THE Famous and Notable SAYINGS Of an Eminent HOLDER-FORTH NEAR COVENT-GARDEN.  
Published for the Benefit of his Friends in the Counties of Wilts, Oxford, Somerset, Southampton, Gloucester, Berks, and Middlesex.  

licenced according to Order.   
LONDON.  
Printed for T. Lightfoot near Woodstreet, 1691.   

Choice Sayings, and Exhortations.  
1. MY Beloved, it is my wish and hearty desire, that my Words might make your hard Hearts pliable to the Hammer of Reproof, that even so it might beat them into Leaf-Gold, to adorn the Leaves and Covers of my volumes, and other good and useful books; and that every syllable I utter, may find a Tabernacle in your Brains, and dwell there in Crowds and Clusters, like the Grapes of Canaan.  
2. Come, come Women, away with your Fig-leaves, your Flames, and your slender Excuses; and when your Husbands ask you any Qucstions, hid nothing from them; nay, you had even better tell the Inquisitive Fool, if he will know his own disgrace, he is a cuckolded, if truly he is so, then tell a lye, or an Aesop's Fable for the matter.  
3. Be watchful in your Callings; let the Men be vigilant to scrape together what they can, and their Wives be sure to be good Houswifes, that Friends may have something by the bye, and cleanly Diet, when they make a private visit.  
4. As for Pride, it is the first begotten of Lucifer, and has a great resemblance of the Whore of Babylon; therefore down with it, I say, down with your May-pole Commodes, that Turkish Heathen Fashion, Aped from Lewis XIV's Miss, and rather cut them into snips to make Boys Kites-Tails, rather than stalk along the Streets like Monuments.  
5. My Beloved be sure to beg Golden Snuffers, and refuse those that are princes Mettal, see they nip well, and be excellently made, that you may snuff the Candles of your understandings, lest they twinkle as in the Socket, or being blown out by a puff of your Ignorance, you become so many Dark-Lanthorns.  
6. I say unto ye, be Men that your Neighbours may give you large commendations, and your works be made visible, for your Wives, and your own credit and advantage.  
7. Call Earth your Purgatory, and what you get here by over-reaching in your Shops, or at your ordinary Callings, lay it not up to rust in your Chests, like an old Back-sword that becomes useless for want of drawing, but let it be bestowed, as you get it, in works of Charity upon us that laboor for your Instruction, and then it will prove like Honey sucked out of Nettles and Thistles, sweetening your conceits, and making you jump from your Purgatory to paradise at a leap.  
8. Be sure you highly prise Sun-shine and Thunder; that is, plain piercing and rousing Holdings-forth; for what can benefit you that doth not inform you; dark and dull Teachers are fearful Judgments to ignorant block-head Hearers.  
9. Be not like silly Children, that know not their own Fathers, that is who you ought to love best; but lay aside your pride and pamperings, to remember your contribution, be sure to be liberal in that kind, though you have a Beaver Hat, a Wigg, a Top-knot, a Commode, or even a Gold Watch the less.  
10. Get up in the Morning sooner for shane; this I speak to the Women that made the last day so thin appearance, for some of you, are it seems, so tender forsooth that you cannot rise in could Weather to dress you time enough; but were I by your Bed-sides I'd rouse you with a Witness.  
11. Beware of the Mill, and the circled of the Mill of worldly business, and of the circled of sensual pleasure; they be traps that take most, and are the Death of all they take, the Mill doth store Hell with you poor tenants, and the circled store it with you rich Landlords.  
12. You think, I'll warrant you, all to be saved by hearing of me; no, no, no such matter I'll assure you; for unless you do as well as hear, you'll come short on't; and then at the last day, one will say, I was a hearerof such a one, I was one of Mr. B's Congregation; why this is true, and if I should be asked the Question, I can't deny it, I must not tell a lie for the matter in such a place; and then what a fine credit will it be for me to have Taught, and Taught, and yet you never the better, or the wiser for all my Instructions and Reproofs; then when you see me about to enter, one will catch hold of my Cloak, and another will catch hold of my Cloak, thinking I shall pull you in after me, but indeed I shan't be so Civil, I tell you that; no, no, no such matter, I would not have you rely upon this, for in good earnest you'll be mistaken, and that very grossly too; for I'll even show you a trick for it, and what do you think that will be? why truly when you think you have got fast hold, I'll slip the Button of my Cloak, and let you all drop with it; and whether do you think you will be dropping then? why even to the dark bottonles Pit, Cloak and all together, and then consider what a sad condition you'll be in. Therefore let me again advice you, to add to your hearing, works of Charity, you know in what way I mean, and who expects it from you.  
13. We find one highly Extolled for Leaving all to become a Preacher, and pray what did he leave? why truly we red of nothing but a broken Net and a little Boat, it may be some five or six pound value; but here am I, who have left Fifty pound a Year to come amongst you, to edify you by my Teaching; and what does all this come to? why truly almost to nothing at all, especially to any purpose, for I don't know that I have received above six pound for all the pains I have taken in sweeting and straining my Lungs: I have thrashed and thrashed to little purpose, I say, and can make but little Wheat fly out of the stubborn Husk, it is a great sign of a bad Harvest of good Works: You, I say, are so dull and drowsy in your performances, or rather too covetous, you would, I believe, have all for nothing by your good wills, you come crowding in shoals from one end of the Town to the other, and stand gaping with your Mouths at half-cock, to be edified by those things I deliver to you out of my pains and studies, but when I come towards a conclusion, and begin to touch your Mammon, O then 'tis you begin to shrug and draw in your Horns, one bustles to get out, and another crowds to be rubbing off, treading upon the Toes of his Neighbour for hast, and perhaps tumbling over an Old Woman at her Devotion, or breaking his shins against the end of a Form.  
14. There on the other hand a minikin Dame who has sate all the while to show her three story Flaldal, tricked up with ribbons, like a mere for Sale in a Market or Fair, puts on her Hood forsooth, that might have been as well kept on before, and now pulls it over her face, stealing out without leaving the value of a Mornings draft behind her in the basin.  
15. Whrt is it you come for my friends? 'tis for some purpose or no purpose, if it be to no purpose, to what end do you come? Therefore I again admonish you to consider to what purpose you come, and if you come at all, let it be to some purpose; if you leave nothing behind you, you do not do half so much good as a parcel of silly Sheep upon a Common, for though they nibble the Grass, yet they let fall that from their Posteriors that dungs the Ground and makes the Grass grow again.  
16. Now, it may be, some of you may say, why Mr. B— we are not desirous to be behind hand with Sheep, if such a small courtesy as that will do you any kindness, that's freely at your service; but though we do receive a mouthful or two of your Pastoral refreshment, yet the price of a few words can surely come to no great matter, they may be worth a T— rd or two, or so, but for money we know better what to do with than to give it away for Bottle Air; No, no, we had rather spend it in Bottle Ale, there's some substance in that; thus methinks, sometimes, I hear some of you say, and fancy I see you fingering your Pettycoats and Breeches to leave me what the Cat left in the Malt-heap.  
17. But this won't do, it won't do I tell you, there will be no trusting to the hold of my Cloak for such as use me thus. These must go they know not whether, unless they mend their manners, and grow more charitable: You little think how I have sighed and groaned, and groaned and sighed, and all I think to little purpose; so that if there be any hopes left to work upon you, it is that these Sayings and Friendly Exhortations will make an Impression in your Minds, and be ever in your remembrances: If that expectation fail me, then I shall despair of working my ends, unless I take the method of the Country Curat, which, my Beloven, was this,  
Once upon a time it happened, as the story goes, that the Curate finding his Congregation dull of Apprehension, took an occasion after Sermon to tell them there would be a match of Cudgels played. This pleased them mightily, and to it they went in the Church-yard, so that the Curate, who was better skilled, and withal of able Body, broken a great many of their Heads. But this gave offence, and the Curat was sent for, and reproved for such his undertaking; when in his Defence he replied, Truly it was a necessity put him upon it, for his Parishioners good; for being placed amongst a dull sort of People, they for the most part forgot what he delivered to them before they got out of the Church-yard: And therefore he took this method to beat it into their Heads, that they might carry it home with them and edify.  
My Friends, there are four sorts of runnings. There is a running forward in the ways of Virtue, and that I commend to you; there is also a running away from Sin and 'vice, and that's well enough too: But then there is a running backward from all good, and I'll assure you that is very bad: But the last running is a complicated Running, and that is a running in Debt, and that commonly runs a Man into Prison, and then though he would run to the Devil, yet there he must stay. My beloved, I charge you beware of this Running.  
My Beloved, I have  told you of four sorts of Runnings, I must now tell you of four sorts of Stayings, also first there is staying away, that is from Church; and that's a bad staying. Secondly, there is a stayinst at a Whore-House, and that's worse( and let me tell you by the way, I wish there be none of you guilty of this staying)▪ Thirdly, there is staying in an Ale-House or a Tavern, and that I am afraid many of you do from Morning till Night: And then Fourthly and lastly there is staying at home, but that's only when you have no money to spend abroad, and this is even as bad as the other.  
My Beloved, as there are four sorts of runnings, and four sorts of stayings,( which I could easily have made half a dozen, but that I love brevity; so my Friends, let me warn you against four sorts of Sins. First, the Sin of Drunkenness, and that's a beastly Sin▪ for you know it often works both upwards and downward, and leaves you in a beastly pickle; but I spare your Ears, because I doubt not you know it by experience, as well as I. Secondly, There's the Sin of Swearing, which is an unprofitable Sin; and therefore, I think, you don't use it much. And, thirdly, there's the Sin of Lying; and of this I'm afraid you all come in for a snack, But the fourth and last Sin, is the sin of Whoring, and this indeed is a tickling sin; and I hearty wish we had not all of us been too often tickled with this Sin. But my Friends, though it has been thus, and though we have been all guilty, very guilty herein, yet let none despair, for despair is a very desperate thing; and therefore let no one stand lying in the gulf of Despair, but fail a rising by a vigorous Repentance.  
FINIS.