your Highnesses( though unworthy, yet) faithful and obsequious Seruant. IOS. HALL   

THE sum OF THE several EPISTLES.  

decade. V.  
EP. I. TO my Lord Bishop of Bath and Wels. Discoursing of the causes and means of the increase of Popery. 1.  
EP. II. To my Lord B. of Worcester. showing the differences of the present Church, from the apostolical; and needlessness of our conformity thereto in all things. 21.  
EP. III. To my Lady MARY DENNY. Containing the description of a Christian, and his differences from the worldling. 33.  
EP. IIII. To my L. HONORIA HAY. Discoursing of the necessity of baptism; and the estate of those which necessary want it. 43.  
EP. V. To Sir RICHARD LEA, since deceased. Discoursing of the comfortable remedies of all afflictions. 57.  
EP. VI. To Master PETER moulin Preacher of the Church at Paris. Discoursing of the late French occurrents, and what use God expects to be made of them. 69.  
EP. VII. To M. THOMAS SVTTON. Exciting him, and( in him) all others to early and cheerful beneficence: showing the necessity and benefit of good works. 77.  
EP. VIII. To E. B. Dedicated to Sir GEORGE GORING. Remedies against dullness and hartlesnesse in our callings, and encouragements to cheerfulness in labour. 91.  
EP. IX. To S. H. I. Discussing this Question. Whether a man and wife after some yeares mutual, and loving fruition of each other, may vpon consent, whether for secular, or religious causes, vow and perform a perpetual separation from each others bed, and absolutely renounce all carnal knowledge of each other for ever. 101  
EP. X. To M. WILLIAM KNIGHT; encouraging him to persist in the holy calling of the ministry, which vpon conceit of his insufficiency, and want of affection, he seemed inclining to forsake, and change. 115   

decade. VI.  
EP. I. TO my Lord DENNY. A particular account how our dayes are, or should be spent, both common and holy. 1  
EP. II To M. T. S. Dedicated to Sir fulke GREVILL. Discoursing how wee may use the world without danger. 13  
EP. III. To S. GEORGE FLEETWOOD. Of the remedies of sin, and motives to avoid it. 21  
EP. IIII. To M. Doctor MILEVRNE. Discoursing how far; and wherein Popery destroyeth the foundation. 31.  
EP. V. Written long since to I. W. dissuading from separation: and shortly oppugning the grounds of that error. 41.  
EP. VI. To Master I. B. A complaint of the mis-education of our Gentry. 65  
EP. VII. To Master jonas REIGESBERGIVS in zealand. Written some whiles since, concerning some new opinions then broaced in the Churches of Holland; and under the name of Arminius( then living:) persuading all great wits to a study and care of the common Peace of the Church, and dissuading from al affectation of singularity. 75  
EP. VIII. To W. I. condemned for murder Effectually preparing him, and( under his name) whatsoever Malefactor, for his death. 83.  
EP. IX. To Master John MOLE, of a long time now prisoner under the Inquisition at Rome. Exciting him to his wonted constancy, and encouraging him to martyrdom. 93.  
EP. X. To all Readers. Containing Rules of good advice for our Christian and civil carriage. 107.    

Errata.  
decade. V.  
page. 3. line 11. red setlednes for seelednes. p. 12. l. 16. red their for they, p. 14. l. 4. r. stales for stalls. p. 17. l. 13. r. great, oppugnation for Great oppugnation, p. 23. l. 15. r. person for persons, p. 27. l. 19. r. fasts for Facts, p. 28. ult r. concluding for conluding, p. 37. l. 9. r. ingrosses for engross, p. 44. l. 2. red heard for hard, p. 72. l. 10. r. Duels for Doels, p. 72. l. 20. r. Cotton for cotton, p. 74. l. 12. r. holy for wholly, p. 84. penult. r. death-bed for dead bed, p. 92. l. 4. r. more weak for more weaker p. 98. 7. r. our price for our pride, p. 104. l. 12. r. then ever for then never, p. 110. l. 1. r. matrimonial for matrimonicall, p. 115. l. 8. r. I am not more for I am more, p 116. l. r. 20 oppose vs for oppose vs.  
decade. VI.  
page. 39. l. 6. r. Iudges for judge. p. 66. l. 19. r. Ruffians for ruffianlike, p. 73. l. 5. r. glad for galled, p. 87. l. 20. r. let for lets, p. 110. l. 12. r. yield for yields. p. 112. l. 11. r. probation for prouation.   

The fifth Decade.  

EPISTLE. I. To my Lord Bishop of Bathe and Wels. EP, I. Discoursing of the causes and means of the increase of Popery.  
BY what means the Romish religion hath in these latter times prevailed so much over the world,( Right reverend and honourable) is a consideration both weighty, and useful: for hence may we frame ourselves either to prevent, or imitate them: To imitate them in what wee may; or prevent them in what they should not. I meddle not with the means of their first risings: the munificence of Christian Princes, the honest deuotions of wel-meaning Contributers, the division of the Christian world, the busy endeavours of forward Princes, for the recovery of the holy land, with neglect of their own, the ambitious insinuations of that sea, the famed and large dominion of those seven hills, the compacted indulgence, and connivence of some treacherous, of other timorous rulers; the shameless flattery of parasites, the rude ignorance of Times; or if there be any other of this kind; My thoughts and words shall be spent vpon the present, and latest age. All the world knows, how that pretended chair of Peter tottered, and cracked, some three-score yeares ago, threatening a speedy ruin to her fearful usurper: How is it that still it stands, and seems now to boast of some settledness? certainly, if hell had not contrived a new support, the angel had long since said, It i● fallen, it is fallen; and the Merchants, Alas, Alas, the great city. The brood of that lame Loyola shall haue this miserable honour, without our envy; that if they had not been, Rome had not been. By what means, it rests now to inquire.  
It is not so much their zeal for falsehood; which yet wee aclowledge, and admire not. If Satan were not more busy then they, we had lost nothing. Their desperate attempts, bold intrusions, importunate solicitations haue not returned empty; yet their policy hath done more then their force. That Popish world was then foul, and debauched, as in doctrine, so in life; and now began to be ashamed of itself; when these holy Fathers, as some Saints dropped out of heaven, suddenly professed an unusual strictness, sad piety, resolved mortification; and so drew the eyes, and hearts of men after them, that poor souls began to think it could not be other then divine, which they taught; other then holy, which they touched. The very times( not seldom) give as great advantage, as our own best strength: and the vices of others give glory to those which either are, or appear virtuous. They saw how ready the world was to bite at the bait, and now followed their success, with new helps. Plenty of pretended miracles must bless on all sides, the endeavours of this new Sect; and calls for both approbation, and wonder. Those things by the report of their own pens( other witnesses I see none) haue been done by the ten Patriarcks of the Iesuitish Religion, both alive and dead, which can hardly bee matched of him, whose name they haue usurped. And now the vulgar can say, If these men were not of God, they could do nothing: How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? not distrusting either the famed, or the work, but applauding the Authors, for what was said to bee done. But now lest the envy of the fact should surpass the wonder, they haue learned to cast this glory vpon their wooden Ladies,& to communicate the gain unto the whole Religion: Two blocks at Hale and Scherpen-heuuell, haue said and done more for Popery, then all friars, ever since Francis wore his breeches on his head. But because that praise is sweet, which arises from the disgrace of a rival, therefore this holy society hath besides, ever wont to honor itself by the brokage of shameless untruths against the adverse part; not caring how probable any report is, but how odious. A just volume would not contain those willing lies, wherewith they haue purposely loaded religion, and us; that the multitude might first hate us, and then inquire: and these courses are held not tolerable, but meritorious. So the end may be attained, all means are just; all ways strait. Whom we may, we satisfy: but wounds once given, are hardly healed with out some scars: and commonly accusations are vocal, Apologies dumb. How easy is it to make any cause good, if we may take liberty of tongue, and conscience? Yet lest some glimpse of our truth and innocence should perhaps lighten the eyes of some more inquisitive Reader, they haue by strict prohibitions, whether of books, or conference, restrained all possibility of true informations; Yea their own writings, wherein our opinions are reported with confutation, are not allowed to the common view, lest if it should appear what we hold, our mere opinion should prevail more then their subtlest answer. But above all, the restraint of Gods book hath gained them most; If that might be in the hands of men, their religion could not be in their hearts; now, the concealment of Scriptures breeds ignorance, and ignorance superstition. But because forbiddance doth but whet desire, and work a conceit of some secret excellence in things denied; therfore haue they devised to affright this dangerous curiosity, with that cruel, butcherly, hellish Inquisition; Wherein yet there is not less craft then violence. For since they haue perceived the blood of Martyrs to bee but the seed of the Church, and that these perfumes are more dispersed with beating; they haue now learned to murder without noise, and to bring forth( if, at least, they list sometimes to make the people privy to some examples of terror) not men but carcases. Behold, the constant confessions of the dying Saints haue made them weary of public executions: None but bare walls shalll now testify the courage and faith of our happy Martyrs. A disguised corps is onely brought forth to the multitude either for laughter, or fear. Yet because the very dead speak for truth in a loud silence; these spectacles are rare; and the graues of heretics are become as close as their death.  
Yet lest( since neither living mouths, nor faithful pens may be suffered to insinuate any truth) those speeches should perhaps be received from the Ancients, which in us were heretical; the monuments of vnpartial antiquity must be depraved, all witnesses that might speak against them must be corrupted, with a fraudulent violence; and some of them purged to the death. So whiles ours are debarred, and the Ancients altered, posterity shal aclowledge no adversary.  
What should I speak of those plausible devices; which they haue invented to make superstitious, and foolish Proselytes? Their proud vaunts of antiquity, universality, succession, and the name of their fore-fathers, do not only persuade, but amaze, and besot an ignorant heart. The glorious shows of their processions, the gaudy ornaments of their Altars, the pomp and magnificence of the places, and maner of their services, the triumphs of their great festivals, are enough to bewitch any childish, simplo, or vain beholders. Who knows not that nature is most lead by sense? Sure, children and fools( such are all mere natural men) cannot be of any other religion.  
Besides all these, their personal vndertakings, what for cunning, what for boldness, could promise nothing but success. They can transform themselves into all shapes; and in these false forms thrust themselves into al Courts, and companies; not oftener changing their habit, then their name. They can take the best opportunities to work vpon those which are either most unable to resist, or most like to bestead them. That I may not speak of the wrongs of unseasonable travell: wherein many unsettled heads haue met dangers, and solicited errors who like fond and idle Dinahs, going abroad to gaze, haue been ravished ere they return. never any bide was so laid for, by the nets and calls of the fowler, as the great heir of some noble family, or some fiery wit, is by these impostors. They know that greatness is both lawless, and commanding; if not by precept, yet by example: their very silence is persuasory, and imperious. But alas for that other sex: Still the devil begins with eve; still his assault is strongest, where is weakest resistance. Simon Magus had his Helena, Nicholas the Deacon had his choros foemineos( as jerome calls them) martion had his Factoresse at Rome; Appelles his Philumena, Montanus his Prisca and Maximilla; Arrius his Constantines-sister; Donatus his Lucilla, Elpidius his Agape, Priscillianus his Galla: and our Iesuites haue their painted Ladies( not dead, but living) both for objects and instruments. When they saw they could not blow up religion with French powder into heaven, they now try by this Moabitish plot to sink it down to hell. Those silly women, which are laden with sins, and diuers lusts, must now bee the stales of their spiritual fornications: But for that these enterprises want not danger; that both parts may securely succeed, behold public liberty of dispensations, whether for dissembled religion, or not unprofitable filthiness. These means are( like the Authors) dishonest, and godless. add( if you please) hereto, those which pretend more innocent policy: their common dependences vpon one commander, their intelligences given, their charges received, their rewards and honors( perhaps of the calendar, perhaps of a read hat) duly conferred. Neither may the least help be ascribed to the conference of studies; ( the conjoined labours of whole Societies directed to one and, and shrouded under the title of one Author:) to large maintenances, raised from the death-beds of some guilty benefactors: from whence flow both infinite numbers, and incomparable helps of Students. under which head, for the time past, not a few are moved by the remembrance of the bounteous hospitality of the religious; who having engrossed the world to themselves, seemed liberal in giuing something; like unto some vainglorious theeues, which having robbed wealthy Merchants, bestow some pence vpon beggars. Further, the smothering, if not composing of their frequent strifes, and confining of brawls within their own thresholds; with the nice managing of their known oppositions, hath won many ignorant friends. Lastly, the excellent correspondence of their doctrines unto nature, hath been their best solicitor. Wee haue examined particulars in a former Epistle: wherein we haue made it evident, that Popery affects nothing but to make nature either proud, or wanton: it offers difficulties, but carnal; and such as the greatest lover of himself would easily embrace for an advantage. That we may therefore sum up all; I need not accuse our carelessness, indifferency, idleness, loose carriage; in all which, would God we had not aided them, and wronged ourselves; Nor yet their zeal and forwardness; worse means are guily of their gain. In short, the faire outside which they set vpon Religion, which sure is the best they haue, if not all; their pretended miracles, wilful untruths, straight prohibitions, bloody& secret inquisitions, deprauations of Ancient witnesses, expurgation of their own; gay and gairish sights, glorious titles, crafty changes of names, shapes, habits, conditions; insinuations to the great oppugnation of the weaker sex; falsehood of answers, and oaths, dispensatons for sins, uniting of forces, concealing of differences, largeness of contributions, multitude of actors, and means, accordances to mens natural dispositions: Where wee on the contrary care not to seem but to bee, disclaim miracles, dare not save the life of religion with a lye; give free scope to all pens, to all tongues, to all eyes:  shed no blood for religion: suffer al writers to speak like themselves; show nothing but poor simplicity in our deuotions, go ever, and look as wee are; teach the truth right-downe in an honest plainness, take no vantage of imbecility swear true, though we die; give no hope of indulgence for evil, study each retired to himself,& the muses; publish our quarrels and aggravate them, anger nature, and conquer it. Such gain shall be gravel in their throats: such losses to us( in our not daring to sin) shall bee happy and victorious; in all other regards are both blame worthy, and recoverable. What dulness is this? Haue we such a King, as in these lists of controversy, may dare to grapple with that great infallible Vicar, for his triple crown. Such Bishops as may justly challenge the whole Consistory of Rome; so many learned Doctors, and divines, as no nation under heaven, more; so flourishing universities as christendom hath none; such blessed opportunities, such encouragements; and now when we want nothing else, shal we be wanting to ourselves? Yea above all these, the God of heaven favours us; and do wee languish? The cause is his, and in spite of the gates of hell shall succeed, though wee were not: our neglect may slacken the place of truth, cannot stay the passage. Why are we not as busy, as subtle, more resolute? Such spirits, and such hands as yours( reverend Lord) must put life into the could breasts of this frozen generation, and raise them up to such thoughts and endeavours, as may make the emulation of our aduersaries equal to their enmity.   

To my Lord Bishop of Worcester.  
EP. II. showing the differences of the present Church from the apostolical; and needlessness of our conformity thereto in all things.  
I fear not to say those men are but superstitiously curious,( Right reverend, and honourable) which would call back all circumstances, to their first patterns. The Spouse of Christ hath been ever clothed with her own rites: And as apparel, so Religion hath her fashions, variable according to ages, and places: To reduce us to the same observations which were in apostolical use, were no better then to tie us to the sandals of the Disciples, or the seamless coat of our saviour. In these cases, they did, what we need not: and we may, what they did not; God meant us no bondage in their example: their Canons bind us whether for manners, or doctrine, not their Ceremonies. Neither Christ, nor his Apostles did all things for imitation: I speak not of miraculous Acts. We need not be silent before a judge, as Christ was; wee need not take a towel, and gird ourselves, and wash our seruants feet, as Christ did; we need not make tents for our living as Paul, nor go armed as Peter; nor carry about our wives, as he, and the other Apostles. I aclowledge the ground not onely of separation, but anabaptism; and wonder that these conceits do not answer themselves. who can choose but see a manifest difference betwixt those laws, which Christ and his great Ambassadors made for eternal use, and those ritual matters, which were confined to place, and time? every Nation, every persons sins that observes not those; These for the most part, are not kept of the most; and are as well left without sin by us; as used without prescription or necessity by the Authors. Some of them we cannot do; others wee need not: which of us can cast out divels by command? Who can cure the sick by ointment, and imposition of hands? The Disciples did it. All those Acts which proceeded from supernatural privilege, ceased with their cause: who now dare undertake to continue them? unless perhaps some bold Papists, who haue brought in gross magic in stead of miraculous authority; and daub very carcases in stead of healing diseases. There be more yet, which we need not do: What need wee to choose Ministers by Lot? What need we to disclaim all peculiarity in goods? What need wee to Christen in riuers; or to meet vpon their banks? What need wee to receive Gods Supper after our own? What to lean in each others bosom while we receive it? what to abhor leaven in that holy Bread? what to celebrate love feasts vpon the receipt? what to abstain from all strangled and blood? what to depend vpon a maintenance arbitrary, and uncertain? what to spend our daies in a perpetual pererration, as not onely the Apostles but the Prophets and evangelists some ages after Christ? whosoever would impose all these on us, he should surely make us, not the sons, but the slaves of the Apostles. Gods Church never held herself in such servile terms; yea Christ himself gave at first some precepts of this nature, which he reversed ere long: when he sent the Disciples to preach, he charges, take not gold, nor silver, nor money rn your girdles; afterwards Iudas carried the bag. He charges, not to take so much as a staff; yet after behold two swords: should the Disciples haue held their master to his own rule? Is it necessary that what he once commanded, should be observed always? The very next age to these Christian Patriarcks, neither would nor durst haue so much varied her rites, or augmented them; if it had found itself tied either to number, or kind: As yet it was pure, chast, and( which was the ground of all) persecuted. The Church of Rome distributed the sacramental Bread: the Church of Alexandria permitted the people to take it: the Churches of afric and Rome, mixed their holy wine with water, other colder regions drank it pure. Some kneeled in their prayers, others fell prostrate; and some lifted up eyes, hands, feet towards heaven: some kept their Easter according to the jewish use the fourteenth of March; the French( as Nicephorus) the eight of the Calends of april, in a set solemnity: the Church of Rome the Sunday after the fourteenth moon; which yet( as Socrates truly writes) was never restrained by any gospel, by any Apostle. That Romish Victor overcame the other world in this point, with too much rigour; whose censure therfore of the Asian Churches was justly censured by Irenaeus. Wh●● should I speak of their difference of facts? there can scarce bee more variety in daies, or meats. It hath ever been thus seen, according to our Anselmes rule, that the multitude of different ceremonies in all Churches, hath justly commended their unity in faith. The French divines preach covered( vpon the same rule which required the Corinthians to be vncouerd) we bare: The Dutch sit at the Sacrament, we kneel; Geneua useth wafers, wee leavened bread; they common vestures in divine service, we peculiar: each is free: no one doth either blame, or over rule others. I cannot but commend those very novatian Bishops( though it is a wonder any precedent of peace should fall from schismatics) who meeting in council together, enacted that Canon of indifferency, when the Church was distracted with the differences of her paschal solemnities; conluding how insufficient, this cause was to disquiet the Church of Christ. Their own issue( our Separatists) will needs be unlike them in good; and strive to a further distance from peace: whiles in a conceit not less idle, thē scrupulous, they press us to an uniform conformity in our fashions to the Apostles. Their own practise condemns them: They call for some, and yet keep not all: yet the same reason enforces all, that pleads for some: and that which warrants the forbearance of some, holds for all. Those tools which serve for the foundation, are not of use for the roof. Yea the great master builder choose those workmen for the first stones which he meant not to employ in the walls. do wee not see all Christs first agents extraordinary Apostles, evangelists, Prophets, Prophetesses? See wee not fiery and cloven tongues descending? What Church ever since boasted of such founders, of such means? Why will d God begin with those which he meant not to continue, but to show us we may not always look for one face of things? The nurse feeds and tends her child at first; afterward he is undertaken by the discipline of a Tutor; must he be always under the spoon, and ferule, because he began so? If he haue good breeding, it matters not by whose hands. Who can deny, that we haue the substance of all those royal laws, which Christ and his Apostles left to his Church? what do we now thus importunately catching at shadows? If there had been a necessity of having what we want, or wanting what we haue, let us not so far wrong the wisdom and perfection of the lawgiver, as to think he would not haue enjoined that, and forbidden this. His silence in both argues his indifferency, and calls for ours; which while it is not peaceably entertained, there is clamour without profit, malice without cause, and strife without end.   

To my Lady Mary Denny.  
EP. III. containing the description of a Christian, and his differences from the worldling.  
MADAM.  
IT is true that worldly eyes can see no difference, betwixt a Christian,& another man; the out-side of both is made of one day, and cast in one mould; both are inspired with one common breath: Outward events distinguish them not; those, God never made for evidences of love, or hatred. So the senses can perceive no difference, betwixt the reasonable soul,& that which informs the beast: yet the soul knows there is much more, then betwixt their bodies. The same holds in this: Faith sees more inward difference, then the eye sees outward resemblance. This point is not more high, then material which that it may appear, let me show, what it is to be a Christian: You that haue felt it, can second me with your experience, and supply the defects of my discourse. He is the living temple of the living God; where the deity is both resident& worshipped. The highest thing in a man is his own spirit; but in a Christian the spirit of God, which is the God of spirits. No grace is wanting in him; & those which there are, want not stirring up. Both his hart& his hands are clean: All his outward purity flows from within; neither doth he frame his soul to counterfeit good actions, but out of his holy disposition, commands and produces them, in the sight of God. Let us begin with his beginning, and fetch the Christian out of his nature, as another Abraham from his Chaldea: whiles the wordling lives and dies, in nature, out of God. The true convert therfore after his wild and secure courses puts himself( through the motions of gods spirit) to school unto the lawe; there he learns what he should haue done, what he could not do, what he hath done, what he hath deserved. These lessons, cost him many a stripe, and many a tear, and not more grief then terror: For this sharp master makes him feel what sin is, and what hell is: and in regard of both, what himself is. When he hath well smarted under the whip of this severe usher, and is made vile enough in himself, then is he lead up into the higher school of Christ,& there taught the comfortable lessons of grace; there he learns, what belongs to a saviour, what one he is, what he hath done, and for whom, how he became ours, we his;& now finding himself in a true state of danger, of humility, of need, of desire, of fitness for Christ, he brings home to himself al that he learns, and what he knows he applies. His former Tutor he feared, this he loveth; that shewed him his wounds, yea made them: this binds and heals them: that killed him, this shows him life, and leads him to it. Now at once he hates himself, defies Satan, trusts to Christ, makes account both of pardon and glory. This is his most precious Faith, whereby he appropriates, yea engross Christ Iesus to himself: whence he is justified from his sins, purified from his corruptions, established in his resolutions, comforted in his doubts, defended against temptations, overcomes all his enemies. Which virtue, as it is most employed, and most opposed, so carries the most care from the Christian hart, that it be sound, lively, growing: Sound, not rotten, not hollow not presumptuous: sound in the Act; not a superficial conceit, but a true, deep, and sensible apprehension; an apprehension, not of the brain, but of the heart, and of the heart not approving, or assenting, but trusting, and reposing Sound in the object, none but Christ: he knows, that no friendship in heaven can do him good, without this; The Angells can not: God will not: Ye beleeue in the Father, beleeue also in me.  
lively; for it cannot give life, unless it haue life; the faith that is not fruitful is dead: the fruits of faith are good works: whether inward, within the roof of the heart, as love, awe, sorrow, piety, zeal, ioy, and the rest; or outward towards God, or our bretheren: obedience and service to the one: to the other relief and beneficence: These he bears in his time: sometimes all, but always some.  
Growing: true faith cannot stand still, but as it is fruitful in works, so it increaseth in degrees; from a little seed it proves a large plant, reaching from earth to heaven, and from one heaven to another: every shower and every Sun adds something to it. Neither is this grace ever solitary, but always attended royallie: For he that believes what a saviour he hath, cannot but love him:& he tha● loues him cannot but hate whatsoever may displease him: cannot but rejoice in him,& hope to enjoy him, and desire to enjoy his hope, and contemn all those vanities which he once desired and enjoyed. His mind now scorneth to grouel vpon earth, but soareth up to the things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God: and after it hath seen what is done in heaven, looks strangely vpon al worldly things. He dare trust his faith above his reason, and sense: and hath learned to wean his appetite from craving much: he stands in awe of his own conscience and dare no more offend it, then not displease himself. he fears not his enemies, yet neglects them not, equally avoiding security, and timorousness: he sees him that is invisible; and walks with him awfully, familiarly. He knows what he is born to, and therefore digests the miseries of his wardship, with patience: he finds more comfort in his afflictions, then any worldling in pleasures. And as he hath these graces to comfort him within, so hath he the Angels to attend him without; spirits better then his own, more powerful, more glorious; These bear him in their arms, wake by his bed, keep his soul while he hath it, and receive it when it leaves him. These are some present differences, the greatest are future, which could not bee so great, if themselves were not witnesses; no less then betwixt heaven and hell, torment and glory, an incorruptible crown, and fire unquenchable. Whether Infidels beleeue these things or no, we know them: so shall they, but too late. What remains but that wee applaud ourselves in this happiness;& walk on clearly in this heavenly profession? acknowledging that God could not do more for us;& that we cannot do enough for him. Let others boast( as your ladyship might with others) of ancient and noble houses, large Patrimonies, or dowries, honourable commands; others of famous names, high and envied honors, or the favours of the greatest; others of valor or beauty, or some perhaps of eminent learning and wit; it shall bee our pride that we are Christians.   

To my Lady Honoria Hay.  
EP. IIII. Discoursing of the necessity of baptism; and the estate of those which necessary want it.  
madam.  
MEthinks children are like teeth, troublesone both in the breeding, and losing,& oftentimes painful while they stand: yet such, as we neither would, nor can well be without I go not about to comfort you thus late, for your loss, I rather congratulate your wise moderation,& Christian care of these first spiritual privileges; desiring only to satisfy you in what you hard as a witness; not in what you needed as a mother. Children are the blessings of Parents, and baptism is the blessing of children, and parents: Wherein, there is not only use, but necessity; Necessity, not in respect so much of the end, as of the precept: God hath enjoined it, to the comfort of parents, and behoof of children: which therefore, as it may not be superstitiously hastened, so not negligently differred. That the contempt of baptism damneth, is past all doubt; but that the constrained absence thereof, should sand infants to hel, is a cruel rashness. It is not their sin to die early: death is a punishment, not an offence; an effect of sin, not a cause of torment; they want nothing but time; which they could not command. Because they could not live a while longer, that therfore they should die everlastingly, is the hard sentence of a bloody religion. I am onely sorry, that so harsh an opinion should bee graced with the name of a father, so reverend, so divine: whose sentence yet, let no man plead by halves. He who held it unpossible for a child to be saved unless the baptismal water were powred on his face, held it also as unpossible, for the same infant, unless the sacramental bread were received into his mouth. There is the same ground for both, the same error in both, a weakness fit for forgetfulness; see yet how ignorant, or il meaning posterity, could single out one half of the opinion for truth and condemn the other of falsehood. In spite of whom, one part shall easily convince the other; yea without al force, since both cannot stand, both will fall together, for company. The same mouth, which said, unless ye be born again of water, and the holy Ghost, said also, Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood: An equal necessity of both. And lest any one should pled different interpretations, the same Saint Austin avers this later opinion also, concerning the necessary communicating of children, to haue been once the common iudgement of the Church of Rome: A sentence so displeasing, 
Index Expurg.  that you shall find the memory of it noted with a black coal,& wiped out in that infamous bill of Expurgations. Had the ancient Church held this desperate sequel, what strange, and yet wilful cruelty had it been in them, to defer baptism a whole year long: till Easter, or that Sunday, which hath his name( I think) from the white robes of the baptized?  
Yea what an adventure was it in some, to adjourn it till their age( with Constantine) if being unsure of their life, they had been sure the prevention of death would haue inferred damnation? look unto that legal Sacrament of circumcision, which( contrary to the fancies of our Anabaptists) directly answers this evangelical. Before the eight day they could not bee circumcised: before the eight day they might die. If dying the seventh day, they were necessary condemned: either the want of a day is a sin, or God sometimes condemneth not for sin: Neither of them possible, neither according with the iustice of the Law giver. Or if from this parallel, you please to look either to reason or example, the case is clear. Reason; No man that hath saith; can bee condemned, for Christ dwells in our harts by faith: and he in whom Christ dwells cannot bee a reprobate. Now it is possible a man may have a saving faith, before baptism. Abraham first believed to justification: then ofter received the sign of circumcision, as a feale of the righteousness of that faith, which he had when he was uncircumcised: Therefore some dying before their baptism, may, yea must be saved. Neither was Abrahams case singular; he was the Father of all them also, which beleeue, not being circumcised: these, as they are his Sons in faith, so in righteousness, so in salvation: uncircumcision cannot hinder, where faith admitteth; These following his steps of belief: before the sacrament, shal doubtless rest in his bosom, without the sacrament; without it, as fatally absent, not as willingly neglected. It is not the water, but the faith: not the putting away the filth of the flesh( saith Saint Peter) but the stipulation of a good conscience; for who takes baptism without a full faith( saith jerome) takes the water, takes not the spirit; Whence is this so great virtue of the water, that it should touch the body, and cleanse the heart( saith Austen) unless by the power of the word, not spoken, but believed? Thou seest water( saith Ambrose:) every water heals not, that water onely heals which hath the grace of God annexed; And if there bee any grace in the water( saith basil) it is not of the nature of the water, but of the presence of the spirit. baptism is indeed, as S. Ambrose stiles it, the pawn and image of our resurrection, yea( as Basil) the power of God to resurrection: but( as Ignatius expounds this phrase aright) believing in his death, wee are by baptism made partakers of his resurrection. baptism therefore without faith cannot save a man, and by faith doth save him; and faith without baptism( where it cannot be had; not where it may be had, and is contemned) may save him: That Spirit which works by means, will not bee tied to means.  
Examples. Cast your eyes vpon that good thief: good in his death, though in his life abominable: he was never washed in jordan, yet is received into Paradise; his soul was foul with rapines, and injustice, yea bloody with murders: and yet being scoured onely with the blood of his saviour, not with water of baptism; it is presented glorious to God. I say nothing of the souls of trajan, and Falconella, mere heathens, living and dying without Christ, without baptism: which yet their honest Legend reports delivered from hell, transported to heaven, not so much as scorched in purgatory: The one by the prayers of Gregory, the other of Tecla. What partiality is this to deny that to the children of Christians, which they grant to known infidels? The promise is made to us, and our seed; not to those that are without the pale of the Church. Those Innocents which were massacred for Christ, are by them canonised for Saints, and make one day in their Calendar( each year) both holy, and dismal; whereof yet scarce any lived to know water, none to know baptism. Yea, all Martyrs are here privileged; who are Christened in their own blood, instead of water: but where hath God said, All that die without baptism, shall die for ever, except Martyrs? why not, except believers? It is faith that gives life to Martyrs; which if they should want, their first death could not avoyde the second. Ambrose doubted not to say, his Valentinian was baptized, because he desired it; not because he had it: he knew the mind of God, who accounts us to haue what we vnfaynedly wish.  
Children cannot live to desire baptism, if their parents desire it for them, why may not the desire of others be theirs, as well as( according to Austins opinion) the faith of others believing, and the mouth of others confessing? In these cases therefore of any souls but our own, it is safe to suspend, and dangerous to pass iudgement. Secret things to God: he that made all souls, knows what to do with them, neither will make us of counsel: But if we define either way, the errors of charity are in offensive. wee must honour good means and use them, and in their necessary want depend vpon him, who can work, beyond, without, against means.  
Thus haue I endeavoured your ladyships satisfaction in what you heard, not without some scruple. If any man shall blame my choice in troubling you with a thorny, and scholastical discourse, let him know that I haue learned this fashion of St. jerome the Oracle of antiquity, who was wont to entertain his Paula, Eustochium, Marcella, Principia, Hedibia, and other devout Ladies, with learned canuases of the deep points of divinity. This is not so perplexed, that it need to offend: nor so unnecessary, that it may bee unknown.   

To Sir Richard Lea, since deceased.  
EP. V. Discoursing of the comfortable remedies of all afflictions.  
WIse men seek remedies before their disease: sensible patients, when they begin to complain fools, too late. Afflictions are the common maladies of Christians: These you feel, and vpon the first groans seek for ease. Wherefore serves the tongue of the learned, but to speak words in season? I am a scholar of those that can comfort you: If you shall with me, take out my lessons, neither of us shall repent it. You smart and complain, take heed least too much: There is no affliction not grievous: the bone that was disjointed, cannot bee set right without pain. No potion can cure us, if it work not: it works not, except it make us sick: wee are contented with that sickness, which is the way to health. There is a vexation without hurt: such is this: We are afflicted, not ouer-pressed; needy, not desperate; persecuted not forsaken, cast down but perish not. How should we, when all the evil in a city comes from the providence of a good God; which can neither be impotent, nor unmerciful? It is the Lord, let him do what he will. Woe were us if evils could come by chance; or were let loose to alight where they list: now they are oueruled; wee are safe. The destiny of our sorrows is written in heaven by a wise and eternal decree: Behold he that hath ordained, moderates them. A faithful God, that gives an issue with the tentation: An issue, both of their end, and their success. He chides not always, much less striketh; Our light afflictions are but for a moment, not so long, in respect of our vacancy, and rest. If we weep some times, our tears are precious; As they shall never be dry in his bottle, so they shall soon be dry vpon our cheeks. he that wrings them from us, shal wipe them off: how sweetly doth he interchange our sorrows, and joys, that wee may neither be vain, nor miserable? It is true; to be strooke, once in anger, is fearful: his displeasure is more then his blow: In both, our God is a consuming fire. fear not, these stripes are the tokens of his love: he is no Son, that is not beaten; yea till he smart, and cry; if not till he bleed: no parent corrects anothers child, and he is no good parent, that corrects not his own. Oh rod worthy to be kissed, that assures us of his love, of our adoption! What speak I of no hurt? short praises do but discommend; I say more, these evils are good: look to their effects. What is good if not patience? affliction is the mother of it; tribulation bringeth forth patience. What can earth or heaven yield better then the assurance of Gods spirit? Afflictions argue, yea seal this to vs. Wherein stands perfect happiness, if not in our near resemblance of Christ? Why was man created happy, but because in Gods image? The glory of Paradise, the beauty of his body, the duty of the creatures, could not give him felicity without the likeness to his creator. Behold, what we lost in our height, we recover in our misery; a conformity to the Image of the son of God he that is not like his elder brother, shall never be coheir with him. Lo his side, temples, hands, feet, all bleeding: his face blubbred ghastly,& spitted on: his skin al pearled with a bloody sweat, his head drooping, his soul heavy to the death: see you the worldling merry, soft, delicate, perfumed, never wrinkled with sorrow, never humbled with afflictions? What resemblance is here, yea what contrariety? Ease slayeth the fool; it hath made him resty, and leaves him miserable. Be not deceived; No man can follow Christ without his cross, much less reach him: and if none shall reign with Christ, but those that suffer with him; what shall become of these jolly ones? Go now thou dainty worldling, and please thyself in thy happiness, laugh always, and bee ever applauded; It is a woeful felicity that thou shalt find in opposition to thy redeemer: He hath said, woe to them that laugh; believest thou, and dost not weep at thy laughter? and with Salomon, condemn it of madness? And again, with the same breath, Blessed are ye that weep: who can beleeue this, and not rejoice in his own tears, and not pitty the faint smiles of the godless? Why blessed? For ye shal laugh: Behold we that weep on earth, shall laugh in heaven: wee that now weep with men, shall laugh with Angels; while the fleering worldling, shal be gnashing, and howling with divels: we that weep for a time, shall laugh for ever: who would not be content to differ his ioy a little, that it may be perpetual, and infinite? What mad man would purchase this crackling of thorns( such is the worldlings ioy) with eternal shrieking& torment? he that is the door and the way, hath taught us, that through many afflictions wee must enter into heaven. There is but one passage, and that a straight one: If with much pressure wee can get through, and leave but our superfluous rags as torn from us in the crowd; we are happy. he that made heaven, hath on purpose thus framed it; wide when we are entred, and glorious narrow and hard in the entrance: that after our pain, our glory might be sweeter. And if before hand you can climb up thither in your thoughts; look about you, you shall see no more palms, then crosses: you shall see none crowned, but those that haue wrestled with crosses and sorrows, to sweat, yea to blood; and haue overcome. All runs here to the ouercommer, and overcoming implies both fighting, and success. gird up your loins therefore, and strengthen your weak knees; resolve to fight for heaven, to suffer in fighting, to persist in suffering; so persisting you shall overcome, and overcoming you shall bee crwoned. Oh reward truly great, above desert, yea, above conceit. A crown for a few groans: An eternal crown of life and glory, for a short and momentany suffering: How just is Saint Pauls account, that the afflictions of this present life are not worthy of the glory which shall be shewed unto us? O Lord let me smart that I may reign; uphold thou me in smarting, that thou mayest hold me worthy of reigning. It is no matter how vile I be, so I may be glorious. What say you? would you not bee afflicted? Whether had you rather mourn for a while, or for ever; One must bee chosen: the election is easy: Whether had you rather rejoice for one fit or always? You would do both. Pardon me; it is a fond covetousness, and idle singularity to affect it. What? That you alone may fare better then all Gods Saints? That God should strew Carpets for your nice feet onely, to walk into your heaven, and make that way smooth for you, which all Patriarks, Prophets, evangelists, Confessors, Christ himself, haue found rugged and bloody? Away with this self love; and come down you ambitious son of Zebedee: and ere you think of sitting near the throne, bee content to bee called unto the Cup. Now is your trial; Let your saviour see how much of his bitter potion you can pledge; then shall you see how much of his glory he can afford you. Be content to drink of his vinegar, and gull, and you shall drink new wine with him in his kingdom.   

To Master Peter Moulin, Preacher of the Church at PARIS.  
EP. VI. Discoursing of the late French occurrents, and what use God expects to be made of them.  
SInce your travels here with us, wee haue not forgotten you; but since that, your witty and learned travels in the common affairs of Religion haue made your memory both fresh, and blessed. behold, whiles your hand was happily busy in the defence of our King, the heads and hands of traitors were busy in the massacring of your own. God doth no memorable, and public act, which he would not haue talked of red, construed of all the world. How much more of neighbours, whom scarce a sea severeth from each other? how much yet more of brethren, whom neither land, nor sea, can sever? Your dangers, and fears, and griefs haue been ours: All the salt water that runs betwixt us cannot wash off our interest in all your common causes: The deadly blow of that miscreant( whose name is justly sentenced to forgetfulness) pierced even our sides. Who hath not bled within himself, to think that he, which had so victoriously outlived the sword of enemies, should fall by the knife of a villain? and that he should die in the peaceable streets, whom no fields could kill? that all those honourable and happy triumphs should end in so base a violence? But oh our idleness, and impiety, if we see not a divine had from above, striking with this hand of disloyalty. Sparrows fall not to the ground without him, much less Kings; One dyes by a tyle-sheard, another by the splinters of a lance, one by Lice, another by a Fly, one by poison, another by a knife; What are all these but the executioners of that great God, which hath said, Ye are Gods, but ye shall die like men? Perhaps God saw( that wee may guess modestly at the reasons of his acts) you reposed too much in this arm of flesh; or Perhaps he saw this scourge would haue been too early, to those enemies, whose sin, though great, yet was not full: or perhaps he saw, that if that great spirit had been deliberately yielded in his bed, you should not haue slept in yours: O perhaps the ancient connivence at those streams of blood; from your too common doels, was now called to reckoning; or, it may be; that weak revolt from the truth. He whose the rod was, knows why he strooke: yet may it not pass without a note, that he fell by that religion, to which he fell. How many ages might that great monarch haue lived( whatsoever the ripe head of your more then mellow Cotton could imagine) ere his least finger should haue bled, by the hand of an Huguenot? All religions may haue some monsters; but blessed be the God of heaven, ours shall never yield that good Iesuite, either a Mariana to teach treason, or a Rauillas to act it. But what is that we hear? It is no marvell: That holy Society is a fit guardian for the hearts of kings: I dare say, none more loues to see them none takes more care to purchase them. How happy were that chapel( think they) if it were full of such shrines? I hope all Christian Princes haue long, and well learned( so great is the courtesy of these good Fathers) that they shall never( by their wills) need bee troubled with the charge of their own heartes. An heart of a KING in a Iesuites hand, is as proper, as a wafer in a Priests. justly was it written of old, under the picture of Ignatius Loyola, cavete vobis Principes; Be wise O ye Princes, and learn to be the keepers of your own hearts. Yea rather, O thou keeper of Israel, that neither slumbrest nor sleepest, keep thou the hearts of al Christian Kings, whether alive or dead, from the keeping of this traitorous generation; whose very religion is wholly rebellion, and whose merits bloody. doubtless, that murderer hoped to haue stabbed thousands with that blow, and to haue let out the life of religion, at the side of her collapsed Patron: God did at once laugh and frown at his project; and suffered him to live to see himself, no less a fool then a villain. Oh the infinite goodness of the wise, and holy governor of the world; who could haue looked for such a calm in the midst of a tempest? who would haue thought that violence could beget peace? Who durst haue conceived that King Henry should die alone? and that Religion should loose nothing but his person? This is the Lords doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. You haue now paralleled us: Out of both our fears hath God fetched security: oh that out of our security, we could as easily fetch fear: not so much of evil, as of the Author of good; and yet trust him in our fear, and in both magnify him. Yea, you haue by this act gained some converts, against the hope of the agents: neither can I without many joyful congratulations, think of the estate of your Church; which every day honours with the access of new clients; whose tears and sad confessions make the Angels to rejoice in heaven,& the Saints on earth. Wee should give you example, if our peace were as plentiful of goodness as of pleasure. But how seldom hath the Church gained by ease? or lost by restraint? bless you God for our prosperity, and wee shall praise him for your progress.   

To Master THOMAS SVTTON.  
EP. VII. Exciting him, and( in him) all others to early and cheerful beneficence: showing the necessity and benefit of good works.  
SIR, I trouble you not with reasons of my writing, or with excuses: If I do ill, no plea can warrant me; If well, I cannot bee discouraged with any censures. I crave not your pardon, but your acceptation. It is no presumption to give good counsel; and presents of love fear not to bee ill taken of strangers. My pen and your substance are both given us for one end, to do good: These are our talents, how happy are we if wee can improve them well suffer me to do you good with the one that with the other, you may do good to many, and most to yourself. You cannot but know, that your full hand, and worthy purposes haue possessed the world with much expectation: what speak I of the world? whose honest and reasonable claims yet, cannot bee contemned with honour, nor disappointed without dishonour. The God of heaven, which hath lent you this abundance, and given you these gracious thoughts of charity, of piety, looks long for the issue of both:& will easily complain either of too little, or too late. Your wealth and your will are both good, but the first is onely made good by the second for if your hand were full, and your heart empty, we who now applaud you, should justly pitty you, you might haue riches, not goods, not blessings: your burden should be greater, then your estate; and you should be richer in sorrows, then in metals. For( if wee look to no other world) what gain is it to be the keeper of the best earth? That which is the common coffer of all the rich mines, we do but tread vpon; and account it vile, because it doth but hold, and hid those treasures. Whereas the skilful metalist that findeth, and refineth those precious veins, for public use, is rewarded, is honoured. The very basest Element yields gold; the savage Indian gets it, the servile prentice works it, the very Midianitish camel may wear it, the miserable worldling admires it, the covetous jew swallows it, the unthrifty Ruffian spends it: what are al these the better for it? Onely good use gives praise to earthly possessions. Here in therfore you owe more to God, that he hath given you an heart to do good a will to bee as rich in good works, as great in riches. To be a friend to this Mammon, is to be an enemy to God: but to make friends with it, is royal, and Christian. His enemies may be wealthy, none but his friends can either be good, or do good: Da& accipe, saith the wise man. The Christian which must imitate the high pattern of his creator, knows his best riches to be bounty; God that hath all, gives all; reserves nothing. And for himself; he well considers, that God hath not made him an owner, but a seruant: and of seruants a seruant, not of his goods but of the giver; not a treasurer, but a Steward: whose praise is more to lay out well, then to haue received much. The greatest gain therfore that he affects, is an even reckoning, a clear discharge: which since it is obtained by disposing, not by keeping, he counts reservation loss, and just expense his trade, and ioy; he knows, that Well done faithful seruant, is a thousand times more sweet a note, then soul take thine ease; for that is the voice of the master recompensing, this of the carnal heart presuming: and what follows to the one, but his masters ioy? what to the other, but the loss of his soul? Blessed bee that God which hath given you an heart to fore think this, and in this dry, and dead age, a will to honour him with his own: and to credit his gospel, with your beneficence; Lo we are upbraided with barrenness: your name hath been publicly opposed to these challenges, as in whom it shall be seen, that the truth hath friends that can give. I neither distrust, nor persuade you, whose resolutions are happily fixed on purposes of good: onely give me leave to hasten your place a little, and to excite your Christian forwardness, to begin speedily, what you haue long and constantly vowed. You would not but do good; why not now? I speak boldly, the more speed, the more comfort: Neither the times are in our disposing, nor ourselves: if God had set us a day, and made our wealth inseparable, there were no danger in delaying; now our uncertainty either must quicken us, or may deceive vs. How many haue meant well, and done nothing, and lost their crown with lingering? whose destinies haue prevented their desires, and haue made their good motions the wards of their executors, not without miserable success: to whom, that they would haue done good, is not so great a praise, as it is a dishonour that they might haue done it: their wracks are our warnings, we are equally mortal, equally fickle. Why haue you this respite of living, but to prevent the imperious necessity of death? it is a woeful and remediless complaint, that the end of our dayes hath overrun the beginning of our good works. Early beneficence hath no danger, many joys: for the conscience of good done, the prayers and blessings of the relieved, the gratulations of the Saints, are as so many perpetual comforters, which can make our life pleasant, and our death happy our evil dayes good, and our good better. All these are lost with delay, few and could are the prayers for him that may give:& in lieu, our good purposes forestowed, are become our tormenters vpon our dead bed. Little difference is betwixt good differred, and evil done: Good was meant, who hindered it, will our conscience say? there was time enough, means enough, need enough, what hindered? Did fear of envy, distrust of want? Alas what bugs are these to fright men from heaven? As if the envy of keeping, were less then of bestowing: As if God were not as good a debtor, as a giver: he that gives to the poor lends to God, saith wise Salomon; If he freely give us what wee may lend, and grace to give; will he no much more pay us what wee haue lent; and give us because wee haue given? That is his bounty, this his iustice Oh happy is that man that may be a creditor to his maker. heaven and earth, shall be empty before he shall want a royal payment. If wee dare not trust God whiles we live, how dare we trust men when we are dead? Men that are still deceitful, and light vpon the balance, light of truth, heavy of self-love. How many executors haue proved the executioners of honest wills? how many haue our eyes seen, that after most careful choice of trusty guardians, haue had their children and goods so disposed, as if the parents soul could return to see it, I doubt whether it could be happy? How rare is that man that prefers not himself to his dead friend? profit to truth? that will take no vantage of the impossibility of account? What ever therefore men either show, or promise, happy is that man that may bee his own auditor, superuisor, executor. As you love God and yourself, be not afraid of being happy too soon. I am not worthy to give so bold advice, let the wise son of sirach speak for me: Do good before thou die, and according to thine ability stretch out thine hands, and give: Defraud not thyself of thy good day; and let not the portion of thy good desires overpass thee: Shalt thou not leave thy travels to another, and thy labours to them that will divide thine heritage? Or let a wiser then he, Salomon: Say not, to morrow I will give, if thou now haue it: for thou knowest not what a day will bring forth. It hath been an old rule of liberality, he gives twice that gives quickly, whereas slow benefits argue vnchearefulnesse, and lose their worth. Who lingers his receipts is condemned as vnthriftie: he that knoweth both, saith, it is better to give, then to receive. If we be of the same spirit, why are we hasty in the worse, and slack in the better? Suffer yourself therfore good Sir, for Gods sake, for the Gospels sake, for the Churches sake, for your souls sake, to bee stirred up by those poor lines, to a resolute and speedy performing of your worthy intentions: and take this as a loving invitation sent from heaven, by an unworthy messenger. You cannot deliberate long of fit objects for your beneficence, except it be more for multitude, then want: the streets, yea the world is full; How doth Lazarus lye at every door? how many Sons of the Prophets in their meanely-prouided colleges may say, not, Mors in olla, but Fanies? how many Churches may justly plead, that which our saviour bad his Disciples, The Lord hath need? And if this infinite store hath made your choice doubtful, how easy were it to show you, wherein you might oblige the whole Church of God to you, and make your memorial both eternal, and blessed; or, if you had rather, the whole common wealth? But now I find myself too bold and too busy, in thus looking toward particularities: God shall direct you, and if you follow him, shall crown you: howsoever, if good be done, and that be times: he hath what he desired, and your soul shall haue more then you can desire. The success of my weak yet hearty counsel, shall make me as rich, as God hath made you with all your abundance. That God bless it to you, and make both our recknings cheerful in the day of our common audit.   

To E. B. Dedicated to Sir GEORGE GORING.  
EP. VIII. Remedies against dulness and hartlesnesse in our callings, and encouragements to cheerfulness in labour.  
IT falls out not seldom( if we may measure all by one) that the mind ouerlayed with work, grows dull, and heavy: and now doth nothing, because it hath done too much; over lavish expense of spirits hath left it heartless: As the best vessel with much motion and vent, becomes flat, and dreggish. And not fewer( of more weaker temper) discourage themselves with the difficulty of what they must do: some fellow-travelers haue more shrunk at the map then at the way? Betwixt both, how many sit stil with their hands folded; and wish they knew how to be rid of time? If this evil bee not cured, we become miserable losers, both of good houres, and of good parts. In these mental diseases; empirics are the best Phisitians. I prescribe you nothing but out of feeling: If you will avoid the first: moderate your own vehemency; suffer not yourself to do all you could do: Rise ever from your desk, not without an appetite. The best horse will tyre soonest, if one adjoin lye ever loose in his neck: Restraints in these cases are encouragements: obtain therefore of yourself to defer, and take new daies. How much better is it to refresh yourself, with many competent meales, then to buy one daies glutonie: with the fast of many? And if it be hard to call off the mind, in the midst of a faire and likely flight; know that all our ease and safety begins at the command of ourselves: he can never task himself well, that cannot favour himself. persuade your heart that perfection comes by leisure: and no excellent thing is done at once: the rising and setting of many suins( which you think slackens your work) in truth ripens it. That gourd which came up in a night, withered in a day; whereas those plants which abide age, rise slowly. indeed, where the heart is unwilling, prorogation hinders: what I list not to do this day, I loathe the next; but where is no want of desire, delay doth but sharpen the stomach. That which we do unwillingly leave, we long to undertake,& the more our affection is, the greater our intention, and the better our performance. To take occasion by the foretop, is no small point of wisdom; but to make time( which is wild and fugitive) tame and pliable to our purposes, is the greatest improvement of a man: All times serve him, which hath the rule of himself.  
If the second, think seriously of the condition of your being. It is that we were made for; the bird to fly, and man to labour. What do wee here if wee repined at our work? we had not been, but that we might be still busy; if not in this task we dislike, yet in some other of no less toil: There is no act that hath not his labour, which varies in measure according to the will of the doer. This which you complain of, hath been undertaken by others, not with facility only, but with pleasure;& what you choose for ease, hath been abhorred of others, as tedious. All difficulty is not so much in the work, as in the Agent. To set the mind on the rack of long meditation( you say) is a torment: to follow the swift foot of your hound al day long, hath no weariness: what would you say of him that finds better game in his study, then you in the field; and would account your disport his punishment? such there are, though you doubt and wonder. never think to detract from your business, but add to your will. It is the policy of our great enemy, to drive us with these fears, from that he foresees would grow profitable: like as some in-hospitall savages make fearful delusions by sorcery, vpon the shore, to fright strangers from landing. Where you find therfore motions of resistance, awaken your courage the more,& know there is some good that appears not; vain endeavours find no opposition. Al crosses imply a secret commodity: resolve then to will because you begin not to will: and either oppose yourself, as Satan opposes you, or else you do nothing. We pay no price to God for any good thing, but labour; if we higgle in that, we are worthy to lose our bargain. It is an invaluable gain, that we may make in this traffic: for God is bountiful, as well as just, and when he sees true endeavour, doth not only sell, but give: whereas idleness neither gets nor saves, nothing is either more fruitless of good, or more fruitful of evil; for we do ill whiles wee do nothing, and lose, whiles we gain not. The sluggard is senseless, and so much more desperate, because he cannot complain: but( though he feel it not) nothing is more precious then time, or that shall abide a reckoning more strict and fearful: yea this is the measure of all our actions, which if it were not abused, our accounts could not be but even with God: so God esteems it( what ever our pride be) that he plagues the loss of a short time, with a reuenge beyond all times. Houres haue wings, and every moment flies up to the author of time, and carries news of our usage: All our prayers cannot entreat one of them either to return, or slacken his place: the mispense of every minute is a new record against us in heaven. Sure, if we thought thus, wee would dismiss them with better reports, and not suffer them either to go away empty, or laden with dangerous intelligence; how happy is it that every hour should convey up, not only the message, but the fruits of good, and stay with the Ancient of daies, to speak for us before his glorious throne? know this and I shall take no care for your pains, nor you, for pastime. None of our profitable labours shall be transient, but even when wee haue forgotten them, shall welcome us into ioy wee think wee haue left them behind us, but they are forwarder then our souls, and expect us where wee would be. And if there were no crown for these toils, yet without future respects there is a tediousness in doing nothing. To man especially, motion is natural: there is neither mind, nor eye, nor joint which moveth not: And as company makes way short, houres never go away so merrily, as in the fellowship of work. How did that industrious heathen draw out water by night, and knowledge by day,& thought both short, ever labouring onely that he might labour? certainly if idleness were enacted by authority, there would not want some, which would pay their mulct, that they might work and those spirits are likest to heaven, which moves always, and the freest from those corruptions, which are incident to nature. The running stream cleanseth itself, whereas standing pounds breed weeds, and mud. These meditations must hearten us to that we must do: whiles we are cheerful, our labours shall strive whether to yield us more comfort, or others more profit.   

To S. H. I.  
EP. IX. Discussing this Question. Whether a man and wife after some yeares mutual, and loving fruition of each other, may vpon consent, whether for secular, or religious causes, vow and perform a perpetual separation from each others bed, and absolutely renounce all carnal knowledge of each other for ever.  
I Wish not myself any other advocate, nor you any other adversary, then Saint paul; who never gave( I speak boldly) a direct precept, if not in this: his express charge whereupon I insisted, is defraud, not one another, except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and then again come together, that Satan tempt you not, for your incontinency. every word( if you weigh it well) opposes your part, and pleads for mine. By consent of al divines ancient,& modern,( defrauding) is refraining from matrimonical conversation: see what a word the Spirit of God hath chosen for this abstinence: never but taken in ill part. But there is no fraud in consent, as Chrysostom, Athanasius, Theophilact, expound it: true; therefore Saint paul adds( unless with consent) that I may omit to say, that in saying ( unless with consent) he implies, both that there may bee a defrauding without it, and with consent a defrauding, but not unlawful: but see what he adds( For a time,) consent cannot make this defrauding lawful, except it be temporary: No defrauding without consent, no consent for a perpetuity. How long then, and wherefore? Not for every cause, not for any length of time, but onely for a while, and for devotion ( vt vacetis, &c.) Not that you might pray onely( as Chrysostome notes justly) but that you might( give yourselves to prayer.) In our marriage society( saith he) against that paradox of jerome, we may pray, and woe to us if we do not; but we cannot ( vacare orationi.) But we are bidden to pray continually: yet not I hope, ever to fast and pray. mark how the Apostle adds( that you may give you selves to fasting and prayer;) It is solemn exercise, which the Apostle here intends, such, as is joined with fasting, and external humiliation; wherein al earthly comforts must be forborn. But what if a man list to task himself continually, and will be always painfully devote: may he then never abstain? No:( Let them meet together again) saith the Apostle, not as a toleration, but as a charge? But what if they both can live safely thus severed? This is more then they can undertake: there is danger, saith our Apostle, in this abstinence( lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency) what can be more plain. Neither may the married refrain this conversation without consent: neither may they with consent, refrain it for ever. What can you now urge us with, but the examples, and sentences of some Ancients? Let this stand evicted for the true and necessary sense of the Apostle, and what is this, but to lay men in the balance with God? I see and confess how much some of the Fathers admired virginity; so far, that there wanted not some, which both detested marriage as vicious, and would force a single life vpon marriage, as commendable: whose authority should move me, if I saw not some of them opposite to others, and others no less to Saint paul himself. How oft doth Saint Austin redouble that rule, and importunately urge it to his Ecdicia, in that serious Epistle, that without consent the ꝯtinence of the married, cannot bee warrantable: teaching her( from these words of Saint paul which he charges her, in the contrary practise, not to haue red, heard, or marked) that if her husband should contain, and shee would not, he were bound to pay her the debt of marriage benevolence;& that God would impute it to him for ꝯtinence notwithstanding. 
Homil. in 1. Cor. 7.  Hence is that of Chrysostome, that the wife is both the seruant and the mistress of her husband, a seruant to yield her body, a mistress to haue power of his: who also in the same place determines it forbidden, fraud, for the husband, or wife to contain alone according to that of the Paraphrast Let either both contain, or neither. jerome contrarily, defines thus: But if one of the two( saith he) considering the reward of chastity, will contain, he ought not to assent to the other which contains not, &c. because lust ought rather to come to continency, then continency decline to lust, concluding that a brother, or sister is not subject in such a case; and that God hath not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness. A strange gloss to fall from the pen of a Father: which yet I durst not say, if it were more boldness for me to dissent from him, then for him to dissent from all others. He that censures Saint paul to argue grossly to his Galatians, may as well tax him of an unfit direction to his Corinthians: It shall be no presumption to say, that in this point all his writings bewray more zeal, then truth: whether the conscience of his former slip caused him to abhor that sex; or his admiration of virginity transported him to a contempt of marriage. antiquity will afford you many examples of holy men voluntarily sequestered from their wives: Precepts must bee our guides, and not patterns. You may tell me of Sozomens Ammon, that famous monk, who having persuaded his bride the first day to continuance of virginity, lived with her 18. yeares in a several bed: and in a several habitation, vpon the mountain Nitria, 22. yeares, you may tell me of Ieromes Malchus, Austens Ecdicia, and ten thousand others: I care not for their number, and suspect their example: do but reconcile their practise with Saint Paules rule; I shall both magnify and imitate them. I pro●esse, before God and men: nothing should hinder me but this law of the Apostle: whereto consider, I beseech you, what can be more opposite then this opinion, then this course of life.  
The Apostle says, refrain not but with consent for a time: your words, and their practise saith, refrain with consent for ever: he saith( meet together again) you say, never more: he saith( mere lest you bee tempted) you say, meet not though you bee tempted. I willingly grant with Athanasius, that for some set time, especially( as anselm interprets it) for some holy time, we may, and( in this latter case) we must forbear all matrimonical acts,& thoughts: not for that they are sinful, but unseasonable. As marriage must be always used chastened, and moderately: so sometimes it must be forgotten. How many are drunk with their own vines, and surfet of their own fruits? either immodesty, or immoderation in man or wife, is adulterous. If yet I shall further yield, that they may conditionally agree, to refrain from each other, so long till they bee perplexed with temptations, on either part: I shall go as far as the reach of my warrant, at least perhaps beyond it: since the Apostle chargeth, meet again lest you bee tempted; not, meet when you are tempted. But to say, absolutely, and for ever renounce( by consent) the conversation, of each other, what temptation soever assault you, is directly, not beyond, but against Paules divinity, no less then my assertion is against yours. The ground of all these errors in this head of Matrimony, is an unworthy conceit of some vnchristian filthiness in the marriage bed: every man will not utter, but too many hold that conclusion of jerome: It is good for a man not to touch a women, therefore to touch her, is evil; 
De bono coniugij, cap. 19.  whom I doubt not, but Saint Austin meant to oppose, while he writes, Bonum inquam sunt nuptiae,& contra omnes calumnias possunt sanâ ratione defendi: Marriage( I say) is a good thing, and may by sound proof bee defended, against all sla●ders: well may man say that is good, which God saith, is honourable; and both good and honourable must that needs be, which was instituted by the honourable author of goodness, in the state of mans perfect goodness: Let us take heed of casting shane vpon the ordinance of our maker. But there was no carnal knowledge in Paradise. But again, in Paradise God said, increase and multiply: there should haue been, if there were not. Those that were naked without shane should haue been conjoined without shane, because without sin. meats and drinks, and acts of marriage( saith Austin)( for these he compares both in lawfulness, 
De bono. coning. C. 9. &c. 16.  and necessity) are, as they are used, either lawful, venial, or damnable meats are for the preservation of man: marriage acts for the preservation of mankind: neither of them are without some carnal delight: which yet, if by the bridle of temperance it bee held to the proper, and natural use, cannot be termed lust. There is no ordinance of God, which either is of more excellent use, or hath suffered more abuse in all times: the fault is in men, not in marriage: Let them rectify themselves, their bed shal bee blessed. Here need no separation from each other, but rather a separation of brutishnes,& close corruption from the soul; which whosoever hath learned to remove, shall find the crown of matrimonicall chastity, no less glorious, then that of single ꝯtinence.   

To Master WILLIAM KNIGHT.  
EP. X. encouraging him to persist in the holy calling of the ministry, which vpon conceit of his insufficiency, and want of affection, he seemed inclining to forsake, and change.  
I Am more glad to hear from you, then sorry to hear of your discontentment: whereof, as the cause is from yourself, so must the remedy. Wee Schollers are the aptest of all others to make ourselves miserable: you might be your own best counselor, were you but indifferent to yourself: If I could but cure your prejudice, your thoughts would heal you: And indeed the same hand that wounded you, were fittest for this service. I need not tell you, that your calling is honourable; If you did not think so, you had not complained. It is your unworthiness, that troubles you: Let me boldly tell you, I know you in this case better then yourself; you are never the more unsufficient, because you think so: If wee will bee rigorous, Paules question( {αβγδ}) will oppose us all: but according to the gracious indulgence of him that calls things which are not as if they were, wee are that wee are yea, that we ought; and must be thankful for our any thing. There are none more fearful then the able, none more bold then the unworthy. How many haue you seen and heard of weaker graces( your own heart shall bee the judge) which haue sate without paleness, or trembling in that holy chair, and spoken as if the words had been their own: satisfying themselves, if not the hearers? And do you( whose gifts many haue envied) stand quaking vpon the lowest stair? Hath God given you that unusual variety of tongues, skill of Artes, a style worth emulation, and( which is worth all) a faithful and honest heart; and do you now shrink back, and say, sand by him by whom thou shouldst sand? give God but what you haue; he expects no more: This is enough to honour him, and crown you. Take heed while you complain of want, least pride shroud itself under the skirts of modesty; How many are thankful for less? You haue more then the most; yet this contents you not; it is nothing unless you may equal the best, if not exceed; yea I fear how this might satisfy you, unless you may think yourself such as you would bee: What is this but to grudge at the bestower of graces? I tell you without flattery, God hath great gains by fewer talents: set your heart to employ these, and your advantage shall bee more then your masters. Neither do now repent you of the unadvisedness of your entrance; God called you to it vpon an eternal deliberation, and meant to make use of your suddenness, as a means to fetch you into his work, whom more leisure would haue found refractory: Full little did the one Saul think of a kingdom, when he went to seek his Fathers straies in the land of Shalishah; or the other Saul of an Apostleship, when he went with his commission to Damascus: God thought of both;& effected what they meant not; Thus hath he done to you; aclowledge this hand, and follow it. he found and gave both faculty& opportunity to enter; find you but a will to proceed, I dare promise you abundance of comfort. How many o● the Ancients, after a forcible Ordination, became not profitable onely, but famous in the Church? But, as if you sought shifts to discourage yourself, when you see you cannot maintain this hold of insufficiency, you fly to alienation of a ●ection; In the truth whereof, none can concoll you but your own heart; in the iustice of it, we both may, and most. This plea is not for Christians; we must affect what we ought, in spite of ourselves; wherefore serves religion if not to make us Lords of our own affections? If wee must bee ruled by our slaves, what good should we do? Can you more dislike your station, then wee all naturally distaste goodness? Shall we neglect the pursuit of virtue, because it pleases not, or rather displease, and neglect ourselves, till it may please us? Let me not ask whether your affections be estranged, but wherefore? divinity is a mistress worthy your service: All other Artes are but drudges to her, alone: fools may contemn her who cannot judge of true intellectual beauty; but if they had our eyes, they could not but bee ravished with admiration. You haue learned( I hope) to contemn their contempt, and so pitty their injurious ignorance. She hath chosen you as a worthy client; yea a favourite; and hath honoured you with her commands, and her acceptations; who but you would plead strangeness of affection? How many thousand sue to her; and cannot be look't vpon? you are happy in her favours, and yet complain: Yea so far, as that you haue not stuck to think of a change: No word could haue fallen from you more unwelcome. This is Satans policy to make us out of love with our callings, that our labours may be unprofitable, and our standings tedious. he knows that all changes are fruitless, and that whiles we affect to be other, we must needs be weary of what we are: That there i● no success in any endeavour without pleasure; that there can bee no pleasure where the mind longs after alterations. If you espy not this craft of the common enemy, you are not acquainted with yourself: under what form soever i● come, repel it: and abhor the first motion of it, as you love your peace, as you hope for your reward. It is the misery of the most men, that they cannot see when they are happy; and whiles they see but the out-side of others conditions, prefer that which their experience teaches them afterwards to condemn, not without loss and tears. far be this vnstablenesse from you, which haue been so long taught of God. All vocations haue their inconveniences, which if they cannot be avoided, must be digested. The more difficulties, the greater glory: Stand fast therefore, and resolve that this calling is the best, both in itself, and for you: and know that it cannot stand with your Christian courage to run away from these incident evils, but to encounter them. Your hand is at the plough; if you meet with some tough clods, that will not easily yield to the share, lay on more strength rather; seek not remedy in your feet by flight, but in your hands, by a constant endeavour. Away with this weak timorousness, and wrongful humility: Be cheerful and courageous in this great work of God; the end shall be glorious yourself happy, and many in you.    

THE sixth DECADE Of EPISTLES.  
LONDON, 1610.   

The sixth Decade.  

EPIST. I. To my LORD DENNY.  
¶ A particular account how our dayes are, or should be spent, both common and holy.  
EVery day is a little life, and our whole life is but a day repeated: whence it is, that old jacob numbers his life by dayes, and Moses desires to be taught this point of holy arithmetic, to number not his yeares, but his dayes: Those therefore that dare loose a day, are dangerously prodigal; those that dare mis-spend it, desperate. We can best teach others by ourselves: Let me tell your Lordship, how I would pass my dayes, whether common or Sacred; that you( or whosoever others, ouer-hearing me) may either approve my thriftinesse, or correct my errors: To whom is the account of my houres either more due, or more known? All dayes are his, who gave time a beginning, and continuance; yet some he hath made ours, not to command, but to use. in none may we forget him, in some we must forget all, besides him. First therefore, I desire to awake at those houres, not when I will, but when I must: pleasure is not a fit rule for rest, but health: neither do I consult so much with the sun, as mine own necessity, whither of body, or, in that, of the mind. If this vassal could well serve me waking, it should never sleep: but now, it must bee pleased, that it may bee serviceable. Now, when sleep is rather driven away, then leaves me; I would ever awake with God; my first thoughts are for him, who hath made the night for rest, and the day for travell: and as he gives, so blesses both. if my heart be early seasoned with his presence, it will savour of him all day after. While my body is dressing, not with an effeminate curiosity, nor yet with rude neglect; my mind addresses itself to her ensuing Task; bethinking what is to be done, and in what order; and marshalling( as it may) my houres with my work: That done after some whiles Meditation, I walk up to my Maisters& companions, my books; and sitting down amongst them, with the best contentment, I dare not reach forth my hand to salute any of them, till I haue first looked up to heaven, and craved favour of him to whom all my Studies are duly referred: without whom, I can neither profit, nor labour. After this, out of no overgreat variety, J call forth those, which may best fit my occasions; wherein, I am not too scrupulous of age: sometimes I put myself to school, to one of those ancients, whom the Church hath honoured with the name of Fathers; whose Volumes, I confess, not to open, without a secret reverence of their holinesse, and gravity: Sometimes, to those later doctors, which want nothing but age to make them classical: always to GODS book. That day is lost, whereof some houres are not improved in those divine Monuments: Others I turn over out of choice, these out of duty. Ere I can haue sat unto weariness, my family, having now overcome all household-distractions, invites me to our common deuotions; not without some short preparation. These heartily performed, sand me up, with a more strong and cheerful appetite to my former work, which I find made easy to me by intermission, and variety: Now therefore, can I deceive the houres with change of pleasures, that is, of labours. One while mine eyes are busied, another while my hand,& sometimes my mind takes the burden from them both: Wherein, I would imitate the skilfullest Cookes, which make the best dishes with manifold mixtures: one hour is spent in textual divinity, another in controversy; histories relieve them both. Now, when the mind is weary of others labours, it begins to undertake hir own; sometimes it meditates, and winds up for future use; sometimes it lays forth her conceits into present discourse; sometimes for itself, ofter, for others. Neither know I whether it works or plays in these thoughts: I am sure no sport hath more pleasure, no work more use: Only the decay of a weak body, makes me think these delights insensibly laborious. Thus could I all day,( as Ringers use) make myself music with changes, and complain sooner of the day for shortness, then of the business for toil; were it not that this faint moniter interrupts me stil in the midst of my busy pleasures, and enforces me both to respite& repast: I must yield to both; while my body ●nd mind are joined together in these unequal couples, the better must follow the weaker. Before my meales therefore, and after, I let myself loose from all thoughts, and now, would forget that I ever studied: A full mind takes away the bodies appetite, no less then a full body makes a dull and unwieldy mind: Company, discourse, recreations, are now seasonable and welcome; These prepare me for a diet, not gluttonous, but medicinal; The Palate may not be pleased, but the stomach; nor that for it own sake: Neither would I think any of these comforts worth respect in themselves, but in their use, in their end; so far, as they may enable me to better things. If I see any dish to tempt my Palate, J fear a Serpent in that Apple, and would please myself in a wilful denial: I rise capable of more, not desirous: not now immediately from my Trencher, to my book; but after some intermission. Moderate speed is a sure help to all proceedings, where those things which are prosecuted with violence of endeavour, or desire, either succeed not, or continue not.  
After my latter meal, my thoughts are slight, onely my memory may be charged with her task, of recalling what was committed to her custody in the day, and my heart is busy in examining mine hands and mouth,& all other sences of that dayes behaviour. And now the evening is come, no Trades-man doth more carefully take in his wears, clear his Shoppeboord, and shut his windows, then J would shut up my thoughts,& clear my mind. That Student shall live miserable, which like a camel lies down under his burden. All this done, calling together my family, we end the day with God. Thus do wee rather drive away the time before us, then follow it. I grant, neither is my practise worthy to be exemplary, neither are our callings proportionable. The lives of a Nobleman, of a Courtier, of a scholar, of a citizen, of a countryman, differ no less then their dispositions: yet must all conspire in honest labour. Sweat is the destiny of all trades, whether of the brows, or of the mind. God never allowed any man to do nothing. How miserable is the condition of those men, which spend the time as if it were given thē, and not lent: as if houres were waste Creatures, and such as should never be accounted for; as if GOD would take this for a good bill of reckoning; Item, spent vpon my pleasures, forty yeares. These men shal once find, that no blood can privilege idleness; and that nothing is more precious to God, then, that which they desire to cast away, time. Such are my common daies: but Gods day calls for another respect. The same sun arises on this day, and enlightens it; yet because that Sun of righteousness arose once vpon it,& gave a new life unto the world in it,& drew the strength of Gods moral precept unto it therfore justly do we sing with the psalmist; This is the day which the lord hath made. Now, I forget the world, and in a sort, myself; and deal with my wonted thoughts, as great men use, who, at sometimes of their priuacie, forbid the access of all suitors. Prayer, Meditation, reading, hearing, preaching, singing, good conference, are the businesses of this day; which I dare not bestow on any work, or pleasure, but heavenly. J hate superstition on the one side, and looseness on the other; but I find it hard to offend in too much devotion, easy in profaneness. The whole Week is sanctified by this day, and according to my care of this, is my blessing on the rest. I show your Lordship, what I would do, and what I ought: I commit my desires to the imitation of the weak, my actions to the censures of the Wise and holy; my weaknesses to the pardon and redress of my merciful God.   

EPIST. II. To Mr T. S. Dedicated to Sir Fulke grevill.  
¶ Discoursing how wee may use the world without danger.  
HOwe to live out of the danger of the world is both a great& good care, and that which troubles too few. Some, that the World may not hurt them, run from it;& banish themselves to the tops of solitary Mountaines: changing the Cities, for Deserts, houses, for Caues, and the society of men for beasts; and least their enemy might insinuate himself into their secrecy, haue abridged themselves of diet, clothing, lodging, harbour, fit for reasonable creatures; seeming to haue left off themselves, no less then companions.  
As if the world were not every where; as if wee could hid ourselves from the devil; as if solitariness were privileged from Temptations; as if wee did not more violently affect restrained delights; as if these Hieromes did not find Rome in their hart, when they had nothing but rocks& trees in their eye. Hence these places of retyrednesse, founded at first upon necessity mixed with devotion, haue proved infamously vnclean; cells of lust, not of piety. This course is preposterous; If I were worthy to teach you a better way, learn to bee an Hermit at home: Begin with your own heart, estraunge and wean it from the love, not from the use of the world. Christianity hath taught us nothing, if wee haue not learned this distinction; It is a great weakness not to see, but wee must be enamoured: Elisha, saw the secret state of the Syrian court, yet as an enemy: The blessed angels see our earthly affairs, but as strangers: Moses his body was in the Court of Pharaoh, amongst the delicate egyptians, his heart was suffering with the afflicted Israelites. Lot took part of the fair meadows of Sodom, not of their sins. Our blessed saviour saw the glory of al kingdoms,& contemned them: and cannot the world look vpon us Christians, but wee are bewitched? We see the Sun daily,& warm us at his beams, yet make not an Idol of it; doth any man hid his face, least he should adore it? All our safety or danger therefore, is from within. In vain is the body an Anachoret, if the heart be a Ruffian: And if that bee retired in affections, the body is but a Cipher: Lo then the eyes will look carelessly and strangely in what they see, and the tongue will sometimes answer to that was not asked. We eat and recreate, because wee must, not because we would: and when wee are pleased, wee are suspicious: lawful delights, we neither refuse, nor dote vpon, and all contentments go and come like strangers. That all this may be done, take up your hart with better thoughts; be sure it will not be empty, if heaven haue fore-stalled all the rooms, the world is disappointed, and either dares not offer, or is repulsed. fix yourself vpon the glory of that eternity, which abides you after this short pilgrimage. You cannot but contemn what you find in comparison of what you expect. leave not till you attain to this, that you are willing to live, because ye cannot as yet be dissolved: Be but one half upon earth, let your better part converse above whence it is, and enjoy that whereto it was ordained. think how little the World can do for you and what it doth, how deceitfully: what stings there are with this Hony, what farewell succeeds this Welcome.  
When this jael brings you Milk in the one hand, know shee hath a nail in the other. ask your heart what it is the better, what the merrier, for all those pleasures wherewith it hath befriended you: let your own trial teach you contempt; think how sincere, how glorious those joys are, which abide you elsewhere, and a thousand times more certain( though future) then the present.  
And let not these thoughts be flying, but fixed: in vain do we meditate, if we resolve not: when your hart is once thus settled, it shall command all things to advantage. The World shall not betray, but serve it; and that shall be fulfilled which God promises by his Salomon; When the ways of a man please the Lord, he will make his enemies also at peace with him.  
Sir, this advice my poverty afforded long since to a weak friend; I writ it not to you, any otherwise, then as Schollers are wont to say their part to their Maisters. The world hath long and justly both noted and honoured you for eminence in wisdom and learning, and I above the most; I am ready with the awe of a Learner, to embrace all precepts from you: you shall expect nothing from me, but Testimonies of respect and thankfulness.   

EPIST. III. To Sr. George Fleetwood.  
¶ Of the remedies of sin, and motives to avoyde it.  
THere is none, either more common, or more troublesome guest, then Sin. troublesone, both in the solicitation of it, and in the remorse. Before the act, it wearies us with a wicked importunity; after the act it torments us with fears, and the painful gnawings of an accusing Conscience: neither is it more irksome to men, then odious to God; who indeed never hated any thing but it; and for it any thing. How happy were we, if we could be rid of it? This must be our desire, but cannot be our hope; so long as wee carry this body of sin and death about us: yet( which is our comfort) it shall not carry us, though wee carry it: It will dwell with us, but with no command; yea, with no peace: Wee grudge to give it house-roome, but wee hate to give it service. This our Hagar will abide many stroke, ere she be turned out of doors; she shall go at last, and the seed of promise shall inherit alone. There is no vnquyetnesse good, but this: and in this case, quietness cannot stand with safety: neither did ever war more truly beget peace, then in this strife of the soul.  
Resistance is the way to victory, and that, to an eternal peace and happiness. It is a blessed care then, how to resist sin, how to avoid it: and such as I am glad to teach and learn. As there are two grounds of all sin, so of the avoidance of sin; love, and fear: These if they be placed amiss, cause us to offend: if aright, are the remedies of evil: The love must be of God; fear, of Iudgement.  
As he loues much, to whom much is forgiven, so he that loues much, will not dare to do that which may need forgiveness. The heart that hath felt the sweetness of Gods mercies, will not abide the bitter relish of sin: This is both a stronger motive then Fear, and more Noble; None but a good heart is capable of this grace: which who so hath received, thus powerfully repelles temptations.  
Haue I found my God so gracious to me that he hath denied me nothing, either in earth or heaven: and shal not J so much as deny my own will for his sake? Hath my dear saviour bought my soul at such a price, and shall he not haue it? Was he crucified for my sins, and shall I by my sins crucify him again? Am J his in so many bonds, and shall J serve the devil? O God! is this the fruit of thy beneficence to me, that J should wilfully dishonour thee? Was thy blood so little worth, that I should tread it under my feet? doth this become him that shall be once glorious with thee? Hast thou prepared heaven for me, and do I thus prepare myself for heaven? Shall I thus recompense thy love, in doing that which thou hatest? Satan hath no Dart( I speak confidently) that can pierce this shield: Christians are indeed to oft surprised, ere they can hold it out: there is no small policy in the suddainenesse of temptation: but if they haue once settled it before their breast, they are safe, and their enemy hopeless. under this head therefore, there is sure remedy against sin, by looking yards, backward, into ourselves, forward. upwards, at the glorious majesty, and infinite goodness of that God whom our sin would offend, and in whose face we sin: whose mercies,& whose holiness is such, that if there were no hel, we would not offend. backward, at the manifold favours, whereby we are obliged to obedience. Into ourselves, at that honourable vocation, wherewith he hath graced us, that holy profession we haue made of his calling, and grace, that solemn vow& covenant, whereby we haue confirmed our profession; the gracious beginnings of that spirit in us, which is grieved by our sins, yea quenched. forward, at the ioy which will follow vpon our forbearance, that peace of conscience, that happy expectation of glory, compared with the momentary and unpleasing delight of a present sin; All these, out of love; Fear is a retentive, as necessary, not so ingenuous. it is better to be won, then to be frighted from sin: to be alured, then drawn. Both are little enough in our proneness to evil: evil, is the onely object of fear. herein therefore, wee must terrify our stubbornness, with both evils; Of loss, and of sense: that if it be possible, the honor of the event may countervail the pleasure of the tentation: Of loss, remembering that now we are about to loose a God; to cast away all the comforts& hopes of another world; to rob ourselves of all those sweet mercies we enjoyed; to thrust his spirit out of doors( which cannot abide to dwell within the noisome stench of sin) to shut the doors of heaven against ourselves. Of sense; That thus we give satan a right in us, power over us, advantage against vs. That wee make God to frown vpon us in heaven; That we arm all his good creatures against us on earth; That we do as it were take Gods hand in ours,& scourge ourselves with all temporal plagues; and force his curses vpon us, and ours: That we wound our own consciences with sins, that they may wound us with everlasting torments; That we do both make an hell in our breasts before hand, and open the gates of that bottomless pit, to re-receiue us afterwards: That wee do now cast Brimstone into the Fire; and least we should fail of tortures, make ourselves our own fiends: These,& what ever other terrors of this kind, must be laid to the soul: which, if they be thoroughly urged to an heart, not altogether incredulous, well may a man ask himself, how he dare sin? But if neither this sun of mercies, nor the tempestuous Winds of iudgement can make him cast off Peters cloak of hard-heartedness; he must bee clad with confusion, as with a cloak, according to the Psalmist.  
I tremble to think how many live, as if they were neither beholden to God, nor afraid of him; neither in his debt, nor danger: As if their heaven and hell were both vpon earth; Sinning not onely without shane, but not without malice; It is their least ill to do evil; Behold they speak for it, ioy in it, boast of it, enforce to it; as if they would sand challenges into heaven,& make love to destruction: Their lewdness calls for our sorrow, and zealous obedience; that our God may haue as true Seruants, as enemies: And as we see natural qualities, increased with the resistance of their contraries: so must our grace with others sins: We shal redeem somwhat of Gods dishonour by sin, if we shal thence grow holy.   

EPIST. IIII. To Mr. Doctor Milburne.  
¶ Discoursing, how far, and wherein Popery destroyeth the foundation.  
THe mean in all things is not more safe then hard: whether to find or keep:& as in al other morality, it lieth in a narrow room: so most in the matter of our censures, especially concerning Religion: wherein we are wont to be either careless, or too peremptory: How far, and wherein Popery raceth the foundation, is worth our inquiry: I need not stay vpon words. By foundation, we mean the necessary grounds of Christian faith. This foundation Papistry defaces, by laying a new; by casting down the old. In these cases, addition destroys: he that obtrudes a new word, no less overthrows the Scripture, then he that denies the old, yea this, very obtrusion denies: he that sets up a new Christ, rejects Christ: Two foundations cannot stand at once: The ark and Dagon. Now Papistry lays a double new foundation: The one, a new rule of faith, that is, a new word: The other, a new Author, or guide of Faith, that is, a new head besides Christ: God never laid other foundation, then in the Prophets and Apostles: vpon their divine writing, he meant to build his Church; which he therefore inspired, that they might be like( himself) perfect and eternal: Popery builds upon an vn-written word, the voice of old( but doubtful) Traditions. The voice of the present Church, that is, as they interpret it, theirs; with no less confidence and presumption of certainty, then any thing ever Written by the finger of God; If this be not a new foundation, the old was none. God never taught this holy Spouse to know any other husband, thē Christ; to aclowledge any other head; to follow any other shepherd, to obey any other King: he alone may be enjoyed without iealousy, submitted to without danger, without error believed, served without scruple: Popery offers to impose on Gods Church a King, shepherd, head, husband, besides her own: A man; a man of sin. He must know all things, can err in nothing: direct, inform, animate, command, both in earth and Purgatory, expound Scriptures, cannonize Saints, forgive Sins: create new Articles of Faith; and in all these, is absolute and infallible as his Maker; who sees not, that if to attribute these things to the son of God, bee to make him the foundation of the Church; Then to ascribe them to another, is to contradict him that said, Other foundation can no man lay, then that which is laid, which is Iesus Christ. To lay a new foundation, doth necessary subvert the old yet see this further actually done in particulars: wherein yet this distinction may clear the way: The foundation is overthrown two ways; either in flat terms, when a main principle of faith is absolutely denied as the deity and consubstantiality of the son by Arrius, the Trinity of persons by Sabellius and servetus, the resurrection of the body by Himeneus and Philetus, the last Iudgement by Saint Peters Mockers; Or secondly, by consequent; when any opinion is maintained, which by just sequel over turneth the truth of that principle, which the defendant professes to hold; yet so, as he will not grant the necessity of that deduction: so the Ancient Minoei, of whom jerom speaketh, while they urged Circumcision, by consequent according to Paules rule, rejected Christ: so the Pelagians, while they defended a full perfection of our righteousness in ourselves, overthrew Christes justification: and in effect said, I beleeue in Christ, and in myself: so some ubiquitaries, while they hold the possibility of the conversion, and salvation of reprobates, overthrow the Doctrine of Gods eternal decree, and immutability. Popery comes in this latter ranks and may justly be termed heresy, by direct consequent: Though not in their grant, yet in necessary proof and inference. Thus it overthrows the truth of Christs humanity, while it holds his whole humane body locally circumscribed in heaven,& at once( the same instant) wholly present in ten thousand places on earth, without circumscription: That whole Christ is in the forms of bread, with all his dimensions, every part having his own place and figure: and yet so, as that he is wholly in every part of the bread. Our justification, while it ascribes it to our own works: The all-sufficiency of Christs own Sacrifice, whiles they reiterate it daily by the hands of a Priest. Of his satisfaction, while they hold a payment of our utmost farthings, in a devised Purgatory. Of his mediation, while they implore others to aid them, not only by their intercession, but their merites; suing not onely for their prays, but their gifts: The value of the Scriptures, whiles they hold them insufficient, obscure, in points essential to salvation,& bind them to an uncertain dependence vpon the Church. Besides hundreds of this kind, there are heresies in actions, contrary to those fundamental practices which God requires of his: As prohibitions of Scriptures to the Laity: Prescriptions of devotion in unknown tongues: Tying the effect of Sacraments and Prayers to the external work: Adoration of Angels, Saints, Bread, relics, Crosses, Jmages: All which, are as so many real vnderminings of the sacred foundation, which is no less active, then vocal. By this, the simplest may see what we must hold of Papists; neither as no heretics, nor yet so palpable as the worst: If any man ask for their conviction. In the simpler sort, I grant this excuse fair and tolerable! poor souls, they cannot bee any otherwise informed, much less persuaded: Whiles in truth of heart, they hold the main principles which they know, doubtless, the mercy of God may pass over their ignorant weakness, in what they cannot know. For the other, I fear not to say, that many of their errors are wilful. The light of truth hath shined out of heaven to them, and they love darkness more then light. in this state of the Church he shall speak and hope idly, that shall call for a public and universal eviction: How can that be, when they pretend to bee Iudges in their own cause? unless they will not be aduersaries to themselves, or iudges of us, this course is but impossible: As the divell, so Antichrist, will not yield: both shall bee subdued; neither will treat of peace: what remains, but that the lord shall consume that wicked man( which is now clearly revealed) with the breath of his mouth,& abolish him with the brightness of his coming. even so, Lord Iesus come quickly. This briefly is my conceit of Popery, which I willingly refer to your clear& deep iudgement, being not more desirous to teach the ignorant what I know, then to learn of you what I should teach,& know not. The Lord direct all our thoughts to his glory,& the behoof of his Church.   

EPIST. V. Written long since to Mr. I. W.  
¶ dissuading from separation:& shortly oppugning the grounds of that error.  
IN my former Epistle( I confess) J touched the late separation with a light hand: onely setting down the injury of it( at the best) not discussing the grounds in common: now your danger draws me on to this discourse: it is not much less thanke-woorthy, to prevent a disease, then to cure it: you confess that you doubt; I mislike it not, doubting is not more the way to error, then to satisfaction; lay down first, all pride and prejudice, and I cannot fear you: I never yet knew any man of this way, which hath not bewraide himself far gone with ouer-weening: and therefore it hath been just with God, to punish their self love with error: an humble spirit is a fit subject for truth: prepare you your heart, and let me then answer, or rather God for me; you doubt whether the notorious sin of one unreformed, vncensured, defile not the whole Congregation; so as we may not without sin communicate therewith:& why not the whole Church? wo were us, if we should thus live in the danger of all men: haue we not sins enough of our own, but we must borrow of others? Each man shal bear his own burden: is ours so light, that we call for more weight,& undertake what God never imposed? It was enough for him that is God& man to bear others iniquities; it is no task for us, which shrink under the least of our own: But it is made ours, you say( though anothers) by our toleration& connivence: indeed, if we consent to them; encourage them, imitate or accompany them in the same excess of riot; yet more, the public person, that forbears a known sin, sinneth; but if each mans known sin be every mans, what difference is betwixt the roote and the branches? Adams sin spread itself to us, because wee were in him, stood or fell in him; our case is not such. Do but see how God scorneth that unjust proverb of the Iewes, That the fathers haue eaten sour Grapes, and the childrens teeth are set on edge? How much less are strangers? is any bond so near as this of blood? Shall not the child smart for the Parent; and shall wee( even spiritually) for others? You object Achans stealth,& Israels punishment: an unlike case,& extra ordinary: for see how direct Gods charge is. Be ye ware of the execrable thing least ye make yourselves execrable, and in taking of the execrable thing, make also the boast of Israell execrable and trouble it. Now every man is made a party, by a peculiar injunction, and not onely all Israell is as one man: but every Israelite is a public person in this act; you cannot show the like in every one, no, not in any: it was a lawe for the present, not intended for perpetuity: you may as well challenge the Trumpets of Rammes-hornes, and seven dayes walk unto every siege. look elsewhere, the Church of Thyatera suffers the Woman jezabel to teach and deceive. A great sin, Yet to you( saith the spirit) the rest of Thyatira, as many as haue not this learning: I will put vpon you none other burden, but that which you haue, bold fast; he saith not, leave your Church, but Hold fast your own. Look into the practise of the Prophets, ransack their burdens, and see if you find this there; yea, behold our best pattern, the son of God. The jewish Rulers in Christ time were notoriously covetous, proud, oppressing, cruel, superstitious, our saviour feared not polluting, in joining with them; and was so far from separating himself, that he called& sent others to them. But, a little leaven Leauens the whole lump: it is true, by the infection of it; sin, where it is unpunished, spreadeth; it soureth al those whose hands are in it, not others. If we dislike it, detest, resist, reprove, and mourn for it, we cannot be tainted: the Corinthian love-feasts had gross and sinful disorder: yet you hear not Paul say, abstain from the Sacrament till these bee reformed; Rather he enjoins the act, and controls the abuse: GOD hath bidden you hear and receive: show me, where he hath said, except others be sinful. Their uncleanness can no more defile you, then your holinesse can excuse them. But while J communicate( you say) I consent; God forbid. It is sin not to cast out the deserving; but not yours: who made you a Ruler& a judge? The vnclean must be separated, not by the people: Would you haue no distinction betwixt private and public persons? What strange confusion is this? And what other then the old note of Corah and his company, Ye take too much vpon you, seeing all the Congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore, then lift you up yourselves above the congregation of the lord? What is( if this bee not) to make a monster of Christs body: he is the head, his Church the body, consisting of diuers limbs? All haue their several faculties and employments; not every one, al; who would imagine any man so absurd, as to say, that this body should be al tongue, or al hands; every man a Teacher, every man a Ruler? As if Christ had said to every man, go teach, and whose sins ye remit: Howe senseless are these two extremes? Of the Papists, that one man hath the keys: Of the Brownists, that every man hath them. But these privileges and charges are given to the Church: True; to be executed by hir Gouernours, the faculty of speech is given to the whole man, but the use of it to the proper Instrument. Man speaketh; but by his tongue; if a voice should be heard from his hand, ear, foot, it were unnatural. Now, if the tongue speak not when it ought, shall we be so foolish as to blame the hand? But you say; If the tongue speak not, or speak ill, the whole man smarteth; the man sinneth: I grant it, but you shall set the natural body on too hard a rack, if you strain it in all things, to the likeness of the spiritual, or civil. The members of that being quickened by the same soul, haue charge of each other, and therefore either stand or fall together: It is not so in these. If then notwithstanding unpunished sins wee may join with the true Church: Whether is ours such? You doubt, and your solicitors deny: surely if wee haue many enormities, yet none worse then rash and cruel iudgment; let them make this a colour to depart from themselves: there is no less woe to them that call good, evil: To judge one man is bold and daungerous: judge then, what it is to condemn a whole church: God knows, as much without cause, as without shane. vain men may libel against the spouse of Christ: her husband never diuorc't her: No, his love is still above their hatred, his blessings above their censures: Do but ask them, were we ever the true church of God? If they deny it, Who then were so? Had God never Church vpon earth, since the Apostles time, till Barrow& Greenwood arose? And even then scarce a number? nay, when or where was ever any man in the world( except in the schools perhaps of Donatus or novatus) that taught their Doctrine; and now still hath he none, but in a blind lane at Amsterdam? Can you think this probable? If they affirm it, when ceased we? Are not the points controverted still the same? The same government, the same doctrine? Their minds are changed, not our estate: Who hath admonished, evinced, eccommunicated us; and when? All these must be done; Will it not be a shane to say, that Francis johnson, as he took power to excommunicate his Brother, and Father; so had power to excommunicate his Mother, the Church? How base and idle are these conceits? Are we then heretics condemned in ourselves, wherein overthrow wee the foundation? What other God, saviour, Scriptures, justification, Sacraments, heaven, do they teach beside us? Can al the Maisters of separation, yea can al the churches in christendom, set forth a more exquisite and worthy confession of Faith, then is contained in the Articles of the Church of England? Who can hold these, and be heretical? Or, from which of these are we revolted? But to make this good, they haue taught you to say, that every truth in Scripture is fundamental; so fruitful is error of absurdities; Whereof stil one breeds another more deformed then itself. That Trophimus was left at Miletum sick, that Pauls cloak was left at Troas, that Gaius Paules host, saluted the Romaines, that nabal was drunk; or that Thamar baked Cakes, and a thousand of this nature are fundamental: how large is the separatists Creed, that hath all these Articles? If they say al Scripture is of the same author, of the same authority: so say we, but not of the same use: is it as necessary for a Christian to know that Peter hosted with one Simon a tanner in Ioppa, as that Iesus Christ the son of God was born of the Virgin Mary. What a monster is this of an opinion, that al goldsmiths are equal? that this spiritual house should be all foundation, no walls, no roof? Can no man be saved but he that knows every thing in scripture? Then both they and we are excluded: heaven would not haue so many, as then parlour at Amsterdam: Can any man be saved that knows nothing in Scripture? It is far from them to bee so ouercharitable to affirm it: you see thē that both al truths must not of necessity be known,& some must:& these we justly call fundamental: which who so holdeth, al his hay& stubble( through the mercy of God) condemn him not: stil he hath right to the church on earth,& hope in heaven: but whither every truth be fundamental, or necessary: discipline( you say) is so: indeed necessary to the foreseeing of a church, no more: it may be true without it, not perfect. Christ compares his spouse to an army with banners: as order is to an army, so is Discipline to the Church: if the troops be not well marshaled in their several ranks,& move not forward, according to the discipline of war, it is an army stil: confusion may hinder their success, it cannot bereave thē of their name: it is, as beautiful proportion to the body, an hedge to a vineyard, a wall to a city, an hem to a garment, feeling to an house. It may be a body, vineyard, city, garment, house, without them: it cannot be well and perfect: yet which of our aduersaries will say wee haue no Discipline? Some they grant, but not the right: as if they said? Your city hath a Bricke-wall indeed, but it should haue one of hewn ston; your Vineyard is hedged, but it should be paled& ditched: while they cavil at what wee want, wee thank God for what wee haue; and so much we haue, in spite of all detraction, as makes us both a true Church, and a worthy one.  
But the main quarrel is against but ministry, and form of worship let these be examined; this is the circled of their censure. No Church, therefore no ministry: and no ministry, therefore no Church: unnatural sons, that spit in the face of those spiritual Fathers that begot them, and the Mother that bore them. What would they haue? Haue wee not competent gifts from above, for so great a function? Are we all unlearned, unsufficient? Not a man that knows to divide the word aright? As Paul to the Corinthes, is it so that there is not one wise man amongst us? No man will affirm it: some of them haue censured our excess in some knowledge; none, our defect in all: What then? Haue we not a true desire to do faithful service to God and his Church? No zeal for Gods glory? Who hath been in our harts to see this? Who dare usurp vpon God;& condemn our thoughts? Yea, we appeal to that only judge of harts, whether he hath not given us a sincere longing for the good of his zion: he shall make the thoughts of al hearts manifest: and then shall every man haue praise of God: if then wee haue both ability and will to do public good: our inward calling( which is the main point) is good and perfect: for the outward, what want wee? Are we not first( after good trial) presented& approved by the learned, in our colleges: examined by our church-gouernors, ordained by imposition of hands of the eldership, allowed by the congregations, we are set over: do we not labour in word& doctrine? do we not carefully administer the sacraments of the Lord Iesus? haue we not by our public means won many souls to God? what should we haue& do more? Al this,& yet no true Ministers? we pass very little to be judged of thē, or of mans day: but our ordainers( you say) are Antichristian: surely our censures are vnchristian: tho we should grant it: some of us were baptized by heretics: is the sacrament amnihilated, and must it bee redoubled? How much less ordination, which is but an outward admission to preach the gospel? God forbid that we should thus condemn the innocent: more hands were laid vpon us, then one:& of them, for the principal, except but their perpetual honor,& some few immaterial rites, let an enemy say what they differ, from Super-intendents?& can their double honor make them no elders? if they haue any personal sales, why is their calling scourged? look into our saviours times: what corruptions were in the very Priesthood? It was now made annual, which was before fixed& singular Christ saw these abuses,& was silent here was much dislike, and no clamour; we for less, exclaim& separate: even personal offences are fetched into the condemnation of lawful courses. God give both pardon and redress to this foul uncharitableness. Alas! how ready are wee to toss the fore-part of our Wallet, whiles our own faults are ready to break our necks behind us: all the world sees and condemns their ordination to be faulty, yea none at all, yet they cry out first on us, craftily( J think) least▪ wee should complain: that Church-gouernours should ordain Ministers, hath been the constant practise of the Church, from Christs time, to this hour. I except onely in an extreme desolation, merely for the first course: that the people should make their Ministers, was unheard of in al ages& Churches till Bol●on, brown, and Barrow: and hath neither colour nor example: doth not this comparison seem strange and harsh? Their tradesman may make true Ministers, our Ministers cannot who but they would not be ashamed of such a position? Or who but you would not think the time misspent in answering it? No less frivolous are those exceptions that are taken against our worship of God, condemned for false and Idolatrous, whereof volumes of Apologies are written by others: we meet together, pray, red, hear, preach, sing, administer, and receive Sacraments: wherein offend we? How many Goddes do we pray to? Or to whom but the true God? In what words but holy? whom do we preach but the same Christ with them? what point of faith, not theirs? What sacraments but those they dare not but allow? Where lies our Idolatry, that we may let it out? in the maner of performing: in set Prayers, Antichristian Ceremonies of crossing, kneeling, &c, For the former: what sin is this? The Original and truth of Prayer is in the heart: the voice is but as accidental: if the heart may often conceive the same thought, the tongue her seruant may often utter it, in the same words: and if daily to repeat the same speeches be amiss, then to entertain the same spiritual desires, is sinful: to speak once without the heart is hypocritical: but to speak often the same request with the heart, never offendeth. What intolerable boldness is this; to condemn that in us which is recorded to haue been the continual practise of Gods Church in all successions? Of the Iewes, in the time of Moses, david, Salomon, jehosophat, Ezekiah, ieremy: Of the ancient Christian assemblies, both Greek and latin, and now at this day of all reformed churches in Christendom; yea, which our saviour himself so directly allowed,& in a manner prescribed:& the blessed Apostles Paul& Peter in all their formal salutations( which were no other then set prayers) so commonly practised: for the other( least I exceed a letter) tho wee yield thē such as you imagine; worse they cannot be: they are but Ceremonious appendances: the body& substance is sound. Blessed be God that we can haue his true Sacraments at so easy a rate, as the payment( if they were such) of a few circumstantial inconveniences: Howe many dear children of God in al ages, even near the Golden times of the Apostles, haue gladly purchased them much dearer,& not complained: but see howe our Church imposes them: not as to bind the Conscience, otherwise then by the common bonde of obedience; not as actions, wherein Gods worship essentially consisteth, but as themselves, Ceremonies: comely or convenient, not necessary; whatsoever: is this a sufficient ground of separation? Howe many moderate and wiser spirits haue we, that cannot approve the Ceremonies, yet dare not forsake the Church? And that hold your departure far more evil, then the cause. You are invited to a feast, if but a Napkin or Trencher bee misplaced, or a dish ill carved, do you run from the Table, and not stay to thank the host? either be less curious, or more charitable. would God both you, and all other, which either favor the separation, or profess it, could but red over the ancient Stories of the Church, to see the true state of things and times; the beginnings, proceedings, increases, encounters yeildings, restaurations of the gospel, what the holy Fathers of those first times, were glad to swallow, for peace; what they held, practised, found, left: whosoever knows but these things cannot separate: and shal not be contented onely, but thankful: God shall give you still more light: in the mean time, vpon the peril of my soul, stay, and take the blessed offers of your God, in peace: And since Christ saith to you by my hand, will you also go away? answer him with that worthy Disciple, master whether shall I go from thee, thou hast the words of eternal life?   

EPIST. VI. To Mr. I. B.  
¶ A complaint of the mis-education of our Gentry.  
I confess, I cannot honor blood without good qualities, not spare it; with ill. There is nothing that I more desire to be taught, then what is true nobility: What thank is it to you that you are born well? If you could haue lost this privilege of Nature, I fear you had not been thus far Noble: That you may not pled desert, you had this before you were; long ere you could either know or prevent it; you are deceived if you think this any other then the body of Gentility, the life and soul of it, is in noble and virtuous disposition, in gallantnesse of spirit, without haughtiness, without insolence, without scornful ouer-lynesse: shortly, in generous qualities, carriage, actions. See your error, and know that this demeanour doth not answer an honest birth: If you can follow all fashions, drink all healths, wear favours and good cloths, consort with Ruffian companions, swear the biggest Oaths, quarrel easily, fight desperately, game in every inordinate Ordinary, spend your patrimony ere it fall, look on every man betwixt scorn and anger; use gracefully some gestures of apish compliment; talk irreligiously, dally with a Mistris, or( which term is plainer) hunt after Harlots, take smoke at a Play-house, and live as if you were made all for sport, you think you haue done enough, to merit, both of your blood, and others opinions. Certainly, the world hath no baseness, if this be generosity: Wel-fare the honest and civil rudeness of the obscure sons of the earth, if such be the graces of the eminent: The shane whereof( methinks) is not so proper to the wildness of youth, as to the carelessness or vanity of Parents: I speak it boldly; our land hath no blemish comparable to the mis-education of our Gentry: Infancy and youth are the seedtimes of al hopes: if those pass unseasonably, no fruit can be expected from our age, but shane and sorrow: who should improve these, but they which may command them: I cannot altogether complain of our first yeares. How like are wee to children, in the training up of our children? give a child some painted Babe; he joys in it at first sight: and for some daies will not abide it out of his hand or bosom; but when he hath sated himself with the new pleasure of that guest, he now( after a while) casts it into Corners, forget it, and can look vpon it, with no care: Thus do we by ours. Their first times find( us not more fond, then careful we do not more follow them with our love, then ply them with instruction. When this delight begins to grow stale, we begin to grow negligent. Nothing that I know can be faulted in the ordering of Child-hood, but indulgence. Foolish Mothers, admit of Tutors, but debar rods? These, while they desire their Children may learn, but not smart, as is said of Apes, kill their young ones with love; for what can work vpon that age, but fear? And what fear without correction? Now at last, with what measure of Learning their own will would vouchsafe to receive, they are too early sent to the Common Nurseries of Knowledge; There( unless they fall under careful tuition) they study in iest, and play in earnest. In such universal means of Learning, all cannot fall besides them; what their company, what their recreation would either instill or permit, they bring home to their glad parents. Thence are they transplanted to the Collegiate Junes of our common laws: and there too many learn to be lawless, and to forget their former little, Paules is their Westminster, their Study, an Ordinary, or Play-house, or dancing school,& some Lambert their Ploydon. And now after they haue( not without much expense) learned fashions and licentiousness, they return home, full of welcomes and gratulations. By this time some blossoms of youth appearing in their face, admonish their Parents to seek them some seasonable match; Wherein the Father inquires for Wealth, the son for beauty, perhaps the Mother for parentage, scarce any for virtue, for Religion. Thus settled, What is their care, their discourse; yea, their Trade, but either an Hound, or an hawk? And it is well, if no worse: And now, they so live, as if they had forgotten that there were books: Learning is for Priests, and Pedants; For Gentlemen, pleasure. Oh! that either wealth, or wit should bee cast away thus basely: That ever Reason should grow so debauched, as to think any thing more worthy then knowledge: with what shane and emulation may wee look vpon other Nations( whose Apish fashions we can take up in the Channelles, neglecting their immitable examples) and with what scorn do they look vpon us? They haue their solemn Academies for all those qualities, which may accomplish Gentility: from which they return richly furnished, both for action and speculation. They account knowledge and ability of discourse as essential to greatness, as blood: neither are they more above the vulgar in birth, then in understanding: They travel with iudgement, and return with experience: so do they follow the exercises of the body, that they neglect not the culture of the mind. From hence grows civility, and power, to manage affairs either of Iustice or State; From hence encouragement to learning,& reverence from inferiors. For those onely can esteem knowledge, which haue it; and the common sort frame either their observance, or contempt out of the example of their leaders.  
Amongst them, the sons of Nobles scorn not, either merchandise, or learned professions; and hate nothing so much, as to do nothing: I shane& hate to think, that our gallants hold there can be no disparagement, but in honest callings. Thus perhaps I haue abated the envy of this reproof, by communicating it to more; which J had not done, but that the generality of evil importunes redress. I well see that either good or evil descends: In vain shall we hope for the reformation of the many, while the better are disordered. whom to solicit herein, J know not, but all: How galled should I be, to spend my light to the snuff, for the effecting of this? I can but persuade and pray; these I will not fail of: The rest to him that both can amend and punish.   

EPIST. VII. To Mr. jonas Reigesbergius in zealand.  
¶ Written some whiles since, concerning some new opinions then broached in the Churches of Holland; and under the name of Arminius( then living) persuading al great wits to a study and care of the common Peace of the Church, and dissuading from al affectation of singularity.  
I received lately, a short relation of some new Paradoxes from your Leiden; you would know what we think: I fear not to be censured, as meddling: your truth is ours: The Sea cannot divide those Churches whom one faith unites. I know not howe it comes to pass, that most men, while they too much affect civility, turn flatterers; and plain truth is most where counted rudeness. he that tells a sick friend he looks il, or terms an angry tumour the gout, or a waterish swelling, Dropsy; is thought vnmannerly. For my part, I am glad that I was not born to feed humors: How ever you take your own evils, I must tell you, wee pity you, and think you haue just cause of dejection, and we for you: not for any private cares, but( which touch a Christian nearest) the Common-wealth of God. Behold, after all those hills of carcases, and streams of blood, your civil sword is sheathed, wherein wee neither congratulate, nor fear your peace; lo now, instead of that, another while, the spiritual sword is drawn and shaken,& it is well if no more. Now the politic State sits stil, the church quarrels: Oh! the insatiable hostility of our great enemy, with what change of mischiefs doth he afflict miserable man? No sooner did the Christian world begin to breath from persecution but it was more punished with arianism: when the read dragon cannot devour the child, he tries to drown the mother;& when the waters fail, he raises war. Your famous Iunius had nothing more admirable thē his love of peace: when our busy separatists apealed him, with what a sweet calmnes did he rei●ct them,& with a grave importunity called thē to moderation. How it would haue vexed his holy soul( now out of the danger of passions) to haue foreseen his chair troublesome. God forbid that the Church should find a challenger, in stead of a Champion: Who would think but you should haue been taught the benefit of peace, by the long want? but if your temporal state( besides either hope, or belief) hath grown wealthy with War, like those Fowles which fatten with hard weather: yet be too sure, that these spiritual broils, cannot but impoverish the Church; yea, affamish it. it were pitty that your Holland should be stil the Amphitheatre of the world, on whose Scaffoldes, all other Nations should sit, and see variety of bloody shows, not without pitty, and horror. if I might challenge ought in that your acute, and Learned Arminius; I would thus solicit, and conjure him: Alas! that so Wise a man should not know the worth of peace; that so noble a son of the Church, should not be brought to light, without ripping the womb of his Mother! what mean these subtle novelties? If they make thee famous, and the church miserable; who shall gain by them? Is singularity so precious, that it should cost no less, then the safety and quiet of our common mother? If it be truth thou affectest; what alone? could never any eyes( till thine) bee blessed with this object; where hath that Sacred verity, hide her self thus long from all her careful Inquisitors, that shee now first shows her head to thee unsought? Hath the Gospel shined thus long, and bright, and left some Corners unseen? Away with all new truths; faire and plausible they may be, sound they cannot: some may admire thee for them; none shall bless thee. But grant that some of those, are no less true, then nice poyntes; What do these unseasonable crotchets and quavers trouble the harmonious plain-songs of our peace? Some quiet error may bee better then some unruly truth. Who binds us to speak all we think? So the Church may be still, would God thou wert wise alone? Did not our aduersaries quarrel enough before, at our quarrels? Were they not rich enough with our spoils? By the dear name of our common parents, what meanest thou, Arminius? Whether tend these new-raised dissensions? Who shall thrive by them, but they which insult vpon us,& rise by the fall of truth? who shall be undone, but thy Brethren? By that most precious, and bloody ransom of our saviour, and by that awful appearance, we shall once make before the glorious tribunal of the son of God, remember thyself, and the poor distracted limbs of the Church; let not those excellent parts, wherewith God hath furnished thee, lie in the narrow way, and cause any weak one, either to fall, or stumble, or err. For Gods sake, either say nothing, or the same. How many great wits haue sought no By-paths, and now are happy with their fellowes. Let it be no disparagement to go with many to heaven. What could he reply to so plain a charge? No distinction can avoid the power of simplo truth. I know he hears not this of me first: Neither that learned and worthy Fran. Gomarus, nor your other grave fraternity of reverend divines, haue been silent in so main a cause. I fear rather too much noise in any of these tumults: There may too many contend, not entreat. Multitude of suitors, is commonly powerful; howe much more in just motions. But if either he, or you, shall turn me home, and bid me spend my little moisture upon our own brandes, I grant there is both the same cause, and the same need. This counsel is no whit further from us, because it is directed to you: Any Reader can change the person: I lament to see, that every where peace hath not many Clients, but fewer louers; yea, even many of those that praise her, follow her not. Of old, the very novatian men, Women, Children, brought stones and mortar( with the Orthodox) to the building of the Church of the Resurrection, and joined lovingly with them, against the Arrians: lesser quarrels divide us; and every division ends in blows, and every blow is returned; and none of al lights beside the Church: even the best Apostles dissented; neither knowledge, nor holiness can redress all differences: True, but wisdom and charity could teach us to avoyde their prejudice. If we had but these two virtues; quarrels should not hurt us, nor the Church by us: But( alas) self-love is too strong for both these: This alone opens the flood gates of dissension, and drowns the sweet, but low valley of the Church. Men esteem of opinions, because their own;& will haue truth serve, not govern; What they haue vnder-taken, must be true: Victory is sought for, not satisfaction; Victory of the author, not of the cause: he is a rare man that knows to yield, as well to argue: what should we do then, but bestow ourselves vpon that which too many neglect, public peace; first, in Prayers that we may prevail, then in tears that we prevail not? Thus haue I been bold to chat with you of our greatest and common cares. Your old love,& late hospital entertainment in that your iceland, called for this remembrance; the rather to keep your English tongue in breath, which was wont not to bee the least of your desires. Would God you could make us happy with news not of Truce, but sincere amity& union; not of provinces, but spirits. The God of Spirits effect it both here and there, to the glory of his Name and Church.   

EPIST. VIII. To W.I. condemned for Murder.  
¶ Effectually preparing him, and( under his name) whatsoever Malefactor, for his death.  
IT is a bad cause that robbeth us of al the comfort of friends; yea, that turns their remenbrance into sorrow. None can do so, but those that proceed from ourselves; For outward evils, which come from the infliction of others, make us cleave faster to our helpers, and cause us to seek and find ease in the very commisseration of those that love us: whereas those griefs which arise from the just displeasure of Conscience, will not abide so much, as the memory of others affection; or if it do, makes it so much the greater corrosive, as our case is more vncapeable of their comfort. Such is yours. You haue made the mention of our names tedious to yourself, and yours to vs. This is the beginning of your pain, that you had friends: If you may now smart soundly from us, for your good, it must be the onely ioy you must expect, and the final duty wee owe to you. It is both vain and comfortless to hear what might haue been; neither would J sand you back to what is past, but purposely to increase your sorrow; who haue caused al our comfort to stand in your tears. If therefore our former counsels had prevailed, neither had your hands  shed innocent blood, nor Iustice yours. Now, to your great sin, you haue done the one, and the other must be done to your pain, and we your well-willers, with sorrow and shane live to be witnesses of both. Your sin is gone before, the reuenge of Iustice will follow: Seeing you are guilty, let GOD be just; Other sins speak, this crieth; and will never be silent, till it bee answered with itself. For your life; the case is hopeless; feed not yourself with vain presumptions, but settle yourself to expiate anothers blood with your own. Would God your desert had been such, that we might with any comfort haue desired you might live. But now, alas, your fact is so heinous; that your life can neither bee craved without injustice, nor bee protracted without inward torment. And if our private affection should make us deaf to the shouts of blood, and partiality should teach us to forget all care of public right, yet resolve, there is no place for hope. Since then you could not live guiltless, there remaines nothing but that you labour to die penitent; and since your body cannot bee saved alive, to endeavour that your soul may bee saved in death. Wherein, howe happy shall it bee for you, if you shall yet give ear to this my last advice; too late indeed for your recompense to the world, not too late for yourself. You haue deserved death, and expect it; Take heed least you so fasten your eyes upon the first death of the body, that you should not look beyond it, to the second, which alone is worthy of trembling, worthy of tears.  
For this, though terrible to Nature, yet is common to us, with you. You must die: What do wee else? And what differs our end from yours, but in hast and violence? And who knows whether in that? It may bee a sickness as sharp, as sudden, shal fetch us hence: It may bee the same death, or a worse, for a better cause: Or if not so, There is much more misery in lingering: he dies easily, that dyes soon: But the other, is the utmost vengeance that GOD hath reserved for his enemies: This is a matter of long fear, and short pain. A few pangs let the soul out of prison; but the Torment of that other is everlasting; after ten thousand yeares scorching in that flamme, the pain is never the nearer to his ending. No time gives it hope of abating; yea, time hath nothing to do with this eternity. You that shall feel the pain of one minutes dying, think what pain it is to be dying for ever and ever. This, although it bee attended with a sharp pain, yet is such as some strong spirits haue endured without show of yeildance. I haue herd of an Irish Traitor, that when he lay pining upon the wheel with his bones broken, asked his friend if he changed his countenance at all: caring less for the pain, then the show of fear. Few men haue dyed of greater pains, then others haue sustained and live. But that other ouer-whelms both body and soul, and leaves no room for any comfort in the possibility of mitigation. here, men are executioners, or diseases; there fiends. Those divels that were ready to tempt the graceless unto sin, are as ready to follow the damned with tortures. whatsoever become of your carcase, save your soul from these flames: and so manage this short time you haue to live, that you may die but once. This is not your first sin; yea, God hath now punished your former sins with this: A fearful punishment in itself, if it deserved no more: your conscience( which now begins to tell truth) cannot but assure you, that there is no sin more worthy of hell, then murder; yea, more proper to it. turn over those holy leaves( which you haue too much neglected,& now smart for neglecting) you shall find Murderers among those that are shut out from the presence of God: you shall find the Prince of that darkness, in the highest style of his mischief, termed a manslayer. Alas! how fearful a case is this, that you haue herein resembled him, for whom Topheth was prepared of old, and imitating him in his action, haue endangered yourself to partake of his torments. Oh, that you could but see what you haue done, what you haue deserved; That your heart could bleed enough within you, for the blood your hands haue  shed: That as you haue followed Satan our common enemy in sinning, so you could defy him in repenting: That your tears could disappoint his hopes of your damnation. What an happy unhappiness shall this he to your sad friends, that your better part yet liveth? That from an ignominious place, your soul is received to glory? Nothing can effect this but your Repentance, and that can do it. fear not to look into that horror, which should attend your sin, and bee now as severe to yourself, as you haue been cruel to another. think not to extenuate your offence with the vain Titles of man-hood; what praise is this, that you were a valiant Murderer? Strike your own breast( as Moses did his rock) and bring down Riuers of tears to wash away your bloodshed. Do not so much fear your iudgment, as abhor your sin, yea, yourself for it: And with strong cries lift up your guilty hands to that God whom you offended, and say: deliver me from blood-guiltines O Lord. Let me tell you, as without repentance there is no hope, so with it, ther is no condemnation. True penitence is strong,& can grapple with the greatest sin, yea with all the powers of hell. What if your hands be read with blood? Behold, the blood of your saviour, shall wash away yours: If you can bath yourself in that; your Scarlet soul shall be as white as Snow. This course alone shal make your cross the way to the paradise of God. This plaster can heal all the sores of the soul, if never so desperate: Onely, take heed that your heart bee deep enough pierced, ere you lay it on; else under a seeming skin of dissimulation, your soul shall fester to death. Yet ioy us with your true sorrow, whom you haue grieved with your offence;& at once comfort your friends, and save your soul.   

EPIST. IX. To Mr. John Mole, of a long time now prisoner under the Inquisition at Rome.  
¶ Exciting him to his wonted constancy, and encouraging him to martyrdom.  
WHat passage can these lines hope to find into that your strait and curious thraldom? Yet who would not adventure the loss of this pains for him, which is ready to loose himself for Christ? what do we not owe to you which haue thus given yourself for the common faith? blessed be the name of that God who hath singled you out for his Champion,& made you invincible: how famous are your bonds? How glorious your constancy? Oh that out of your close obscurity, you could but see the honour of your suffering, the affections of Gods Saints,& in some, an holy envy at your distressed happiness. Those walls cannot hid you: No man is attended with so many eyes from earth& heaven: The Church your Mother beholds you, not with more compassion, then ioy: Neither can it bee said, how shee at once pities your misery, and reioyces in your patience: The blessed Angels look vpon you with gratulation and applause. The aduersaries with an angry sorrow to see themselves overcome by their captive, their obstinate cruelty ouer-matched with humble resolution, and faithful perseverance. Your saviour sees you from above, not as a mere spectator, but as a patient with you, in you, for you; yea, as an agent in your endurance& victory, giuing new courage with the one hand, and holding out a crown with the other; Whom would not these sights incorage? who now can pitty your solitariness? The harts of all good men are with you. Neither can that place be but full of angels, which is the continual object, of so many Prayers, yea the God of heaven was never so near you, as now ye are removed from men. Let me speak a bold, but true word. it is as possible for him to bee absent from his heaven, as from the prisons of his Saints. The glorified spirits above sing to him; the persecuted souls below, suffer for him, and cry to him; he is magnified in both, present with both; the faith of the one, is as pleasing to him, as the triumph of the other; Nothing obligeth us men so much, as smarting for us; words of defence are worthy of thankes, but pain is esteemed above recompense. How do we kiss the wounds which are taken for our sakes, and profess that we would hate ourselves, if wee did not love those that dare bleed for us: How much more shal the God of mercies be sensible of your sorrows, and crown your patience? To whom you may truly sing that ditty of the divine Psalmist, Surely for thy sake am I slain continually, and am counted as a sheep for the slaughter. What need I to stir up your constancy, which hath already amazed, and wearied your persecutors? No suspicion shall drive me hereto; but rather the thirst of your praise. He that exhorts to persist in well-doing, whiles he persuades, commendeth. Whether should I rather sand you, then to the sight of your own Christian fortitude? which neither Prayers, nor threats, haue been able to shake: here stands on the one hand, Liberty, Promotion, Pleasure, life, and( which easily exceeds al these) the dear respect of wife and children( whom your onely resolution shall make widow and orphans) these with smiles, and vows, and tears, seem to importune you. On the other hand, bondage, solitude, horror, death( and the most lingering of all miseries) ruin of posterity: these with frowns and menaces labour to affright you: Betwixt both, you haue stood vnmooued; fixing your eyes either either right forward vpon the cause of your suffering, or upwards upon the crown of your reward: It is an happy thing when our own actions may be either examples, or arguments of good. These blessed proceedings call you on to your perfection; The reward of good beginnings prosecuted, is doubled; neglected, is lost. How vain are those temptations, which would make you a loser of all this praise; this recompense? Go on therfore happily; keep your eyes where they are, and your heart cannot bee, but where it is, and where it ought: look still, for what you suffer,& for whom: For the truth, for Christ: what can be so precious as truth? Not life itself. All earthly things are not so vile to life, as life to truth; Life is momentary, Truth eternal; Life is ours, the Truth, Gods: Oh happy purchase, to give our life for the Truth. What can we suffer too much for Christ? He hath given our life to us; he hath given his own life for vs. What great thing is it, if he require what he hath given us, if ours for his? Yea, rather, if he call for what he hath lent us; yet not to bereue but to change it; giuing us Gold for our day, glory for our corruption. Behold that saviour of yours weeping,& bleeding,& dying for you: alas! our souls are too straight for his sorrows▪ we can be made but pain for him; He was made sin for us: we sustain for him? but the impotent anger of men, he struggled with the infinite wrath of his Father for vs. Oh, who can endure enough for him, that hath passed through Death and hell for his soul? think this, and you shall resolve with david, I will bee yet more vile for the Lord. The worst of the despite of men, is but Death; and that, if they inflict not, a disease will; or if not that, Age. here is no imposition of that which would not be, but an hastening of that which will bee: An hastening, to your gain For behold, their violence shall turn your necessity, into virtue and profit. Nature hath made you mortal, none but an enemy can make you a Martyr; you must die, though they will not; you cannot die for Christ, but by them: How could they else devise to make you happy? Since the giver of both lives hath said, he that shall loose his life for my sake, shall save it. lo, this alone is lost with keeping, and gained by loss. Say you were freed, upon the safest conditions, and returning:( As how welcome should that news be, more to yours, then to yourself) perhaps, death may meet you in the way, perhaps overtake you at home: neither place, nor time, can promise immunity from the common destiny of men: Those that may abridge your houres, cannot lengthen them; and while they last, cannot secure them from vexation; yea themselves shall follow you into their dust; and cannot avoid what they can inflicte; death shal equalie tyrannize by them, and over them: so their favours are but fruitless, their malice gainful. For, it shall change your prison into heaven, your Fetters into a Crown, your Iailours to Angels, your misery into glory. look up to your future estate, and rejoice in the present: behold the three of Life, the hidden Manna, the sceptre of Power, the procedure, the white garment, the new name, the crown, and Throne of heaven are addressed for you. overcome and enjoy them: oh glorious condition of Martyrs, whom conformity in death, hath made like their saviour in blessedness; whose honour is to attend him for ever, whom they haue joyed to imitate. What are these which are arayd in long white robes, and whence came they? These are( says that heavenly Elder) they which came out of great Tribulation, and washed their long Robes, and haue made their long Robes white, in the blood of the lamb.  
Therefore they are in the presence of the Throne of GOD, and serve him day and night in the Temple: and he that sitteth on the Throne, will dwell among them, and govern them, and lead them unto the liuelie fountains of waters, and GOD shall wipe all tears from their eyes.  
All the elect haue seals in their fore-heades: But Martyrs haue palms in their hands: All the elect haue White Robes; Martyrs, both white and long. White, for their glory, long for the largeness of their glory. Once red with their own blood; now white with the blood of the lamb: There is nothing in our blood, but weak obedience; nothing but merit in the Lambes-bloud. Behold, his merit makes our obedience Glorious. You do but sprinkle his feet with your blood; lo, he washes your long white Robes, with his. every drop of your blood is answered with a stream of his; and every drop of his, is worth Riuers of ours: Precious in the sight of the lord, is the Death of his saints: Precious in prevention; Precious in acceptation, precious in remuneration. Oh, give willingly that which you cannot keep, that you may receive what you cannot lose. The way is steep, but now you breath towards the top. Let not the want of some few steps, loose you an eternal rest. Put too the strength of your own faith; The Prayers of Gods Saints shall further your place;& that gracious hand that sustains heaven and earth, shall uphold, and sweetly draw you up to your glory. Go on to credite the gospel with your perseverance, and show the false-hearted Clients of that Romayne-Court, that the truth yeildes real and hearty professors; such as dare no less smart, then speak for her.  
Without the walls of your restraint, where can you look beside encouragements of suffering? behold in this, how much you are happier then your many predecessors. Those haue found friends, or wives, or children, the most dangerous of al tempters. Suggestions of weakness, when they come masked with love, are more powerful to hurt. But you, all your many friends, in the valour of their Christian love, wish rather a blessed Martyr, then a living and prosperous reuolter: yea, your dear wife( worthy of this honour, to be the wife of a Martyr) prefers your faith, to her affection; and in a courage beyond hir Sex, contemns the worst misery of your loss; professing she would redeem your life with hers, but that she would not redeem it with your yeildance: and while shee looks upon those many pawns of your chast love, your hopeful Children, wishes rather to see them fatherless, then their Father unfaithful: The greatest part of your sufferings are hers. She bears them with a cheerful resolution. She divides with you in your sorrows, in your patience; she shall not bee divided in your glory: For us we shall accompany you, with our Prayers, and follow you with our thankful commemorations; vowing to writ your name in read Letters, in the calendars of our hearts; and to Register it in the monuments of perpetual Records, as an example to all posterity, The memorial of the just shal bee blessed.   

EPIST. X. To all Readers.  
¶ Containing Rules of good aduise for our Christian and civil carriage.  
I Grant, brevity where it is neither obscure nor defective, is very pleasing, even to the daintist iudgments. No marvel therefore, if most men desire much good coumsel in a narrow room; as some affect to haue great personages, drawn in little Tablets, or, as we see worlds of Countreyes described in the compass of small Mappes: Neither do I unwillingly yield to follow them; for both the powers of good advice are the stronger, when they are thus united; and brevity makes counsel more portable for memory, and readier for use. Take these therefore for more; which as I would fain practise, so am I willing to commend. Let us begin with him who is the first and last: inform yourself aright concerning God, without whom, in vain do we know all things: Bee acquainted with that saviour of yours, which paid so much for you on earth, and now sues for you in heaven; without whom, wee haue nothing to do with God, nor he with vs. Adore him in your thoughts, trust him with your self: Renew your sight of him every day; and his of you: Ouer-look these earthly things,& when you do at any time cast your eyes upon heaven, think, there dwells my saviour, there I shall be. Call yourself to often reckonings, cast up your debts, payments, graces, wants, expenses, employments, yield not to think your set Deuotions troublesone: Take not easy denialles from yourself; yea, give peremptory denials to yourself; he can never bee good that flatters himself: hold nature to her allowance; and let your will stand at courtesy: happy is that man which hath obtained to be the master of his own heart: think all Gods outward favours and provisions the best for you; your own abilities, and actions the meanest. Suffer not your mind to bee either a Drudge or a wanton; exercise it ever, but whereby it not: In al your businesses look through the world, at God; whatsoever is your level, let him bee your scope: every day take a view of your last, and think either it is this, or may be: Offer not yourself either to honour, or labour; let them both seek you: Care you onely to be worthy, and you cannot hid you from God; so frame yourself to the time& company, that you may neither serve it, nor sullenly neglect it; and yield so far, as you may neither betray goodness, nor countenance evil. Let your words bee few, and digested; It is a shane for the tongue to cry the heart mercy, much more to cast itself vpon the uncertain pardon of others ears. There are but two things which a Christian is charged to buy, and not to sell, Time and Truth; both, so precious, that we must purchase them at any rate. So use your friends, as those which should be perpetual, may bee changeable; while you are within yourself, there is no danger: but thoughts once uttered must stand to hazard. Do not hear from yourself, what you would be loathe to hear from others. In al good things give your eye and ear the full scope, for they let into the mind; restrain the tongue, for it is a spender: few men haue repented them of silence: In all serious matters take counsel of daies,& nights and friends;& let leisure ripen your purposes: neither hope to gain ought by suddenness: The first thoughts may be confident, the second are wiser. serve honesty ever, though without apparent wages: she will pay sure, if slow: As in apparel, so in actions, know not what is good, but what becomes you: how many warrantable acts haue misshapen the Authors. Excuse not your own ill, aggravate not others: and if you love peace, avoid Censures, comparisons, contradictions: out of good men choose acquaintance, of acquaintance, friends, of friends, familiars: after probation admit them,& after admittance change them not: Age commendeth friendship. Do not always your best; it is neither wise, nor safe for a man ever to stand vpon the top of his strength. If you would be above the expectation of others, bee ever below yourself. expend after your purse, not after your mind; take not where you may deny, except vpon Conscience of desert, or hope to requited. either frequent suits, or complaints, are wearisome to any friend: Rather smother your griefs and wants as you may, then be either querullous, or importunate. Let not your face belie your heart, nor always tell tales out of it; he is fit to live amongst friends or enemies, that can be ingenuously close: give freely, sell thriftily: Change seldom your place, never your state: either amend inconveniences, or swallow them; rather then you should run from yourself to avoid them.  
In al your reckonings for the world, cast up some crosses that appear not; either those will come, or may: Let your suspicions bee charitable; your trust fearful; your censures sure. give way to the anger of the great: The Thunder and Cannon will abide no fence. As in throngs we are afraid of loss; so while the world comes vpon you, look well to your soul; There is more danger in good, then in evil: I fear the number of these my rules; for Precepts are wont( as nails) to drive out one another: but these, I intended to scatter amongst many: and I was loathe that any guest should complain of a niggardly hand; dainty Dishes are wont to be sparing served out; homely ones, supply in their bigness, what they want in their worth.   
FINIS.