'HER: '.s.. JBRAW, 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 
 
R. T. S. LIBRARY ILLUSTRATED 
 
 THE WIT AND WISDOM 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS FULLEB 
 
 WITH A BEIEF BIOGRAPHY 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TKACT SOCIETY 
 
 56, PATERNOSTER Row ; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD ; 
 
 AND 164, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS FULLER ... 7 
 
 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES ... ... 35 
 
 Personal Meditations ... ... ... 37 
 
 Scripture Observations ... ... 51 
 
 Historical Applications ... ,.. ... 62 
 
 Mixed Contemplations ... ... 73 
 
 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES ... ... 84 
 
 Personal Meditations. .. ... ... . 84 
 
 Scripture Observations ... ... ... 96 
 
 Meditations on all Kinds of Prayers ... 106 
 
 Occasional Meditations ... ... ... 118 
 
 THE HOLY STATE AND THE PROFANE STATE 129 
 
 The Good Parent 131 
 
 The Good Child 133 
 
 The Good Master 135 
 
 The Good Servant ... ... ... 138 
 
 The Faithful Minister ... ... ... 140 
 
 Of Self-Praising 147 
 
 Of Company ... ... ... .,. 149 
 
 Of Apparel ... ... ... ... 152 
 
 Of Anger ... ... ... ... 154 
 
 Of Contentment 156 
 
 M313968 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Of Time-Serving' ... ... ... 160 
 
 The Witch of Endor ... ... ... 163 
 
 The Atheist ... ... ... ... 167 
 
 The Heretic ... ... ... 171 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS EXTKACTS ... ... ... 175 
 
 Primitive Monks ... ... ... 177 
 
 Miracles at the Tomb of St. Chad and Thomas 
 
 aBecket 179 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus on the Jesuits ... 180 
 
 The Fatal Vespers at Blackfriars ... ... 180 
 
 All the Martyrs not alike Cheerful ... 181 
 
 WicklifiVs Ashes burned and drowned ... 182 
 
 Christian Perfection ... ... ... 183 
 
 Grace to be held fast in the Midst of Tem- 
 poral Losses ... ... ... 184 
 
 The Kesurrection ... ... ... 185 
 
 God slow to Anger and of Great Patience ... 186 
 
 Poor Professors preserved by God's Providence 186 
 
 A Pleasant Story of King Henry VIII. ... 187 
 
 The Only Cure for Old Age ... ... 188 
 
 General Promises of Special Grace ... 189 
 
 Forgotten Martyrs ... ... ... 189 
 
 Martyrs .,. ... ,,, ... 189 
 
 Hope ... ... ..< . ... 189 
 
BRIEF BIOGEAPHY OF 
 THOMAS FULLER. 
 
 1 NEXT to Shakespeare,' writes Coleridge, ' I am not 
 certain whether Thomas Fuller, beyond all other 
 writers, does not excite in me the sense and emotion 
 of the marvellous ; the degree in which any given 
 faculty or combination of faculties is possessed and 
 manifested, so far surpassing what one would have 
 thought possible in a single mind, as to give one's 
 admiration the flavour and quality of wonder ! Wit 
 was the stuff and substance of Fuller's intellect. It 
 was the element, the earthen base, the material which 
 he worked in; and this very circumstance has de- 
 frauded him of his due praise for the practical wisdom 
 of the thoughts, for the beauty and variety of the 
 truths, into which he shaped the stuff. Fuller was 
 incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced, 
 great *man of an age that boasted a galaxy of great 
 men. He is a very voluminous writer ; and yet, in 
 all his numerous volumes on so many different sub- 
 jects, it is scarcely too much to say, that you will 
 hardly find a page in which some one sentence out of 
 every three does not deserve to be quoted for itself as 
 motto or as maxim.' 
 
8 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Though Thomas Fuller was by no means a recluse 
 student, and though he lived in one of the most 
 eventful periods of our history, yet the recorded facts 
 of his history are neither numerous nor important, 
 and for the greater part of them the modern reader is 
 indebted to Fuller's own works. 
 
 He was born in the year 1608, at Aldwinkle, in 
 which village his father, a man of considerable learn- 
 ing, was rector. In his own quaint style he thus 
 speaks of his birthplace. l God in his providence 
 fixed my nativity in a remarkable place. I was born at 
 Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, where my father 
 was the painful (painstaking) preacher of St. Peter's. 
 This village was distanced one good mile west from 
 Achurch, where Mr. Brown, founder of the Brownists, 
 did dwell, whom, out of curiosity, when a youth 
 I often visited. It was likewise a mile east from 
 Lavender, where Francis Tresham, so active in the 
 Gunpowder Treason, had a large demesne and ancient 
 habitation. My nativity may remind me of modera- 
 tion, whose cradle was rocked between two rocks. 
 Now, seeing that I was never such a churl as to 
 desire to eat my morsel alone, let such who like 
 my prayer join with me herein God grant we may 
 hit the golden mean, and endeavour to avoid all ex- 
 tremes ; the fanatic Anabaptist on one side, the fiery 
 zeal of the Jesuit on 'the other, that so we may be 
 true Protestants, or, which is a far betterjiame, real 
 Christians in deed.' 1 
 
 1 Aldwinkle was likewise the birthplace of Dryden : 
 and Dr. Haweis, one of the founders of the London Mission- 
 ary Society, was incumbent of the parish. 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 9 
 
 At the early age of twelve, having attended a vil- 
 lage school for four years, he was sent to Cambridge, 
 and entered at Queen's College. Dr. Davenant, after- 
 wards Bishop of Salisbury, his maternal uncle, was 
 the master, and his cousin, Edward Davenant, one of 
 the tutors. He took his degree of B.A. in 1624-5, and 
 M.A. in 1628. His relatives used all their influence, 
 which was considerable, to secure his preferment, and 
 he speedily became Perpetual Curate of St. Bevis, 
 Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and Prebendary of 
 Salisbury. Whilst incumbent of St. Bevis he de- 
 livered a course of lectures on the Book of Kuth, 
 which he subsequently printed. In the year 1631, he 
 published his first book. It was a poem, with the 
 quaint alliterative title of David's Hainous Sin, 
 Ileartie Repentance, and Heavy Punishment. It is 
 now quite forgotten, as, indeed, it deserves to be. Fuller 
 did not possess the poetic ' gift and faculty divine.' 
 
 In 1634, he preached, and subsequently printed, a 
 sermon on The Doctrine of Assurance. It affords an 
 admirable illustration of the calmness, moderation, 
 and scriptural soundness of his views. Fanatical ex- 
 travagance on one side, and ritualistic, Eomanizing 
 tendencies on the other, had brought this doctrine in 
 discredit. The one party spoke of assurance as essen- 
 tial to salvation, and as conferred by a special Divine 
 illumination ; the other rejected it altogether as mere 
 enthusiasm. Steering between these two extremes, 
 Fuller lays it down as the plain teaching of his text 
 (2 Pet. i. 10), that assurance may be attained in this 
 life without any miraculous revelation. But he 
 strenuously insists that it can never be enjoyed by 
 
10 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 those who make their Christian profession a life of 
 worldly conformity or luxurious ease. * The grace 
 of assurance,' he says, * is not attainable with ease 
 and idleness. Christianity is a laborious profession.' 
 
 Whilst he urges all his hearers to strive after its 
 attainment and enjoyment, he is careful to show that 
 true saving faith may be possessed without it. The 
 two things are separable from one another. * I say, 
 separable, to manifest my dissenting from such 
 worthy divines, who make this assurance to be the 
 very being, essence, life, soul, and formality of faith 
 itself. Whence these two opinions, as false as dan- 
 gerous, must of necessity be inferred, first, that every 
 one who hath true faith and is eternally to be saved 
 hath always some measure of this assurance ; secondly, 
 that such who are devoid of this assurance, are like- 
 wise deprived of all sincere faith for the present. 
 But God forbid any preacher should deliver doctrines 
 so destructive to Christian comfort on the one side 
 and advantageous to spiritual pride on the other. 
 Such will prove carnificince, the racks and tortures 
 of tender consciences. And as the careless mother 
 killed her little child, for she overlaid it, so the 
 weight of this heavy doctrine would press many poor 
 but pious souls, many faint but feeble infant-faiths to 
 the pit of despair ; exacting and extorting from them 
 more than God requires, that every faith should have 
 assurance with it, or else be ineffectual to salvation.' 
 
 Following the scholastic method then so popular, 
 he proposed his argument in the form of a syllogism. 
 
 The Major * He that truly repenteth himself of 
 his sins, and relieth with a true faith upon Christ, is 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 11 
 
 surely called, and by consequence elected before all 
 eternity to be a vessel of honour.' 
 
 The Minor 'But I truly repent myself of my 
 sins, and rely with a true faith on God in Christ.' 
 
 The Conclusion 5 Therefore I am truly called and 
 elected,' etc. 
 
 He shows that in order to attain this assurance we 
 must have, first, the testimony of a good conscience to 
 the reality of our repentance and the sincerity of our 
 faith ; and secondly, the witness of the Holy Spirit 
 (Bom. viii. 16). 
 
 In meeting some of the objections which were urged 
 against this doctrine, he uses the following striking 
 and characteristic illustration : l Now we must with 
 sorrow confess that this doctrine of the Spirit dwelling 
 in the hearts of God's servants, is much discounte- 
 nanced of late, and the devil thereupon hath im- 
 proved his own interest. To speak plainly, it is not 
 the fierceness of the lion, nor the fraud of the fox, 
 but the mimicalness of the ape, which, in our age, 
 hath discredited the undoubted truth. But what if 
 the apes in India, finding a glow-worm, mistook it to 
 be true fire, and heaping much combustible matter 
 about it, hoped by their blowing of it, thence to 
 kindle a flame ; I say, what if that laughter-causing 
 animal, that mirth-making creature deceived itself, 
 doth it thence] follow that there is no true fire at all ? 
 And .what if some fanatics by usurpation have en- 
 titled their brainsick fancies to be so many illumina- 
 tions of the Spirit, must we presently turn Sadducees 
 in this point, and deny that there is any Spirit at all ? 
 C T od forbicj,' 
 
12 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 In replying to those who pretend that assurance of 
 salvation would tend to a carnal and presumptuous 
 security, he shows that the very reverse is the fact, 
 and that the blessed effects of a well-founded assurance 
 are amongst the proofs of its truth. 
 
 1 The third and last witness we will insist on is 
 that comfort and contentment the conscience of the 
 party takes in doing good works, and bringing forth 
 the fruits of new obedience ; that though he knows 
 his best good works are straitened with corruptions 
 and many imperfections, yet because they are the 
 end of his vocation, and the justifiers of his faith; 
 because thereby the gospel is graced, wicked men 
 amazed, some of them converted, the rest confounded, 
 w r eak Christians confirmed, the poor relieved, devils 
 repining at them, angels rejoicing for them, God him- 
 self glorified by them ; I say, because of these and 
 other reasons, he doth good deeds with humility and 
 cheerfulness, and findeth a singular joy in his soul 
 resulting from the doing thereof.' 
 
 He admits that many true believers never attain to 
 this comfortable assurance, and that some who are 
 self-deceivers never doubt their safety ; but he main- 
 tains that godly sorrow will, as a rule, be accompanied 
 by inward peace, that it will be followed by spiritual 
 joy, and that it will fill our hearts with gratitude, our 
 lips with praise. He admirably says, 'All heavenly 
 gifts, as they are got by prayer, are kept, confirmed, 
 and increased by praise.' Excellent, too, is the 
 following caution against presumption and false 
 security: { Presumption is hot poison; it kills its 
 thousands, makes quick riddance of men's souls to 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 13 
 
 damnation. Despair, we confess, is poison, and hath 
 killed its thousands, but the venom thereof is more 
 curable, as more cold and faint in the operation! 
 thereof. Take heed, therefore, of presumptipn, lest 
 the confidence of the assurance of thy calling betray 
 thee to spiritual pride, that to security, that to 
 destruction.' 
 
 If controverted doctrines had always been defended 
 in this temper and spirit, polemical theology would 
 not have been the opprobrium of the Church. 
 
 In the year 1634, he received, through the kindness 
 of his uncle Davenant, the Eectory of Broad Windsor, 
 in Dorsetshire, and in the following year returned to 
 Cambridge, to take his degree of Bachelor of Divinity. 
 It illustrates the affection with which his parishioners 
 regarded him as well as the charm of his society that, 
 1 at his setting forth, he was acquainted that four of 
 his chief parishioners, with his good leave, were ready 
 to wait on him to Cambridge, to testify their exceeding 
 engagements; it being the sense and 'request of his 
 whole parish. This kindness was so present and so 
 resolutely pressed, that the Doctor, with many thanks 
 for that and other demonstrations of their love towards 
 him, gladly accepted of their company, and with his 
 customary innate pleasantness entertained their time 
 to the journey's end.' 
 
 On his return to Broad Windsor he set himself to 
 complete the works which he had planned and com- 
 menced at Cambridge. The first of these was the 
 History of the Holy War, the dedication of which, to 
 Lord Montagu and Sir John Powlett, is dated March 
 Oth, 1639. It is a clear, well-written, and learned 
 
14 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 history of the Crusades, and, at one period, was very 
 popular. 
 
 It abounds with his peculiar quaintnesses of style, 
 which enliven what in other hands would he a dry 
 catalogue of names. Thus in enumerating the 
 important towns in Palestine, he says : ' Aphek, whose 
 walls falling down, gave both the death and grave- 
 stones to twenty-seven thousand of Benhadad's 
 soldiers.' ' Sisera, who for all his commanding nine 
 hundred iron chariots, was slain with one iron nail.' 
 < Gibeon, whose inhabitants cozened Joshua with a 
 pass of false-dated antiquity : who could have thought 
 that clouted shoes could have covered so much 
 subtilty ! ' ' Edrei, the city of Og, on whose giant- 
 like proportions the Kabbies have invented more 
 giant-like lies.' ' Gadara, whose inhabitants loved 
 their swine better than their Saviour.' 'Pisgah, 
 where Moses viewed the land ; hereabouts the angel 
 buried him, and also buried the grave lest it should 
 occasion idolatry.' ' The fountain where Bathsheba's 
 washing her body occasioned the fouling of her soul. 5 
 
 Whilst at Broad Windsor he married ; the precise 
 date is uncertain, and of his wife little is known. His 
 wedded life soon terminated by the death of his wife, 
 leaving an infant son, who survived his father. 
 
 The strife between the King and the Parliament 
 was now rapidly becoming embittered, and the clouds 
 were gathering which were soon to break over the 
 land in storm and tempest. In the year 1640, the 
 memorable Convocation met at Westminster, which 
 did so much to alienate the different parties in the 
 Church. Of this Convocation Fuller was a member, 
 
THOMAS FULLER 15 
 
 and acted during part of the time as secretary. Dis- 
 satisfied with the course of events, however, he joined 
 with a number of members who protested against the 
 course of the dominant party, and withdrew. In his 
 Church History and Appeal of Injured Innocence he 
 has left a minute account of the proceedings of the 
 Convocation, and of his own share in them. These 
 transactions, however, belong rather to ecclesiastical 
 history than to the biography of Fuller, and need no 
 further notice here. 
 
 In the same year (1640), he contributed a sermon to 
 a volume of funeral discourses, entitled Threnikos, 
 The House of Mourning furnished ; and a volume 
 which he called' Joseph's parti-coloured coat. In the 
 sermon, which is upon Eom. xii. 2, occurs the follow- 
 ing passage, the fidelity of which is worthy of all 
 praise : c I know, and see by daily experience every- 
 where, how few there be that in their lifetime deserve 
 the praise of religion in their death. For my part, 
 I never did, nor never will gild a rotten post or a mud 
 wall, or give false witness in praising, to give the 
 praise of religion to those that deserve it not. I desire 
 those of my congregation would make their own 
 funeral sermons while they be living, by their virtuous 
 life and conversation. As the Apostle saith, "He hath 
 not praise that is praised of men, but he that is praised 
 of God."' 
 
 Joseph's parti-coloured coat is a volume of ex- 
 pository discourses, distinguished by all Fuller's 
 vigour, piety, and wit. It abounds with quaint, 
 pithy, epigrammatic sayings, such as * Practice with- 
 out knowledge is blind ; knowledge without practic e 
 
16 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 is lame.' ' To him, to whom the sacrament is not 
 heaven, it is hell.' * "What was pride in the builders 
 of Babel will be piety in us, to mount and raise our 
 souls on high till the top of them reach to heaven.' 
 Longer extracts from this work will be found amongst 
 the selections in the present volume. 
 
 In 1641, Fuller removed to London, where he was 
 appointed to the Lectureship of the Savoy. His 
 preaching seems to have been very popular, especially 
 amongst the lawyers and barristers at the Inns of 
 Court. In the numerous dedications prefixed to the 
 chapters of his Church History, British Worthies, and 
 Pisgah-sight of Palestine, he commemorates the names 
 of many, eminent for learning and piety, whose friend- 
 ship he had formed at this period. 
 
 It was whilst preaching at the Savoy that he pub- 
 lished the Holy and Profane State, perhaps his best 
 known and most popular work. It consists of a series 
 of brief biographies and sketches of character, admirable 
 for their vivacity of style and accuracy of delineation. 
 Extracts are given from this work in the following 
 pages. 
 
 Hitherto he had quietly pursued the * even tenour of 
 his way,' faithfully preaching the gospel, and avoiding 
 all cause of offence with any party in the State. But 
 it was difficult, perhaps impossible, in those stormy 
 and troubled times, to remain on friendly terms with 
 the opposing factions. Fuller, though both by nature 
 and from conviction a lover of moderation and of 
 peace, was not the man to conceal or modify his own 
 views of truth and duty. And it happened to him, as 
 it commonly happens to those who in times of revolu- 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 1? 
 
 tion t seek peace and ensue it,' that lie gave offence to 
 both parties. In the year 1643, he preached at West- 
 minster Abbey, on the anniversary of the King's 
 accession. He chose as his text the words in 2 Sam. 
 xix. 30, ' And Mephibosheth said unto the king, 
 Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king 
 is come again in peace unto his own house.' The 
 sermon was a characteristic exhortation to mutual 
 confidence and good feeling. He urged upon the 
 contending parties the duty of seeking peace as the 
 object jof all their endeavours. ' There must,' he says, 
 ' at last be a mutual confiding on both sides, so that 
 they must count the honesty of others their only 
 hostages. This the sooner it be done, the easier it is 
 done. For who can conceive that when both sides 
 have suffered more wrongs they will sooner forgive, 
 or when they have offered more wrongs be sooner for- 
 given? For our King's part, let us demand of his 
 money what Christ asked of Cesar's coin Whose 
 image is this ? Charles's : and what is the super- 
 scription? Religio Protestantium, Leges Anglice, 
 Lilertates Parliamenti : l and he hath caused them 
 to be cast both in silver and gold, in pieces of several 
 sizes and proportions ; as if thereby to show that he 
 intends to make good his promise both to poor and 
 rich, great and small, and we are bound to believe him. 
 ' Nor less fair are the professions of the Parliament 
 on the other side, and no doubt but as really they 
 intend them. But these matters belong not to us to 
 meddle with, and as for all other politic objections 
 
 1 The religion of Protestants, the laws of England, the 
 liberties of Parliament, 
 
18 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 against peace, they pertain not to the pulpit to answer. 
 All that we desire to see, is the King re-married to the 
 State ; and we doubt not, but as the bridegroom, on 
 the one side, will be careful to have his portion paid, 
 his prerogative ; so the bride's friends, entrusted to 
 her, will be sure to see her jointure settled the liberty 
 of the subject.' 
 
 Towards the conclusion of his sermon he enforced 
 the duty of prayer special, fervent, importunate 
 prayer that God would overrule the events of the 
 time for the nation's welfare and his own glory. 
 'Let us pray faithfully, pray fervently, pray constantly, 
 pray continually. Let preacher and people join their 
 prayers together, that God would be pleased to build 
 up the walls and make up the breaches in the applica- 
 tion, that what cannot be told, may be foretold for a 
 truth ; and that our text may be verified of Charles 
 in prophecy, as by David in history. Excellently St. 
 Austin adviseth, that men should not be curious to 
 inquire how original sin came into them, but careful 
 to seek how to get it out. By the same similitude 
 (though reversed) let us not be curious to know what 
 made our King to leave this city, or whether offences 
 given or taken moved him to his departure ; but let 
 us bend our brains, and improve our best endeavours 
 to bring him safely and speedily back again. How 
 often herein have our pregnant hopes miscarried, even 
 when they were to be delivered ! Just as a man in a 
 storm, swimming through the sea to the shore, till the 
 oars of his faint arms begin to fail him, is now come 
 to catch land, when an unmerciful wave beats him as 
 far back in an instant as he can recover in an hour : 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 19 
 
 just so when our hopes of a happy peace have been 
 ready to arrive, some envious unexpected obstacle 
 hath started up, and hath set our hopes ten degrees 
 backwards, as the shadow of the sun-dial of Ahaz. 
 But let us not hereat be disheartened, but with blind 
 Bartimeus, the more we are commanded by unhappy 
 accidents to hold our peace, let us cry the louder in 
 our prayers, the rather, because our King is already 
 partly come, come in his offer to come, come in his 
 tender to treat, come in his proffer of peace. And 
 this very day, being the beginning of the treaty, I 
 may say he set his first step forward : God guide his 
 feet, and speed his pace. let us thriftily husband 
 the least mite of hopes that it may increase, and date 
 our day from the first peeping of the morning star, 
 before the sun be risen. In a word, desist from 
 sinning, persist in praying, and then it may come 
 to pass that this our use may once be antedated, and 
 this day's sermon sent as a harbinger beforehand to 
 provide a lodging in your hearts for your joy against 
 the time, that " my lord our king shall return to his 
 own house in peace." ' 
 
 These were wise and weighty words. But we, who 
 judge after the event, can see how hopeless were all 
 such attempts at pacification. The disease in the 
 body-politic was too severe and too deeply rooted to 
 be eradicated without some violent measures. 
 
 The discourse gave great offence to the more ex- 
 treme partisans who heard it. Shortly after this he 
 was called upon, together with the other London 
 clergy, to take an oath of allegiance to the Parliament. 
 'This/ he says, 'was ten4ered to me and taken by 
 
20 BEIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 me in the vestry of the Savoy Church, but first pro- 
 testing some limitations thereof to myself. This, not 
 satisfying, was complained of, by some persons present, 
 to the Parliament; where it was ordered, that the 
 next Lord's day I should take the same oath in 
 terminis terminantibus, in the face of the Church; 
 which not agreeing with my conscience, I withdrew 
 myself into the King's parts.' 
 
 He seems to have found himself as little at home 
 with the Koyalists in Oxford as with the Parliament- 
 arians in London. Being called upon to preach before 
 the King, his sermon gave great offence to the zealots 
 of his own party, to whom his moderation and impar- 
 tiality were very distasteful. After a stay of only 
 three months in Lincoln College, Oxford, he applied 
 for and received a chaplaincy in the army, under Lord 
 Hopton. There were few of the officers in the King's 
 service to whom a man of Fuller's character would 
 have been acceptable, or under whom he could have 
 served. Lord Hopton, however, and his Chaplain 
 seem to have been in perfect accord. Fuller's anony- 
 mous biographer says of him, ' This noble lord, though 
 as courageous and expert a captain, and successful 
 withal as any the King had, was never -averse to an 
 amicable closure of the war upon fair and honourable 
 terms, and did, therefore, well approve of the Doctor 
 and his desires and pursuit after peace. The good 
 Doctor was likewise infinitely contented in his attend- 
 ance on such an excellent personage, whose con- 
 spicuous and noted loyalty could not but derive the 
 same reputation to his retainers, especially one so 
 near to his conscience as his Chaplain.' 
 
THOMAS FULLEK. 21 
 
 We do not need the testimony of his admiring 
 biographer to assure us that Fuller was indefatigable 
 in "the duties of his chaplaincy, that he read the 
 liturgy with the troops under his charge daily, and 
 preached every Sunday. Whilst attached to Lord 
 Hopton's regiment he formed part of the garrison of 
 Basing House at the time of its celebrated siege by 
 Sir William Waller. The successful defence against 
 the Parliamentary forces seems to have been in great 
 part due to the animating and vigorous exhortations 
 which Fuller addressed to the troops. 
 
 Fuller turned to good account the constant change 
 of place which the duties of his chaplaincy involved. 
 Marching and counter-marching through the southern 
 and eastern counties of England, he employed himself 
 in collecting materials for his great work, The Wor- 
 thies of England. It was not published till 1662, 
 the year after his own death, when it appeared as a 
 folio, edited by his son. It is a work of great research 
 and permanent value, though the whimsical episodes 
 and antiquarian gossip in which it abounds often raise 
 a smile at the author's expense. 
 
 In the year 1644, Fuller left the army, and took up 
 his abode in Exeter. He here received the honorary 
 appointment of Chaplain to the infant princess Hen- 
 rietta Maria, was presented to the living of Dorchester, 
 and published his Good ThougJits in Bad Times, and 
 two years later (1647) his Good Thoughts in Worse 
 Times. These are perhaps his most generally popular 
 treatises, and are given almost in extenso (pp. 35- 
 127). 
 
 In his Worthies of England he records the following 
 
22 BBIEF BIOGBAPHY QF 
 
 remarkable occurrence as having happened whilst he 
 resided in Exeter during its siege by Sir Thomas 
 Fairfax : 
 
 'When the city of Exeter was besieged by the 
 Parliament forces, so that only the south side thereof 
 towards the sea was open unto it, incredible numbers 
 of larks were found in that open quarter, for multitude 
 like quails in the wilderness, though (blessed be God) 
 unlike them, both in cause and effect, as not desired 
 with man's destruction, nor sent with God's anger, as 
 appeared by their safe digestion into wholesome 
 nourishment. Hereof I was an eye and mouth wit- 
 ness. I will save my credit in not conjecturing any 
 number ; knowing that herein, though I should stoop 
 below the truth, I should mount above belief. They 
 were as fat as plentiful ; so that being sold for two 
 pence a dozen and under, the poor (who could have 
 no cheaper, as the rich no better meat) used to make 
 pottage of them, boiling them down therein. Several 
 natural causes were assigned hereof. . . . However, 
 the cause of causes was Divine Providence, thereby 
 providing a feast for many poor people who otherwise 
 had been pinched for provision.' 
 
 When Exeter fell into the hands of the Parliament, 
 Fuller returned to London, and became Lecturer, first 
 at St. Clement's, Lombard Street, 1 then at St. Bride's, 
 
 1 Mr. Russell, author of Memorials of the Life and Works 
 of Thomas Fuller, has disinterred from the Churchwardens' 
 accounts for April, 1647, the following entry, which is 
 curious as illustrating the scale of ministerial remuneration 
 at that period : Paid for four sermons preached by Mr. 
 fuller, 001 06, 08, 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 23 
 
 Fleet Street. He did not hold these appointments 
 long, for, as a known Koyalist, he was silenced by the 
 dominant party in the State. But he could not be 
 idle, and he employed his enforced leisure in preparing 
 his Pisgah-sight of Palestine and the Confines thereof, 
 ivith the history of the Old and New Testament acted 
 thereon, forming a folio of about 700 pages, which 
 appeared in 1650. 
 
 . |_ After a brief interval, we again find Fuller preach- 
 ing without let or hindrance, the prohibition being 
 meant to apply chiefly to political offenders. He was 
 summoned to appear before the Court of Triers, who 
 were appointed to examine all ministers and remove 
 such as they found ignorant, incompetent, or vicious. 
 Fuller was in some doubt as to how he should succeed 
 in passing the scrutiny of the examiners, and applied 
 to John Howe for help and advice, to whom he said, 
 4 Sir, you may observe that I am a pretty corpulent 
 man, and I am to go through a passage that is very 
 strait ; I beg you would be so good as to give me a 
 shove and help me through.' Howe gave him all the 
 assistance in his power. When called before the 
 Triers, they asked him, Whether he had ever had 
 any experience of a work of grace in his heart ? ' 
 Fuller replied that * He could appeal to the Searcher 
 of all hearts that he made a conscience of his very 
 thoughts.' This answer was deemed so satisfactory 
 that, backed as it doubtless was by the friendly sup- 
 port of Howe, no further questions were asked him, 
 and he was duly authorized to preach. The ex- 
 aminers requested him, before he left, to give them 
 some proof of his extraordinary memory. With the 
 
24 BRIEF BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 quaint humour which never forsook him, he replied, 
 that if they would restore a poor sequestered minister, 
 he would never forget their kindness as long as he 
 lived. 
 
 It speaks well, both for the courage of Fuller and 
 for the moderation of Parliament, that one use he 
 made of his restored liberty of speech was to preach, 
 at Chelsea, a funeral sermon for the king. He did 
 not, it is true, mention the name of the monarch, but 
 no one could mistake the reference to Charles. The 
 sermon was entitled The Just Man's Funeral, and 
 was ' a vindication of the Divine Providence in the 
 misfortunes and deaths of the righteous.' His ex- 
 planation of the word righteous may serve to show 
 how thoroughly Scriptural and evangelical were his 
 views. He says the word is used of good men, com- 
 paratively in reference to the wicked ; intentionally, 
 inasmuch as they desire and endeavour after righteous- 
 ness with all their might ; inhesively, as having 
 implanted within them heavenly graces and holy 
 endowments, which are sincere though imperfect; 
 and imputatively, as having the righteousness of 
 Christ imputed to them. 1 
 
 He now settled at "VValtham, to the perpetual 
 curacy of which he had been appointed by the Earl 
 of Carlisle, whose Chaplain he was. Whilst at 
 Waltham he passed through the press his Pisgah- 
 
 1 The same thought is carried out at considerable length 
 in a sermon preached a few years afterwards from Psalm 
 xxxvii. 37, in which he lays great stress upon the imputed 
 righteousness of Christ. 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 25 
 
 sight, to which reference has already been made, was 
 a large contributor to a volume of biographies of the 
 martyrs and confessors, called Abel Redivivus, and 
 published many discourses, expositions of Scripture, 
 and small treatises, amongst which was a defence of 
 the baptism of infants, under the title of the Infant's 
 Advocate. In 1654, Fuller married again. His 
 second wife was a sister of Lord Baltinglass, and a 
 great-granddaughter of Bishop Pilkington, by whom 
 he had one son. 
 
 Two years later, he published his great work, The 
 Church History of Britain from the birth of Jesus 
 Christ until the year 1648 : Endeavoured by TJiomas 
 Fuller. It originally formed a large folio, and has 
 frequently been reprinted. The last edition consists 
 of three octavo volumes of between 500 and 600 
 pages each, with a supplemental volume, containing 
 the Histories of Cambridge and of Waltham Abbey, 
 and the Appeal of Injured Innocence, making nearly 
 700 pages more. These books, poured forth in such 
 rapid succession, were all of a nature to require im- 
 mense research, and they display the varied know- 
 ledge and indomitable industry of their author. Even 
 had they been produced by one who had no inter- 
 ruption to his studies, no anxieties upon his mind, 
 and who enjoyed all facilities for prosecuting his 
 researches, they would still remain a marvellous 
 monument of indefatigable diligence. But his posi- 
 tion was the very reverse of this. Often and patheti- 
 cally he laments the difficulties with which he had to 
 contend. Yet even here his quaint humour con- 
 stantly breaks through. Thus, in the preface to the 
 
26 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Appeal of Injured Innocence, he says, ' For the last 
 five years, during our actual civil wars, I had little 
 list or leisure to write ; fearing to be myself made a 
 history, and shifting daily for my safety. All that 
 time I could not live to study, who did only study to 
 live.' Again, in the preface to his Church History, 
 he says, * This history is now, though late (all Church 
 work is slow), brought with much difficulty to an 
 end. The first three books of this volume were for 
 the main written in the reign of the late king. The 
 other nine books were made since monarchy was 
 turned into a state? 
 
 The Church History was written by Fuller in a 
 spirit of true charity, and with a warm sympathy for 
 evangelical teaching. It, in consequence, gave great 
 offence to the Romanizing party in the Church, who 
 denounced Fuller as a puritan in disguise, and charged 
 upon him as a fault that he held up to condemnation 
 the superstitions and malpractices of the papacy. 
 Heylin especially made a very fierce attack upon him 
 on this ground. He, however, found more than his 
 match in Fuller, who replied in one of the most 
 remarkable controversial pamphlets in the language 
 The Appeal of Injured Innocence. It is brimful of 
 wit, learning, and logic, and leaves Heylin utterly 
 discomfited. 
 
 The restoration of Charles II. to the throne ended 
 the troubles of Fuller, and placed him in the high 
 road to promotion. But it came too late to enable him 
 to reap the full rewards of his labours. He was 
 restored to his lectureship at the Savoy and to his 
 Prebendal stall at Salisbury, was appointed Chaplain 
 
THOMAS FULLER. 27 
 
 Extraordinary to the King, and received the degree of 
 D.D. by royal mandate. There was little doubt that 
 he would have been speedily raised to the bench, but 
 his end was near. 
 
 In August, 1661, he engaged to preach a wedding- 
 sermon at the Savoy, for a relative who was to be 
 married the next day. At dinner he complained of 
 feeling unwell. On being pressed by his son not to 
 preach, he replied that he had 'often gone up into 
 the pulpit sick, but always came down well again, and 
 he hoped he should do as well now, through God's 
 strengthening grace.' Whilst in the pulpit he felt 
 himself growing worse, and became apprehensive of 
 danger. With a foreboding of the result, he said to 
 the congregation, 'I find myself very ill, but I am 
 resolved by the grace of God to preach this sermon to 
 you, though it may be my last.' Bracing himself up 
 to the effort, he offered prayer and preached extempo- 
 raneously, as was his custom, with his usual point 
 and vigour, except that once in the middle of the 
 sermon he faltered, but speedily recovered himself. 
 The effort was his last. He was unable to rise from 
 his seat in the pulpit, and was with some difficulty 
 conveyed home. He soon after became unconscious, 
 but the day before his death ' it pleased God to restore 
 to him the use of his faculties, which he very devoutly 
 and thankfully employed in a Christian preparation 
 for death, earnestly imploring the prayers of some of 
 his reverend brethren with him, himself most intently 
 joining with them, and commending himself to the 
 will of God. Nay, so highly was he affected witli 
 God's pleasure concerning him, that he could not 
 
28 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 endure any person to weep or cry, but would earnestly 
 desire them to refrain ; highly extolling and preferring 
 his condition, as a translation to a blessed eternity. 
 Nor would he revert to subjects of a literary or 
 purely secular kind: nothing but heaven and the 
 perfections thereof, the consummation of grace in 
 glory, must fill up the room of his capacious soul, 
 now ready to take its flight from this world. On the 
 morning of Thursday, the sixteenth of Augus't, his 
 sufferings were at an end, and he entered into rest.' 
 
 In person Fuller was tall and robust, with bright 
 blue eyes, fresh ruddy complexion, and light curly 
 hair. In diet he was sparing and temperate, in 
 'drink very much abstemious, which, questionless, 
 was the cause of that uninterrupted health he enjoyed 
 till his first and last sickness.' He allowed himself 
 little time for recreation, and was especially moderate 
 in sleep. Had he not carefully husbanded his time it 
 would have been impossible for him to have produced 
 a succession of volumes which form a library of 
 themselves. 
 
 Reference has been made in the preceding page a 
 to Fuller's extraordinary memory. Many of the 
 mnemonic feats recorded of him almost surpass belief. 
 It is said, for instance, that he could repeat five 
 hundred strange words after once hearing them ; that 
 having once heard a sermon he could preach it over 
 again verbatim ; and that, on one occasion, he under- 
 took, ' in passing to and fro from Temple Bar to the 
 furthest conduit in Cheapside, to tell on his return 
 every sign, as they stood in order on both sides of the 
 way, repeating them backwards or forwards as they 
 
THOMAS FULLER 29 
 
 Should choose, which he exactly did, not missing or dis- 
 placing one, to the admiration of those that heard him.' 
 
 In a passage already quoted, Coleridge remarks that 
 Fuller's reputation for wit has ' defrauded him of his 
 due praise for the practical wisdom of his thoughts.* 
 The justice of this observation will be apparent in the 
 following selections. Passages of rare beauty, of deep 
 insight, of devout piety, and of tender pathos, will be 
 found in all his writings. This is especially the case 
 in his Cause and Cure of a Wounded Conscience, a 
 treatise of great value, though little known. The con- 
 cluding sentences have a tender beauty, a soft and 
 pensive rhythm, which have been seldom surpassed. 
 Another passage, scarcely inferior to this in pathetic 
 beauty, may be found in the same treatise, describing 
 Adam in Paradise after his fall. 
 
 Professor Eogers, in his essay on the Life and 
 Writings of Thomas Fuller, after quoting Barrow's 
 comprehensive definition of wit, proceeds to show how 
 all its forms and varieties are exemplified by Fuller, and 
 gives us amongst others the following instances : 
 
 'Speaking of the Jesuits, he says, "such is the 
 charity of the Jesuits, that they never owe any man 
 any ill-will making present payment thereof." Of 
 certain prurient canons, in which virtue is in im- 
 minent danger of being tainted by impure descriptions 
 of purity, he shrewdly remarks " One may justly 
 admire how these canonists, being pretended virgins, 
 could arrive at the knowledge of the criticisms of all 
 obscenity. " Touching the miraculous coffin in which 
 St. Audre was deposited, he slyly says " Under the 
 ruined walla of Grantchester or Cambridge, a coffin 
 
gO BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 was found, with a cover correspondent, both of white 
 marble, which did fit her body so exactly, as if (which 
 one may believe was true) it was made for- it." On 
 Machiavel's saying, " that he who undertakes to write 
 a history must be of no religion," he observes, " if so, 
 Machiavel himself was the best qualified of any in his 
 age to be a good historian." On the unusual con- 
 junction of great learning and great wealth in the case 
 of Selden, he remarks, " Mr. Selden had some coins of 
 the Eoman emperors, and a great many more of our 
 English kings." After commenting on the old story 
 of St. Dunstan's pinching the devil's nose with the 
 red-hot tongs, he drolly cries out " But away with 
 all suspicions and queries. None need to doubt of the 
 truth thereof, finding it in a sign painted in Fleet 
 Street, near Temple Bar." The bare, bald style of the 
 schoolmen, he tells us, some have attributed to design 
 " lest any of the vermin of equivocation should hide 
 themselves under the nap of their words." On ex- 
 cessive attention to fashion in dress, he says " Had 
 some of our gallants been with the Israelites in the 
 wilderness, when for forty years their clothes waxed 
 not old, they would have been vexed, though their 
 clothes were whole, to have been so long in one 
 fashion." Speaking of the melancholy forebodings 
 which have sometimes haunted the death-bed of good 
 men, he quaintly tells us, "that the devil is most 
 busy in the last day of his term, and a tenant to be 
 outed, cares not what mishief he does." Of unreason- 
 able expectations he says, with characteristic love of 
 quibbling, "Those who expect what in reason they 
 cannot expect, may expect." The court jester he 
 
THOMAS FULLEE. 31 
 
 wittily and truly characterizes thus " It is an office 
 which none but he that hath wit can perform, and 
 none but he that wants wit will perform." Of modest 
 women, who nevertheless dress themselves in ques- 
 tionable attire, he says " I must confess some honest 
 women may go thus, but no whit the honester for 
 going thus. That ship may have Castor and Pollux 
 for the sign, which, notwithstanding, has St. Paul for 
 the lading." He thus speaks of anger "He that 
 keepeth anger long in his bosom, giveth place to the 
 Devil. And why should we make room for him who 
 will crowd in too fast of himself? Heat of passion makes 
 our souls to crack, and the Devil creeps in at the 
 crannies." Of intellectual deficiencies in the very tall, 
 he remarks, " that oft-times such who are built four 
 stories high, are observed to have little in their cock- 
 loft." Of virtue in a very short man, he says, " His 
 soul had but a short diocese to visit, and therefore might 
 the better attend the effectual informing thereof." 
 
 ' Of the " quirkish reason," mentioned as one of the 
 species of wit in the above-recited passage of Barrow, 
 the pages of our author are full. What can be more 
 ridiculous than the. reason he assigns, in his descrip- 
 tion of the "good wife," for the order of Paul's 
 admonitions to husbands and wives in the third 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians? "The 
 apostle first adviseth women to submit themselves to 
 their husbands, and then counselleth men to love their 
 wives. And sure it was fitting that women should 
 first have their lesson given them, because it is hardest 
 to be learned, and therefore they need have the more 
 time to con it. For the same reason we first begin 
 
32 BBIEF BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 with the character of a good wife." Not less droll, or 
 rather far more so, is the manner in which he sub- 
 tilizes on the command, that we are not " to let the 
 sun go down on our wrath." "Anger kept till the 
 next morning, with manna, doth putrefy and corrupt; 
 save that manna, corrupted not at all (and anger most 
 of all), kept the next Sabbath. St. Paul saith, 'Let 
 not the sun go down on your wrath,' to carry news to 
 the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful 
 nature. Yet let us take the apostle's meaning rather 
 than his words, with all possible speed to depose our 
 passion ; not understanding him literally, so that we 
 may take leave to be angry till sunset ; then might 
 our wrath lengthen with the days, and men in Green- 
 land, where day lasts above a quarter of a year, have 
 plentiful scope for revenge." ' 
 
 Such instances as these might be multiplied almost 
 indefinitely. Indeed, it would be difficult to open any 
 of his treatises, except those of a devotional character, 
 without meeting with some quaint or witty term at 
 the first glance ; and so inveterate was this habit in 
 Fuller's mind, that it constantly crops out where we 
 should least expect or desire it. 
 
 It must, indeed, be admitted that the tendency to 
 jest and drollery was excessive. A sober and candid 
 criticism must regard it as a defect in Fuller's character 
 and a blemish in his style. Two or three considera- 
 tions may, however, be urged, not, indeed, in justifica- 
 tion, but in palliation. First, it should be remembered 
 that it was perfectly natural to him. To have written 
 in any other style would have called for constant 
 restraint, Few things are more offensive than an 
 
THOMAS FULLEB. 33 
 
 affectation of, or a striving after, witty terms and 
 amusing allusions. From this affected and artificial 
 jocularity Fuller was entirely free. It should, further, 
 be borne in mind that his wit was merely the outward 
 form in which sound sense, serious purpose, and 
 practical piety embodied themselves. In so far as it 
 was a defect, it belonged rather to style, and manner, 
 and mode of treatment, than to the stuff and substance 
 of his thoughts. It may be compared with the 
 pedantry which led some of his contemporaries to fill 
 their pages with quotations from classical authors, or 
 allusions to recondite facts ; with the stiff scholasticism 
 which led others to express their simplest statements 
 in syllogistic and logical formulas ; or wfth the tedious 
 verbosity in which others indulged, expatiating in 
 endless divisions and refinements, hair-splitting defini- 
 tions and wire-drawn conclusions. The theologians 
 and divines of that age were great, and their works 
 possess a permanent value, not in consequence of these 
 defects of style, but in spite of them. Let Fuller's 
 excessive, and sometimes wearisome, jocularity find 
 the same excuse. He, at least, is never pedantic, 
 formal, or dull. 
 
 Fuller himself has prescribed the limits within 
 which jesting is allowable, and it must be conceded to 
 him that very seldom, if ever, has he outstepped them. 
 His wit was never bitter and unkind, never profligate, 
 never profane. Pie says, in his Holy and Profane 
 State : 
 
 ' Harmless mirth is the best cordial against the con- 
 sumption of the spirits ; wherefore jesting is not unlaw- 
 ful if it trespasseth not in quantity, quality, or season. 
 
 B 
 
34 BEIEF BIOGBAPEY OF THOMAS FULLER. 
 
 6 Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word. 
 Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in but 
 the font? or to drink healths in but the church- 
 chalice ? And know that the whole art is learnt at 
 the first admission, and profane jests come without 
 calling. * * * Dangerous it is to wit-wanton it with 
 the majesty of God. Wherefore, if without thine 
 intention, and against thy will, by chance-medley 
 thou hittest Scripture in thy ordinary discourse, yet 
 fly to the city of refuge and pray God to forgive thee. 
 6 Wanton jests make fools laugh and wise men 
 frown. Seeing we are civilized Englishmen, let us 
 not be naked savages in our talk. 
 
 ' Scoff not at the natural defects of any luhich are 
 not in their power to amend. ! it is cruel to beat a 
 cripple with his crutches ! Neither flout any for his. 
 profession, if honest, though poor and painful. 
 
 'He that relates another man's wicked jest ivith 
 delight adopts it to be his own. Purge them therefore 
 from their poison. If the profaneness may be severed 
 from the wit, it is like lamprey take out the sting, it 
 may make good meat. But if the staple-conceit con- 
 sist in profaneness, then it is a viper, all poison: meddle 
 not with it. 
 
 * He that will lose his friend for a jest deserves to die 
 a beggar by the bargain. Yet some think their conceits 
 like mustard, not good except they bite. Such let thy 
 jests be that they grind not the credit of thy friend.' 
 
 If further apology be needed for Fuller, let it be 
 found in the concluding words of his preface to the 
 History of the Holy War : ' MAY THE FAULTS OF THIS 
 
 BOOK REDOUND TO MYSELF, THE PROFIT TO OTHERS, 
 THE GLORY TO GOD, 5 
 
GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES 
 
 AND 
 
 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES 
 
 CONSISTING OF 
 
 PERSONAL MEDITATIONS, SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS, HIS- 
 TORICAL APPLICATIONS, MIXED CONTEMPLATIONS, 
 MEDITATIONS ON ALL KINDS OF PRAYERS, AND OCCA- 
 SIONAL MEDITATIONS, 
 
IN the year 1645, Fuller was at Exeter. The Royal cause, to 
 which he had attached himself, was rapidly becoming desperate. 
 Moderate men of all parties were beginning to despair of any 
 satisfactory or peaceful settlement of the questions at issue. 
 Fuller, who had now retired from his military chaplaincy, em- 
 ployed his leisure in preparing and publishing his Good Thoughts 
 in Bad Times. It was dedicated to Lady Dalkeith, governess to 
 the infant Princess Henrietta, to whom he had received the 
 appointment of Honorary Chaplain. 
 
 Two years later, in 1647, he published a second series of 
 meditations, entitled Good Thoughts in Worse Times, similar in 
 style, subject, and arrangement to the first series. They were 
 exceedingly popular, and went through six or seven editions 
 within a very few years. 
 
 Some years later, in 1660, he published a third series of 
 meditations, entitled Mixed Contemplations in Better Tint?*. 
 The first and second series are given almost in extenso. A few 
 meditations have been omitted which, referring to the con- 
 troversies of the day, possessed only a temporary interest. 
 
GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 Commune with your own heart -upon your bed, and be still. 
 PSALM iv. 4. 
 
 PEBSONAL MEDITATIONS. 
 
 LORD, how near was I to danger, yet escaped ? I 
 was upon the brink of the brink of it, yet fell not in ; 
 they are well kept who are kept by thee. Excellent 
 archer! Thou didst hit the mark in missing it, as 
 meaning to fright, not hurt me. Let me not now be 
 such a fool as to pay my thanks to blind fortune for a 
 favour which the eye of Providence hath bestowed 
 upon me. Kather let the narrowness of my escape 
 make my thankfulness to thy goodness the larger, lest 
 my ingratitude justly cause that whereas this arrow 
 but hit my hat, the next pierce my head. 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, when thou shalt visit me with a sharp 
 disease I fear I shall be impatient, for I am choleric 
 by my nature, and tender by my temper, and have 
 not been acquainted with sickness all my lifetime. 
 I cannot expect any kind usage from that which 
 hath been a stranger unto me. I fear I shall rave and 
 rage. whither will my mind sail when distemper 
 shall steer it? whither will my fancy run when diseases 
 shall ride it? My tongue, which of itself is a fird 
 
38 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 (James iii. 6), sure will be a wild-fire when the 
 furnace of my mouth is made seven times hotter with 
 a burning fever. But, Lord, though I should talk 
 idly to my own shame, let me not talk wickedly to 
 thy dishonour. Teach me the art of patience whilst 
 I am well, and give me the use of it when I am sick. 
 In that day either lighten my burthen or strengthen 
 my back. Make me, who so often in my health have 
 discovered my weakness presuming on my own 
 strength, to be strong in sickness, when I solely rely 
 on thy assistance. 
 
 * & * 
 
 LORD, this morning my unseasonable visiting of a 
 friend disturbed him in the midst of his devotions : 
 unhappy to hinder another man's goodness ! If I my- 
 self build not, shall I snatch the axe and hammer from 
 him that doth? yet I could willingly have wished 
 that rather than he should then have cut off the cable 
 of his prayers, I had twisted my cord to it, and joined 
 with him in his devotions ; however, to make him the 
 best amends I may, I now request of thee for him 
 whatsoever he would have requested for himself. 
 Thus he shall be no loser if thou be pleased to hear 
 my prayer for him, and to hearken to our Saviour's 
 intercession for us both. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, since these woeful wars began, one, formerly 
 mine intimate acquaintance, is now turned a stranger, 
 yea, an enemy. Teach me how to behave myself 
 towards him. Must the new foe quite jostle out the 
 old friend ? may I not with him continue some com- 
 merce of kindness ? though the amity be broken on 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 39 
 
 his side, may not I preserve my counterpart entire ? 
 Yet how can I be kind to him without being cruel to 
 myself and thy cause ? guide my shaking hand to 
 draw so small a line straight ; or rather because I know 
 not how to carry myself towards him in this con- 
 troversy, even be pleased to take away the subject of 
 the question, and speedily to reconcile these unnatural 
 differences. 
 
 * * # 
 
 LORD, my voice by nature is harsh and untunable, 
 and it is vain to lavish any art to better it. Can my 
 singing of psalms be pleasing to thy ears which is un- 
 pleasant to my own ? yet though I cannot chant with 
 the nightingale, or chirp with the blackbird, I had 
 rather chatter with the swallow (Isaiah xxxviii. 14), 
 yea, rather croak with the raven, than be altogether 
 silent. Hadst thoti given me a better voice, I would 
 have praised thee with a better voice. Now what my 
 music wants in sweetness let it have in sense, singing 
 praises with understanding. Yea, Lord, create in me 
 a new heart (therein to make melody), (Ephes. v. 19), 
 and I will be contented with my old voice, until, in 
 thy due time, being admitted into the choir of heaverj, 
 I have another, more harmonious, bestowed upon me. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, within a little time I have heard the same 
 precept in sundry places and by several preachers 
 pressed upon me. The doctrine seemeth to haunt my 
 soul ; whithersoever I turn it meets me. Surely this 
 is from thy providence, and should be for my profit. 
 Is it because I am an ill proficient in this point, that 
 I must not turn over a new leaf, but am still kept to 
 
40 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 my old lesson ? Peter was grieved because our Saviour 
 said unto him the third time, ' Lovest thou me ? ' But 
 I will not be^offended at thy often inculcating the same 
 precept. But rather conclude that I am much con- 
 cerned therein, and that it is thy pleasure that the 
 nail should be soundly fastened in me, which thou 
 hast knocked in with so many hammers. 
 
 # * * 
 
 LORD, before I commit a sin, it seems to me so 
 shallow that I may wade through it dry-shod from 
 any guiltiness; but when I have committed it, it 
 often seems so deep that I cannot escape without 
 drowning. Thus I am always in extremities : either 
 my sins are so small that they need not any repent- 
 ance, or so great that they cannot obtain thy pardon. 
 Lend me, Lord, a reed out of thy sanctuary, truly 
 to measure the dimension of my offences. But, ! 
 as thou revealest to me more of my misery, reveal 
 also more of thy mercy: lest if my wounds, in my 
 apprehension, gape wider than thy tents, 1 my soul 
 run out at them. If my badness seem bigger than 
 thy goodness but one hair's breadth, but one moment, 
 that is room and time enough for me to run to eternal 
 despair. 
 
 # # * 
 
 LOED, I do discover a fallacy whereby I have long 
 deceived myself, which is this I have desired to 
 begin my amendment from my birthday, or from the 
 first day of the year, or from some eminent festival, 
 that so my repentance might bear some remarkable 
 date. But when those days were come I have 
 
 1 A plug of lint, placed in wounds to stop the bleeding. 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 41 
 
 adjourned my amendment to some other time. Thus 
 whilst I could not agree with myself when to start, 
 I have almost lost the running of the race. I am 
 resolved thus to befool myself no longer. I see no 
 day like to-day, the instant time is always the fittest 
 time. In Nebuchadnezzar's image, the lower the 
 members, the coarser the metal; the farther off the 
 time, the more unfit. To-day is the golden opportunity, 
 to-morrow will be the silver season, next day but the 
 brazen one, and so long, till at last I shall come to the 
 toes of clay, and be turned to dust. Grant, therefore, 
 that to-day I may hear thy voice. And if this day 
 be obscure in the calendar, and remarkable in itself 
 for nothing else, give me to make it memorable in 
 my soul, thereupon, by thy assistance, beginning the 
 reformation of my life. 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, I saw one whom I knew to be notoriously 
 bad in great extremity. It was hard to say whether 
 his former wickedness or present want were the greater* 
 If I could have made the distinction, I could willingly 
 have fed his person and starved his profaneness. This 
 being impossible, I adventured to relieve him. For 
 I know that amongst many objects, all of them being 
 in extreme miseries, charity, though shooting at 
 random, cannot miss a right mark. Since, Lord, the 
 party, being recovered, is become worse than ever 
 before (thus they are always impaired with affliction, 
 who thereby are not improved), Lord, count me not 
 accessary to his badness because I relieved him. Let 
 me not suffer harm in myself for my desire to do good 
 to him. Yea, Lord, be pleased to clear my credit 
 
42 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 amongst men, that they may understand my hands 
 according to the simplicity of my heart. I gave to 
 him only in hope to keep the stock alive, that so 
 afterwards it might be better grafted. Now, finding 
 myself deceived, my alms shall return into my own 
 bosom. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, thy servants are now praying in the church, 
 and I am here staying at home, detained by necessary 
 occasions, such as are not of my seeking, but of thy 
 sending. My care could not prevent them, my power 
 could not remove them. Wherefore, though I cannot 
 go to church, there to sit down at table with the rest 
 of thy guests, be pleased, Lord, to send me a dish 
 of their meat hither, and feed my soul with holy 
 thoughts. Eldad and Medad (Numb. xi. 26), though 
 staying still in the camp (no doubt on just cause), yet 
 prophesied as well as the other elders. Though they 
 went not out to the Spirit, the Spirit came home to 
 them. Thus never any dutiful child lost his legacy 
 for being absent at the making of his father's will, if 
 at the same time he were employed about his father's 
 business. I fear too many at church have their bodies 
 there and minds at home. Behold, in exchange, my 
 body here and heart there. Though I cannot pray 
 with them, I pray for them. Yea, this comforts me, I 
 am with thy congregation, because I would be with it. 
 
 # # * 
 
 LORD, I trust thou hast pardoned the bad examples 
 I have set before others, be also pleased to pardon me 
 the sins which they have committed by my bad ex- 
 amples. (It is the best manners in thy court to heap 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 43 
 
 requests upon requests.) If thou hast forgiven my 
 sins, the children of my corrupt nature, forgive me 
 my grandchildren also. Let not the transcripts re^ 
 main, since thou hast blotted out the original. And 
 for the time to come bless me with barrenness in bad 
 actions, and my bad actions with barrenness, that they 
 may never beget others according to their likeness. 
 
 # * * 
 
 LOED, what faults I correct in my son I commit 
 myself: I beat him for dabbling in the dirt, whilst 
 my own soul doth wallow in sin : I beat him for 
 crying to cut his own meat, yet am not myself con- 
 tented with that state thy providence hath carved 
 unto me : I beat him for crying when he is to go to 
 sleep, and yet I fear I myself shall cry when thu 
 callest me to sleep with my fathers. Alas, I am more 
 childish than my child, and what I inflict on him I 
 justly deserve to receive from thee : only here is the 
 difference. I pray and desire that my correction on 
 my child may do him good. It is in thy power, Lord, 
 to effect that thy correction on me shall do me good. 
 
 # * # 
 
 LOED, I perceive my soul deeply guilty of envy. 
 By my good will, I would have none prophesy but 
 mine own Moses (Numb. xi. 28). I had rather thy 
 work were undone than done better by another than 
 by myself! Had rather thy enemies were all alive 
 than that I should kill but my thousand, and others 
 their ten thousands of them ! My corruption repines 
 at other men's better parts, as if what my soul wants 
 of them in substance she would supply in swelling. 
 Pispossess me } Lord, of this bad spirit, and turn my 
 
44 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 envy into holy emulation. Let me labour to exceed 
 them in pains who excel me in parts : and knowing 
 that my sword in cutting down sin hath a duller edge, 
 let me strike with the greater force ; yea, make other 
 men's gifts to be mine, by making me thankful to 
 thee for them. It was some comfort to Naomi, that, 
 wanting a son herself, she brought up Kuth's child 
 in her bosom. If my soul be too old to be a mother 
 of goodness, Lord, make it but a dry-nurse. Let me 
 feed and foster and nourish and cherish the graces in 
 others, honouring their persons, praising their parts, 
 and glorifying thy Name, who hath given such gifts 
 unto them. 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, when young I have almost quarrelled with 
 that petition, 'Give peace in our time, Lord;' 
 needless to wish for light at noon-day ; for then peace 
 was so plentiful, no fear of famine, but suspicion of a 
 surfeit thereof. And yet how many good comments 
 was this prayer then capable of! Give peace, that is, 
 continue and preserve it ; give peace, that is, give us 
 hearts worthy of it, and thankful for it. In our time, 
 that is, all our time : for there is more besides a fair 
 morning required to make a fair day. Now I see the 
 mother had more wisdom than her son. The Church 
 knew, better than I, how to pray. Now I am better 
 informed of the necessity of that petition. Yea, with 
 the daughters of the horseleech, I have need to cry, 
 Give, give peace in our time, Lord (Prov. xxx. 
 15). 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, unruly soldiers command poor people to open 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS, 45 
 
 them their doors, otherwise threatening to break in. 
 But if those in the house knew their own strength it 
 were easy to keep them out; seeing the doors are 
 threatening-proof, and it is not the breath of their 
 oaths can blow the locks open. Yet, silly souls, being 
 affrighted, they obey, and betray themselves to their 
 violence. Thus Satan serves me, or rather thus I 
 serve myself. When I cannot be forced, I am fooled 
 out of my integrity. He cannot constrain if I do not 
 consent. If I do but keep possession, all the powers 
 of hell cannot violently eject me: but I cowardly 
 surrender to his summons. Thus there needs no more 
 to my undoing, but myself. 
 
 # # # 
 
 LOED, when I am to travel I never use to provide 
 myself till the very time ; partly out of laziness, loth 
 to be troubled till needs I must ; partly out of pride, 
 as presuming all necessaries for my journey will wait 
 upon me at the instant (some say this is scholar's 
 fashion, and it seems, by following it, I hope to 
 approve myself to be one). However, it often comes 
 to pass that my journey is finally stopped, through 
 the narrowness of the time to provide for it. Grant, 
 Lord, that my confessed improvidence in temporal 
 may make me suspect my providence in spiritual 
 matters. Solomon saith, 'Man goeth to his long 
 home.' Short preparation will not fit so long a 
 journey. let me not put it off to the last, to have 
 my oil to buy when I am to burn it, but let me so 
 dispose of myself, that when I am to die I may have 
 nothing to do but to die, 
 
46 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES, 
 
 LOUD, when in any writing I have occasion to 
 insert these passages, God willing, God lending me 
 life, etc., I observe, Lord, that I can scarce hold my 
 hand from encircling these words in a parenthesis, as 
 if they were not essential to the sentence, but may as 
 well be left out as put in. "Whereas indeed they are 
 not only of the commission at large, but so of the 
 quorum, that without them all the rest is nothing ; 
 wherefore hereafter I will write those words fully and 
 fairly, without any enclosure about them. Let critics 
 censure it for bad grammar, I am sure it is good 
 divinity. 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, many temporal matters which I have desired, 
 thou hast denied me. It vexed me for the present, 
 that I wanted my will. Since, considering in cold 
 blood, I plainly perceive had that which I desired been 
 done, I had been undone. Yea, what thou gavest me, 
 instead of those things wjiich I wished, though less 
 toothsome to me, were more wholesome for me. For- 
 give, I pray, my former anger, and now accept my 
 humble thanks. Lord, grant me one suit, which is 
 this, deny me all suits which are bad for me : when 
 I petition for what is unfitting, let the King of 
 heaven make use of his negative voice. Bather let 
 me fast than have quails given with intent that I 
 should be choked in eating them (Numb. xi. 33). 
 & * * 
 
 LORD, this day I disputed with myself whether or 
 no I had said my prayers this morning ; and I could 
 not call to mind any remarkable passage whence I 
 could certainly conclude that I had offered my prayers 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. tf 
 
 unto tliee. Frozen affections, which left no spark of 
 remembrance behind them ! Yet at last I hardly re- 
 covered one token, whence I was assured that I had 
 said my prayers. It seems I had said them, and only 
 said them, rather by heart than with my heart. Can 
 I hope that thou wouldest remember my prayers when 
 I had almost forgotten that I had prayed ? Or rather 
 have I not cause to fear that thou remernberest my 
 prayers too well, to punish the coldness and badness 
 of them ? Alas ! are not devotions thus done, in 
 effect, left undone ? Well Jacob advised his sons, at 
 their second going into Egypt, ' Take double money 
 in your hands ; peradventure it was an oversight.' 
 So, Lord, I come with my second morning sacrifice : 
 be pleased to accept it, which I desire and endeavour 
 to present with a little better devotion than I did the 
 former. 
 
 * # # 
 
 LORD, the motions of thy Holy Spirit were for- 
 merly frequent in my heart, but, alas ! of late they 
 have been great strangers. It seems they did not 
 like their last entertainment, they are so loth to come 
 again. I fear they were grieved, that either I heard 
 them not attentively, or believed them not faithfully, 
 or practised them not .conscionably. If they be 
 pleased to come again, this is all I dare promise, that 
 they do deserve, and I do desire they should be well 
 used. Let thy Holy Spirit be pleased not only to 
 stand before the door and knock, but also to come in. 
 If I do not open the door, if it were too unreasonable 
 to request such a miracle to come in, when the doors 
 were shut, as thou didst to the apostles. Yet let me 
 
48 GOOD THOUGHTS IN SAD TIMES. 
 
 humbly beg of thee, that thou wouldst make the iron 
 gate of my heart open of its own accord (Acts xii. 10). 
 Then let thy Spirit be pleased to sup in my heart. I 
 have given it an invitation, and I hope I shall give it 
 room. But, thou that sendest the guest, send the 
 meat also ; and if I be so unmannerly as not to make 
 the Holy Spirit welcome, let thy effectual grace 
 make me to make it welcome. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, I confess this morning I remembered my 
 breakfast but forgot my prayers. And as I have re- 
 turned no praise, so thou mightest justly have afforded 
 me no protection. Yet thou hast carefully kept me 
 to the middle of the day, entrusted me with a new 
 debt before I have paid the old score. It is now noon, 
 too late for a morning, too soon for an evening, sacri- 
 fice. My corrupt heart prompts me to put off my 
 prayers till night. But I know it too well, or rather 
 too ill, to trust it. I fear, if till night I defer them, 
 at night I shall forget them. Be pleased, therefore, 
 now to accept them. Lord, let not a few hours the 
 later make a breach ; especially, seeing (being spoken 
 not to excuse my negligence, but to implore thy 
 pardon) a thousand years in thy sight are but as 
 yesterday. I promise hereafter, by thy assistance, to 
 bring forth fruit in due season. I am ashamed the 
 sun should shine on me, who now newly start in the 
 race of my devotions, when he, like a giant, hath run 
 more than half his course in the heavens. 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, this day casually I am fallen into a bad com- 
 pany, and know not how I came thither, or how to 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 4U 
 
 get heuce. Sure I am, not my improvidence hath 
 run me, but thy providence hath led me into this 
 danger. I was not wandering in any base by-path, 
 but walking in the highway of my vocation. Where- 
 fore, Lord, thou that calledst me hither, keep me 
 here. Stop their mouths, that they speak no blas- 
 phemy, or stop my ears, that I hear none ; or open 
 nay mouth, soberly to reprove what I hear. Give me 
 to guard myself, but, Lord, guard my guarding 01 
 myself. Let not the smoke of their badness put out 
 mine eyes, but the shining of mine innocency lighten 
 theirs. Let me give physic to them, and not take 
 infection from them. Yea, make me the better for 
 their badness. Then shall their bad company be to 
 me like the dirt of oysters, whose mud hath soap in 
 it, and doth rather scour than defile. 
 # * # 
 
 LORD, often have I thought with myself, I will sin 
 but this one sin more, and then I will repent of it, and 
 of all the rest of my sins together. So foolish was I 
 and ignorant. As if I should be more able to pay my 
 debts when I owe more : or as if I should say, I will 
 wound my friend once again, and then I will lovingly 
 shake hands with him : but what if my friend will 
 not shake hands with me ? Besides, can one commit 
 one sin more, and but one sin more ? Grant, Lord, at 
 this instant I may break off my badness, otherwise 
 thou mayest justly make the last minute wherein I 
 do sin on earth to be the last minute wherein I shall 
 sin on earth and the first wherein thou mightest 
 make me suffer in another place. 
 
50 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 LORD, the preacher this day came homo to ray 
 heart. A left-handed Gibeonite, with his sling 
 (Judges x. 16), hit not the mark more sure than he 
 my darling sins. I- could find no fault with his 
 sermon, save only that it had too much truth. But 
 this I quarrelled at, that he went far from his text to 
 come close to me, and so was faulty himself in telling 
 me of my faults. Thus they will creep out at small 
 crannies who have a mind to escape; and yet I 
 cannot deny but that that which he spake (though 
 nothing to that portion of Scripture which he had for 
 his text) was according to the proportion of Scripture. 
 And is not thy word in general the text at large of 
 every preacher ? Yea, rather I should have concluded, 
 that if he went from his text, thy goodness sent him 
 to meet me : for without thy guidance it had been im- 
 possible for him so truly to have traced the intricate 
 turnings of my deceitful heart. 
 
 * # # 
 
 LORD, be pleased to shake my clay cottage before 
 thou throwest it down. May it totter awhile before 
 it doth tumble. Let me be summoned before I am 
 surprised. Deliver me from sudden death. Not 
 from sudden death in respect of itself ; for I care not 
 how short my passage be, so it be safe. Never any 
 weary traveller complained that he came too soon to 
 his journey's end. But let it not be sudden in respect 
 of me. Make me always ready to receive death. 
 Thus no guest comes unawares to him who keeps a 
 constant table. 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS, 51 
 
 SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 LOUD, in the parable of the four sorts of ground 
 whereon the seed was sown, the last alone proved 
 fruitful (Matt. xiii. 8). There the bad were more 
 than the good. But amongst the servants, two 
 improved their talents, or pounds, and one only 
 buried them. There the good were more than the bad. 
 Again, 'amongst the ten virgins, five were wise and 
 five were foolish (Matt. xxv. 2). There the good and 
 bad were equal. I see, that concerning the number 
 of the saints in comparison to the reprobates, no 
 certainty can be collected from these parables. Good 
 reason, for it is not their principal purpose to meddle 
 with that point. Grant that I may never rack a 
 Scripture simile beyond the true intent thereof. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, thou didst intend from all eternity to make 
 Christ the heir of all. No danger of disinheriting 
 him, thy only Son, and so well deserving. Yet thou 
 sayest to him, ' Ask of me, and I will give thee the 
 heathen for thine inheritance/ etc. This homage he 
 must do for thy boon, to beg it. I see thy goodness 
 delights to have thy favours sued for, expecting we 
 should crave what thou intendest we should have ; 
 that so, though we^ cannot give a full price, we may 
 take some pains for thy favours, and obtain them, 
 though not for the merit, by the means of, our 
 petitions. 
 
 * # # 
 
 LORD, I find that Ezekiel in his prophecies is styled 
 ninety times, and more, by this appellation, ' Son of 
 
52 GOOD THOUGHTS IN HAD TIMES. 
 
 man/ and surely not once oftener than there was 
 need for. For he had more . visions than any one 
 (not to say than all) of the prophets of his time. It 
 was necessary, therefore, that his mortal extraction 
 should often be sounded in his ears, ' Son of man/ lest 
 his frequent conversing with visions might make him 
 mistake himself to be some angel. Amongst other 
 revelations it was therefore needful to reveal him 
 to himself, ' Son of man/ lest seeing many visions 
 might have made him blind with spiritual pride. 
 Lord, as thou increasest thy graces in me, and favours 
 on me, so with them daily increase in my soul the 
 monitors and remembrancers of my mortality. So 
 shall my soul be kept in a good temper and humble 
 deportment towards thee. 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, I read how Jacob (then only accompanied 
 with his staff) vowed at Bethel, that if thou gavest 
 him but bread and raiment, he would make that place 
 thy house. After his return, the condition on thy 
 side was over-performed, but the obligation on his 
 part wholly neglected. For when thou hadst made his 
 staff to swell, and to break into two bands, he, after 
 his return, turned purchaser' (Gen. xxxiii. 19), bought 
 a field in Shalem, intending there to set up his rest. 
 But thou art pleased to be his remembrancer in a new 
 vision, and to spur him afresh who tired in his promise, 
 { Arise, go to Bethel, and make there an altar/ etc. 
 Lord, if rich Jacob forgot what poor Jacob did promise, 
 no wonder if I be bountiful to offer thee in my afflic- 
 tion what I am niggardly to perform in my prosperity. 
 But oh ! take not advantage of the forfeitures, but be 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 53 
 
 pleased to demand payment once again. Pinch me 
 into the remembrance of my promises, that so I may 
 re-enforce my old vows with new resolutions. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, I read when our Saviour was examined in 
 the high-priest's hall, that Peter stood without till 
 John (being his spokesman to the maid that kept the 
 door) procured his admission in. John meant to let 
 him out of the cold, and not to let him into a tempta- 
 tion, but his courtesy in intention proved a mischief 
 in event, and the occasion of his denying his Master. 
 let never my kindness concur in the remotest degree 
 to the damage of my friend. May the chain which I 
 sent him for an ornament never prove his fetters. But 
 if I should be unhappy herein, I am sure thou wilt 
 not punish my good will, but pity my ill success. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, the apostle saith to the Corinthians, ' God will 
 not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able.' 
 But how comes he to contradict himself, by his own 
 confession in his next Epistle, where, speaking of 
 his own sickness, he saith, ' We were pressed out of 
 measure, above strength ' ? Perchance this will be 
 expounded by propounding another riddle of the same 
 apostle's, who, praising Abraham, saith, ' That against 
 hope, he believed in hope.' That is, against carnal 
 hope, he believed in spiritual hope. So the same 
 wedge will serve to cleave the former difficulty. Paul 
 was pressed above his human, not above his heavenly, 
 strength. Grant, Lord, that I may not mangle and 
 dismember thy word, but study it entirely, comparing 
 one place with another : for diamonds only can cut 
 
54 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 diamonds, and no such comments on the Scripture as 
 the Scripture. 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, I observe that the Vulgate translation reads 
 the apostle's precept thus : ' Give diligence to make 
 your calling and election sure by good works.' But 
 in our English Testament these words, 'by good 
 works,' are left out. It grieved me at the first to see 
 our translation defective; but it offended me after- 
 wards to see the other redundant. For those words 
 are not in the Greek, which is the original. And it is an 
 ill work to put good works in, to the corruption of the 
 Scripture. Grant, Lord, that though we leave ' good 
 works ' out in the text, we may take them in in our 
 comment in that exposition which our practice is to 
 make on this precept in our lives and conversations. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, I find the genealogy of my Saviour strangely 
 chequered with four remarkable changes in four im- 
 mediate generations. 
 
 1, ' Kehoboam begat Abiam ;'/ that is, a bad [father 
 begat a bad son. 
 
 2, * Abiam begat Asa ; ' that is, a bad father a good 
 son. 
 
 3. ' Asa begat Jehosaphat ; ' that is, a good father 
 a good son. 
 
 4. ' Jehosaphat begat Joram ; ' that is, a good 
 father a bad son. 
 
 I see, Lord, from hence, that my father's piety can- 
 not be entailed ; that is bad news for me. But I see 
 also that actual impiety is not always hereditary ; 
 that is good news for my soru 
 
SCRIP TV RE OBSERVATIONS. 55 
 
 LORD, when in my daily service I read David's 
 psalms, give me to alter the accent of my soul accord- 
 ing to their several subjects. In such psalms wherein 
 he confesseth his sins, or requesteth thy pardon, or 
 praiseth for former, or prayeth for future, favours, in 
 all these give me to raise my soul to as high a pitch 
 as may be. But when I come to such psalms wherein 
 he curseth his enemies, there let me bring my soul 
 down to a lower note. For those words were made 
 only to fit David's mouth. I have the like breath, 
 but not the same spirit to pronounce them. Nor let 
 me natter myself that it is lawful for me, with David, 
 to curse thine enemies, lest my deceitful heart entitle 
 all mine enemies to be thine, and so what was religion 
 in David prove malice in me, whilst I act revenge 
 under the pretence of piety. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, I read of the two witnesses, e And when they 
 shall have finished their testimony, the beast that 
 ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war 
 against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.' 
 They could not be killed whilst they were doing, but 
 when they had done their work ; during their employ- 
 ment they were invincible. No better armour against 
 the darts of death than to be busied in thy service. 
 Why art thou so heavy, my soul ? No malice of 
 man can antedate my end a minute whilst my Maker 
 hath any work for me to do. And when all my daily 
 task is ended, why should I grudge then to go to bed ? 
 
 # # # 
 
 LORD, I read, at the transfiguration, that Peter, 
 James, and John were admitted to behold Christ, but 
 
56 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 Andrew was excluded. So again, at the reviving of 
 the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, these three 
 were let in, and Andrew shut out. Lastly, in the 
 agony, the aforesaid three were called to be witnesses 
 thereof, and still Andrew left behind. Yet he was 
 Peter's brother, and a good man, and an apostle : why 
 did not Christ take the two brothers ? Was it not a 
 pity to part them ? But methinks I seem more of- 
 fended thereat than Andrew himself was, whom I find 
 to express no discontent, being pleased to be accounted 
 a loyal subject for the general, though he was no 
 favourite in these particulars. Give me to be pleased 
 in myself, and thankful to thee for what I am, though 
 I be not equal to others in personal perfections, for 
 such peculiar privileges are courtesies from thee when 
 given, and no injuries to us when denied. 
 
 # # * 
 
 LOUD, St. Paul teacheth the art of heavenly thrift, 
 how to make a new sermon of an old. ' Many,' saith 
 he, ' walk, of whom I have told you often, and now 
 tell you weeping, that they are enemies to the cross 
 of Christ.' Formerly he had told it with his tongue, 
 but now with his tears ; formerly he taught it with 
 his words, but now with weeping. Thus new affec- 
 tions make an old sermon new. May I not, by the 
 same proportion, make an old prayer new? Lord, 
 thus long I have offered my prayer dry unto thee ; 
 now, Lord, I offer it wet. Then wilt thou own some 
 new addition therein, when, though the sacrifice be 
 the same, yet the dressing of it is different, being 
 steeped in his tears who bringeth it unto thee. 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 57 
 
 LORD, I read of my Saviour, that when he was in 
 the wilderness, ' Then the devil leaveth him, and be- 
 hold angels came and ministered unto him.' A great 
 change in a little time. No twilight betwixt night 
 and day. No purgatory condition betwixt hell and 
 heaven, but instantly, when out devil, in angel. Such 
 is the case of every solitary soul. It will make com- 
 pany for itself. A musing mind will not stand neuter 
 a minute, but presently side with legions of good or 
 bad thoughts. Grant, therefore, that my soul, which 
 ever will have some, may never have bad, company. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, I read how Cushi and Ahimaaz ran a race, 
 who first should bring tidings of victory to David. 
 Ahimaaz, though last setting forth, came first to his 
 journey's end; not that he had the fleeter feet, but 
 the better brains to choose the way of most advantage. 
 For the text saith, ' so Ahimaaz ran by the way of 
 the plain, and overran Cushi.' Prayers made to God 
 by saints fetch a needless compass about That is but 
 a rough and uneven way. Besides one steep passage 
 therein, questionable whether it can be climbed up, and 
 saints in heaven made sensible of what we say on 
 earth. The way of the plain, or plain way, both 
 shortest and surest, is, ' Call upon me in the time of 
 trouble.' Such prayers (though starting last) will 
 come first to the mark. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, this morning I read a chapter in the Bible, 
 and therein observed a memorable passage, whereof I 
 never took notice before. Why now, and no sooner, 
 did I see it? Formerly my eyes were as open, and 
 
58 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 the letters as legible. Is there not a thin veil laid 
 over the word, which is rarefied by reading, and at 
 last wholly worn away ? Or was it because I came 
 with more appetite than before? The milk was 
 always there in the breast, but the child till now was 
 not hungry enough to find out the teat. I see the oil 
 of thy word will never leave increasing whilst any 
 bring an empty barrel. The Old Testament will still 
 be a New Testament to him who comes with a fresh 
 desire of information. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, at the first passover God kept touch with the 
 Hebrews very punctually : ' At the end of the four 
 hundred and thirty years, in the self-same day it came 
 to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out of the 
 land of Egypt :' but at the first Easter God was better 
 than his word. Having promised that Christ should 
 lie but three days in the grave, his fatherly affection 
 did run to relieve him. By a charitable synecdoche 
 two pieces of days were counted for whole ones. God 
 did cut the work short in righteousness (Rom. ix. 28). 
 Thus the measure of his mercy under the law was 
 full, but it ran over in the gospel. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, the apostle dissuadeth the Hebrews from 
 covetousness with this argument, because God said, 
 * I will not leave thee nor forsake thee.' Yet I find 
 not that God ever gave this promise to all the Jews, 
 but he spake it only to Joshua, when first made com- 
 mander against the Canaanites, which (without violence 
 to the analogy of faith) the apostle applieth to all good 
 men in general. Is it so that we are heirs-apparent 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 59 
 
 to all promises made to thy servants in Scripture? 
 Are [the characters of grace granted to them good to 
 me? Then will I say with Jacob, 'I have enough.' 
 But because I cannot entitle myself to thy promises 
 to them except I imitate their piety to thee, grant I 
 may take as much care in following the one as comfort 
 in the other. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, I read how Paul, writing from Rome, spake 
 to Philemon to prepare him a lodging, hoping to make 
 use thereof, yet we find not that he ever did use it, 
 being martyred not long after. However, he was no 
 loser whom thou didst lodge in a higher mansion in 
 heaven. Let me always be thus deceived to my 
 advantage. I shall have no occasion to complain, 
 though I never wear the new clothes fitted for me, if, 
 before I put them on, death clothe me with glorious 
 immortality. 
 
 * * * 
 
 LORD, I discover an arrant laziness in my soul ; for 
 when I am to read a chapter in the Bible, before I 
 begin it I look where it endeth. And if it endeth not 
 on the same side, I cannot keep my hands from turn- 
 ing over the leaf, to measure the length thereof on the 
 other side; if it swells to many verses I begin to 
 grudge. Surely my heart is not rightly affected. 
 Were I truly hungry after heavenly food I would not 
 complain of meat. Scourge, Lord, this laziness out 
 of my soul; make the reading of thy word not a 
 penance, but a pleasure unto me ; teach me that as 
 amongst many heaps of gold, all being equally pure, 
 that is the best which is the biggest, so I may esteem 
 
BO GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 that chapter in thy word the best which is the 
 longest. 
 
 * # # 
 
 LORD, I find David making a syllogism, in mood 
 and figure (Psalm Ixvi.). Two propositions he per- 
 fected. 
 
 18. ' If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord 
 will not hear me. 19. But verily God hath heard me, 
 he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.' 
 
 Now I expected that David should have concluded 
 thus : 
 
 ' Therefore I regard not wickedness in my heart.' 
 
 But far otherwise he concludes : 
 
 -0. ' Blessed be God that hath not turned away my 
 prayer, nor his mercy from me.' 
 
 Thus David hath deceived, but not wronged me. I 
 looked that he should have clapped the crown on his 
 own, and he puts it on God's head. I will learn this 
 excellent logic ; for I like David's better than Aris- 
 totle's syllogisms, that whatsoever the premises be, I 
 make God's glory the conclusion. 
 
 # # * 
 
 LORD, wise Agur made it his wish, ' Give me not 
 poverty, lest I steal, and take the name of my God in 
 vain ' (Prov. xxx. 9). He saith not, lest I steal, and 
 be caught in the manner, and then be stocked, or 
 whipped, or branded, or forced to fourfold restitution, 
 or put to any other shameful or painful punishment. 
 But he saith, 'Lest I steal, and take the name of my 
 God in vain ; ' that is, lest, professing to serve thee, I 
 confute a good profession with a bad conversation. 
 Thus thy children count sin to be tlie greatest smart 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 61 
 
 in sin; us being mure sensible of the wound they 
 therein give to the glory of God, than of all the stripes 
 that man may lay upon them for punishment. 
 
 * # # 
 
 LORD, I read that when my Saviour dispossessed the 
 man's son of a devil, he enjoined the evil spirit c To 
 come out of him, and enter no more into him.' But 
 I find, that when my Saviour himself was tempted of 
 Satan, 'The devil departed from him for a season.' 
 Retreating, as it seems, with mind to return. How 
 came it to pass, Lord, that he who expelled him finally 
 out of others, did not propel him so from himself? 
 Sure it doth not follow that because he did not he 
 could not do it ; or that he was less able to help him- 
 self, because he was more charitable to relieve others. 
 iS T o, I see my Saviour was pleased to show himself 
 .a God in other men's matters, and but a man in 
 such cases wherein he himself was concerned : being 
 contented still to be tempted by Satan, that his 
 sufferings for us might cause our conquering through 
 him. 
 
 x # u 
 
 LORD, Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. hi. 8), the apes 
 of Moses and Aaron, imitated them in turning their 
 rods into serpents ; only here was the difference : 
 Aaron's rod devoured their rods. That which was 
 solid and substantial lasted, when that which was 
 slight, and but seeming, vanished away. Thus an 
 active fancy in all outward expressions may imitate a 
 lively faith. For matter of language there is nothing 
 what grace doth do, but wit can act. Only the 
 difference appears in the continuance : wit is but for 
 
& GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 fits and flashes, grace holds out, and is lasting ; and; 
 good Lord, of thy goodness give it to every one that 
 truly desires it. 
 
 HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS. 
 
 THE English ambassador, some years since, pre- 
 vailed so far with the Turkish Emperor as to persuade 
 him to hear some of our English music, from which 
 (as from other liberal sciences) both he and his nation 
 were naturally averse. But it happened that the 
 musicians were so long in tuning their instruments, 
 that the great Turk, distasting their tediousness, went 
 away in discontent, before their music began. I am 
 afraid that the differences and dissensions betwixt 
 Christian churches (being so long in reconciling their 
 discords) will breed in pagans such a disrelish of our 
 religion, as they will not be invited to attend there- 
 unto. 
 
 * # * 1 
 
 A SIBYL came to Tarquinius Superbus, king of 
 Home, and offered to sell unto him three tomes of her 
 oracles, but he, counting the price too high, refused to 
 buy them. Away she went, and burnt one tome of 
 them. Returning, she asked him, whether he would 
 buy the two remaining at the same rate. He refused 
 again, counting her little better than frantic. There- 
 upon she burns the second tome, and peremptorily 
 asked him whether he would give the sum demanded 
 for all the three for the one tome remaining, otherwise 
 she would burn that also, and he would dearly repent 
 
HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS. G3 
 
 it. Tarquin, admiring at her constant resolution, and 
 conceiving some extraordinary worth contained therein, 
 gave her her demand. There are three volumes of 
 man's time youth, man's estate, and old age and 
 ministers advise them to redeem this time (Ephes. v. 
 16). But men conceive the rate they must give to 
 be unreasonable, because it will cost them the re- 
 nouncing of their carnal delights. Hereupon one-third 
 part of their life, youth, is consumed in the fire of 
 wantonness. Again, ministers counsel men to redeem 
 the remaining volumes of their life. They are but 
 derided at for their pains. And man's estate is also 
 cast away in the smoke of vanity. But preachers 
 ought to press peremptorily on old people to redeem, 
 now or never, the last volume of their life. Here is 
 the difference : the Sibyl still demanded but the same 
 rate for the remaining book, but aged folk (because of 
 their custom in sinning) will find it harder and dearer 
 to redeem this, the last volume, than if they had been 
 chapmen for all three at the first. 
 
 * '# * 
 
 IN Merionethshire, in Wales, there be many moun- 
 tains, whose hanging tops come so close together, that 
 shepherds, sitting on several mountains, may audibly 
 discourse one with another; and yet they must go 
 many miles before their bodies can meet together, by 
 the reason of the vast hollow valleys which are betwixt 
 them. Our sovereign, and the members of his parlia- 
 ment in London, seem very near agreed in their general 
 and public professions ; both are for the Protestant re- 
 ligion ; can they draw nearer ? Both are for the privi- 
 leges of parliament ; can they come closer ? Both are 
 
64 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 for the liberty of the subject ; can they meet evener ? 
 And yet, alas, there is a great gulf and vast distance 
 betwixt them which our sins have made, and God 
 grant that our sorrow may seasonably make it up 
 again. 
 
 # * #- 
 
 WHEN John, king of France, had communicated 
 the order of the knighthood of the Star to some of his 
 guard, men of mean birth and extraction, the nobility 
 ever after disdained to be admitted into that degree, 
 and so that order in France was extinguished. Seeing 
 that nowadays drinking and swearing and wanton- 
 ness are grown frequent, even with base beggarly 
 people, it is high time for men of honour, who consult 
 with their credit, to desist from such sins. Not that 
 I would have noblemen invent new vices to be in 
 fashion with themselves alone, but forsake old sins, 
 grown common with the meanest of people. 
 
 # # * 
 
 THE Eoman senators conspired against Julius Caesar 
 to kill him. That very next morning Artemidorus, 
 Caesar's friend, delivered him a paper, desiring him to 
 peruse it, wherein the whole plot was discovered : but 
 Cassar complimented his life away, being so taken up 
 to return the salutations of such people as met him in 
 the way, that he pocketed the paper, among other 
 petitions, as unconcerned therein; and so, going to 
 the senate-house, was slain. The world, flesh, and 
 devil have a design for the destruction of men ; we 
 ministers bring our people a letter, God's word, wherein 
 all the conspiracy is revealed. 'But who hath 
 believed our _report ? ' Most men are so busy about 
 
HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS. G,'> 
 
 worldly delights, they arc not at leisure to listen to 
 us, or read the letter ; but thus, alas ! run headlong to 
 their own ruin and destruction. 
 
 * # # 
 
 IN the days of King Edward VI. the Lord Pro- 
 tector marched with a powerful army into Scotland, 
 to demand their young queen Mary in marriage to 
 our king, according to their promises. The Scotch, 
 refusing to do it, were beaten by the English in 
 Musselborough fight. One demanding of a Scottish 
 lord, taken prisoner in the battle, ' Now, sir, how do 
 you like our king's marriage with your queen ? ' * I 
 always,' quoth he, 'did like the marriage, but I do 
 not like the wooing, that you should fetch a bride 
 with fire and sword/ It is not enough for men to 
 propound pious projects to themselves, if they go 
 about by indirect courses to compass them. God's 
 own work must be done by God's own ways. Other- 
 wise we can take no comfort in obtaining the end, if 
 we cannot justify the means used thereunto. 
 
 # * * 
 
 A SAGAMORE, or petty king in Virginia, guessing the 
 greatness of other kings by his own, sent a native 
 hither, who understood English, commanding him to 
 score upon a long cane (given him of purpose to be 
 his register) the number of Englishmen, that thereby 
 his master might know the strength of this our 
 nation. Landing at Plymouth, a populous place, and 
 which he mistook for all England, he had no leisure 
 to eat, for notching up the men he met. At Exeter 
 the difficulty of his task was increased. Coming at 
 last to London, that forest of people, he brake his 
 
 c 
 
60 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 cane in pieces, perceiving the impossibility of his 
 employment. Some may conceive that they can 
 reckon up the sins they commit in one day. Per- 
 chance they may make hard shifts to sum up their 
 notorious ill deeds. More difficult it is to score up 
 their wicked words. But, oh, how infinite are their 
 idle thoughts ! High time then to leave off counting, 
 and cry out with David, Who can tell how oft he 
 offendeth ? Lord, cleanse me from my secret sins. 
 
 * # * 
 
 MARTIN DE GOLIN, master of the Teutonic Order, 
 was taken prisoner by the Prussians, and delivered 
 bound, to be beheaded. But he persuaded his execu- 
 tioner, who had him alone, first to take off his costly 
 clothes, which otherwise would be spoiled with the 
 sprinkling of his blood. Now the prisoner, being 
 partly unbound to be unclothed, and finding his 
 arms somewhat loosened, struck the executioner to 
 the ground, killed him afterwards with his own sword, 
 and so regained both his life and liberty. Christ hath 
 overcome the world, and delivered it to us to destroy 
 it. But we are all Achans by nature, and the Baby- 
 lonish garment is a bait for our covetousness. Whilst, 
 therefore, we seek to take plunder of this world's 
 wardrobe, we let go the mastery we had formerly of 
 it: and too often, that which Christ's passion made 
 our captive, our folly makes, our conqueror. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I COULD both sigh and smile at the simplicity of u 
 native American, sent by a Spaniard, his master, with 
 a basket of figs, and a letter, wherein the figs were 
 mentioned, to carry them both to one of his master's 
 
HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS. 07 
 
 friends. By the way, this messenger eat up the fig* 
 but delivered the letter, whereby his deed was dis- 
 covered, and he soundly punished. Being sent a 
 second time on the like message, he first took the 
 letter, which he conceived had eyes as well as a 
 tongue, and hid it in the ground, sitting himself on 
 the place where he put it ; and then securely fell to 
 feed on his figs, presuming that that paper, which saw 
 nothing, could tell nothing. Then taking it again out 
 of the ground, he delivered it to his master's friend, 
 whereby his fault was perceived, and he worse beaten 
 than before. Men conceive they can manage their 
 sins with secrecy, but they carry about them a letter, 
 or book rather, written by God's finger, their con- 
 science bearing witness to all their actions. But 
 sinners, being often detected and accused, hereby 
 grow wary at last, and to prevent this speaking 
 paper from telling any tales, do smother, stifle, and 
 suppress it, when they go about the committing of 
 any wickedness. Yet conscience (though buried for 
 a time in silence) hath afterwards a resurrection, and 
 discovers all, to their greater shame, and heavier 
 punishment. 
 
 # * # 
 
 MARCUS MANLIUS deserved exceedingly well of the 
 Itoman state, having valiantly defended their capitol. 
 But afterward, falling into disfavour with the people, 
 lie was condemned to death. However, the people 
 Avould not be so unthankful as to suffer him to be 
 executed in any place from whence the capitol might 
 lie beheld; for the prospect thereof prompted them 
 with fresh remembrance of his former merits. At 
 
08 GOOD THOUGHTS IN SAD TIMES. 
 
 last they found a low place in the Petiline grove, by 
 the river-gate, where no pinnacle of the capitol could 
 be perceived, and there he was put to death. We may 
 admire how men can find in their hearts to sin against 
 God. For we can find no one place in the whole world 
 which is not marked with a signal character of his 
 mercy unto us. It was said properly of the Jews, but 
 it is not untrue of all Christians, that they are God's 
 vineyard. ' And God fenced it, and gathered out the 
 stones thereof, and" planted it with the choicest vine, 
 and built a tower in the midst thereof, and also digged 
 a wine-press therein.' Which way can men look and 
 not have their eyes met with the remembrance of 
 God's favours unto them? Look about the vineyard, 
 it is fenced ; look without it, the stones are cast out ; 
 look within it, it is planted with the choicest vine ; 
 look above it, a tower is built in the midst thereof ; 
 look beneath it, a wine-press is digged. It is im- 
 possible for one to look any way, and to avoid the 
 beholding of God's bounty. Ungrateful man ! And 
 as there is no place, so there is no time for us to sin, 
 without being at that instant beholden to him; we 
 owe to him that we are, even when we are rebellious 
 against him. 
 
 * * * 
 
 A DUEL was to be fought, by consent of both kings, 
 betwixt an English and a French lord. The aforesaid, 
 John Courcy, Earl of Ulster, was chosen champion 
 for the English, a man of great stomach and strength, 
 but lately much weakened by long imprisonment. 
 Wherefore, to prepare himself beforehand, the king 
 allowed him what plenty and variety of meat he was 
 
HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS. 09 
 
 pleased to eat. But the monsieur (who was to en- 
 counter him) hearing what great quantity of victuals 
 < Vmrcy did daily devour, and thence collecting his 
 unusual strength, out of fear refused to fight with 
 him. If by the standard of their cups, and measure 
 of their drinking, one might truly infer soldiers' 
 strength by rules of proportion, most vast and valiant 
 achievements may justly be expected from some 
 gallants of these times. 
 
 - # # 
 
 I HAVE heard that the brook near Lutterworth, in 
 Leicestershire, into which the ashes of the burnt bones 
 of Wickliffe were cast, never since doth drown the 
 meadow about it. Papists expound this to be, 
 because God was well pleased with the sacrifice of 
 the ashes of such an heretic. Protestants ascribe it 
 rather to proceed from the virtue of the dust of such 
 a reverend martyr. I see it is a case for a friend. 
 Such accidents signify nothing in themselves, but 
 according to the pleasure of interpreters. Give me 
 such solid reasons whereon I may rest and rely. 
 Solomon saith, ' The words of the wise are like nails, 
 fastened by the masters of the assembly/ A nail is 
 firm, and will hold driving in, and will hold driven in. 
 Send me such arguments. As for these waxen topical 
 devices, I shall never think worse or better of any 
 religion for their sake. 
 
 # # * 
 
 ALEXANDER the Great, when a child, was checked 
 by his governor, Leonidas, for being over-profuse in 
 spending perfumes, because on a day, being to sacri- 
 fice to the gods, he took both his hands full of 
 
70 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 frankincense, and cast it into the fire. But after- 
 wards, being a man, he conquered the country of 
 Judea (the fountain whence such spices did flow), 
 and sent Leonidas a present of five hundred talents' 
 weight of frankincense, to show him how his former 
 prodigality made him thrive the better in success, 
 and to advise him to be no more niggardly in divine 
 service. Thus they that sow plentifully shall reap 
 plentifully. I see there is no such way to have a 
 large heart, as to have a large heart. The free giving 
 of the branches of our present estate to God is the 
 readiest means to have the root increased for the 
 future. 
 
 * * # 
 
 THE poets fable, that this was one of the labours 
 imposed on Hercules, to make clean the Augean stable, 
 or stall rather. For therein, they said, were kept three 
 thousand kine, and it had not been cleansed for thirty 
 years together. But Hercules, by letting the river 
 Alpheus into it, did that with ease which before was 
 conceived impossible. This stall is the pure emblem 
 of my impure soul, which hath been defiled with 
 millions of sins for more than thirty years together. 
 Oh that I might by a lively faith, and unfeigned repen- 
 tance, let the stream of that fountain into my soul, 
 'which is opened for Judah and Jerusalem.' It is 
 impossible by all my pains to purge out my unclean- 
 ness, which is quickly done by the rivulet of the blood 
 of my Saviour. 
 
 * * * 
 
 THE Venetians showed the treasure of their state, 
 being in many great coffers full of gold and silver, to 
 
HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS 71 
 
 the Spanish ambassador. But the ambassador, peeping 
 under the bottom of those coffers, demanded whether 
 that their treasure did daily grow, and had a root. 
 'For such,' saith he, 'my master's treasure hath:' 
 meaning both the Indies. Many men have attained 
 to a great height of piety to be very abundant and 
 rich therein. But all theirs is but a cistern, not 
 fountain of grace : only God's goodness hath a spring 
 of itself in itself. 
 
 * * # 
 
 THE Sidonian servants agreed amongst themselves to 
 choose him to be their king who that morning should 
 first see the sun. Whilst all others were gazing on the 
 east, one alone looked on the west. Some admired, 
 more mocked him, as if he looked on the feet, there 
 to find the eye of the face. But he first of all dis- 
 covered the light of the sun shining on the tops of 
 houses. God is seen sooner, easier, clearer in his 
 operations than in his essence. Best beheld by 
 reflection in his creatures. ' For the invisible things 
 of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly 
 seen, being understood by the things that are made.' 
 -* * # 
 
 AN Italian prince, as much delighted with the person 
 as grieved with the prodigality of his eldest son, com- 
 manded his steward to deliver him no more money 
 but what the young prince should tell (count) his 
 own self. The young gallant fretted at his heart 
 that he must buy money at so dear a rate, as to have 
 it for telling it, but, because there was no remedy* 
 he set himself to task, and being greatly tired with 
 telling a small sum, he brake off in this considera- 
 
72 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 tion, c Money may speedily be spent, but how 
 tedious and troublesome is it to tell it! And by 
 consequence, how much more difficult to get it ! ' 
 Men may commit sin presently, pleasantly, with 
 much mirth, in a moment. But that they would 
 but seriously consider with themselves how many 
 their offences are, and sadly fall accounting them! 
 And if so hard truly to sum their sins, sure harder 
 sincerely to sorrow for them. If to get their number 
 be so difficult, what is it to get their pardon ? 
 
 * # * 
 
 I HEAD that uEgeus, the father of Theseus, hid a 
 sword and a pair of shoes under a great stone, and 
 left word with his wife (whom he left with child), 
 that when the son she should bear was able to take 
 up that stone, wield that sword, and wear those shoes, 
 then she should send him to him, for by these signs 
 he would own him for his own son. Christ hath left 
 in the custody of the Church, our mother, the sword 
 of the Spirit, and the shoes of a Christian conversa- 
 tion, the same which he once wore himself, and they 
 must fit our feet; yea, and we must take up the 
 weight of many heavy crosses before we can come 
 at them; but when we shall appear before our 
 heavenly Father, bringing these tokens with us, then, 
 and not before, he will acknowledge us to be his true- 
 born children. 
 
MIXED CONTEMPLATIONS, 73 
 
 MIXED CONTEMPLATIONS. 
 
 I HAVE heard some men (rather causelessly captious 
 than judicially critical) cavil at grammarians for call- 
 ing some conjunctions disjunctive, as if this were a 
 flat contradiction. Whereas, indeed, the same particle 
 may conjoin words, and yet disjoin the sense. But, 
 alas ! how sad is the present condition of Christians, 
 who have a Communion disuniting. The Lord's 
 Supper, ordained by our Saviour to conjoin our 
 affections, hath disjoined our judgment. Yea, it is 
 to be feared, lest our long quarrels about the manner 
 of his presence cause the matter of his absence, for 
 our want of charity to receive him. 
 
 # # * 
 
 I HAVE observed that children when they first put 
 on new shoes are very curious to keep them clean. 
 Scarce will they set their feet on the ground, for fear 
 to dirty the soles of their shoes. Yea, rather they 
 will wipe the leather clean with their coats ; and yet 
 perchance the next day they will trample with the 
 same shoes in the mire, up to the ankles. Alas I 
 children's play is our earnest. On that day wherein 
 we receive the sacrament we are often over-precise, 
 scrupling to say or do those things which lawfully we 
 may. But we, who are more than curious that day, 
 are not so much as careful the next ; and too often 
 (what shall I say) go on in sin up to the ankles, yea, 
 our sins go over our heads (Psalm xxxviii. 4). 
 
 * * * 
 
 I KNOW some men very desirous to see the devil, 
 
74 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 because they conceive such an apparition would he 
 a confirmation of their faith. For then, by the logic 
 of opposites, they would conclude there is a God, 
 because there is a devil. Thus they will not believe 
 there is a heaven, except hell itself will be deposed 
 for a witness thereof. Surely such men's wishes are 
 vain, and hearts are wicked ; for if they will not 
 believe, having Moses and the prophets, and the 
 apostles, they will not believe (Luke xvi. 31), no, 
 if the devil from hell appears unto them. Such appari- 
 tions were never ordained by God as the means of 
 faith. Besides, Satan will never show h'mself but 
 to his own advantage. If as a devil, to fright them ; 
 if as an angel of light, to flatter them ; however, to 
 hurt them. For my part, I never desire to see him. 
 And ! (if it were possible) that I might never feel 
 him in his motions and temptations ! I say, let me 
 never see him till the day of judgment, where lie 
 shall stand arraigned at the bar, and God's majes'y 
 sit judge on the bench ready to condemn him. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I OBSERVE that antiquaries, such as prize skill above 
 profit (as being rather curious than covetous), do pre- 
 fer the brass coins of the Koman emperors before those 
 in gold and silver, because there is much falseness and 
 forgery daily detected (and more suspected) in gold 
 and silver medals, as being commonly cast and 
 counterfeited, whereas brass coins are presumed upon 
 as true and ancient, because it will not quit cost for 
 any to counterfeit them. Plain dealing, Lord, what 
 I want in wealth may I have in sincerity. I care not 
 how mean metal my estate be of, if my soul have the 
 
M1XEU CONTEMPLATIONS. 75 
 
 true stamp really impressed with the unfeigned image 
 of the King of heaven. 
 
 * # # 
 
 LOOKING on the chapel of King Henry V1L, in 
 Westminster (God grant I may once again see it, with 
 the saint who belongs to it, our sovereign, there in a 
 well-conditioned peace), I say, looking on the out- 
 side of the chapel, I have much admired the curious 
 workmanship thereof. It added to the wonder, that 
 it is so shadowed with mean houses, well-nigh on all 
 sides, that one may almost touch it as soon as see it. 
 Such a structure needed no base buildings about it, 
 as foils to set it off. Kather this chapel may pass 
 for the emblem of a great worth, living in a private 
 way. How is he pleased with his own obscurity, 
 whilst others of less desert make greater show ? And 
 whilst proud people stretch out their plumes in osten- 
 tation, he useth their vanity for his shelter: more 
 pleased to have worth than 'to have others take notice 
 of it. 
 
 * # # 
 
 THE mariners at sea count it the sweetest perfume 
 when the water in the keel of their ship doth stink. 
 For hence they conclude that it is but little, and long 
 since leaked in ; but it is woeful with them when the 
 water is felt before it is smelt, as fresh flowing in upon 
 them in abundance. It is the best savour in a Chris- 
 tian soul when his sins are loathsome and offensive 
 unto him. A happy token that there hath not been of 
 late in him any insensible supply of heinous offences, 
 because his stale sins are still his new and daily sorrow. 
 
76 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 I HAVE sometimes considered in what troublesome 
 case is that chamberlain in an inn, who being but one, 
 is to give attendance to many guests. For suppose 
 them all in one chamber, yet if one shall command 
 him to come to the window, and the other to the 
 table, and another to the bed, and another to the 
 chimney, and another to come up-stairs, and another 
 to go down-stairs, and all in the same instant, how 
 would he be distracted to please them all. And yet 
 such is the sad condition of my soul by nature. Not 
 only a servant, but a slave to sin. Pride calls me to 
 the window, gluttony to the table, wantonness to the 
 bed, laziness to the chimney, ambition commands me 
 to go up-stairs, and covetousness to come down. Vices, 
 I see, are as well contrary to themselves as to virtue. 
 Free me, Lord, from this distracted case; fetch me 
 from being sin's servant to be thine, whose service is 
 perfect freedom,' for thou art but one, and ever the 
 same; and always enjoinest commands agreeable to 
 themselves, thy glory, and my good. 
 * * * 
 
 I HAVE observed that towns which have been 
 casually burnt, have been built again more beautiful 
 than before. Mud walls, afterwards made of stone; 
 and roofs, formerly but thatched, after advanced to be 
 tiled. The apostle tells me That I must not think 
 strange concerning the fiery trial which is to happen 
 unto me (1 Peter iv. 12). May I likewise prove im- 
 proved by it. Let my renewed soul, which grows out 
 of the ashes of the old man, be a more firm fabric and 
 strong structure ; so shall affliction be my advantage. 
 
MIXED CONTEMPLATIONS. 7? 
 
 OUR Saviour saith, When thou doest alms (Matt, 
 vi. 3), let not thy left hand know what thy right 
 hand doeth. Yet one may generally observe that 
 almshouses are commonly built by highway-sides, the 
 ready road to ostentation. However, far be it from 
 me to make bad comments on their bounty, I rather 
 interpret it, that they place those houses so publicly, 
 thereby, not to gain applause, but imitation. Yea, 
 let those, who will plant pious works, have the liberty 
 to choose their own ground. Especially in this age, 
 wherein we are likely, neither in byways nor high- 
 ways, to have any works of mercy till the whole 
 kingdom be speedily turned into one great hospital 
 and God's charity only able to relieve us. 
 
 * * * 
 
 ALMOST twenty years since I heard a profane jest, 
 and still remember it. How many pious passages of 
 far later date have I forgotten ! It seems my soul is 
 like a filthy pond wherein fish die soon, and frogs live 
 long. Lord, raze this profane jest out of my memory. 
 Leave not a letter thereof behind, lest my corruption 
 (an apt scholar) guess it out again ; and be pleased to 
 write some pious meditation in the place thereof. And 
 grant, Lord, for the time to come (because such bad 
 guests are easier kept out), that I may be careful not 
 to admit what I find so difficult to expel. 
 
 # # * 
 
 I PERCEIVE there is in the world a good nature, 
 falsely so called, as being nothing else but a facile and 
 flexible disposition wax for every impression. What 
 others are so bold to beg, they are so bashful as not 
 to deny. Such osiers can never make beams to bear 
 
78 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 stress in cliurch and state. If this be good nature, let 
 me always be a clown ; if this be good fellowship, let 
 me always be a churl. Give me to set a sturdy porter 
 before my soul, who may not equally open to every 
 comer. I cannot conceive how he can be a friend 
 to any, who is a friend to all, and the worst foe to 
 himself. 
 
 -;;;- x * 
 
 HA is the interjection of laughter. Ah is an in- 
 terjection of sorrow. The difference betwixt them 
 very small, as consisting only in the transposition of 
 what is no substantial letter, but a bare aspiration. 
 How quickly, in the age of a minute, in the very 
 turning of a breath, is our mirth changed into 
 mourning ! 
 
 x # * 
 
 I HAVE a great friend whom I endeavour and desire 
 to please, but hitherto all in vain. The more I seek 
 the farther off I am from finding his favour. Whence 
 comes this miscarriage ? Are not my applications to 
 man more frequent than my addresses to my Maker ? 
 Do I not love his smiles more than I fear Heaven's 
 frowns? I confess, to my shame, that sometimes his 
 anger hath grieved rue more than my sins. Here- 
 after, by thy assistance, I will labour to approve my 
 ways in God's presence ; so shall I ever have, or not 
 need, his friendship, and either please him with more 
 ease, or displease him with less danger. 
 
 # # # 
 
 THIS nation is scourged with a wasting war. Our 
 sins were ripe ; God could no longer be j ust, if we were 
 prosperous. Blessed be his name, that I have suffered 
 
MIXED CONTEMPLATIONS. 79 
 
 my share in the calamities of my country. Had I 
 poised myself so politically betwixt both parties that 
 I had suffered from neither, yet could I have taken no 
 contentment in my safe escaping. For why should I, 
 equally engaged with others in sinning, be exempted 
 above them from the punishment ? And seeing the 
 bitter cup, which my brethren have pledged, to pass 
 by me, I should fear it would be filled again, and 
 return double, for me to drink it. Yea, I should sus- 
 pect that I were reserved alone for a greater shame 
 and sorrow. It is therefore some comfort that I draw 
 in the same yoke with my neighbours, and with them 
 jointly bear the burden which our sins jointly brought 
 upon us. 
 
 -!? $? */? 
 
 WHEX, in my private prayers, I have been to con- 
 . fess my bosom-sins unto God, I have been loth to 
 speak them aloud ; fearing though no man could, yet 
 that the devil would, overhear me, and make use ot 
 my words against me. It being probable, that when 
 I have discovered the weakest part of my soul, he would 
 assault me there. Yet since, I have considered, that 
 therein I shall tell Satan no news which he knew not 
 before. Surely I have not managed my secret sins 
 with such privacy, but that he, from some circum- 
 stances, collected what they were. Though the fire 
 was within, he saw some smoke without. Wherefore, 
 for the future, I am resolved to acknowledge my 
 darling faults, though alone, yet aloud ; that the devil 
 who rejoiced in partly knowing of my sins, may be 
 grieved more by hearing the expression of my sorrow. 
 7^R for any advantage he may make from my con- 
 
80 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 fcssion, tins comforts me God's goodness in assisting 
 me will be above Satan's malice in assaulting mo. 
 
 * * # 
 
 IN the midst of my morning prayers I had a good 
 meditation, which since I have forgotten. Thus much 
 I remember of it that it was pious in itself, but not 
 proper for that time ; for it took much from my devo- 
 tion, and added nothing to my instruction ; and my 
 soul, not able to intend two things at once, abated of 
 its fervency in praying. Thus snatching at two em- 
 ployments, I held neither well. Sure this meditation 
 came not from him, who is the God of order. He used 
 to fasten all his nails, and not to drive out one with 
 another. If the same meditation return again, when 
 I have leisure and room to receive it, I will say it is 
 of his sending, who so mustereth and marshalleth all 
 good actions, that like the soldiers in his army, men- 
 tioned by the prophet, They shall not thrust one 
 another, they shall walk every one in his own path 
 (Joel ii. 8). 
 
 * # * 
 
 WHEN I go speedily in any action, Lord, give me 
 to call my soul to an account. It is a shrewd sus-' 
 picion that my bowl runs down-hill, because it runs 
 so fast. And, Lord, when I go in an unlawful way, 
 start some rubs to stop me ; let my foot slip or 
 stumble : and give me the grace to understand the 
 language of the lets thou throwest in my way. Thou 
 hast promised, * I will hedge up thy way ; ' Lord, be 
 pleased to make the hedge high enough, and thick 
 enough, that if I be so mad as to adventure to climb 
 oyer it, I may not only soundly rake my clothes, but 
 
MIXED CONTEMPLATIONS. 81 
 
 rend my flesh ; yea, let me rather be caught, and stick 
 in the hedge, than breaking in through it, fall on the 
 oilier side into the deep ditch of eternal damnation. 
 * * # 
 
 COMING hastily into a chamber, I had almost thrown 
 down a crystal hour-glass. Fear, lest I had, made me 
 grieve as if I had broken it. But, alas ! how much 
 precious time have I cast away without any regret ! 
 The hour-glass was but crystal, each hour a pearl ; 
 that but like to be broken, this lost outright; that 
 but casually, this done wilfully. A better hour-glass 
 might be bought ; but time lost once, lost ever. Thus 
 we grieve morejbr toys than for treasure. Lord, give 
 me an hour-glass, not to be by me, but to be in me. 
 * Teach me to number my days.' An hour-glass, to 
 turn me, ' that I may apply my heart to wisdom. 5 
 # * * 
 
 WHEN a child I loved to look on the pictures in 
 the Book of Martyrs. I thought that there the 
 martyrs at the stake seemed like the three children in 
 the fiery furnace, ever since I had .known them there, 
 not one hair more of their head was burnt, nor any 
 smell of the fire singeing of their clothes (Dan. iii. 27). 
 This made me think martyrdom was nothing. But, 
 oh ! though the lion be painted fiercer than he is, the 
 fire is far fiercer than it is painted. Thus it is easy 
 for one to endure an affliction, as he limns it out in 
 his own fancy, and represents it to himself but in 
 a bare speculation. But when it is brought indeed, 
 and laid home to us, there must be a man, yen, there 
 must be Gocl to assist the man to undergo it. 
 
82 GOOD THOUGHTS IN BAD TIMES. 
 
 TRAVELLING on the plain (which notwithstanding 
 hath its risings and fallings), I discovered Salisbury 
 steeple many miles off. Coming to a declivity, I lost 
 the sight thereof; but climbing up to the next hill, 
 the steeple grew out of the ground again. Yea, I often 
 found it, and lost it, till at last I came safely to it, 
 and took my lodging near it. It fareth thus with us 
 whilst we are wayfaring to heaven ; mounted on the 
 Pisgah-top of some good meditation, we get a glimpse 
 of our celestial Canaan ; but when either on the flat 
 of an ordinary temper, or in the fall of some extra- 
 ordinary temptation, we lose the view thereof. Thus 
 in the sight of our soul heaven is discovered, covered, 
 and recovered ; till, though late, at last, though 
 slowly, surely, we arrive at the haven of our happiness. 
 
 i|fc 4 ; V 
 
 LORD, I find myself in the latitude of a fever. I 
 am neither well nor ill. Not so well that I have any 
 mind to be merry with my friends, nor so ill that my 
 friends have any cause to condole with me. I am 
 a probationer in point of my health. As I shall 
 behave myself, so I may be either expelled out of it, 
 or admitted into it. Lord, let my distemper stop 
 here, and go no farther. Shoot thy murdering pieces 
 against that clay castle which surrendereth itself at 
 thy first summons. spare me a little, that I may 
 recover my strength. I beg not to be forgiven, but 
 to be forborne my debt to nature. And I only do 
 crave time for a while, till I be better fitted and 
 furnished to pay it. 
 
 * * -::= 
 
 JT seemed strange to me when I was to]4 that 
 
MIKED CONTEMPLATIONS. S3 
 
 Ayua vitcu, which restores life to others, should itself 
 be made of the droppings of dead beer. And that 
 strong waters should be extracted out of the dregs 
 (almost) of small beer. Surely many other excellent 
 ingredients must concur, and much art must be used 
 in the distillation. Despair not, then, my soul ! no 
 extraction is impossible where the chemist is infinite. 
 He that is all in all can produce anything out of 
 anything. And he can make my soul, which by 
 nature is 'settled on her lees,' and dead in sin, to 
 be quickened by the infusion of his grace, and purified 
 into a pious disposition. 
 
 ,,*."# 
 
 How easy is pen and paper piety, for one to write 
 religiously? I will not say it costeth nothing, but it 
 is far cheaper to work one's head than one's heart 
 to goodness. Some, perchance, may guess me to be 
 good by my writings, and so I shall deceive my reader. 
 But if I do not desire to be good, I most of all deceive 
 myself. I can make an hundred meditations sooner 
 than subdue the least sin in my soul. Yea, I was 
 once in the mind never to write more, for fear lest iny 
 writings at the last day prove records against me. 
 And yet Why should I not write ? that by reading my 
 own book, the disproportion betwixt my lines and my 
 life may make me blush myself (if not into goodness) 
 into less badness than I would do otherwise. That 
 so my writings may condemn me, and make me 
 to condemn myself, that so God may be moved to 
 acquit me. 
 
GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 PEKSONAL MEDITATIONS. 
 
 Curiosity curbed. Often have I thought with 
 myself what disease I would be best contented to die 
 of. None please me. The stone, or the colic, terrible 
 as expected, intolerable when felt. The palsy is death 
 before death. The consumption a flattering disease, 
 cozening men into hope of long life at the last gasp. 
 Some sicknesses besot, other enrage men, some are 
 too swift, and others too slow. 
 
 If I could as easily decline diseases as I could dislike 
 them, I should be immortal. But away with these 
 thoughts. The mark must not choose what arrow 
 shall be shot against it. What God sends I must 
 receive. May 1 not be so curious to know wheat 
 weapon shall wound me, as careful to provide the 
 plaster of patience against it. Only thus much in 
 general: commonly that sickness seizeth on men 
 which they least suspect. He that expects to be 
 drowned with a dropsy may be burnt with a fever; 
 and she that fears to be swollen with a tympany may 
 be shrivelled with a consumption. 
 
 Deceived, not hurt. Hearing a passing bell, I 
 prayed that the sick man might have, through Christ, 
 a safe voyage to his long home. Afterwards I under- 
 stood that the party was dead some hours before ; and 
 it seems in some places of London the tolling of the 
 bell is but a preface of course to the ringing it out. 
 
 Bells better silent than thus telling lies. What is 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 85 
 
 this but giving a false alarm to men's devotions, to 
 make them to be ready armed with their prayers for 
 the assistance of such who have already fought the 
 good fight, yea, and gotten the conquest ? Not to say 
 that men's charity herein may be suspected of super- 
 stition in praying for the dead. 
 
 However, my heart thus poured out was not spilt 
 on the ground. My prayers, too late to do him good, 
 came soon enough to speak my good will. What I 
 freely tendered, God fairly took, according to the in- 
 tegrity of my intention. The party, I hope, is in 
 Abraham's, and my prayers I am sure are returned 
 into my own bosom. 
 
 Nor full, nor fasting. Living in a country 
 village where a burial was a rarity, I never thought 
 of death, it was so seldom presented unto me. Coming 
 to London, where there is plenty of funerals (so that 
 coffins crowd one another, and corpses in the grave 
 jostle for elbow-room), I slight and neglect death, 
 because grown an object so constant and common. 
 
 How foul is my stomach to turn all food into bad 
 humours ! Funerals, neither few nor frequent, work 
 effectually upon me. London is a library of mortality. 
 Volumes of all sorts and sizes ; rich, poor, infants, chil- 
 dren, youth, men, old men, daily die. I see there is 
 more required to make a good scholar than only the 
 having of many books. Lord, be thou my school- 
 master, and 'teach me to number my days, that I 
 may apply my heart unto wisdom.' 
 
 Strange and True. I read, in the Eevelation, of 
 a beast, one of whose ' heads was as it were wounded 
 to death. 1 I expected in the next verse that the beast 
 
86 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 should die, as the most probable cosequence, consider- 
 ing : 
 
 1. It was not a scratch, but a wound ; 
 
 2. Not a wound in a fleshy part, or out-limbs of 
 the body, but in the very head, the throne of reason ; 
 
 3. No light wound, but in outward apparition 
 (having no other probe but St. John's eyes to search 
 it), it seemed deadly. 
 
 But mark what immediately follows : i And his 
 deadly wound was healed.' Who would have sus- 
 pected this inference from these premises. But is not 
 this the lively emblem of my natural corruption? 
 Sometimes I conceive that by God's grace I have 
 conquered and killed, subdued and slain, maimed and 
 mortified the deeds of the flesh ; never more shall I 
 be molested or buffeted with such a bosom sin : when 
 alas! by the next return, the news is, it is revived, 
 and recovered. Thus tenches, though grievously 
 gashed, presently plaster themselves whole by that 
 slimy and unctuous humour they have in them ; and 
 thus the inherent balsam of badness quickly cures my 
 corruption, not a scar to be seen. I perceive I shall 
 never finally kill it till, first, I be dead myself. 
 
 Blushing to be blushed for. A person of great 
 quality was pleased to lodge a night in my house. I 
 durst not invite him to my family prayer, and therefore 
 for that time omitted it : thereby making a breach in 
 a good custom, and giving Satan advantage to assault 
 it. Yea, the loosening of such a link might have en- 
 dangered the scattering of the chain. 
 
 Bold bashfulness, which durst offend God, whilst it 
 did fear man ! Especially considering, that though 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 87 
 
 my guest was never so high, yet, by the laws of hospi- 
 tality, I was above him whilst under my roof. Here- 
 after, whosoever cometh within the doors shall be 
 requested to come within the discipline of my house ; 
 if accepting my homely diet, he will not refuse my 
 home devotion; and sitting at my table, will be in- 
 treated to kneel down by it. 
 
 A lash, for laziness. Shameful my sloth, that 
 have deferred my night prayer till I am in bed. This 
 lying along is an improper posture for piety. Indeed, 
 there is no contrivance of our body, but some good 
 man in Scripture hath handselled it with prayer. The 
 publican standing, Job sitting, Hezekiah lying on his 
 bed, Elijah with his face between his legs. But of all 
 gestures give me St. Paul's, ' For this cause I bow my 
 knees to the Father of my Lord Jesus Christ.' Knees, 
 when they may, then they must, be bended. 
 
 I have read a copy of a grant of liberty from Queen 
 Mary to Henry Ratcliff, Earl of Sussex, giving him 
 leave to wear a cap, or coif, in her Majesty's presence, 
 counted a great favour because of his infirmity. I 
 know in case of necessity God would graciously accept 
 my devotion bound down in a sick dressing, but now 
 whilst I am in perfect health it is inexcusable. Christ 
 commanded some to take up their bed, in token of 
 their full recovery : my laziness may suspect, lest my 
 bed thus taking me up, prove a presage of my ensuing 
 sickness. But may God pardon my idleness this once, 
 I will not again offend in the same kind by his grace 
 hereafter. 
 
 Root, branch, and fruit. A poor man of Seville, 
 in Spain, having a fair and fruitful pear-tree, one of 
 
88 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 the fathers of the Inquisition desired (such tyrants' 
 requests are commands) some of the fruit thereof. 
 The poor man, not out of gladness to gratify, but fear 
 to offend, as if it were a sin for him to have better fruit 
 than his betters (suspecting on his denial the tree 
 might be made his own rod, if not his gallows), plucked 
 up tree, roots and all, and gave it unto him. 
 
 Allured with love to God, and advised by mine own 
 advantage, what he was frighted to do I will freely 
 perform. God calleth on me to present him with 
 ' fruits meet for repentance.' Yea, let him take all ; 
 soul and body, powers and parts, faculties and members 
 of both, I offer a sacrifice unto himself. Good reason, 
 for indeed the tree was his, before it was mine, and I 
 give him of his own. 
 
 Besides, it was doubtful whether the poor man's 
 material tree, being removed, would grow again. Some 
 plants, transplanted (especially when old) become 
 sullen, and do not enjoy themselves in a soil wherewith 
 they were unacquainted. But sure I am, when I have 
 given 'myself to God, the moving of my soul shall be 
 the mending of it, he will so dress, so prune, and purge 
 me, that I shall bring forth most fruit in my age. 
 
 God speed the plough. I saw in seed-time a 
 husbandman at plough in a very raining day. Asking 
 him the reason why he would not rather leave off than 
 labour in such foul weather, his answer was returned 
 me in their country rhythm : 
 
 ' Sow beans in the mud, 
 And they'll come up like a wood.' 
 
 This could not but remind me of David's expression, 
 ( They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy. He that 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. SO 
 
 gocth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall 
 doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his 
 sheaves with him ' (Psalm cxxvi. 5, 6). 
 
 These last five years have been a wet and woeful 
 seed-time to me, and many of my afflicted brethren. 
 Little hope have we, as yet, to come again to our own 
 homes, and in a literal sense, now to bring our sheaves, 
 which we see others daily to cany away on their 
 shoulders. But if we shall not share in the former or 
 latter harvest here on earth, the third and last in 
 heaven we hope undoubtedly to receive. 
 
 Cras, eras. Great was the abundance and bold- 
 ness of the frogs in Egypt, which went up and came 
 into their bed-chambers, and beds, and kneading- 
 troughs, and very ovens. Strange that those fen- 
 dwellers should approach the fiery region ; but stranger, 
 that Pharaoh should be so backward to have them 
 removed, and being demanded of Moses when he would 
 have them sent away, answered, To-morrow. He 
 could be content with their company one night, at bed 
 and at board, loth, belike, to acknowledge either God's 
 justice in sending, or power in remanding them, but 
 still hoping that they casually came, and might casually 
 depart (Exod. viii. 3). 
 
 Leave I any longer to wonder at Pharaoh, and even 
 admire at myself. What are my sins but so many 
 toads, spitting of venom and spawning of poison, 
 croaking in my judgment, creeping into my will, and 
 crawling into my affections ! This I see, and suffer, 
 and say with Pharaoh, To-morrow, to-morrow will I 
 amend. Thus, as the Hebrew tongue hath no proper 
 present tense, but two future tenses, so all the per- 
 
HO GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 ibrmances of my reformation arc only in promises for 
 the time to come.* Grant, Lord, I may seasonably 
 drown this Pharaoh-like procrastination in the sea of 
 repentance, lest it drown me in the pit of perdition. 
 
 Green when grey. In September I saw a tree 
 bearing roses, whilst others of the same kind round 
 about it were barren. Demanding the cause of the 
 gardener why that tree was an exception from the rule 
 of the rest, this reason was rendered ; because that 
 alone being clipped close in May, was then hindered 
 to spring and sprout, and therefore took this advantage 
 by itself to bud in autumn. 
 
 Lord, if I were curbed and snipped in my younger 
 years, by fear of my parents, from those vicious ex- 
 crescences to which that age was subject, give me to 
 have a godly jealousy over my heart, suspecting an 
 autumn-spring, lest corrupt nature (which without thy 
 restraining grace will have a vent) break forth in my 
 reduced years into youthful vanities. 
 
 Miserere. There goes a tradition of Ovid, that 
 famous poet (receiving some countenance from his 
 own confession), that when his father was about to 
 beat him for following the pleasant but profitless study 
 of poetry, he, under correction, promised his father 
 never to make a verse, and made a verse in his very 
 promise. Probably the same in sense, but certainly 
 more elegant for composure, than this verse which 
 common credulity hath taken up. 
 
 * Parcc precor, genitor, posthac non vcrsificabo.' 
 1 Father, on me pity take, 
 Verses I no more will make*' 
 
 When I so solemnly promise my heavenly Father 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 01 
 
 to sin no more, I sin in my very promise. My weak 
 prayers, made to procure my pardon, increase my 
 guiltiness. the dulness and deadness of my heart 
 therein ! I $&y my prayers, as the Jews eat the pass- 
 over, in haste. And whereas in bodily actions motion 
 is the cause of heat, clean contrary, the more speed 
 I make in my prayers, the colder I am in my 
 devotion. 
 
 What helps not, hurts. A vain thought arose 
 in my heart ; instantly my corruption retains itself to 
 be the advocate for it, pleading that the worst that 
 could be said against it was this, that it was a vain 
 thought. 
 
 And is not this the best that can be said for it? 
 Remember, my soul, the fig-tree was charged, not 
 with bearing noxious, but no fruit. Yea, the barren 
 iig-tree bare the fruit of annoyance. ' Cut it down, 
 why cumbereth it the ground ? ' Vain thoughts do this 
 ill in my heart, that they do no good. 
 
 Besides, the fig-tree pestered but one part of the 
 garden ; good grapes might grow, at the same time, 
 in other places of the vineyard. But seeing my soul 
 is so intent on its object, that it cannot attend two 
 things at once, one tree for the time being is all my 
 vineyard. A vain thought engrosseth all the ground 
 of my heart; till that be rooted out no good meditation 
 can grow with it or by it. 
 
 Always seen, never minded. Tn the most 
 healthful times, two hundred, and upwards, was the 
 constant weekly tribute payed to mortality in London. 
 A large bill, but it must be discharged. Can one city 
 spend according to this weekly rate, and bo not bank- 
 
92 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 nipt of people? at leastwise, must not my shot be 
 called for, to make up the reckoning ? 
 
 When only seven young men, and those chosen Ly 
 lot, were but yearly taken out of Athens, to be devoured 
 by the monster Minotaur, the whole city was in a con- 
 stant fright, children for themselves, and parents for 
 their children. Yea, their escaping of the first was 
 but an introduction to the next year's lottery. 
 
 Were the dwellers and lodgers in London weekly to 
 cast lots who should make up this two hundred, how r 
 would every one be affrighted? Now none regard 
 it. My security concludes the aforesaid number will 
 amount of infants and old folk. Few men of middle 
 age, and amongst them surety not myself. But, oh ! 
 is not this putting the evil day far from me, the ready 
 way to bring it the nearest to me ? The lot is weekly 
 drawn, though not by me, for me; I am therefore 
 concerned seriously to provide, lest that death's prize 
 prove my blank. 
 
 Wot whence, but whither. Finding a bad 
 thought in my heart, I disputed in myself the cause 
 thereof, whether it proceeded from the devil, or mine 
 own corruption, examining it by those signs divines 
 in this case recommended. 
 
 1.- Whether it came in incoherently, or by depend- 
 ence on some object presented to my senses. 
 
 2. Whether the thought was at full age at the first 
 instant, or, infant-like, grew greater by degrees. 
 
 3. Whether out or in the road of my natural incli- 
 nation. 
 
 But hath not this inquiry more of curiosity than 
 religion ? Hereafter derive not the pedigree, but make 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. 93 
 
 the mittimus of such malefactors. Suppose a con- 
 federacy betwixt tliieves without and false servants 
 within, to assault and wound the master of a family ; 
 thus wounded, would he discuss from which of them his 
 hurts proceeded ? No, surely, but speedily send for a 
 surgeon, before he bleed to death. I will no more put 
 it to the question whence my bad thoughts come, but 
 whither I shall send them, lest this curious controversy 
 insensibly betray me into a consent unto them. 
 
 Storm, steer on. The mariners sailing with St. 
 Paul bare up bravely against the tempest, whilst either 
 art or industry could befriend them. Finding both to 
 fail, and that they could not any longer ' bear up into 
 the wind,' they even let their ship drive (Acts xxvii. 15). 
 I have endeavoured in these distemperate times to hold 
 up my spirits, and to steer them steadily. A happy 
 peace here was the port whereat I desired to arrive. 
 Now, alas ! the storm grows too sturdy for the pilot. 
 Hereafter all the skill I will use is no skill at all, but 
 even let my ship sail whither the winds send it. 
 
 Noah's ark was bound for no other port but pre- 
 servation for the present (that ship being all the har- 
 bour), not intending to find land, but to float on water. 
 May my soul, though not sailing to the desired haven, 
 only be kept from sinking in sorrow. This comforts 
 me, that the most weather-beaten vessel cannot pro- 
 perly be seized on for a wreck which hath any quick 
 cattle remaining there. My spirits are not as yet for- 
 feited to despair, having one lively spark of hope in 
 my heart, because God is even where he was before. 
 
 Wit outwitted. Joab chid the man (unknown 
 in Scripture by his name, well known for his wisdom) 
 
<H GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 for not killing Absalom when he saw him hanged in 
 the tree, promising him for his pains ten shekels and 
 a girdle. But the man (having the king's command 
 to the contrary) refused his proffer. Well he knew 
 that politic statesman would have dangerous designs 
 fetched out of the fire, but with other men's fingers. 
 His girdle promised, might in payment prove an halter. 
 Yea, he added moreover, that had he killed Absalom, 
 Joab himself would have set himself against him 
 (2 Sam. xviii. 13). 
 
 Satan daily solicits me to sin (point-blank against 
 God's word), baiting me with proffers best pleasing 
 my corruption. If I consent, he who last tempted first 
 accuseth me. The fawning spaniel turns a fierce lion, 
 and roareth out my faults in the ears of heaven. 
 Grant, Lord, when Satan shall next serve me as Joab 
 did this nameless Israelite, I may serve him as the 
 nameless Israelite did Joab, flatly refusing his deceitful 
 tenders. 
 
 Hereafter. David fasted and prayed for his sick 
 son, that his life might be prolonged. But when he 
 was dead, this consideration comforted him : ' I shall 
 go to him, but he shall not return to me " (2 Sam. 
 xii. 23). 
 
 Peace did long lie languishing in this land. Xo 
 small contentment that, to my poor power, I have 
 prayed and preached for the preservation thereof. 
 Seeing, since it is departed, this supports my soul, 
 baring little hope that peace here should return to 
 me, I. have some assurance that I shall go to peace 
 hereafter. 
 
 Bad at best. Lord, how come wicked thought? 
 
PERSONAL MEDITATIONS. <Jj 
 
 to perplex .me in my prayers, when I desire and 
 endeavour only to attend thy service ? Now I per- 
 ceive the 'cause thereof; at other times I have willingly 
 entertained them, and now they entertain themselves 
 against my will. I acknowledge thy justice, that what 
 formerly I have invited, now I cannot expel. Give 
 me hereafter always to bolt out such ill guests. The 
 best way to be rid of such bad thoughts in my prayers 
 is not to receive them out of my prayers. 
 
 Compendium dispendium. Pope Boniface IX., 
 at the end of each hundred years, appointed a jubilee 
 at Rome, wherein people, bringing themselves and 
 money thither, had pardon for their sins. 
 
 But centenary years returned but seldom. Popes 
 were old before, and covetous when they came to their 
 place. Few had the happiness to rill their coffers with 
 jubilee coin. Hereupon Clement VI. reduced it to 
 every three-and-thirtieth, Paul II. and Sixtus IV. to 
 every twenty -fifth year. 
 
 Yea, an agitation is reported in the conclave, to 
 bring down jubilees to fifteen, twelve, or ten years, 
 had not some cardinals (whose policy was above their 
 covetousness) opposed it* 
 
 I serve my prayers as they their jubilees. Perchance 
 they may extend to a quarter of an hour, when poured 
 out at large. But some days I begrudge this time as 
 too much, and omit the preface of my prayer, with 
 some passages conceived less material, and run two or 
 three petitions into one, so contracting them to half 
 a quarter of an hour. 
 
 Not long after, this also seems too long. I decon- 
 tract and abridge the abridgment of my prayers. Yea, 
 
9G GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE 'TIMES. 
 
 (be it confessed to my shame and sorrow, that here- 
 after I may amend it) too often I shrink my prayers 
 to a minute, to a moment, to a ' Lord have mercy 
 upon me.' 
 
 SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 The vicious mean. Zophar, the Naamathite, 
 mentioneth a sort of men in whose mouths wickedness 
 is sweet. l They hide it under their tongues, they 
 spare it, and forsake it not, but keep it still in their 
 mouths ' (Job xx. 12, 13.) This furnisheth me with 
 a tripartite division of men in the world. 
 
 The first and best are those who spit sin out, 
 loathing it in their judgments, and leaving it in their 
 practice. 
 
 The second sort, notoriously wicked, who swallow 
 sin down, actually and openly committing it. 
 
 The third endeavouring an expedient between hea- 
 ven and hell, neither do not deny their lusts, neither 
 spitting them out, nor swallowing them down, but 
 rolling them under their tongues, epicurising thereon 
 in their filthy fancies and obscene speculations. 
 
 If God at the last day of judgment hath three 
 hands, a right for the sheep, a left for the goats, the 
 middle is most proper for these third sort of mem 
 But both these latter kinds of sinners shall be con- 
 founded together, the rather because a sin thus rolled 
 becomes so soft and supple, and the throat is so short 
 and slippery a passage, that insensibly it may slide 
 down from the mouth into the stomach ; and contem- 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 9? 
 
 plative wantonness quickly turns into practical un- 
 cleanness. 
 
 Store no sore. Job had a custom to offer burnt- 
 offerings according to the number of his sons, for, he 
 said, ' It may be that my sons in their feasting have 
 sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.' It may be, 
 not it must be, he was not certain, but suspected it. 
 But now, what if his sons had not sinned ? Was Job's 
 labour lost, and his sacrifice of none effect ? Oh, no ! 
 only their property was altered. In case his sons 
 were found faulty, his sacrifices for them were pro- 
 pitiatory, and through Christ obtained their pardon ; 
 in case they were innocent, his offerings were eucha- 
 ristical, returning thanks to God's restraining grace, for 
 keeping his sons from such sins, which otherwise they 
 would have committed. 
 
 I see in all doubtful matters of devotion, it is wisest 
 to be on the surest side, better both lock and bolt and 
 bar it, than leave the least door of danger open. Hast 
 thou done what is disputable whether it be well done ? 
 Is it a measuring cast whether it be lawful or no ? So 
 that thy conscience may seam in a manner to stand 
 neuter, sue a conditional pardon out of the court of 
 heaven, the rather because our self-love is more prone 
 to flatter than our godly jealousy to suspect ourselves 
 without a cause ; with such humility heaven is well 
 pleased. For suppose thyself over-cautious, needing 
 no forgiveness in that particular, God will interpret 
 the pardon thou prayest for to be the praises pre- 
 sented unto him. 
 
 Line on line. Moses, in God's name, did counsel 
 Joshua (Deuteronomy xxxi. 23), ' Be strong, and of a 
 
98 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES: 
 
 good courage, for thou shalt bring the children of 
 Israel into the land which I sware unto them.' God 
 immediately did command him (Joshua i. 6), ' Be 
 strong and of a good courage ; ' and again (verse 7), 
 ' Only be thou strong and very courageous ; ' and 
 again (verse 9), 'Have I not commanded thee? Be 
 strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither 
 be thou dismayed.' Lastly, the Reubenites and Gadites 
 heartily desired him (verse 28), ' Only be strong, and 
 of a good courage.' 
 
 Was Joshua a dunce or a coward ? Did his wit or 
 his valour want an edge, that the same precept must 
 so often be pressed upon him ? No doubt neither, but 
 God saw it needful that Joshua should have courage 
 of proof, who was to encounter both the fro ward Jew 
 and the fierce Canaanite. 
 
 Though metal on metal, colour on colour, be false 
 heraldry; line on line, precept on precept is true divinity, 
 Be not therefore offended, my soul, if the same 
 doctrine be often delivered unto thee by different 
 preachers, if the same precept (like the sword in 
 Paradise which turned every way) doth hunt and 
 haunt thee, tracing thee which way soever thou 
 turnest; rather conclude that thou art deeply con- 
 cerned in the practice thereof which God has thought 
 fit should be so frequently inculcated into thee. 
 
 O ! the depth. Had I beheld Sodom in the beauty 
 thereof, and had the angel told me that the same 
 should be suddenly destroyed by a merciless element, 
 I should certainly have concluded that Sodom should 
 have been drowned led thereunto by these con- 
 siderations : 
 
&CRIPTUBE OBSERVATIONS. 99 
 
 1. It was situated in the plain of Jordan, a flat, low, 
 level country ; 
 
 2. It was well watered everywhere ; and where 
 always there is water enough, there may sometimes 
 be too much ; 
 
 3. Jordan had a quality in the first month to over- 
 flow all his banks. 
 
 But no drop of moisture is spilt on Sodom ; it is 
 burnt to ashes. How wide are our conjectures, when 
 they guess at God's judgments ! How far are his 
 ways above our apprehension ! Especially when 
 wicked men with the Sodomites wander in strange 
 sins, out of the road of common corruption, God meets 
 them with strange punishments, out of the reach of 
 common conception, not coming within the compass 
 of a rational suspicion. 
 
 Self, self-hurter. When God at the first day of 
 judgment arraigned Eve, she transferred her fault on 
 the serpent which beguiled her. This was one of the 
 first-fruits of our depraved nature. But, ever after, 
 regenerate men in Scripture, making the confession 
 of their sins (whereof many precedents), cast all the 
 fault on themselves alone ; yea, David, when he 
 numbered the people, though it be expressed that 
 Satan provoked him thereunto, and though David 
 probably might be sensible of his temptation, yet 
 he never accused the devil, but derived all the guilt 
 on himself 'I it is that have sinned' (1 Chron. xxi. 
 17) : good reason, for Satan hath no impulsive power, 
 lie may strike fire till he be weary (if his malice can 
 be weary) ; except man's corruption brings the tinder, 
 the match cannot be lighted. Away, then, with the 
 
100 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WOESE TIMES. 
 
 plea of course, * The devil owed me a shame.' Owe 
 thee he might, but pay thee he could not, unless thou 
 wert as willing to take his black money as he to 
 tender it. 
 
 Gad, Behold a troop cometh. The Amalekite 
 who brought the tidings to David began with truth, 
 rightly reporting the overthrow of the Israelites (2 
 Sam. i.). Cheaters must get some credit before they 
 can cozen, and all falsehood, if not founded in some 
 truth, would not be fixed in any belief. 
 
 But proceeding, he told six lies successively : 
 
 1. That Saul called him ; 
 
 2. That he came at his call ; 
 
 3. That Saul demanded who he was ; 
 
 4. That he returned his answer ; 
 
 5. That Saul commanded him to kill him ; 
 G. That he killed him accordingly. 
 
 A wilful falsehood told is a cripple not able to stand 
 by itself without some one to support it. It is easy to 
 tell a lie, hard to tell but a lie. 
 
 Lord, if I be so unhappy to relate a falsehood, give 
 me to recall it or repent of it. It is said of the pis- 
 mires, that to prevent the growing (and so the cor- 
 rupting) of that corn which they hoard up for their 
 winter provision, they bite off both the ends thereof, 
 wherein the generating power of the grain cloth con- 
 sist. When I have committed a sin, let me so 
 order it that I may destroy the procreation thereof, 
 and, by a true sorrow, condemn it to a blessed 
 barrenness. 
 
 Out means, in miracles. When the angel 
 brought St. Peter out of prison, the iron gate opened 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 101 
 
 of its own accord. But coming to the house of Mary, 
 the mother of John and Mark, he was feign to stand 
 before the door, and knock. When iron gave obedience, 
 how can wood make opposition ? 
 
 The answer easy. There was no man to open the 
 iron gate, but a portress was provided, of course, to 
 unlock the door. God would not therefore show his 
 finger where men's hands were appointed to do the 
 work. Heaven will not super-institute a miracle, 
 where ordinary means were formerly in peaceable 
 possession. But if they either depart or resign (in- 
 genuously confessing their insufficiency), there miracles 
 succeed in their vacancy. 
 
 No stool of wickedness. Sometimes I have 
 disputed with myself which of the two were most 
 guilty: David, who said in haste 'all men are liars/ 
 or that wicked man who sat and spake against his 
 brother, and slandered his own mother's son (Psalm 
 1. 20). 
 
 David seems the greater offender; for mankind 
 might have an action of defamation against him, yea, 
 lie might justly be challenged for giving all men the 
 lie. But mark, David was in haste, he spake it in 
 transitu, when he was passing, or rather posting by, 
 or if you please, not David, but David's haste rashly 
 vented the word. Whereas the other sat, a sad, 
 solemn, serious, premeditate, deliberate posture : his 
 malice had a full blow with a steady hand, at the 
 credit of his brother. Not to say that sat carries with 
 it the countenance of a judicial proceeding, as if he 
 made a session or bench-business thereof, as well con- 
 demning as accusing unjustly. 
 
102 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 Lord, pardon my cursory, and preserve me from 
 sedentary sins. If in haste or heat of passion I wrong 
 any, give me at leisure to ask thee and them forgive- 
 ness. But oh, let me not sit by it, studiously to plot 
 or project mischief to any out of malice prepense. 
 To shed blood in cool blood, is blood with a witness. 
 
 The best bed-maker. When a good man is ill 
 at ease, God promisetli to make all his bed in his 
 sickness (Psalm xli. 3). Pillow, bolster, head, feet, 
 Bides, all his bed. Surely that God who made him 
 knows so well his measure and temper, as to make his 
 bed to please him. Herein his art is excellent, not 
 fitting the bed to the person, but the person to the 
 bed, infusing patience into him. 
 
 But oh, how shall God make my bed, who have no 
 bed of mine own to make ? Thou fool, he can make 
 thy not having a bed to be a bed unto thee. When 
 Jacob slept on the ground, who would not have had 
 his hard lodging, therewithal to have his heavenly 
 dream? Yea, the poor woman in Jersey, which in 
 the reign of Queen Mary was delivered of a child as 
 she was to be burnt at the stake, may be said to be 
 brought to bed in the fire. Why not? If God's 
 justice threatened to cast Jezebel into a bed of fire 
 (Eev. ii. 22), why might not his mercy make the very 
 flames a soft bed to that his patient martyr ? 
 
 Too late, too late. The elder brother laid a sharp 
 and true charge against his brother prodigal for his 
 riot and luxury. This nothing affected his father, the 
 mirth, meat, music at the feast, was notwithstanding 
 no whit abated. Why so? because the elder brother 
 was the younger in this respect, and came too late. 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 103 
 
 The other had got the speed of him, having first 
 accused himself (nine verses before), and already 
 obtained his pardon. 
 
 Satan (to give him his due) is my brother, and my 
 elder by creation. Sure I am, he will be my grievous 
 accuser. I will endeavour to prevent him, first con- 
 demning myself to God my Father. So shall I have 
 an act of indemnity before he can enter his action 
 against me. 
 
 Lawful stealth. I find two (husband and wife) 
 both stealing, and but one of them guilty of felony. 
 4 And Eachel had stolen the images that were her 
 father's, and Jacob stole away, unawares to Laban the 
 Syrian * (Gen. xxxi. 19, 20). In the former a compli- 
 cation of theft, lying, sacrilege, and idolatry ; in the 
 latter no sin at all. For what our conscience tells us 
 is lawful, and our discretion dangerous, it is both 
 conscience and discretion to do it with' all possible 
 secrecy* It was as lawful for Jacob in that case 
 privately to steal away, as it is for that man who finds 
 the sunshine too hot for him to walk in the shade. 
 
 God keep us from the guilt of Kachel's stealth, 
 But for Jacob's stealing away, one may confess the 
 fact, but deny the fault therein. Some are said to 
 have gotten their life for a prey ; if any, in that sense, 
 have preyed on (or, if you will, plundered) their own 
 liberty, stealing away from the place where they 
 conceived themselves in danger, none can justly con- 
 demn them. 
 
 Text improved. I heard a preacher take for his 
 text, 'Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast 
 ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I 
 
101 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 ever wont to do so unto tliee ? ' (Numb. xxii. 30). I 
 wondered what he would make thereof, fearing he 
 would starve his auditors for want of matter. But 
 hence he observed : 
 
 1. The silliest and simplest, being wronged, may 
 justly speak in their own defence ; 
 
 2. Worst men have a good title to their own goods. 
 Balaam a sorcerer, yet the ass confessetli twice he 
 was his ; 
 
 3. They who have done many good offices, and fall 
 in one, are often not only unrewarded for former 
 service, but punished for that one offence ; 
 
 4. When the creatures, formerly officious to serve 
 us, start from their wonted obedience (as the earth to 
 become barren, and air pestilential), man ought to 
 reflect on his own sin as the sole cause thereof. 
 
 How fruitful are the seeming barren places of Scrip- 
 ture. Bad ploughmen, which make balks of such 
 ground. Wheresoever the surface of God's word doth 
 not laugh and sing with corn, there the heart thereof 
 within is merry with mines, affording, where not plain 
 matter, hidden mysteries. 
 
 The Royal bearing. God is said to have brought 
 the Israelites out of Egypt on eagles' wings (Exod. 
 xix. 4). Now eagles, when removing their young 
 ones, have a different posture from other fowl proper 
 to themselves (fit it is that there should be a distinction 
 betwixt sovereign and subject), carrying their prey in 
 their talons, but young ones on their backs, so inter- 
 posing their whole bodies betwixt them and harm. 
 The old eagle's body is the young eagle's shield, and 
 must be shot through before her young ones can be hurt. 
 
SCRIPTURE OBSERVATIONS. 105 
 
 Thus God, in saving the Jews, put himself betwixt 
 them and danger. Surely God, so loving under the 
 law, is no less gracious in the gospel. Our souls are 
 better secured, not only above his wings, but in his 
 body. 'Your life is hid with Christ in God.' No 
 fear then of harm ; God first must be pierced before 
 we can be prejudiced. 
 
 None to him. It is said of our Saviour, his ' fan 
 is in his hand.' How well it fits him, and he it ! 
 Could Satan's clutches snatch the fan, what work 
 would he make ! He would fan as he doth winnow, 
 in a tempest, yea, in a whirlwind, and blow the best 
 away. Had man the fan in his hand, especially in 
 these distracted times, out goes for chaff all opposite 
 to the opinions of his party. Seeming sanctity will 
 carry it away from such, who, with true but weak 
 grace, have ill natures and eminent corruptions. 
 
 There is a kind of darnel, called Lolium murium, 
 because so counterfeiting corn, that even the mice 
 themselves (experience should make them good tasters) 
 are sometimes deceived therewith. Hypocrites, in like 
 manner, so act holiness that they pass for saints before 
 men, whose censures often barn up the chaff, and burn 
 up the grain. 
 
 Well then ! Christ for my share. The fan is in 
 so good a hand, it cannot be mended. Only his 
 hand, who knows hearts, is proper for that employ- 
 ment. 
 
 Humility. It is a strange passage (Rev. vii. 13, 
 14), ' And one of the elders answered, saying unto 
 me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? 
 and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, 
 
106 MEDITATIONS ON 
 
 tliou knowest. And he said to me, These are they 
 which came out of great tribulation,' etc. 
 
 How comes the elder, when asking a question, to 
 be said to answer ? On good reason : for his qucere in 
 effect was a resolution. He asked St. John, not 
 because he thought he could, but knew he could not 
 answer, that John's ingenuous confession of his 
 ignorance might invite the elder to inform him. 
 
 As his question is called an answer, so God's com- 
 mands are grants. When he enjoins us, ' Kepent, be- 
 lieve,' it is only to draw from us a free acknowledgment 
 of our impotency to perform his commands. This con- 
 fession being made by us, what he enjoins he will enable 
 us to do. Man's owning his weakness is the only 
 stock for God thereon to graft the grace of his assistance, 
 
 MEDITATIONS ON ALL KINDS OF PRAYERS, 
 
 Newly awaked. By the Levitical law the first- 
 ling of every clean creature was holy to God. By 
 the moral analogy thereof, this first glance of mine 
 eyes is due to him. By the custom of this kingdom 
 there accrueth to the landlord a fine and heriot from 
 his tenant taking a farther estate in his lease. I hold 
 from God this clay cottage of my body a homely 
 tenement, but may I in some measure be assured of a 
 better before outed of this. Now being raised from 
 last night's sleep, I may seem to renew a life. What 
 shall I pay to my landlord? Even the best quick 
 creature which is to be found on my barren copyhold, 
 namely, ( the calves of my lips,' praising him for his 
 
ALL KINDS OP PRAYERS. 10? 
 
 protection over me. More he doth not ask, less I 
 cannot give ; yea, such is his goodness, and my weak- 
 ness, that before I can give him thanks he giveth me 
 to be thankful. 
 
 Family prayer. Long have I searched the 
 Scriptures to find a positive precept enjoining, or 
 precedent observing, daily prayer in a family, yet 
 hitherto have found none proper for my purpose. 
 Indeed, I read that there was a yearly sacrifice offered 
 at Bethlehem for the family of Jesse ; but if hence we 
 should infer household holy duties, others would con- 
 clude they should only be annual. And whereas it is 
 said, Pour out thine indignation on the heathen, and 
 on the families which have not called on thy name ; 
 the word taken there in a large acceptation, reprovcth 
 rather the want of national than domestic service of 
 God (1 Sam. xx. 29 ; Jer. x. 25). 
 
 But let not profaneness improve itself, or censure 
 family prayer for will- worship, as wanting a warrant 
 in God's word. For where God enjoineth a general 
 duty, as to serve and fear Him, there, all particular 
 means (whereof prayer a principal) tending thereunto 
 are commanded. And surely the pious households 
 of Abraham, Joshua, and Cornelius had some holy 
 exercises to themselves, as broader than their personal 
 devotion, so narrower than the public service, just 
 adequate to their own private family. 
 
 Self without other Self. Some loving wife may 
 perchance be (though not angry with) grieved at her 
 husband for excluding her from his private prayers, 
 thus thinking with herself ' Must I be discommoned 
 from my husband's devotions? what? several closet* 
 
108 4 MEDITATIONS ON 
 
 chapels for those of the same bed and board? Arc 
 not our credits embarked in the same bottom, so that 
 they sink or swim together ? May I not be admitted 
 an auditor at his petitions, were it only to say Amen 
 thereunto ? ' 
 
 But let such a one seriously consider what the 
 prophet saith, 'The family of the house of David 
 apart, and their wives apart ; the family of the house 
 of Nathan apart, and their wives apart' (Zech. xii. 12). 
 Personal private faults must be privately confessed. 
 It is not meet she should know all the bosom sins of 
 him in whose bosom she lieth. Perchance being now 
 offended for not hearing her husband's prayers, she 
 Avould be more offended if she heard them. Nor hath 
 she just cause to complain, seeing herein Nathan's 
 wife is equal with Nathan himself; what liberty she 
 alloweth is allowed her, and may, as well as her 
 husband, claim the privilege privately and apart, to 
 pour forth her soul unto God in her daily devotions. 
 Yet man and wife, at other times, ought to com- 
 municate in their prayers, all others excluded. 
 
 Groans. How comes it to pass that groans made 
 in men by God's spirit cannot be uttered? I find two 
 reasons thereof. First, because those groans are so 
 low and little, so faint, frail, and feeble, so next to 
 nothing; these still-born babes only breathe without 
 crying. 
 
 Secondly, because so much diversity, yea, con- 
 trariety of passion, is crowded within the compass of 
 a groan, they are stayed from being expressive, and 
 the groans become unutterable. 
 
 How happy is their condition who have God for 
 
ALL KINDS OF PRAYERS. 10!) 
 
 their interpreter! who not only understands what they 
 do, but what they would say. Daniel could tell the 
 meaning of the dream which Nebuchadnezzar had 
 forgotten. God knows the meaning of those groans 
 which never as yet knew their own meaning, and 
 understands the sense of those sighs which never 
 understood themselves. 
 
 Ejaculations, their use. Ejaculations are short 
 prayers darted up to God on emergent occasions. If 
 no other artillery had been used this last seven years 
 in England, I will not affirm more souls had been in 
 heaven, but fewer corpses had been buried in earth. 
 Oil that, with David, we might have said, 'My heart 
 is fixed,' being less busied about fixing of muskets. 
 
 The principal use of ejaculations is against the 
 fiery darts of the devil. Our adversary injects (hoio 
 he doth it God knows, that he doth it we know) bad 
 motions into our hearts, and that we may be as nimble 
 with our antidotes as he with poisdns, such short 
 prayers are proper and necessary. In hard havens, 
 so choked up with the envious sands that great ships 
 drawing many foot water cannot come near, lighter 
 and lesser pinnaces may freely and safely arrive. 
 When we are time-bound, place-bound, or person- 
 bound, so that we cannot compose ourselves to make 
 a large solemn prayer, this is the right instant for 
 ejaculations, whether orally uttered, or only poured 
 forth inwardly in the heart. 
 
 Their privilege. Ejaculations take not up any 
 room in the soul. They give liberty of callings, so 
 that at the same instant one may follow his proper 
 vocation. The husbandman may dart forth an ejacu- 
 
110 MEDITATIONS ON 
 
 lation, and not make a balk the more. The seaman, 
 nevertheless, steers his ship right in the darkest night. 
 Yea, the soldier at the same time may shoot out his 
 prayer to God, and aim his pistol at his enemy, the 
 one better hitting the mark for the other. 
 
 The field wherein bees feed is no whit the barer for 
 their biting ; when they have took their fall repast on 
 flower or grass, the ox may feed, the sheep fat on 
 their reversions. The reason is, because those little 
 chemists distil only the refined part of the flower, 
 leaving the grosser substance thereof. So ejaculations 
 bind not men to any bodily observance, only busy the 
 spiritual half, which maketh them consistent with the 
 prosecution of any other employment. 
 
 Extemporary prayers. In extemporary prayer, 
 what men most admire God least regardeth, namely, 
 the volubility of the tongue. Herein a Tertullus may 
 equal, yea, exceed St. Paul himself, * whose speech 
 was but mean.' ' Oh, it is the heart keeping time and 
 tune with the voice which God listeneth unto. Other- 
 wise the nimblest tongue tires, and loudest voice grows 
 dumb, before it comes halfway to heaven. Make it 
 (said God to Moses) in all things like the pattern in 
 the Mount (Heb. viii. 5). Only the conformity of the 
 words with the mind, mounted in heavenly thoughts, 
 is acceptable to God. The gift of extemporary prayer 
 and ready utterance may be bestowed on a reprobate, 
 but the grace thereof (religious affections) is only given 
 to God's servants. 
 
 Their causeless scandal. Some lay it to the 
 charge of extemporary prayers, as if it were a diminu- 
 tion to God's majesty to offer them unto Him, because 
 
ALL KINDS OF PRAYEES. Ill 
 
 (alluding to David's expression to Oman the Jebusite) 
 they cost nothing, but come without any pains or 
 industry to provide them (2 Sam. xxiv. 24). A most 
 false aspersion. 
 
 Surely preparation of the heart (though not pre- 
 meditation of every word), is required thereunto. 
 And grant the party, praying at that very instant, 
 forestudieth not only expression, yet surely he hath 
 formerly laboured with his heart and tongue too, 
 before he attained that dexterity of utterance, properly 
 and readily to express himself. Many hours in night 
 no doubt he is waking, and was, by himself, practising 
 Scripture phrase and the language of Canaan, whilst 
 such as censure him for his laziness were fast asleep 
 in their beds. 
 
 Suppose one should make an entertainment for 
 strangers with flesh, fish, fowl, venison, fruit, all out 
 of his own fold, field, ponds, park, orchard, will any 
 say that this feast cost him nothing who makes it? 
 Surely, although all grew on the same, and for the 
 present he bought nothing by the penny, yet he, or 
 his ancestors for him, did at first dearly purchase 
 home accommodations, from whence this entertainment 
 did arise. 
 
 So the party who hath attained the faculty and 
 facility of extemporary prayer (the easy act of a 
 laborious habit), though at the instant not appearing 
 to take pains, hath been formerly industrious with 
 himself, or his parents with him, in giving him pious 
 education, or else he had never acquired so great 
 perfection, seeing only long practice makes the pen of 
 a ready writer. 
 
112 MEDITATIONS ON 
 
 Night-prayer. Death in Scripture is compared 
 to sleep. Well, then, may my night-prayer be re- 
 sembled to making my will. I will be careful not to 
 die intestate, as also not to defer my will-making till 
 I am not compos mentis, till the lethargy of drowsiness 
 seize upon me. 
 
 But being in perfect memory, I bequeath my soul 
 to God, the rather because I am sure the devil will 
 accuse me when sleeping. Oh, the advantage of 
 spirits above bodies ! If our clay cottage be not 
 cooled with rest, the roof falls afire. Satan hath no 
 such need ; the night is his fittest time. Thus man's 
 vacation is the term for the beasts of the forest ; they 
 move most whilst he lies quiet in his bed. 
 
 Lest, therefore, whilst sleeping I be outlawed for 
 want of appearance to Satan's charge, I commit my 
 cause to him who neither slumbers nor sleeps. 
 ' ANSWER FOB ME, MY GOD.' 
 
 A nocturnal. David, surveying the firmament, 
 brake forth into this consideration: 'When I con- 
 sidered the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
 and the stars, which thou hast created, what is man,' 
 etc. (Psalm viii. 3). 
 
 How cometh he to mention the moon and stars, 
 and omit the sun, the other being but his pensioners, 
 shining with that exhibition of light, which the bounty 
 of the sun allots them. 
 
 It is answered, this was David's night meditation, 
 when the sun, departing to the other world, left the 
 lesser light only visible in heaven, and as the sky is 
 best beheld by day in the glory thereof, so it is best 
 surveyed by night in the variety of the same, 
 
ALL KINDS OF PRAYERS. 113 
 
 Night was made for man to rest in. But when I 
 cannot sleep, may I, with this psalmist, entertain my 
 waking with good thoughts ; not to use them as opium, 
 to invite my corrupt nature to slumber, but to bolt out 
 bad thoughts, which otherwise would possess my soul. 
 
 Set prayers. Set prayers are prescript forms ot 
 our own or others' composing ; such are lawful for any, 
 and needful for some to use. 
 
 Lawful for any. Otherwise God would not have 
 appointed the priests (presumed of themselves best 
 able to pray) a form of blessing the people. Nor 
 would our Saviour have set us his prayer, which (as 
 the town-bushel is the standard both to measure corn 
 and other bushels by) is both a prayer in itself and a 
 pattern or platform of prayer. Such as accuse set 
 forms to be pinioning the wings of the dove, will by 
 the next return affirm that girdles and garters, made 
 to strengthen and adorn, are so many shackles and 
 fetters which hurt and hinder men's free motion. 
 
 Needful for some. Namely for such who as yet 
 have not attained (what all should endeavour) to pray 
 extempore by the spirit. But as little children (to 
 whom the plainest and evenest room at first is a 
 labyrinth) are so ambitious of going alone, that they 
 scorn to take the guidance of a form or bench to 
 direct them, but will adventure by themselves, though 
 often to the cost of a knock and a fall ; so many con- 
 fess their weakness, in denying to confess it, who, 
 refusing to be beholden to a set form of prayer, prefer 
 to say nonsense, rather than nothing, in their extem- 
 pore expressions. More modesty, and no less piety, 
 it had been for such men to have prayed longer with 
 
114 MEDITATIONS OM 
 
 set forms that they might pray better without 
 them. 
 
 The same again. It is no base and beggarly 
 shift (arguing a narrow and necessitous heart), but a 
 piece of holy and heavenly thrift, often to use the 
 game prayer again. Christ's practice is my directory 
 herein, who the third time said the same words. 
 
 A good prayer is not like a stratagem of war, to be 
 used but once. No, the oftener the better. The 
 clothes of the Israelites, whilst they wandered forty 
 years in the wilderness, never waxed old, as if made 
 ofperpetuano indeed. So a good prayer, though often 
 used, is still fresh and fair in the ears and eyes of 
 heaven. Despair not then, thou simple soul, who 
 hast no exchange of raiment, whose prayers cannot 
 appear every day at heaven's court in new -clothes. 
 Thou mayest be as good a subject, though not so 
 great a gallant, coming always in the same suit } T ea, 
 perchance the very same which was thy father's and 
 grandfather's before thee (a well-composed prayer is 
 a good heirloom in a family, and may hereditarily be 
 descended to many generations), but know thy com- 
 fort, thy prayer is well known to heaven, to which it 
 is a constant customer. Only add new, or new degrees 
 of old affections thereunto, and it will be acceptable 
 to God, thus repaired, as if new erected. 
 
 Prayer must be quotidian. Among other argu- 
 ments inforcing the necessity of daily prayer, this not 
 the least, that Christ, enjoins us to petition for daily 
 bread. New bread we know is best, and in a spiritual 
 sense our bread, though in itself as stale and mouldy 
 qs that of the Gibeonites, is every day new, because 
 
ALL KINDS OF PtiAYERS. 115 
 
 a new and hot blessing, as I might say, is daily begged, 
 and bestowed of God upon it. 
 
 Manna must daily be gathered, and not provisionally 
 be hoarded up. God expects that men every day 
 address themselves unto him by petitioning him for 
 sustenance. 
 
 How contrary is this to the common practice of 
 many. As camels in sandy countries are said to drink 
 but once in seven days, and then for time past, present, 
 and to come; so, many fumble this, last, and next 
 week's devotion all in a prayer; yea, some defer all 
 their praying till the last day. 
 
 Constantine had a conceit, that because baptism 
 washed away all sins, he would not be baptized till 
 his death-bed, that so his soul might never lose the 
 ] unity thereof, but immediately mount to heaven. 
 But sudden death preventing him, he was not baptized 
 at all, as some say, or only by an Arian Bishop, as 
 others affirm . If any erroneously, on the same suppo- 
 sition, put oft' their prayers to the last, let them take 
 heed, lest long delayed, at last they prove either none 
 at all, or none in effect. 
 
 The Lord's prayer. In this age we begin to 
 think meanly of the Lord's prayer. Oh, how basely 
 may the Lord think of our prayers ! Some will not 
 forgive the Lord's prayer for that passage therein, ' As 
 we forgive them that trespass against us.' 
 
 Others play the witches on this prayer. Witches 
 are reported (amongst many other hellish observations, 
 whereby they oblige themselves to Satan) to say the 
 Lord's prayer backwards. Are there not many, who 
 though they do not pronounce the syllables of the 
 
110 MEDITATIONS ON 
 
 Lord's prayer retrograde (their discretion will not 
 suffer them to be betrayed to such a nonsense sin), 
 yet they transpose it in effect, desiring their daily 
 bread before God's kingdom come, preferring temporal 
 benefits before heavenly blessings. Oh! if everyone 
 by this mark should be tried for a witch, how hard 
 would it go with all of us. 
 
 All best. At the siege and taking of New Car- 
 thage, in Spain, there was dissension betwixt the 
 soldiers about the crown-mural due to him who first 
 footed the walls of the city. Two pretended to the 
 crown ; parts were taken, and the Roman army, siding 
 in factions, was likely to fall foul, and mutually fight 
 against itself. Scipio, the general, prevented the 
 danger by providing; two mural crowns, giving one to 
 each who claimed it, affirming, that on the examina- 
 tion of the proofs, both did appear to him at the same 
 instant to climb the wall. Oh, let us not set several 
 kinds of prayers at variance betwixt themselves, which 
 of them should be most useful, most honourable. All 
 are most excellent at several times, crown-groans, 
 crown - ejaculations, crown - extemporary, crown-set, 
 crown-mixed prayer, I dare boldly say, he that in 
 some measure loves not all kind of lawful prayers, 
 loves no kind of lawful prayers. For if we love God 
 the father, we can hate no ordinance, his child, though 
 perchance an occasion may affect one above another. 
 
 All manner of prayers. It is an ancient strata- 
 gem of Satan (yet still he useth it, still men are 
 cheated by it) to set God's ordinance at variance, as 
 the disciples fell out amongst themselves which of 
 them should be the greatest. How hath the reader's 
 
ALL KINDS OF PRAYERS. 117 
 
 pew been clashed against the preacher's pulpit, to the 
 shaking almost of the whole church, whether that the 
 word preached or read be most effectual to salvation. 
 Also, whether the word preached or catechised most 
 useful. But no ordinance so abused as prayer. Prayer 
 hath been set up against preaching, against cate- 
 chising, against itself. Whether public or private, 
 church or closet, set or extemporary prayer be the best. 
 See how St. Paul determines the controversy, Tratn? 
 irpoaevxy, i with all manner of prayer and supplication 
 in the Spirit ' (so the Geneva translation) : preferring 
 none, commending all lawful prayer to our practice. 
 
 To God alone. Amongst all manner of prayer to 
 God, I find in Scripture neither promise, precept, nor 
 precedent to warrant prayers to saints. And were 
 there no other reason, this would encourage me to 
 pray to Christ alone because St. Paul struck Elimas 
 blind, Christ made blind Bartimseus see. St. Peter 
 killed Ananias and Sapphira with his word, Christ 
 with his word revived dead Lazarus. The disciples 
 forbade the Syrophoenician woman to call after Christ, 
 Christ called unto her after they had forbidden her. 
 All my Saviour's works are saving works, none ex- 
 tending to the death of mankind. Surely Christ, 
 being now in heaven, hath not less goodness because 
 he hath more glory ; his bowels still yearn on us. I 
 will therefore rather present my prayers to him, who 
 always did heal, than to those who sometimes did 
 hurt. And though this be no convincing argument to 
 Papists, it is a comfortable motive to Protestants. A 
 good third, where so good firsts and seconds have been 
 laid before. 
 
118 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS. 
 
 Love and anger. I saw two children fighting 
 together in the street. The father of the one, passing 
 by, fetched his son away, and corrected him; the 
 other lad was left without any check, though both 
 were equally faulty in the fray. I was half offended, 
 that being guilty alike, they were not punished alike ; 
 but the parent would only meddle with him over 
 whom he had an undoubted dominion, to whom ho 
 bare an unfeigned affection. 
 
 The wicked sin, the godly smart, most in this world. 
 God singleth out his own sons, and beateth them by 
 themselves: whom 'he loveth he chasteneth, 1 whilst 
 the ungodly, preserved from affliction, are, reserved 
 for destruction, it being needless that their hair should 
 be shaved with a hired razor (Isaiah vii. 20) whose 
 heads are intended for the axe of divine justice (Matt, 
 iii. 10). 
 
 Upwards, upwards. How large houses do they 
 build in London on little ground ; revenging themselves 
 on the narrowness of their room with store of stories ! 
 Excellent arithmetic ! from the root of one floor, to 
 multiply so many chambers. And though painful the 
 climbing up, pleasant the staying there, the higher the 
 healthier, with clear light and sweeter air. 
 
 Small are my means on earth. May I mount my 
 soul the higher in heavenly meditations, relying on 
 Divine providence. He that fed many thousands with 
 five loaves, may feed me and mine with the fifth part 
 of that one loaf. Higher, my soul! higher! In 
 
, OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS. 119 
 
 bodily buildings, commonly the garrets are most 
 empty ; but my mind, the higher mounted, will be the 
 better furnished. Let perseverance to death be my 
 uppermost chamber, the roof of which grace is the 
 pavement of glory. 
 
 Beware wanton wit. I saw an indenture too 
 fairly engrossed, for the writer (better scrivener than 
 clerk) had so filled it with flourishes that it hindered 
 my reading thereof; the wantonness of his pen made 
 a new alphabet, and I was subject to mistake his 
 dashes for real letters. 
 
 What damage hath unwary rhetoric done to religion ! 
 Many an innocent reader hath taken Damascene and 
 Theophilact at their word, counting their eloquent 
 hyperboles of Christ's presence in the sacrament the 
 exact standards of their judgment, whence after-ages 
 brought in transubstantiation. Yea, from the fathers' 
 elegant apostrophes to the dead (lively pictures by 
 hasty eyes may be taken for living persons) prayers to 
 saints took their original. I see that truth's secretary 
 must use a set hand in writing important points of 
 divinity. Ill dancing for nimble wits, on the precipices 
 of dangerous doctrines, for though they escape by 
 their agility, others (encouraged by their examples) 
 may be brought to destruction. 
 
 Ill done, undone. I saw one, whether out of 
 haste or want of skill, put up his sword the wrong 
 way; it cut, even when it was sheathed, the edge 
 being transposed where the back should have been, so 
 that, perceiving his error, he was fain to draw it out, 
 that he might put it up again. 
 
 Wearied and wasted with civil \vav, we that formerly 
 
120 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 loathed the manna of peace, because common, could 
 now be content to feed on it, though full of worms 
 and putrified. Some so desirous thereof, that they 
 care not on what terms the war be ended, so it be 
 ended ; but such a peace would be but a truce, and 
 the conditions thereof would no longer be in force, 
 than whilst they are in force. Let us pray that the 
 sword be sheathed the right way, with God's glory 
 and without the dangerous dislocation of prince and 
 people's right, otherwise it may justly be suspected 
 that the sword put up will be drawn out again, and 
 the articles of an ill agreement, though engrossed on 
 parchment, not take effect so long as paper would 
 continue. 
 
 Apace, apace. Eowing on the Thames, the water- 
 man confirmed me in what formerly I had learnt from 
 the maps, how that river, westward, runs so crooked 
 as likely to lose itself in a labyrinth of its own making. 
 From Beading to London, by land thirty, by water an 
 hundred miles. So wantonly that stream disporteth 
 itself, as if as yet unresolved whether to advance to 
 the sea or retreat to its fountain. 
 
 But the same being past London, as if sensible of its 
 former laziness, and fearing to be checked of the ocean, 
 the mother of all rivers, for so long loitering ; or else, 
 as if weary with wandering, and loth to lose more 
 way ; or lastly, as if conceiving such wildness incon- 
 sistent with the gravity of his channel, now grown old 
 and ready to be buried in the sea, runs in so direct a 
 line that from London to Gravesend the number of the 
 miles are equally twenty, both by land and by 
 water, 
 
OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS. 1*1 
 
 Alas ! how much of my life is lavished away ! Oh, 
 the intricacies, windings, wanderings, turnings, ter- 
 giversations of my deceitful youth ! I have lived in 
 the midst of a crooked generation, and with them 
 'have turned aside mnto crooked ways.' High time 
 it is now for me to make straight paths for my feet, 
 and to redeem what is past by amending what is 
 present and to come. Flux, flux (in the German 
 tongue, quick, quick) was a motto of Bishop Jewel's, 
 presaging the approach of his death. May I make 
 good use thereof; make haste, make haste, God knows 
 how little time is left me, and may I be a good 
 husband, to improve the short remnant thereof. 
 
 Always the rising sun. I have wondered why 
 the Romish church do not pray to St. Abraham, St. 
 l)avid, St. Hezekiah, etc., as well as to the apostles 
 arid their successors since Christ's time ; for those 
 ancient patriarchs, by the confession of Papists, were 
 long since relieved out of limbo (soon out, who were 
 never in), and admitted to the sight and presence of 
 God, especially Abraham, being father of the faithful, 
 as well Gentile as Jew, would (according to their 
 principles) be a proper patron for their petitions. 
 
 But it seems that modern saints rob the old ones of 
 their honour ; a Garnet, or Bernard of Paris, have 
 severally more prayers made unto them than many 
 old saints have together* New besoms sweep clean ; 
 new cisterns of fond men's own hewing, most likely to 
 hold water. 
 
 Protestants in some kind serve their living ministers, 
 as Papists their dead saints. For aged pastors, who 
 have borne the heat of the day in our church, are 
 
122 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WO&Sh TIMES. 
 
 jostled out of respect by young preachers, not having 
 half their age, nor a quarter of learning and religion. 
 Yet let not the former be disheartened, for thus it ever 
 was and will be : English Athenians, all for novelties, 
 new sects, new schisms, new doctrines, new disciplines, 
 new prayers, new preachers. 
 
 Charity, charity. Church story reports of St. 
 John that, being grown very aged (well nigh a hundred 
 years old), wanting strength and voice to make a long 
 sermon, he was wont to go up into the pulpit, and 
 often repeat these words : i Babes, keep yourselves 
 from idols ; brethren, love one another. 1 
 
 Our age may seem sufficiently to have provided 
 against the growth of idolatry in England. Oh, that 
 some order were taken for the increase of charity. It 
 were liberty enough, if for the next seven years all 
 sermons were bound to keep residence on this text, 
 * Brethren, love one another.' 
 
 But would not some fall out with themselves, if ap- 
 pointed to preach unity to others ? Vindictive spirits, 
 if confined to this text, would confine the text to their 
 passion ; by brethren, understanding only such of their 
 own party. But ! seeing other monopolies are dis- 
 solved, let not this remain against the fundamental 
 law of charity. Let all bend their heads, hearts, and 
 hands, to make up the breaches in Church and State i 
 But too many nowadays are like Pharaoh's magicians 
 who could conjure up with their charms more new 
 frogs, but could not remove or drive away those 
 multitudes of frogs which were there before. Unhap- 
 pily happy in making more rents and dissensions, but 
 unable or unwilling to compose our former differences. 
 
OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS. 123 
 
 Christ my King. I read how King Edward I. 
 ingeniously surprised the Welsh into subjection, proffer- 
 ing them such a prince as should be, 
 
 1 . The son of a king ; 
 
 2. Born in their own country ; 
 
 3. Whom none could tax for any fault. 
 
 The Welsh accepted the conditions, and the king 
 tendered them his son Edward, an infant, newly born 
 in the Castle of Carnarvon. . 
 
 Do not all these qualifications mystically centre 
 themselves in my Saviour? 
 
 1. The King of heaven saith unto him, l Thou art 
 my Son, this day have I begotten thee ; ' 
 
 2. Our true countryman, real flesh, whereas he took 
 not on him the nature of angels ; 
 
 3. Without spot or blemish, like to us in all things, 
 sin only excepted. 
 
 Away then with those wicked men who will not 
 have this King to rule over them. May he have 
 dominion in, and over me. * Thy kingdom come.' 
 Heaven and earth cannot afford a more proper prince 
 for the purpose, exactly accomplished with all these 
 comfortable qualifications. 
 
 Tribulations. I find two sad etymologies of 
 tribulation. One from tfibulus, a three-forked thorn, 
 which intimates that such afflictions which are as full 
 of pain and anguish to the soul as a thorn thrust into 
 a tender part of the flesh is unto the body, may 
 properly be termed tribulations. 
 
 The other, from tribulm, the head of a flail, or 
 ilagel, knaggy and knotty (made commonly^as I take 
 it, of a thick blackthorn), and then it imports that 
 
124 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. . 
 
 afflictions, falling upon us as heavy as the flail 
 threshing the corn, are styled tribulations. 
 
 I am in a strait which deduction to embrace, from 
 the sharp or from the heavy thorn. But which is the 
 worst, though I may choose whence to derive the 
 word, I cannot choose so as to decline the thing, ' I 
 must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom 
 of God/ 
 
 Therefore I will labour not to be like a young colt 
 first set to plough, which more tires himself out with 
 his own untowardness, whipping himself with his mis- 
 spent mettle, than with the weight of what he draws ; and 
 will labour patiently to bear what is imposed upon me. 
 
 Beware. I saw a cannon shot off. The men at 
 whom it was levelled fell flat on the ground, and so 
 escaped the bullet. Against such blows, falling is all 
 the fencing, and prostration all the armour of proof. 
 
 But that which gave them notice to fall down, was 
 their perceiving of the fire before the ordnance was 
 discharged. Oh the mercy of that fire ! which, as it 
 were, repenting of the mischief it had done, and the 
 murder it might make, ran a race and outstripped 
 the bullet, that men (at the sight thereof) might be 
 provided, when they could not resist to prevent it. 
 Thus every murdering-piece is also a warning-piece 
 against itself. 
 
 God, in like manner, warns before he wounds ; 
 frights before he fights. l Yet forty days and Nineveh 
 shall be overthrown' (Jonah iii. 4). Oh let us fall 
 down before the Lord our Maker. Then shall His 
 anger be pleased to make in us a daily pass-over, and 
 His bullets levelled at us must fly above us. 
 
OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS. 125 
 
 The recruit. I read how one main argument 
 which the Apostle Paul enforceth on Timothy, to 
 make full proof of his ministry, is this, ' For I am now 
 ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is 
 at hand ' (2 Tim. iv. 6). Thus the dying saints, 
 drawing near to heaven, their mark is the best spur 
 for the surviving to make the more speed in their race. 
 
 How many excellent divines have these sad times 
 hastened to their long home (so called in Scripture, 
 not because long going thither, but long tarrying 
 there) ! How many have been sorrow-shot to their 
 heart! Oh that this would edge the endeavours of 
 our generation to succeed in the dead places of worthy 
 men. Shall the Papists curiously observe and 
 sufficiently boast that their Stapleton was born on the 
 same day on which Sir Thomas More was beheaded 
 (as if his cradle made the other's coffin), and shall 
 not our nurseries of learning supply the void room of 
 our worthies deceased ? No sin, I hope, to pray that 
 our Timothys come not short of our Pauls ; as in time, 
 so in learning and religion. 
 
 Edification. I read in a learned physician how 
 our provident mother, Nature, foreseeing men (her 
 wanton children) would be tampering with the edge- 
 tools of minerals, hid them far from them, in the 
 bowels of the earth ; whereas she exposed plants and 
 herbs more obvious to their eye as fitter for their use. 
 But some bold empirics, neglecting the latter (as too 
 common), have adventured on those hidden minerals, 
 ofttimes (through want of skill) to the hurt of many, 
 and hazard of more. 
 
 God, in the New Testament, hath placed all his- 
 
126 GOOD THOUGHTS IN WORSE TIMES. 
 
 torical and practical matter (needful for Christians to 
 know and believe) in the beginning of the Gospel. 
 All such truths lay above ground, plainly visible in 
 the literal sense. The prophetical and difficult part 
 comes , in the close ; but though the Testament was 
 written in Greek, too many read it like Hebrew, 
 beginning at the end thereof. How many trouble 
 themselves about the Revelation who might be better 
 busied in plain divinity ! Safer prescribing to others, 
 and practising in themselves, positive piety ; leaving 
 such mystical minerals to men of more judgment to 
 prepare them. 
 
 Mad, not mad. I find St. Paul in the same 
 chapter confess and deny madness in himself (Acts 
 xxvi. 11) : 'And being exceeding mad against them, 
 I persecuted them even unto strange cities.' When 
 Festus challenged him to be beside himself, 'I am 
 not mad, most noble Festus' (ver. 25). Whilst he 
 was mad indeed, then none did suspect or accuse him 
 to be distracted ; but when converted, and in his right 
 mind, then Festus taxeth him of madness. 
 
 There is a country in Africa wherein all the natives 
 have pendulous lips, hanging down like a dog's 
 cars, always raw and sore. Here only such as are 
 handsome are pointed at for monsters in this age, 
 wherein polluted and unclean lips are grown epi- 
 demical. If any refrain their tongues from common 
 sins, they alone are gazed at as strange spectacles. 
 
 The deepest cut. I beheld a lapidary cutting a 
 diamond with a diamond hammer and anvil both of 
 the same kind. 
 
 God in Scripture styled his, servants his jewels. Ills 
 
OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS. 12? 
 
 diamonds they arc, but, alas ! rude, rough, unpolished, 
 without shape or fashion, as they arise naked out of 
 the bed of the earth, before art hath dressed them. 
 See how God, by rubbing one rough diamond against 
 another, maketh both smooth. Barnabas afflicts Paul, 
 and Paul afflicts Barnabas, by their hot falling out 
 (Acts xv. 39) ; Jerome occasioneth trouble to Kufinus, 
 and Kufinus to Jerome. 
 
 In our unnatural war none I hope so weak and 
 wilful as to deny many good men (though misled) 
 engaged on both sides. Oh ! how have they scratched, 
 and raced, and pierced, and bruised, and broken one 
 another I Behold heaven's hand grating one diamond 
 with another. As for all those who uncharitably 
 deny any good on that party which they dislike, such 
 show themselves diamonds indeed in their hardness 
 (cruel censuring), but none in any commendable 
 quality in their conditions. 
 
THE HOLY STATE AND THE 
 PBOFANE STATE. 
 
 1 In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, 
 HOLINESS UNTO THE LOUD.' ZECHARIAH xiv. 20. 
 
 1 The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the 
 churl said to be bountiful. 9 ISAIAH xxxii. 5. 
 
 'And they shall teach my people the difference betwixt 
 the holy and profane. 9 EZEKIEL xliv. 23. 
 
The Holy and the Profane State seems to have been written 
 by Fuller whilst Rector of Broad- Windsor, and to have been 
 sent to press in the year 1640. It was not published, however, 
 till 1642, by which time he had removed to London, and was 
 preacher at the Savoy. During this interval many changes had 
 happened both in Church and State, and the political convul- 
 sions of the time were rapidly approaching their crisis. To this 
 he alludes in his preface to the reader : ' Be pleased to know, 
 that when I left my home it was fair weather, and my journey 
 was half passed before I discovered the tempest, and had gone 
 so far in this book that I could neither go backward with credit 
 nor forward with comfort.' He requests his readers to exercise 
 discretion and charity in their judgment of his work : ' And 
 I conjure thee, by all Christian ingenuity, that if lighting here 
 on some passage rather harsh sounding than ill intended, to 
 construe the same by the general drift and main scope which is 
 aimed at.' 
 
 It consists of five books, of which the first four delineate the 
 Holy, the fifth and last, the Profane State. These are divided 
 into a hundred and five sections, in each of which some type of 
 character is described either by aphoristic sentences, by an 
 illustrative narrative, or by both. The selections which follow 
 will suffice to show the general mode of treatment. 
 
 It gained a speedy and immense popularity. He complains, 
 however, that ' as some unmarried maids will never be more 
 than eighteen,' so ' for some design of the stationer ' this, as 
 well as some other of his works, ' sticketh still, in the title 
 page, at the third edition, yet hath it oftener passed the press.' 
 The design of the publisher in thus understating the numbers 
 sold, is uncertain. It probably arose from a fear of attracting 
 the attention of the authorities to the book, as it contains many 
 passages which might be understood in a sense unfavourable to 
 the revolutionary government, 
 
THE GOOD PARENT. 
 
 HE slioweth his children, in his own practice, what to 
 follow and imitate ; and, in others, what to shun and 
 avoid. For though e the words of the wise be as nails 
 fastened by the masters of the assemblies ' (Eccles. xii. 
 11), yet, sure, their examples are the hammer to drive 
 them in, to take the deeper hold. A father that 
 whipped his son for swearing, and swore himself whilst 
 he whipped him, did more harm by his example than 
 good by his correction. 
 
 * He doth not welcome and embrace the first essays 
 of sin in his children. Weeds are counted herbs in 
 the beginning of the spring : nettles are put in pottage, 
 and salads are made of eldern-buds. Thus fond fathers 
 like the oaths and wanton talk of their little children ; 
 and please themselves to hear them displease God. 
 But our wise parent both instructs his children in 
 piety, and with correction blasts the first buds of pro- 
 faneness in them. He that will not use the rod on 
 his child, his child shall be used as a rod on him. 
 
 He allows his children maintenance according to 
 their quality. Otherwise it will make them base, ac- 
 quaint them with bad company and sharking tricks ; 
 and it makes them surfeit the sooner when they come 
 to their estates. It is observed of camels, that, having 
 travelled long without water through sandy deserts, 
 
132 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STAT& 
 
 implentur, cum "bibendi est occasio, et in prceteritum et 
 infuturum : 1 and so these thirsty heirs soak it when 
 they come to their means, who, whilst their fathers 
 were living, might not touch the top of their money, 
 and think they shall never feel the bottom of it when 
 they are dead. 
 
 In choosing a profession he is directed by his child's 
 disposition, whose inclination is the strongest inden- 
 ture to bind him to a trade. But when they set Abel 
 to till the ground, and send Cain to keep sheep ; Jacob 
 to hunt, and Esau to live in tents; drive some to 
 school, and others from it ; they commit a violence on 
 nature, and it will thrive accordingly. Yet he humours 
 not his child when he makes an unworthy choice 
 beneath himself, or rather for ease than use, pleasure 
 than profit. 
 
 If his son prove wild, he doth not cast him off so 
 far, but he marks the place where he lights. With 
 the mother of Moses, he doth not suffer his son so to 
 sink or swim, but he leaves one to stand afar off to 
 watch what will become of him (Exod. ii. 4). He is 
 careful, whilst he quencheth his luxury, not withal 
 to put out his life ; the rather, because their souls who 
 have broken and run out in their youth, have proved 
 the more healthful for it afterwards. 
 
 He moves him to marriage rather by argument 
 drawn from his good, than his own authority. It is a 
 style too princely for a parent herein to { will and com- 
 mand ; ' but, sure, he may will and desire. Affections, 
 like the conscience, are rather to be led than drawn ; 
 
 1 ' When they find an opportunity they fill themselves 
 both for the past and the future.' 
 
THE GOOD CHILD. 133 
 
 and, it is to be feared, they that marry where they do 
 not love, will love where they do not marry. 
 
 He doth not give away his loaf to his children, and 
 then come to them for a piece of bread. He holds the 
 reins (though loosely) in his own hands ; and keeps, to 
 reward duty, and punish undutifulness. Yet, on good 
 occasion, for his children's advancement, he will depart 
 from part of his means. Base is their nature who will 
 not have their branches lopped, till their body be felled ; 
 and will let go none of their goods, as if it presaged 
 their speedy death : whereas it doth not follow that he 
 that puts off his cloak must presently go to bed. 
 
 On his death-bed he bequeaths his blessing to all 
 his children. Nor rejoiceth he so much to leave them 
 great portions, as honestly obtained. Only money well 
 and lawfully gotten is good and lawful money. And if 
 he leaves his children young, he principally nominates 
 God to be their guardian ; and, next Him, is careful 
 to appoint provident overseers. 
 
 THE GOOD CHILD. 
 
 HE reverence th the person of his parent, though old, 
 poor, and froward. As his parent bare with him when 
 a child, he bears with his parent if twice a child ; nor 
 doth his dignity above him cancel his duty unto him. 
 When Sir Thomas More was Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
 land, and Sir John his father one of the Judges of the 
 King's Bench, he would in Westminster-hall beg his 
 blessing of him on his knees. 
 
 He observes his lawful commands, and practiseth his 
 
134 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 precepts, with all obedience. I caimot, therefore, excuse 
 St. Barbara from undutifulness, and occasioning her 
 own death. The matter this: Her father, being a 
 Pagan, commanded his workmen, building his house, 
 to make two windows in a room. Barbara, knowing 
 her father's pleasure, in his absence enjoined them to 
 make three, that, seeing them, she might the better 
 contemplate the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Me- 
 thinks, two windows might as well have raised her 
 meditations, and the light arising from both would as 
 properly have minded her of the Holy Spirit proceed- 
 ing from the Father and the Son. Her father, en- 
 raged, at his return, thus came to the knowledge of 
 her religion, and accused her to the magistrate ; which 
 cost her her life. 
 
 Having practised them himself, he entails his parents' 
 precepts on his posterity. Therefore such instructions 
 are by Solomon (Prov. i. 9) compared to frontlets and 
 chains (not to a suit of clothes, which serves but one, 
 and quickly wears out, or out of fashion), which have 
 in them a real lasting worth, and are bequeathed as 
 legacies to another age. The same counsels, observed, 
 are chains to grace ; which, neglected, prove halters 
 to strangle undutiful children. 
 
 He is a stork to his parent, and feeds him in his old 
 age. Not only if his father hath been a pelican, but 
 though he hath been an ostrich unto him, and neglected 
 him in his youth. He confines him not a long way 
 off to a short pension, forfeited if he comes in his 
 presence ; but shows piety at home, and learns (as St. 
 Paul aaith, 1 Tim. v. 4) to requite his parent. And 
 yet the debt (I mean only the principal, not counting 
 
THE GOOD MASTER. 135 
 
 the interest) cannot fully be paid; and therefore he 
 compounds with his father to accept in good worth 
 the utmost of his endeavour. 
 
 Such a child God commonly rewards with long life 
 in this world. If he chance to die young, yet he lives 
 long that lives well ; and time mis-spent is not lived 
 but lost. Besides, God is better than his promise, if 
 he teJres him a long lease, and gives him a freehold of 
 better value. A.S for disobedient children, 
 
 If preserved from iko gallows, they are reserved for 
 the rack, to be tortured by their own posterity. One 
 complained that never father had so undutiful a child 
 as he had. ' Yes/ said his son, with less grace than 
 truth, 'my grandfather had.' 
 
 I conclude this subject with the example of a Pagan's 
 son, which will shame most Christians. Pomponius 
 Atticus, making the funeral oration at the death of his 
 mother, did protest, that, living with her threescore and 
 seven j^ears, he was never reconciled unto her, se nun- 
 qiiam cum matre in gratiam redisse ; because (take the 
 comment with the text) there never happened betwixt 
 them the least jar which needed reconciliation. 
 
 THE GOOD MASTEK. 
 
 HE is the heart in the midst of his household, first 
 up and last a-bed, if not in his person, yet in his 
 providence. In his carriage he aimeth at his own and 
 his servants' good, and to advance both. 
 
 He oversees the works of his servants. One said, 
 
136 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 that the dust that fell from the master's shoes was 
 the best compost to manure ground.' The lion, out 
 of state, will not run whilst any one looks upon him ; 
 but some servants, out of slothfulness, will not run 
 except some do look upon them, spurred on with their 
 master's eye. Chiefly he is careful exactly to take his 
 servants' reckonings. If their master takes no account 
 of them, they will make small account of h^ and 
 care not what they spend who are never brought to 
 an audit. 
 
 He provides them victuals, wholesome, sufficient, 
 and seasonable. He doth not so alloy his servants' 
 bread, or debase it so much, as to make that servants' 
 meat which is not man's meat. He alloweth them 
 also convenient rest and recreation: whereas some 
 masters, like a bad conscience, will not suffer them to 
 sleep that have them. He remembers the old law of 
 the Saxon king Ina : * If a villain work on Sunday by 
 his lord's command, he shall be free.' 
 
 The wages he contracts for, he duly and truly pays 
 to his servants. The same word in the Greek, 1 6s, 
 signifies * rust ' and ' poison : ' and some strong poison 
 is made of the rust of metals ; but none more venomous 
 than the rust of money in the rich man's purse un- 
 justly detained from the labourer, which will poison 
 and infect his whole estate. 
 
 He never threatens (Ephes. vi. 9) his servant, but 
 rather presently corrects him. Indeed, conditional 
 threatenings, w r ith promise of pardon on amendment, 
 are good and useful. Absolute threatenings torment 
 more, reform less, making servants keep their faults 
 and forsake their masters : wherefore, herein he never 
 
THE GOOD MASTER. 1S7 
 
 passeth his word, but makes present payment, lest trie 
 creditor run away from the debtor. 
 
 In correcting his servant, he becomes not a slave 
 to his own passion. Not cruelly making new inden- 
 tures of the flesh of his apprentice. To this end, he 
 never beats him in the height of his passion. Moses, 
 being to fetch water out of the rock, and commanded 
 by God only to speak to it with his rod in his hand, 
 being transported with anger, smote it thrice. Thus 
 some masters, who might fetch penitent tears from 
 their servants with a chiding word (only shaking the 
 rod withal for terror), in their fury strike many blows 
 which might better be spared. If he perceives his 
 servant incorrigible, so that he cannot wash the black- 
 amoor, he washeth his hands of him, and fairly puts 
 him away. 
 
 He is tender of his servant in sickness and age. If 
 crippled in his service, his house is his hospital. Yet 
 how many throw away those dry bones out of which 
 themselves have sucked the marrow ! It is as usual 
 to see a young serving-man an old beggar, as to see a 
 light-horse, first from the great saddle of a nobleman, 
 to come to the hackney-coach, and at last die in draw- 
 ing a cart. But the good master is not like the cruel 
 hunter in the fable, who beat his old dog because his 
 toothless mouth let go the game. He rather imitates 
 the noble nature of our prince Henry, who took order 
 for the keeping of an old English mastiff which had 
 made a lion run away. Good reason good service in 
 age should be rewarded. Who can without pity and 
 pleasure behold that trusty vessel which carried Sir 
 Francis Drake about the world ? 
 
138 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATIC. 
 
 THE GOOD SEKVANT. 
 
 HE is one that, out of conscience, serves God in his 
 master ; and so hath the principle of obedience in him- 
 self. As for those servants who found their obedience 
 on some external thing, with engines, they will go no 
 longer than they are wound or weighed up. 
 
 He doth not dispute his master's lawful will, but 
 doth it. Hence it is that simple servants (understand 
 such whose capacity is bare measure, without surplus- 
 age, equal to the business they are used in) are more 
 useful, because more manageable, than abler men, 
 especially in matters wherein not their brains but 
 hands are required. Yet if his master, out of want of 
 experience, enjoins him to do what is hurtful and pre- 
 judicial to his own estate, duty here makes him un- 
 dutiful (if not to deny, to demur in his performance), 
 and, choosing rather to displease than hurt his master, 
 he humbly represents his reasons to the contrary. 
 
 He loves to go about his business with cheerfulness. 
 One said he loved to hear his carter, though not his 
 cart, to sing. ' God loveth a cheerful giver : ' and 
 Christ reproved the Pharisees for disfiguring their faces 
 with a sad countenance. Fools, who, to persuade men 
 that angels lodged in their hearts, hung out a devil for 
 a sign in their faces! Sure, cheerfulness in doing 
 renders a deed more acceptable. Not like those 
 servants, who doing their work unwillingly, their 
 looks do enter a protestation against what their hands 
 are doing. 
 
 He despatcheth his business with quickness and 
 
THE GOOD SERVANT. 139 
 
 expedition. Hence the same English word c speed* 
 signifies ' celerity ' and ' success ; ' the former, in 
 business of execution, causing the latter. Indeed, 
 haste and rashness are storms and tempests, breaking 
 and wrecking business : but nimbleness is a fair, full 
 wind, blowing it with speed to the haven. As he is 
 good at hand, so he is good at length, continually and 
 constantly careful in his service. Many servants, as 
 if they had learned the nature of the besoms they use, 
 are good for a few days, and afterwards grow un- 
 serviceable. 
 
 He disposeth not of his master's goods without his 
 privity or consent. No, not in the smallest matters. 
 Open this wicket, and it will be in vain for masters to 
 shut the door. If servants presume to dispose small 
 things without their masters' allowance, (besides that 
 many little leaks may sink a ship !) this will widen 
 their consciences to give away greater. But though 
 lie hath not always a particular leave, he hath a 
 general grant, and a warrant dormant, from his master 
 to give an alms to the poor in his absence, if in abso- 
 lute necessity. 
 
 His answers to his master are true, direct, and duti- 
 ful. If a dumb devil possesseth a servant, a winding 
 cane is the fittest circle, and the master the exorcist 
 to drive it out. Some servants are so talkative, one may 
 as well command the echo as them not to speak last ; 
 and then they count themselves conquerors, because 
 they last leave the field. Others, though they seem 
 to yield, and go away, yet, with the flying Parthians, 
 shoot backward over their shoulders, and dart bitter 
 taunts at their masters ; yea, though, with the clock ? 
 
140 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 they have given the last stroke, yet they keep a jar- 
 ring, muttering to themselves a good while after. 
 
 Because charity is so cold, his industry is the hotter 
 to provide something for himself, whereby he may be 
 maintained in his old age. If, under his master, he 
 trades for himself (as an apprentice may do, if he hath 
 covenanted so beforehand), he provides good bounds 
 and sufficient fences betwixt his own and his master's 
 estate (Jacob ' set his flock three days' journey ' from 
 Laban's, Gen. xxx. 36), that no quarrel may arise 
 about their property, nor suspicion that his remnant 
 hath eaten up his master's whole cloth. 
 
 THE FAITHFUL MINISTER. 
 
 HE endeavours to get the general love and good- will 
 of his parish. This he doth, not so much to make a 
 benefit of them, as a benefit/or them, that his ministry 
 may be more effectual ; otherwise he may preach his 
 own heart out, before he preacheth anything into 
 theirs. The good conceit of the physician is half a 
 cure ; and his practice will scarce be happy where his 
 person is hated. Yet he humours them not in his 
 doctrine, to get their love ; for such a spaniel is worse 
 than a dumb dog. He shall sooner get their good- will 
 by walking uprightly than by crouching and creeping. 
 If pious living and painful labouring in his calling will 
 not win their affections, he counts it gain to lose them. 
 As for those who causelessly hate him, he pities and 
 prays for them : and such there will be. I should 
 suspect his preaching had no salt in it, if no galled 
 horse did wince. 
 
THE FAITHFUL MINISTER. 141 
 
 He is strict in ordering his conversation. As for 
 those who cleanse blurs with blotted fingers, they 
 make it the worse. It was said of one who preached 
 very well, and lived very ill, ' that when he was out 
 of the pulpit, it was pity he should ever go into it ; 
 and when he was in the pulpit, it was pity he should 
 ever come out of it.' But our minister lives sermons. 
 And yet I deny not, but dissolute men, like unskilful 
 horsemen, who open a gate on the wrong side, may, 
 by the virtue of their office, open heaven for others, 
 and shut themselves out. 
 
 His behaviour towards his people is grave and 
 courteous. Not too austere and retired ; which is laid 
 to the charge of good Mr. Hooper the martyr, that his 
 rigidness frighted people from consulting with him. 
 * Let your light,' saith Christ, ' shine before men ; ' 
 whereas over-reservedness makes the brightest virtue 
 burn dim. Especially he detesteth affected gravity 
 (which is rather on men than in them), whereby some 
 belie their register-book, antedate their age to seem 
 far older than they are, and plait and set their brows 
 in an affected sadness. Whereas St. Anthony the 
 monk might have been known among hundreds of his 
 order by his cheerful face, he having ever, though a 
 most mortified man, a merry countenance. 
 
 He doth not clash God's ordinances together about 
 precedency. Not making odious comparisons betwixt 
 prayer and preaching, preaching and catechising, public 
 prayer and private, premeditate prayer and ex tempore. 
 When, at the taking of New Carthage in Spain, two 
 soldiers contended about the mural crown, due to him 
 who first climbed the Avails, so that the whole army 
 
142 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 was thereupon in danger of division ; Scipio the general 
 said, he knew that they both got up the wall together, 
 and so gave the scaling crown to them both. Thus 
 our minister compounds all controversies betwixt 
 God's ordinances, by praising them all, practising 
 them all, and thanking God for them all. He counts 
 the reading of Common Prayers to prepare him the 
 better for preaching ; and, as one said, if he did first 
 toll the bell on one side, it made it afterwards ring 
 out the better in his sermons. 
 
 He carefully catechiseth his people in the elements 
 of religion. Except he hath (a rare thing !) a flock 
 without lambs, of all old sheep ; and yet even Luther 
 did not scorn to profess himself discipulum Catechismi, 
 4 a scholar of the Catechism.' By this catechising, 
 the Gospel first got ground of Popery : and let not 
 our religion, now grown rich, be ashamed of that 
 which first gave it credit and set it up, lest the Jesuits 
 beat us at our own weapon. Through the want of 
 this catechising, many who are well skilled in some 
 dark out-corners of divinity, have lost themselves in 
 the beaten road thereof. 
 
 He will not offer to God of that which costs him 
 nothing. But takes pains aforehand for his sermons. 
 Demosthenes never made any oration on the sudden ; 
 yea, being called upon, he never rose up to speak, 
 except he had well studied the matter : and he was 
 wont to say, * that he showed how he honoured and 
 reverenced the people of Athens, because he was 
 careful what he spake unto them.' Indeed, if our 
 minister be surprised with a sudden occasion, he 
 counts himself rather to be excused than commended, 
 
THE FAITHFUL MINISTER. 148 
 
 if, premeditating only the bones of his sermon, ho 
 clothes it with flesh ex tempore. As for those whose 
 long custom hath made preaching their nature, [so] 
 that they can discourse sermons without study, he 
 accounts their examples rather to be admired than 
 imitated. 
 
 Having brought his sermon into his head, he 
 labours to bring it into his heart before he preaches 
 it to his people. Surely, that preaching which comes 
 from the soul most works on the soul. Some have 
 questioned ventriloquy, when men strangely speak out 
 of their bellies, whether it can be done lawfully or 
 no : might I coin the word cordilogiuy, when men 
 draw the doctrines out of their hearts, sure, all would 
 count this lawful and commendable. 
 
 He chiefly reproves the reigning sins of the time 
 and place he lives in. We may observe, that our 
 Saviour never inveighed against idolatry, usury, 
 sabbath-breaking, amongst the Jews. Not that these 
 were not sins, but they were not practised so much in 
 that age, wherein wickedness was spun with a finer 
 thread ; and therefore Christ principally bent the 
 drift of His preaching against spiritual pride, hypocrisy, 
 and traditions, then predominant amongst the people, 
 Also our minister confuteth no old heresies which 
 time hath confuted; nor troubles his auditory with 
 such strange hideous cases of conscience, that it is 
 more hard to find the case than the resolution. In 
 public reproving of sin, he ever whips the vice and 
 spares the person. 
 
 He doth not only move the bread of life, and toss it 
 up and down in generalities, but also breaks it into 
 
144 TEE HOLY AND TEE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 particular directions. Drawing it down to cases of . 
 conscience, that a man may be warranted in his parti- 
 cular actions, whether they be lawful or not. And he 
 teacheth people their lawful liberty, as well as their 
 restraints and prohibitions ; for, amongst men, it is as 
 ill taken to turn* back favours, as to disobey com- 
 mands. 
 
 The places of Scripture he quotes are pregnant and 
 pertinent. As for heaping up of many quotations, it 
 smacks of a vain ostentation of memory. Besides, it 
 is as impossible that the hearer should profitably retain 
 them all, as that the preacher hath seriously perused 
 them all ; yea, whilst the auditors stop their attention, 
 and stoop down to gather an impertinent quotation, 
 the sermon runs on, and they lose more substantial 
 matter. 
 
 His similes and illustrations are always familiar, 
 never contemptible. Indeed, reasons are the pillars 
 of the fabric of a sermon ; but similitudes are the 
 windows which give the best lights. He avoids such 
 stories whose mention may suggest bad thoughts to 
 the auditors, and will not use a light comparison to 
 make thereof a grave application, for fear lest his 
 poison go farther than his antidote. 
 
 He provideth not only wholesome but plentiful food 
 for his people. Almost incredible was the painfulness 
 of Baronius, the compiler of the voluminous * Annals 
 of the Church,' who, for thirty years together, preached 
 three or four times a- week to the people. As for our 
 minister, he preferreth rather to entertain his people 
 with wholesome cold meat which was on the table 
 before, than with that which is hot from the spit, raw 
 
TEE FAITHFUL MINISTER. 145 
 
 and half-roasted. Yet, in repetition of the same ser- 
 mon, every edition hath a new addition, if not of new 
 matter, of new affections. ' Of whom,' saith St. Paul, 
 * I have told you often, and now tell you even weep- 
 ing ' (Phil. iii. 18). 
 
 He makes not that wearisome, which should ever 
 be welcome. Wherefore his sermons are of an ordinary 
 length, except on an extraordinary occasion. What 
 a gift had John Halsebach, Professor at Vienna, in 
 tediousness ! who, being to expound the Prophet Isaiah 
 to his auditors, read twenty-one years on the first 
 chapter, and yet finished it not. 
 
 He counts the success of his ministry the greatest 
 preferment. Yet herein God hath humbled many 
 painful pastors, in making them to be clouds to rain, 
 not over Arabia the Happy, but over the Stony or 
 Desert. Yet such pastors may comfort themselves, 
 that great is their reward with God in heaven, who 
 measures it, not by their success, but endeavours. 
 Besides, though they see not, their people may feel, 
 benefit by their ministry. Yea, the preaching of the 
 word in some places is like the planting of woods, 
 where, though no profit is received for twenty years 
 together, it comes afterwards. And grant, that God 
 honours thee not to build his temple in thy parish, 
 yet thou mayest, with David, provide metal and 
 materials for Solomon thy successor to build it 
 with. 
 
 To sick folks he comes sometimes before he is sent 
 for, as counting his vocation a sufficient calling. 
 None of his flock shall want the extreme unction of 
 prayer and counsel, Against the communion, espe- 
 
146 TtiE HOLY AND THE PtiOFANE STATE. 
 
 cially, lie endeavours that Janus's temple be shut in 
 the whole parish, and that all be made friends. 
 
 He is never plaintiff in any suit but to be right's 
 defendant. If his dues be detained from him, he 
 grieves more for his parishioner's bad conscience than 
 his own damage. He had rather suffer ten times in 
 his profit, than once in his title, where not only his 
 person, but posterity, is wronged ; and then he pro- 
 ceeds fairly and speedily to a trial, that he may not 
 vex and weary others, but right himself. During his 
 suit he neither breaks off nor slacks offices of courtesy 
 to his adversary ; yea, though he loseth his suit, he 
 will not also lose his charity. 
 
 He is moderate in his tenets and opinions. Not 
 that he gilds over lukewarmness in matters of moment 
 with the title of ' discretion ; ' but, withal, he is care- 
 ful not to entitle violence, in indifferent and incon- 
 cerning matters, to be zeal. Indeed, men of extra- 
 ordinary tallness, though otherwise little deserving, 
 are made porters to lords; and those of unusual 
 littleness are made ladies' dwarfs; whilst men of 
 moderate stature may want masters. Thus many, 
 notorious for extremities, may find favourers to prefer 
 them ; whilst moderate men in the middle truth may 
 want any to advance them. But what saith the 
 apostle ? ' If in this life only we have hope in Christ, 
 we are of all men most miserable ' (1 Cor. xv. 19). 
 
 He is sociable and willing to do any courtesy for 
 his neighbour-ministers. He willingly communicates 
 his knowledge unto them. Surely, the gifts and 
 graces of Christians lay in common, till base envy 
 made the first enclosure. He neither slighteth his 
 
OF SELF-PRAISING. 1^7 
 
 inferiors, nor repineth at those who in parts and credit 
 are above him. He loveth the company of his neigh- 
 bour-ministers. Sure, as ambergris is nothing so 
 sweet in itself, as when it is compounded with other 
 things, so both godly and learned men are gainers by 
 communicating themselves to their neighbours. 
 
 Lying on his death-bed, he bequeaths to each of his 
 parishioners his precepts and example for a legacy. 
 And they, in requital, erect every one a monument 
 for him in their hearts. He is so far from that base 
 jealousy that his memory should be outshined by a 
 brighter successor, and from that wicked desire that 
 his people may find his worth by the worthlessness of 
 him that succeeds, that he doth heartily pray to God 
 to provide them a better pastor after his decease. As 
 for outward estate, he commonly lives in too bare 
 pasture to die fat. It is well if he hath gathered any 
 flesh, being more in blessing than bulk. 
 
 OF SELF-PRAISING. 
 
 HE whose own worth doth speak, need not speak 
 his own worth. Such boasting sounds proceed from 
 emptiness of desert : whereas the conquerors in the 
 Olympian games did not put on the laurels on their 
 own heads, but waited till some other did it. Only 
 anchorets, that want company, may crown themselves 
 with their own commendations. 
 
 It showeth more wit, but no less vanity, to commend 
 one's self, not in a straight line, but by reflexion. 
 Some sail to the port of their own praise by a side- 
 
148 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 wind: as when they dispraise themselves, stripping 
 themselves naked of what is their due, that the 
 modesty of the beholders may clothe them with it 
 again ; or when they flatter another to his face, 
 tossing the ball to him, that he may throw it back 
 again to them ; or when they commend that 
 quality, wkerein themselves excel, in another man 
 (though absent), whom all know far their inferior in 
 that faculty; or lastly (to omit other ambushes men 
 set to surprise praise), when they send the children of 
 their own brain to be nursed by another man, and 
 commend their own works in a third person ; but, if 
 challenged by the company that they were authors of 
 them themselves, with their tongues they faintly deny 
 it, and with their faces strongly affirm it. 
 
 Self-praising comes most naturally from a man when 
 it comes most violently from him in his own defence. 
 For though modesty binds a man's tongue to the 
 peace in this point, yet, being assaulted in his credit, 
 he may stand upon his guard, and then he doth not 
 so much praise as purge himself. One braved a 
 gentleman to his face, that in skill and valour he 
 came far behind him. 'It is true,' said the other, 
 ' for when I fought with you, you ran away before 
 me.' In such a case, it was well returned, and with- 
 out any just aspersion of pride. 
 
 He that falls into sin is a man : that grieves at it, 
 is a saint ; that boasteth of it, is a devil. Yet some 
 glory in their shame, counting the stains of sin the 
 best complexion for their souls. These men make me 
 believe it may be true, what Mandeville writes of the 
 Isle of Somabarre, in the East Indies, that all the 
 
nobility thereof brand their faces with a hot iron, in 
 token of honour. 
 
 He that boasts of sins never committed is a double 
 devil. Many brag how many gardens they have de- 
 flowered, who never came near the walls thereof. 
 Others (who would sooner creep into a scabbard than 
 draw a sword) boast of their robberies, to usurp the 
 esteem of valour: whereas first let them be well 
 whipped for their lying, and, as they like that, let 
 them come afterward and entitle themselves to the 
 gallows. 
 
 OF COMPANY. 
 
 COMPANY is one of the greatest pleasures of the 
 nature of man. For the beams of joy are made hotter 
 by reflexion, when related to another ; and, otherwise, 
 gladness itself must grieve for want of one to express 
 itself to. 
 
 It is unnatural for a man to court and hug solitari- 
 ness. It is observed, that the farthest islands in the 
 world are so seated that there is none so remote but 
 that, from some shore of it, another island or con- 
 tinent may be discerned ; as if hereby nature invited 
 countries to a mutual commerce one with another. 
 Why then should any man affect to environ himself 
 with so deep and great reservedness, as not to com- 
 municate with the society of others? And though 
 we pity those who made solitariness their refuge in 
 time of persecution, we must condemn such as choose 
 it in the Church's prosperity. For, well may we 
 count him not well in his wits, who will live always 
 
150 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 under a bush, because others in a storm shelter them- 
 selves under it. 
 
 Yet a desert is better than a debauched companion. 
 For the wildness of the place is but . uncheerful ; 
 whilst the wildness of bad persons is also infectious. 
 Better, therefore, ride alone, than have a thief s com- 
 pany : and such is a wicked man, who will rob thee 
 of precious time, if he doth no more mischief. The 
 Nazarites, who might drink no wine, were also for- 
 bidden to eat grapes (Numb. vi. 3), whereof wine is 
 made. We must not only avoid sin itself, but also 
 the causes and occasions thereof; amongst which, 
 bad company (the lime-twigs of the devil) is the 
 chiefest, especially to catch those natures which, like 
 the good-fellow planet Mercury, are most swayed by 
 others. 
 
 If thou beest cast into bad company, like Hercules 
 thou must sleep with thy club in thine hand, and 
 stand on thy guard. I mean, if against thy will the 
 tempest of an unexpected occasion drives thee amongst 
 such rocks; then be thou like the river Dee, in 
 Merionethshire in Wales, which, running through 
 Pimble-mere, remains entire, and mingles not her 
 streams with the waters of the lake. Though with 
 them, be not of them; keep civil communion with 
 them, but separate from their sins. And if against 
 thy will thou fallest amongst wicked men, know to 
 thy comfort, thou art still in thy calling, and there- 
 fore in Grod's keeping, who on thy prayers will 
 preserve thee. 
 
 The company he keeps is the comment by help 
 whereof men expound the most close and mystical 
 
OF COMPANY. 151 
 
 man : understanding him for one of the same religion, 
 life, and manners with his associates. And though 
 perchance he be not such an one, it is just he should 
 be counted so for conversing with them. 
 
 ' He that eat cherries with noblemen shall have his 
 eyes spirted out with the stones.' This outlandish 
 proverb hath in it an English truth, that they who 
 constantly converse with men far above their estates 
 shall reap shame and loss thereby. If thou payest 
 nothing, they will count thee a sucker, no branch ; a 
 wen, no member of their company. If in payments 
 thou keepest pace with them, their long strides will 
 soon tire thy short legs. The beavers in New Eng- 
 land, when some ten of them together draw a stick to 
 the building of their lodging, set the weakest beavers 
 to the lighter end of the log, and the strongest take 
 the heaviest part thereof: whereas men often lay the 
 greatest burden on the weakest back; and great 
 persons, to teach meaner men to learn their distance, 
 take pleasure to make them pay for their company. 
 I except such men, who, having some excellent 
 quality, are gratis very welcome to their betters; 
 such an one, though he pays not a penny of the 
 shot, spends enough in lending them his time and 
 discourse. 
 
 To affect always to be the best of the company 
 argues a base disposition. Gold always worn in the 
 same purse with silver, loses both of the colour and 
 weight ; and so, to converse always with inferiors, 
 degrades a man of his worth. Such there are that 
 love to be the lords of the company, whilst the rest 
 must be their tenants ; as if bound by their lease to 
 
152 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 approve, praise, and admire whatsoever they say. 
 These, knowing the lowness of their parts, love to 
 live with dwarfs, that they may seem proper men. 
 
 It is excellent for one to have a library of scholars, 
 especially if they be plain to be read. I mean, of a 
 communicative nature, whose discourses are as full as 
 fluent, and their judgments as right as their tongues 
 ready : such men's talk shall be thy lectures. To con- 
 clude : Good company is not only profitable whilst a 
 man lives, but sometimes when he is dead. For he 
 that was buried with the bones of Elisha, by a post- 
 humous miracle of that prophet, recovered his life by 
 lodging with such a grave-fellow (2 Kings xiii. 21). 
 
 OF APPAKEL. 
 
 CLOTHES are for necessity ; warm clothes, for health; 
 cleanly, for decency ; lasting, for thrift ; and rich, for 
 magnificence. Now there may be a fault in their 
 number, if too various making, if too vain matter, 
 if too costly and mind of the wearer, if he takes 
 pride therein. We come therefore to some general 
 directions. 
 
 It is a chargeable vanity to be constantly clothed 
 above one's purse or place. I say ' constantly ; J for, 
 perchance, sometimes it may be dispensed with. A 
 great man, who himself was very plain in apparel, 
 checked a gentleman for being over-fine ; who modestly 
 answered, ' Your lordship hath better clothes at home, 
 and I have worse.' But, what shall we say to the riot 
 of our age? wherein (as peacocks are more gay than 
 
OF APPAREL, 153 
 
 the eagle himself) subjects are grown braver than 
 their sovereign. 
 
 It is beneath a wise man always to wear clothes 
 beneath me^ of iank. True, tkre is a state some- 
 tij^cs in decent plainness. When a wealthy lord, at 
 a great solemnity, had the plainest apparel, ' Oh ! ' 
 said one, ' if you had marked it well, his suit had the 
 richest pockets.' Yet it argues no wisdom, in clothes, 
 always to stoop beneath his condition. When An- 
 tisthenes saw Socrates in a torn coat, he showed a hole 
 thereof to the people ; ' And, lo ! ' quoth he, through 
 this I see Socrates' pride ! J 
 
 He shows a light gravity who loves to be an excep- 
 tion from a general fashion. For the received custom 
 in the place where we live is the most competent judge 
 of decency; from which we must not appeal to our 
 own opinion. When the French courtiers, mourning 
 for their King Henry II. , had worn cloth a whole year, 
 all silks became so vile in every man's eyes, that if any 
 was seen to wear them, he was presently accounted a 
 mechanic or country-fellow. 
 
 It is a folly for one, Proteus-like, never to appear 
 twice in one shape. Had some of our gallants been 
 with the Israelites in the wilderness, when for forty 
 years their clothes waxed not old (Deut. xxix. 5), they 
 would have been vexed, though their clothes were 
 whole, to have been so long in one fashion. 
 
 He that is proud of the rustling of his silks, like a 
 madman, laughs at the rattling of his fetters. For 
 indeed, clothes ought to be our remembrancers of our 
 lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of what 
 is but borrowed? Should the ostrich snatch off the 
 
154 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 gallant's feather, the beaver his hat, the goat his gloves, 
 the sheep his suit, the silkworm his stockings, and oxen 
 his shoes (to strip him no further than modesty will 
 give leave), he would be left in a cold erudition. And 
 yet it is more pardonable to be proud, even ot cicely 
 rags, than, as many are, of affected slovenliness. The 
 one is proud of a molehill, the other of a dunghill. 
 
 OF ANGER. 
 
 ANGER is -one of the sinews of the soul : he that 
 wants it hath a maimed mind, and, with Jacob, sinew- 
 shrunk in the hollow of his thigh, must needs halt. 
 Nor is it good to converse with such as cannot be 
 angry, and, with the Caspian Sea, never ebb nor flow. 
 This anger is either heavenly, when one is offended 
 for God ; or hellish, when offended with God and good- 
 ness ; or earthly, in temporal matters. Which earthly 
 anger (whereof we treat) may also be hellish, if for no 
 cause, no great cause, too hot, or too long. 
 
 Be not angry with any without a cause. If thou 
 beest, thou must not only, as the proverb saith, be 
 appoased without amends, having neither cost nor 
 damage given thee, but, as our Saviour saith, be in 
 danger of the judgment (Matt. v. 22). 
 
 Be not mortally angry with any for a venial fault. 
 He will make a strange combustion in the state of his 
 soul, who, at the landing of every cock-boat, sets the 
 beacons on fire. To be angry for every toy, debases 
 the worth of thy anger ; for he who will be angry for 
 anything, will be angry for nothing. . 
 
OF ANGER. 155 
 
 Let riot thy anger be so hot, but that the most 
 torrid zone thereof may be habitable. Fright not 
 people from thy presence with the terror of thy in- 
 tolerable impatience. Some men, like a tiled house, 
 are long before they take fire ; but once on flame, there 
 is no coming near to quench them. 
 
 Take heed of doing irrevocable acts in thy passion. 
 As the revealing of secrets, which makes thee a bank- 
 rupt for society ever after. Neither do such things 
 which, done once, are done for ever, so that no be- 
 moaning can amend them. Samson's hair grew again, 
 but not his eyes. Time may restore some losses, 
 others are never to be repaired. Wherefore, in thy 
 rage, make no Persian decree which cannot be reversed 
 or repealed; but rather Polonian laws, which (they 
 say) last but three days. Do not in an instant what 
 an age cannot recompense. 
 
 Anger kept till the next morning, with manna, doth 
 putrefy and corrupt. Save that manna corrupted not 
 at all, and anger most of all, kept over the next sabbath 
 (Exod. xvi. 24). St. Paul saith, 'Let not the sun 
 go down on your wrath ' (Ephes. iv. 26) ; to carry 
 news, to the antipodes in another world, of thy re- 
 vengeful nature. Yet let us take the apostle's mean- 
 ing rather than his words, with all possible speed to 
 depose our passion ; not understanding him so literally 
 that we may take leave to be angry till sunset : then 
 might our wrath lengthen with the days ; and men in 
 Greenland, where day lasts above a quarter of a year, 
 have plentiful scope of revenge. And as the English, 
 by command from William the Conqueror, always 
 raked up their fire, and put out their candles, when 
 
156 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 the curfew-bell was rung, let us then also quench all 
 sparks of anger and heat of passion. 
 
 He that keeps anger long in his hosom giveth place 
 to the devil (Ephes. iv. 27). And why should we 
 make room for him, who will crowd in too fast of 
 himself? Heat of passion makes our souls to chap, 
 and the devil creeps in at the crannies ; yea, a furious 
 man in his fits may seem possessed with a devil, foams, 
 fumes, tears himself; is deaf and dumb, in effect, to 
 hear or speak reason ; sometimes wallows, stares, 
 stamps, with fiery eyes and flaming cheeks. Had 
 Narcissus himself seen his own face when he had been 
 angry, he could never have fallen in love with himself. 
 
 OF CONTENTMENT. 
 
 IT is one property which (they say) is required of 
 those who seek for the philosopher's stone, that they 
 must not do it with any covetous desire to be rich ; 
 for otherwise they shall never find it. But most true 
 it is, that whosoever would have this jewel of con- 
 tentment (which turns all Into gold, yea, want into 
 wealth) must come with minds divested of all am- 
 bitious and covetous thoughts, else are they never 
 likely to obtain it. We will describe contentment 
 first negatively : 
 
 It is not a senseless stupidity respecting what be- 
 comes of our outward estates. God would have us 
 take notice of all accidents, which, from him, happen 
 to us in worldly matters. Had the martyrs had the 
 dead palsy before they went to the stake to be burnt* 
 their sufferings had not been so glorious. 
 
OF CONTENTMENT. 157 
 
 It is not a word-braving or scorning of all wealth in 
 discourse. Generally those who boast most of con- 
 tentment have least of it. Their very boasting shows 
 that they want something, and basely beg it, namely 9 
 commendation. These in their language are like unto 
 kites in their flying, which mount in the air so scorn- 
 fully, as if they disdained to stoop for the whole earth, 
 fetching about many stately circuits. But what is 
 the spirit these conjurers, with so many circles, intend 
 to raise ? A poor chicken, or, perchance, a piece of 
 carrion : and so the height of the others' proud boast- 
 ing will humble itself for a little base gain. 
 
 But it is a humble and willing submitting our- 
 selves to God's pleasure in all conditions. One 
 observeth (how truly, I dispute not !) that the French 
 naturally have so elegant and graceful a carriage, that 
 what posture of body soever in their salutations, or 
 what fashion of attire soever they are pleased to take 
 on them, it doth so beseem them that one would 
 think nothing can become them better. Thus, con- 
 tentment makes men carry themselves gracefully in 
 wealth, want, health, sickness, freedom, fetters, yea, 
 what condition soever God allots them. 
 
 It is no breach of contentment for men to complain 
 that their sufferings are unjust, as offered by men 
 provided they allow them for just, as proceeding from 
 God, who useth wicked men's injustice to correct his 
 children. But let us take heed that we bite not so 
 high at the handle of the rod as to fasten on His hand 
 that holds it; our discontentments mounting so high, 
 as to quarrel with God himself. 
 
 It is no breach of contentment for men, by lawful 
 
158 THE HOLY AND THE PBOFANE STATE. 
 
 means, to seek the removal of their misery, and better- 
 ing of their estate. Thus men ought, by industry, to 
 endeavour the getting of more wealth, ever submitting 
 themselves to God's will. A lazy hand is no argu- 
 ment of a contented heart. Indeed, he that is idle, 
 and followeth after vain persons, shall have enough : 
 but how ? ' Shall have poverty enough ' (Prov. 
 xxviii. 19). 
 
 God's Spirit is the best schoolmaster to teach 
 contentment : a schoolmaster who can make good 
 scholars, and warrant the success as well as his en- 
 deavour. The school of sanctified afflictions is the 
 best place to learn contentment in : I say ' sancti- 
 fied;' for, naturally, like resty horses, we go the 
 worse for the beating, if God bless not afflictions 
 unto us. 
 
 Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, 
 but in taking away some fire not in multiplying of 
 wealth, but in subtracting men's desires. Worldly 
 riches, like nuts, tear many clothes in getting them, 
 spoil many teeth in cracking them, but fill no belly 
 with eating them. Yea, our souls may sooner surfeit 
 than be satisfied with earthly things. He that at 
 first thought ten thousand pounds too much for any 
 one man, will afterwards think ten millions too little 
 for himself. 
 
 Pious meditations much advantage contentment in 
 adversity. Such as these are, to consider : First, that 
 more are beneath us than above us. Secondly, many 
 of God's dear saints have been in the same condition. 
 Thirdly, we want rather superfluities than necessaries. 
 Fourthly, the more we have, the more we must ac- 
 
OF CONTENTMENT. 159 
 
 count for. Fifthly, earthly blessings, through man's 
 corruption, are more prone to be abused than well- 
 used. In some fenny places in England, where they 
 are much troubled with gnats, they used to hang up 
 dung in the midst of the room for a bait for the gnats 
 to fly to, and so catch them with a net provided for 
 the purpose. Thus the devil ensnareth the souls of 
 many men by illuring l them with the muck and dung 
 of this world, to undo them eternally. Sixthly, we 
 must leave all earthly wealth at our death ; ' and 
 riches avail not in the day of wrath.' But as some 
 used to fill up the stamp of light gold with dirt, there- 
 by to make it weigh the heavier ; so it seems some 
 men load their souls with thick clay, to make them 
 pass the better in God's balance : but all to no pur- 
 pose. Seventhly, the less we have, the less it will 
 grieve us to leave this world. Lastly, it is the will of 
 God, and therefore both for his glory and our good, 
 whereof we ought to be assured. I have heard how a 
 gentleman, travelling in a misty morning, asked of a 
 shepherd (such men being generally skilled in the 
 physiognomy of the heavens) what weather it would 
 be. ' It will be,' said the shepherd, ' what weather 
 shall please me : ' and being courteously requested 
 to express his meaning ; ' Sir,' said he, ' it shall 
 be what weather pleaseth God; and what weather 
 pleaseth God, pleaseth me.' Thus contentment 
 maketh men to have what they think fitting them- 
 selves, because submitting to God's will and pleasure. 
 To conclude : A man ought to be like a cunning 
 
 1 Deceiving, beguiling. Illusion and illusive, from the 
 same root, still remain in use. 
 
160 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 actor, who, if he be enjoined to represent the perso 
 of some prince or nobleman, does it with a grace and 
 comeliness ; if, by-and-by, he be commanded to lay 
 that aside and play the beggar, he does that as wilL 
 ingly and as well. 
 
 OF TIME-SERVING. 
 
 THERE be four kinds of time-serving. First, out of 
 Christian discretion, which is commendable. Second, 
 out of human infirmity, which is more pardonable. 
 Third and fourth, out of ignorance or affectation, both 
 which are damnable. Of them in order : 
 
 He is a good time-server that complies his manners 
 to the several ages of this life. Pleasant in youth, 
 without wantonness ; grave in old age, without fro- 
 wardness. Frost is as proper for winter as flowers 
 for spring. Gravity becomes the ancient ; and a 
 green Christmas is neither handsome nor healthful. 
 
 He is a good time-server that finds out the fittest 
 opportunity for every action. God hath made f a 
 time for everything under the sun,' save only for that 
 which we do at all times, to wit, sin. 
 
 He is a good time-server that improves the present 
 for God's glory and his own salvation. Of all the 
 extent of time, only the instant is that we can call 
 ' ours.' 
 
 He is a good time-server that is pliant to the times 
 in matters of mere indifferency. To blame are they 
 whose minds may seem to be made of one entire bone, 
 without any joints. They cannot bend at all, but 
 
OF TIME-SERVING. 161 
 
 stand as stiffly in things of pure indifferency as in 
 matters of absolute necessity. 
 
 He is a good time-server that in time of persecution 
 neither betrays God's cause nor his own safety. And 
 this he may do, 
 
 1. By lying hid both in his person and practice. 
 Though he will do no evil, he will forbear the public 
 doing of some good. He hath as good cheer in his 
 heart, though he keeps notf open house, and will not 
 publicly broach his religion, till the palate of the 
 times be better in taste to relish it. ' The prudent 
 shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time ' 
 (Amos v. 13) ; though, according to St. Peter's com- 
 mand, we are ' to give a reason of our hope to every 
 one that asketh ' (1 Peter iii. 15) ; namely, that 
 asketh for his instruction, but not for our destruction, 
 especially if wanting lawful authority to examine us. 
 4 Ye shall be brought,' saith Christ (no need have 
 they, therefore, to run !), c before governors and kings 
 for my sake' (Matt. x. 18). 
 
 2. By flying away. If there be no absolute neces- 
 sity of his staying, no scandal given by his flight ; if 
 he wants strength to stay it out till death; and, 
 lastly, if God openeth a fair way for his departure. 
 Otherwise, if God bolts the doors and windows against 
 him, he is not to creep out at the top of the chimney, 
 and escape by unwarrantable courses. If all should 
 fly, truth would want champions for the present ; if 
 none should fly, truth might want champions for the 
 future. 
 
 We come now to time-servers out of infirmity : 
 Heart-of-oak hath sometimes warped a little in the 
 
 F 
 
1G2 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE, 
 
 scorching heat of persecution. Their want of true 
 courage herein cannot be excused. Yet many censure 
 them for surrendering up their forts after a long siege, 
 who would have yielded up their own at the first 
 summons. Oh ! there is more required to make one 
 valiant, than to call Cranmer or Jewel ' coward ; ' as 
 if the fire in Smithfield had been no hotter than what 
 is painted in the Book of Martyrs. 
 
 Yet afterwards they have come into their former 
 straightness and stiffness. The troops which at first 
 rather wheeled about than ran away, have come in 
 seasonable at last. Yea, their constant blushing for 
 shame of their former cowardliness hath made their 
 souls ever after look more modest and beautiful. 
 Thus Cranmer, who subscribed to Popery, grew valiant 
 afterwards, and thrust his right hand, which sub- 
 scribed, first into the fire ; so that that hand died (as 
 it were) a malefactor, and all the rest of his body a 
 martyr. 
 
 Some have served the times out of mere ignorance. 
 Gaping, for company, as others gaped before them, 
 Pater noster, or 'Our Father.' 1 I could both sigh 
 and smile at the witty simplicity of a poor old woman, 
 who had lived in the days of Queen Mary and Queen 
 Elizabeth, and said her prayers daily both in Latin 
 and English ; and ' Let God/ said she, f take to him- 
 self which he likes best.' 
 
 But worst are those who serve the times out of 
 mere affectation. Doing as the times do, not because 
 the times do as they should do, but merely for sinister 
 
 1 The Lord's prayer, either according to the Popish or 
 Protestant form. 
 
THE WITCH OF ENDOR. 163 
 
 respects, to ingratiate themselves. We read of an 
 carl of Oxford fined by King Henry VII. fifteen thou- 
 sand marks for having too many retainers. But how 
 many retainers hath time had in all ages, and ser- 
 vants in all offices ! yea, and chaplains too ! 
 
 Time-servers are oftentimes left in the lurch. Such, 
 when the times turn afterwards to another extreme, 
 are left in the briers, and come off very hardly from 
 the bill of their hands. If they turn again with the 
 times, none will trust them ; for who will make a 
 staff of an osier ? 
 
 Miserable will be the condition of such time-servers 
 when their master is taken from them when, as the 
 angel swore, that ' TIME shall be no longer ' (Rev. x- 
 6). Therefore, it is best serving of Him who is 
 ETERNITY, a Master that can ever protect us. 
 
 To conclude: He that intends to meet with one in 
 a great fair, and knows not where he is, may sooner 
 find him by standing still in some principal place 
 there, than by traversing it up and down. Take thy 
 stand on some good ground in religion, and keep thy 
 station in a fixed posture, never hunting after the . 
 times to follow them ; and, a hundred to one, they 
 will come to thee once in thy life-time. 
 
 THE WITCH OF ENDOR. 
 (1 Sam. xxviii.) 
 
 HER proper name we neither find, nor need curi- 
 ously inquire ; without it, she is described enough for 
 our knowledge, too much for her shame. 
 
 King Saul had banished all witches and sorcerers 
 
164 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 out of Israel ; but no besom can sweep so clean as to 
 leave no crumb of dust behind it. This witch of 
 Endor still keeps herself safe in the land. God hath 
 1 his remnant,' where saints'; are cruelly persecuted ; 
 Satan also his remnant, where offenders are severely 
 prosecuted, and (if there were no more) the whole 
 species of witches is preserved in this individuum, till 
 more be provided. 
 
 It happened now, that King Saul, being ready to 
 fight with the Philistines, was in great distress, 
 because God answered him not concerning the success 
 of the battle. With the silent, He will be silent : 
 Saul gave no real answer in his obedience to God's 
 commands, God will give no vocal answer to Saul's 
 requests. 
 
 Men's minds are naturally ambitious to know things 
 to come : Saul is restless to know the issue of the 
 fight. Alas ! what needed he to set his teeth on edge 
 with the sourness of that bad tidings, who soon after 
 was to have his belly full thereof? 
 
 He said to his servants, ' Seek me out ' (no wonder 
 she was such a jewel to be sought for!) 'one with a 
 familiar spirit.' Which was accordingly performed, 
 and Saul came to her in a disguise. Formerly Samuel 
 told him that his ' disobedience was as witchcraft ; ' 
 now Saul falls from the like to the same, and tradeth 
 with witches indeed (the receiver is as bad as the 
 thief!), and at his request she raiseth up Samuel to 
 come unto him. 
 
 ' What ! true Samuel ? ' It is above Satan's power 
 to degrade a saint from glory, though for a moment : 
 since his own fall thence he could fetch none from 
 
TEE WITCH OF EtfDOR, 1G5 
 
 heaven. ' Or was it only the true body of Samuel ? ' 
 No; the precious ashes of the saints (the pawn for 
 the return of their souls !) are locked up safe in the 
 cabinet of their graves, and the devil hath no key 
 unto it. 
 
 'Or, 'lastly, was it his seeming body?' He that 
 could not counterfeit the least and worst of worms 
 (Exod. viii. 18), could he dissemble the shape of one 
 of the best "and greatest of men ? Yet this is most 
 probable, seeing Satan could change himself into an 
 angel of light, and God gives him more power at some 
 times than at other. However, we will not be too 
 peremptory herein, and build standing structures of 
 bold assertions on so uncertain a foundation : rather , 
 with the Rechabites, we will live in tents of conjee* 
 tures, which, on better reason, we may easily alter 
 and remove. 
 
 The devil's speech looks backward and forward, 
 relates and foretells. The historical part thereof is 
 easy, recounting God's special favours to Saul, and 
 his ingratitude to God, and the matter thereof very 
 pious. ' Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord ! ' 
 (whether to him or of him !) ' shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven.' For Satan here useth the 
 Lord's name six times in four verses. The prophetical 
 part of his speech is harder, how he could foretell? 
 'To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.' 
 ' What ! with me, true Samuel, in heaven ? ' That 
 was too good a place (will some say) for Saul. ' Or 
 with me, true Satan, in hell ? ' That was too bad a 
 place for Jonathan. ' What then ? ' ' With me, pre- 
 tended Samuel, in hades, in the state of the dead.' 
 
16(3 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 But how came the witch or Satan by this know- 
 ledge? Surely that ugly monster never looked his 
 face in that beautiful glass of the Trinity, which (as 
 some will have it) represents things to the blessed 
 angels. No doubt, then, he gathered it by experi- 
 mental collection, who, having kept an exact ephe- 
 merides of all actions for more than five thousand 
 years together, can thereby make a more than pro- 
 bable guess of future contingents ; the rather, because 
 accidents in this world are not so much new as 
 renewed. Besides, he saw it in the natural causes, 
 in the strength of the Philistines and weakness of the 
 Israelitish army, and in David's ripeness to succeed 
 Saul in the throne. Perchance, as vultures are said 
 to smell the earthliness of a dying corpse ; so this 
 bird of prey resented a worse than earthly savour in 
 the soul of Saul, an evidence of his death at hand. 
 Or else we may say, the devil knew it by particular 
 revelation ; for God, to use the devil for his own turn, 
 might impart it unto him, to advance wicked men's 
 repute of Satan's power, that they who would be 
 deceived should be deceived to believe that Satan 
 knows more than he does. 
 
 The dismal news so frighted Saul, that he fell along 
 on the earth ; and yet at last is persuaded to arise 
 and eat meat, she killing and dressing a fat calf for 
 him. 
 
 Witches generally are so poor they can scarce 
 feed themselves. See here one able to feast a king- 
 ' That which goeth into the mouth defileth not.' 
 Better eat meat of her dressing, than take counsel 
 of her giving ; and her hands might be clean, whose 
 
THE ATHEIST. 1C7 
 
 soul meddled with unclean spirits. Saul " must eat 
 somewhat, that he might be strengthened to live to 
 be killed, as afterwards it came to pass. And here 
 the mention of this witch in Scripture vanisheth 
 away, and we will follow her no further. If after- 
 wards she escaped the justice of man, God's judgment, 
 without her repentance, hath long since overtaken 
 her. 
 
 THE ATHEIST. 
 
 THE word ' atheist ' is of a very large extent : 
 every polytheist is, in effect, an atheist ; for he that 
 multiplies a deity, annihilates it : and he that divides 
 it, destroys it. 
 
 But, amongst the heathen, we may observe that 
 whosoever sought to withdraw people from their 
 idolatry was presently indicted and arraigned of 
 atheism. If any philosopher saw God through their 
 gods, this dust was cast in his eyes for being more 
 quick-sighted than others, that presently he was 
 condemned for an atheist; and thus Socrates, the 
 Pagan martyr, was put to death as an atheist. At 
 this day three sorts of atheists are extant in the 
 world : 
 
 1. In life and conversation. f God is not in all 
 his thoughts ' (Psalm x. 4) : not that he thinks 
 there is no God; but he thinks not there is a God, 
 never minding or heeding Him in the whole course 
 of his life and actions. 
 
 2. In will and desire. Such could wish there were 
 
168 THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STAT&. 
 
 no God nor devil ; as thieves would have no judge 
 nor jailor. Quod metuunt periisse expetunt. 1 
 
 3. In judgment and opinion. Of the former two 
 sorts of atheists, there are more in the world than are 
 generally thought; of this latter, more are thought 
 to be than there are ; a contemplative atheist being 
 very rare, such as were Diagoras, Protagoras, Lucia n, 
 and Theodorus, who, though carrying God in his 
 name, was an atheist in his opinion. 
 
 Come we to see by what degrees a man may climb 
 up to this height of profaneness. And we will sup- 
 pose him to be one living in wealth and prosperity, 
 which more disposeth men to atheism than adversity. 
 For, affliction mindeth men of a Deity, as those who 
 are pinched will cry, ' Lord ! ' But much outward 
 happiness, abused, occasioneth men, as wise Agur 
 observeth, ' to deny God, and say, "Who is the 
 Lord?"' 
 
 First, he quarrels at the diversities of religions in 
 the world, complaining how great clerks 'dissent 
 in their judgments, which makes him sceptical in all 
 opinions : whereas such differences should not make 
 men careless to have any, but careful to have the 
 best, religion. 
 
 He loveth to maintain paradoxes, and to shut his 
 eyes against the beams of a known truth. Not only 
 for discourse, which might be permitted : for as no 
 cloth can be woven except the woof and the warp 
 be cast cross one to another, so discourse will not be 
 maintained without some opposition for the time. 
 But our inclining atheist goes farther, engaging his 
 1 ' They wish the destruction of that which they dread,' 
 
TEE ATHEIST. 169 
 
 affections in disputes, even in such matters where 
 the supposing them wounds piety, but the positive 
 maintaining them stabs it to the heart. 
 
 He scoffs and makes sport at sacred things. This, 
 by degrees, abates the reverence of religion, and 
 ulcers men's hearts with profaneness. The Popish 
 proverb, well understood, hath a truth in it : ' Never 
 dog barked against the crucifix, but he ran mad.' 
 
 Hence he proceeds to take exception at God's word. 
 He keeps a register of many difficult places of Scrip- 
 ture ; not that he desires satisfaction therein, but 
 delights to puzzle divines therewith; and counts it 
 a great conquest when he hath posed them. Unne- 
 cessary questions out of the Bible are his most 
 necessary study ; and he is more curious to know 
 where Lazarus's soul was, the four days he lay in the 
 grave, than careful to provide for his own soul when 
 he shall be dead. Thus is it just with God, that 
 they who will not feed on the plain meat of his word, 
 should be choked with the bones thereof. But his 
 principal delight is to sound the alarum, and to set 
 several places of Scripture to fight one against another, 
 betwixt which there is a seeming, and he would make 
 a real, contradiction. 
 
 Afterwards he grows so impudent as to deny the 
 Scripture itself. As Samson, being fastened by a 
 web to a pin, carried away both web and pin ; so 
 if any urge our atheist with arguments from Scrip- 
 ture, and tie him to the authority of God's word, he 
 denies both reason and God's word, to which the 
 reason is fastened. 
 
 Hence he proceeds to deny God himself. First, in 
 
170 THE HOLY AND THE PliOFANE STATE. 
 
 his administration ; then, in his essence. What else 
 could be expected but that he should bite at last who 
 had snarled so long ? First, he denies God's ordering 
 of sublunary matters. ' Tush, doth the Lord see, or 
 is there knowledge in the Most High ? ' making him 
 a maimed Deity, without an eye of providence or an 
 arm of power, and, at most, restraining him only to 
 matters above the clouds. But he that dares to 
 confine the King of heaven, will soon after endeavour 
 to depose him, and fall, at last, flatly to deny him. 
 
 He furnisheth himself with an armoury of argu- 
 ments to fight against his own conscience. Some 
 taken from 
 
 1. The impunity and outward happiness of wicked 
 men. And no wonder if an atheist breaks his neck 
 thereat, whereat the foot of David himself did almost 
 slip when he saw the prosperity of the wicked (Psalm 
 Ixxiii. 2, 3) : whom God only reprieves for punish- 
 ment hereafter. 
 
 2. From the afflictions of the godly, whilst, indeed, 
 God only tries their faith by patience. As Absalom 
 complained of his father David's government, that 
 none were deputed to redress people's grievances ; so 
 he objects that none righteth the wrongs of God's 
 people, and thinks (proud dust !) the world would be 
 better steered if he were the pilot thereof. 
 
 3. From the delaying of the day of judgment, 
 with those mockers whose objections the apostle 
 fully answereth (2 Peter iii.). And in regard of his 
 own particular, the atheist hath as little cause to 
 rejoice at the deferring of the day of judgment, as 
 the thief hath reason to be glad that the assizes be 
 
THE HERETIC. 171 
 
 put off, who is to be tried, and may be executed 
 before, at the quarter-sessions : so death may take our 
 atheist off, before the day of judgment come. 
 
 With these and other arguments he struggles with 
 his own conscience, and long in vain seeks to conquer 
 it, even fearing that Deity he flouts at, and dreading 
 that God whom he denies. And as that famous 
 Athenian soldier, Cynasgirus, catching hold of one of 
 the enemy's ships, held it first with his right hand, 
 and, when that was cut off, with his left, and when 
 both were cut off, yet still kept it with his teeth ; so 
 the conscience of our atheist though he bruise it, 
 and beat it, and maim it never so much still keeps 
 him by the teeth, still feeding and gnawing upon 
 him, torturing and tormenting him with thoughts of 
 a Deity which the other desires to suppress. 
 
 At last he himself is utterly overthrown by con- 
 quering his own conscience. God in justice takes 
 from him the light which he thrust from himself, 
 and delivers him up to a seared conscience and a 
 reprobate mind, whereby hell takes possession of him. 
 The apostle saith that a man may feel God in his 
 works (Acts xvii. 27). But our atheist hath a dead 
 palsy, is past all sense, and cannot perceive God, who 
 is everywhere presented to him. 
 
 THE HEEETIC. 
 
 IT is very difficult accurately to define him. 
 Amongst the heathen atheist was, and amongst 
 Christians heretic is, the disgraceful word-of-course, 
 always cast upon those who dissent from the pre* 
 
172 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 dominant current of the time. Thus those who in 
 matters of opinion varied from the Pope's copy the 
 least hair-stroke, are condemned for heretics. Yea, 
 Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburg, was branded with that 
 censure, for maintaining that there were antipodes 
 opposite to the then known world. It may be, as 
 Alexander, hearing the philosophers dispute of more 
 worlds, wept that he had conquered no part of them ; 
 so it grieved the Pope that these antipodes were not 
 subject to his jurisdiction, which much incensed his 
 holiness against the strange opinion. We will branch 
 the description of a heretic into these three parts : 
 
 1. He is one that formerly hath been of the true 
 Church. 'They went out from us, but they were 
 not of us J t (l John ii. 19). These afterwards prove 
 more offensive to the Church than very Pagans ; as 
 the English-Irish, descended anciently of English 
 parentage, (be it spoken with the more shame to 
 them, and sorrow to us !) turning wild, become worse 
 enemies to our nation than the native Irish them- 
 selves. 
 
 2. Maintaining a fundamental error. Every scratch 
 in the hand is not a stab to the heart ; nor cloth every 
 false opinion make a heretic. 
 
 3. With obstinacy. Which is the dead flesh, 
 making the green wound of an error fester into the 
 old sore of a heresy. 
 
 It matters not much what manner of person he 
 hath. If beautiful, perchance the more attractive 
 of feminine followers : if deformed, so that his body 
 is as odd as his opinions, he is the more properly 
 entitled to the reputation of e crooked saint.' 
 
TEE HERETIC. 173 
 
 His natural parts are quick and able. Yet he that 
 shall ride on a winged horse to tell him thereof, shall 
 but come too late, to bring him stale news of what he 
 knew too well before. 
 
 Learning is necessary in him, if he trades in a 
 critical error. But if he only broaches dregs, and 
 deals in some dull, sottish opinion, a trowel will serve 
 as well as a pencil to daub on such thick coarse 
 colours. Yea, in some heresies, deep studying is so 
 useless, that the first thing they learn is to inveigh 
 against all learning. 
 
 However, some smattering in the original tongues 
 will do well. On occasion, he will let fly whole 
 volleys of Greek and Hebrew words; whereby he 
 not only amazeth his ignorant auditors, but also in 
 conference daunteth many of his opposers, who, 
 though in all other learning far his superiors, may 
 perchance be conscious of want of skill in those 
 languages, whilst the heretic hereby gains credit to 
 his cause and person. 
 
 His behaviour is seemingly very pious and devout. 
 How foul soever the postern and back-door be, the 
 gate opening to the street is swept and garnished, and 
 his outside adorned with pretended austerity. 
 
 He is extremely proud, and discontented with the 
 times quarrelling that many, beneath him in piety, 
 are above him in place. This pride hath caused 
 many men who otherwise might have been ' shining 
 lights/ to prove smoking firebrands in the Church. 
 
 Having first hammered the heresy in himself, he 
 then falls to seducing of others. So hard is it for one 
 to have the itch, and not to scratch. Yea, Babylon 
 
174 TEE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. 
 
 herself will allege, that ' for Sion's sake she will not 
 hold her peace.' The necessity of propagating the 
 truth is error's plea to divulge her falsehoods. Men, 
 as naturally they desire to know, so they desire what 
 they know should be known. 
 
 If challenged to a private dispute, his impudence 
 bears him out. He counts it the only error, to confess 
 he hath erred. His face is of brass, which may be 
 said either ever or never to blush. In disputing, his 
 modus is sine modo ; l and, as if all figures (even in 
 logic) were magical, he neglects all forms of reasoning, 
 counting that the only syllogism which is his con- 
 clusion. 
 
 He slights any synod, if condemning his opinions. 
 Esteeming the decisions thereof no more than the 
 forfeits in a barber's shop, where a gentleman's pleasure 
 is all the obligation to pay, and none are bound except 
 they will bind themselves. 
 
 1 ' His method is immethodical.' 
 
MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 
 
FULLER was a most prolific and voluminous writer. A mere 
 list of the titles of his published works would fill several pages ; 
 to give selections from them all would be impossible. The 
 names of the most important have been recorded, and the 
 circumstances under which they were written narrated in the 
 Memoir prefixed to this volume. The extracts which follow 
 are taken from his Church History of Britain, his Worthies of 
 England, and from Sermons, Expositions, and other minor 
 treatises. The passages selected from his historical works will 
 illustrate the quaint, humorous, anecdotical manner in which 
 he wrote even Ecclesiastical history. 
 
Primitive Monks. When the furnace of perse- 
 cution in the infancy of Christianity was grown so 
 hot, that most cities, towns, and populous places were 
 visited with that epidemical disease, many pious men 
 fled into deserts, there to live with more safety, and 
 serve God with less disturbance. No wild humour to 
 make themselves miserable, and to choose and court 
 their own calamity, put them on this project ; much 
 less any superstitious opinion of transcendent sanctity 
 in a solitary life made them willingly to leave their 
 former habitations. For, whereas all men by their 
 birth are indebted to their country, there to stay and 
 discharge all civil relations, it had been dishonesty in 
 them, like bankrupts, to run away into the wilderness 
 to defraud their country, their creditor, except some 
 violent occasion (such as persecution was) forced them 
 thereunto : and this was the first original of monks 
 in the world, so called from povos, because 'living 
 alone by themselves.' 
 
 Here they, in the deserts, hoped to find rocks and 
 stocks, yea, beasts themselves, more kind than men 
 had been to them. What would hide and heat, cover 
 and keep warm, served them for clothes, not placing 
 (as their successors in after-ages) any holiness in their 
 habits, folded up in the affected fashion thereof. As 
 for their food, the grass was their cloth, the ground 
 their table, herbs and roots their diet, wild fruits and 
 
178 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 
 
 berries their dainties, hunger their sauce, their nails 
 their knives, their hands their cups, the next well 
 their wine-cellar. But what their bill-of-fare wanted 
 in cheer, it had in grace ; their life being constantly 
 spent in prayer, reading, musing, and such-like pious 
 employments. They turned solitariness itself into 
 society; and, cleaving themselves asunder by the 
 divine art of meditation, did make, of one, two or 
 more, opposing, answering, moderating in their own. 
 bosoms, and busying themselves with variety of 
 heavenly recreations. It would do one good even but 
 to think of their goodness, and at the re-bound and 
 second-hand to meditate on their meditations. For if 
 over poverty was to be envied, it was here. And I 
 appeal to the moderate men of these times, whether, 
 in the height of those woful wars, they have not some- 
 times wished (not out of passionate distemper, but 
 serious recollection of themselves) some such private 
 place to retire unto, where, out of the noise of this 
 clamorous world, they might have reposed themselves, 
 and served God with more quiet. 
 
 These monks were of two sorts, either such as fled 
 from actual, or from imminent persecution. For 
 when a danger is not created by a timorous fancy, but 
 rationally represented as probable, in such a case the 
 principles of prudence, not out of cowardice but 
 caution, warrant men to provide for their safety. 
 Neither of these bound themselves with a wilful vow 
 to observe poverty, but poverty rather vowed to 
 observe them, waiting constantly upon them. Neither 
 did they vow chastity, though keeping it better than 
 such as vowed it in after-ages. As for the vow of 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC MIRACLES. 179 
 
 obedience, it was both needless and impossible in 
 their condition, having none beneath or above them ; 
 living alone, and their whole convent, as one may say, 
 consisting of a single person. And as they entered on 
 this course of life rather by impulsion than election, 
 so when peace was restored, they returned to their 
 former homes in cities and towns, resuming their 
 callings, which they had not left off, but for a time 
 laid aside. 
 
 Miracles at the Tomb of St. Chad and 
 Thomas a Becket. St. Chad, in Latin Cedda, 
 born in Northumberland, bred likewise in Holy 
 Island, and scholar to Aidanus. He was bishop of 
 Lichfield ; a mild and modest man, of whom more 
 hereafter. His death is celebrated in the Calendar, 
 March 2nd, and the dust of his tomb is by Papists 
 reported to cure all diseases alike in man and beast. 
 I believe it might make the dumb to see, and the lame 
 to speak. 
 
 * * * 
 
 And now being on this subject, once to despatch 
 Becket out of our way, just a jubilee of years after 
 his death, Stephen Langton,"his mediate successor, 
 removed his body from the Under-croft in Christ- 
 church, where first he was buried, and laid him, at 
 his own charge, in a most sumptuous shrine, at the 
 east end of the church. Here the rust of the sword 
 that killed him was afterwards tendered to pilgrims 
 to kiss. Here many miracles were pretended to be 
 wrought by this saint, in number two hundred and 
 seventy. They might well have been brought up to 
 four hundred, and made as many as Baal's lying 
 
180 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 
 
 prophets; though, even then, one prophet of the 
 Lord, one Micaiah, one true miracle, were worth 
 them all. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus on the Jesuits. The 
 very Jesuits themselves tasted of his courtesy, 
 though merrily he laid it to their charge, that they 
 would neither r ,preach faith to, nor keep faith with, 
 others. 
 
 The fatal vespers at Blackfriars. Now hap- 
 pened the sad vespers, or doleful even-song, at Black- 
 friars, in London, Octoher 26th (1623). Father 
 Drury, a Jesuit of excellent morals and ingratiating 
 converse (wanting nothing, saving the embracing of 
 the truth, to make him valuable in himself and 
 acceptable to others), preached in a great upper room 
 in Blackfriars, next to the house of the French 
 ambassador, where some three hundred persons were 
 assembled. His text, ' thou ungracious servant ! 
 I forgave thee all the debt, because thou desiredst 
 me ; shouldst not thou also have had compassion on 
 thy fellow-servant ? ' In application whereof, he fell 
 upon a bitter invective against the Protestants. 
 
 His sermon began to incline to the middle, the day 
 to the end, thereof; when on the sudden the floor 
 fell down whereon they were assembled. It gave no 
 charitable warning groan beforehand, but cracked, 
 brake, and fell, all in an instant. Many were killed, 
 more bruised, all frighted. Sad sight to behold the flesh 
 and blood of different persons mingled together, and 
 the brains of one on the head of another! One 
 lacked a leg; another, an arm; a third, whole and 
 entire, wanting nothing but breath, stifled in the 
 
MARTYRS NOT ALIKE CHEERFUL. 181 
 
 ruins. Some Protestants, coming merely to see, were 
 made to suffer, and bear the heavy burden of their 
 own curiosity. About ninety-five persons were slain 
 outright ; amongst whom Mr. Drury and Mr. Rodiat, 
 priests, with the lady Webbe, were of the greatest 
 quality. 
 
 All the Martyrs not alike cheerful. All who 
 met at last in final constancy manifested not equal 
 intermediate cheerfulness. Some were more stout, 
 bold, and resolute ; others more faint, fearful, and 
 timorous. Of the latter was Archbishop Cranmer, 
 who first subscribed a recantation, but afterwards 
 recanted his subscription, and valiantly burned at the 
 stake. Thus, he that stumbleth, and doth not fall 
 down, gaineth ground thereby ; as this good man's 
 slip mended his pace to his martyrdom. 
 
 It is also observable that married people, the 
 parents of many children, suffered death with most 
 alacrity: Mr. Rogers and Dr. Taylor may be the 
 instances thereof. The former of these, if consulting 
 with flesh and blood, had eleven strong reasons to 
 favour himself; I mean a wife and ten children : all 
 which abated not his resolution. 
 
 Besides these, who were put to death, some scores 
 (not to say hundreds) died, or rather were killed, with 
 stench, starving, and strait usage in prison. I am 
 not satisfied in what distance properly to place these 
 persons. Some, perchance, will account it too high 
 to rank them amongst martyrs ; and, surely, I con- 
 ceive it too low to esteem them but bare confessors. 
 The best is, the heraldry of Heaven knows how to 
 marshal them in the place of dignity due unto them ; 
 
182 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 
 
 where, long since, they have received the reward of 
 their patience. 
 Wickliffe's ashes burned and drowned. 
 
 Hitherto the corpse of John Wickliffe had quietly 
 slept in his grave, about one-and-forty years after his 
 death, till his body was reduced to bones, and his 
 bones almost to dust. For though the earth in the 
 chancel of Lutterworth, where he was interred, had 
 not so quick a digestion with the earth of Aceldama, 
 yet such the appetite thereof, and all other English 
 graves, to leave small reversions of a body after so 
 many years. 
 
 But now, such the spleen of the Council of Con- 
 stance, as they not only cursed his memory, as dying 
 an obstinate heretic, but ordered his bones (with this 
 charitable caution, ' if it may be discerned from the 
 bodies of other faithful people ') to be taken out of the 
 ground, and thrown far off from any Christian burial. 
 
 In obedience hereunto, Eichard Fleming sent his 
 officers (vultures with a quick sight and scent at a 
 dead carcase !) to ungrave him accordingly. To 
 Lutterworth they come, sumner, commissary, 
 official, chancellor, proctors, doctors, and the servants 
 (so that the remnant of the body would not hold out 
 a bone, amongst so many hands) take what was left 
 out of the grave, and burnt them to ashes, and cast 
 them into Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard 
 by. Thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into 
 Avon, Avon into Severn, Seven into the narrow seas, 
 they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of 
 Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is 
 now dispersed all the world over, 
 
CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 183 
 
 Christian Perfection. In a fourfold respect may 
 a servant of God be pronounced perfect in this life : 
 
 1. Comparatively, in reference to wicked men, who 
 have not the least degree or desire of goodness in 
 them. Measure a servant of God by such a dwarf, 
 and he will seem a proper person, yea, comparatively 
 perfect. 
 
 2. Intentionally : the drift, scope, and purpose of 
 such a man's life is to desire perfection, which desires 
 are seconded with all the strength of his weak 
 endeavours. He draweth his bow with all his might, 
 and perfection is the mark he aimeth at, though too 
 often his hand shakes, his bow starts, and his arrow 
 misses. 
 
 3. Inchoatively : we have here the beginning and 
 the earnest as of the Spirit (2 Cor. i. 22). So of all 
 spiritual graces, expecting the full (not payment, 
 because a mere gift, but) receipt of the rest hereafter. 
 In this world we are a-perfecting, and in the next 
 (Heb. xii. 23) we shall come to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect. 
 
 But blame me not, beloved, if I be brief in these 
 three kinds of perfections, rather touching than land- 
 ing at them, in our discourse; seeing I am partly 
 afraid, partly ashamed, to lay too much stress and 
 weight on such slight and slender foundations. I 
 hasten with all convenient speed to the fourth, which 
 one is worth all the rest. A servant of God in this 
 life is perfect : 
 
 4. Imputatively : Christ's perfections through God's 
 mercy being imputed unto him. If I be worsted in 
 my front, and beaten in my main battle, I am sure I 
 
184 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 can safely retreat to this my invincible rear. In the 
 agony of temptation we must quit comparative per- 
 fection. Alas, relation is rather a shadow than a 
 substance. Quit intentional perfection, being con- 
 scious to ourselves how oft our actions cross our 
 intentions. Quit inchoative perfection ; for whilst a 
 servant of God compare th the little goodness he hath 
 with that great proportion which by God's law he 
 ought to have, he conceiveth thereof as the pious Jews 
 did of the foundation of the second temple (Hag. 
 ii. 3) : 'Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as 
 nothing ? ' But stick we may and must to imputative 
 perfection, which indeed is God's act, clothing us with 
 the righteousness of Jesus Christ. 
 
 This is the reason the saints are unwilling to own 
 any other perfection : for though God is pleased to 
 style Job * a perfect man,' yet see what he said of 
 himself: 'If I say that I am perfect, it shall also 
 prove me perverse.' God might say it : Job durst 
 not, for fear of pride and presumption. Indeed, Noah 
 is the first person who is pronounced perfect in 
 Scripture. But mark, I pray, what went in the verse 
 before : ' But Noah found grace in the eyes of the 
 Lord.' Not that his finding grace is to be confined 
 to his particular preservation from the deluge (which 
 was but one branch or sprig of God's grace unto him) ; 
 but his whole person was by God's goodness accepted 
 of; Noah's perfection more consisting in that accept- 
 ance than his own amiableness; approved not so 
 much because God found goodness in Noah, but 
 because Noah found grace in God. 
 
 Grace to be held fast in the midst of tern- 
 
THE RESURRECTION. 185 
 
 poral losses. As it is with a man in a wreck at sea y 
 when all is cast overboard, the victuals that feed 
 him, the clothes that should keep him warm, yet ho 
 swims to the shore with his life in his hand ; or as it 
 is with a valiant standard-bearer that carries the 
 banner in the time of battle, if he sees all lost, he 
 wraps the banner about his body, and chooseth rather 
 to die in that as his winding-sheet, than let any man 
 take it from or spoil him of it he will hold that fast, 
 though he lose his life with it. Thus Job in all his 
 troubles is said to hold fast his integrity. And so 
 must all of us do, hold our spirituals, whatsoever 
 becomes of our temporals. When wife and children, 
 and friends, and liberty, and life, and all is a-going, say 
 unto peace of conscience, to innocency and integrity, 
 as Jacob said to the angel (whether they be those 
 summer-graces of prosperity, as joy and thanksgiving ; 
 or the winter graces of adversity, as patience and 
 perseverance ; or the grace of humility that is always 
 in season), ' We will not let you go : ' for indeed there 
 is no blessing without them. There's not a man upon 
 the face of the earth, but, if he be of a heavenly 
 temper and spiritual resolution, will, in the greatest 
 storm, in the hottest assault, wrap himself round about 
 with his integrity, and will not let it go, till he go 
 along with it. 
 
 The Resurrection. I have stood in a smith's 
 forge, and seen him put a rusty, cold, dull piece of iron 
 into the fire, and, after awhile, he hath taken the same 
 piece, the very same numerical individual piece of iron 
 out of the fire, but bright, sparkling. And thus it is 
 with our bodies: they are laid down in the grave 
 
186 MISCELLANEOUS EXT Ji ACTS. 
 
 dead, heavy, earthly ; but at the resurrection, ^this 
 mortal shall put on immortality ; at that general con- 
 flagration, this dead, heavy, earthly body shall arise 
 living, lightsome, glorious ; which made Job so con- 
 fident ; ' 1 know that my Eedeemer liveth, and that 
 with these eyes I shall see him' (xix. 25). 
 
 God slow to anger and of great patience. It 
 is observable that the Koman magistrates, when they 
 gave sentence upon any one to be scourged, a bundle 
 of rods tied hard with many knots was laid before 
 them. The reason was this, that whilst the beadle or 
 flagellifer was untying the knots, which he was to do 
 by [i.e. in] order and not in any other hasty or sudden 
 way, the magistrate might see the deportment and 
 carriage of the delinquent, whether he were sorry for 
 his fault and showed any hope of amendment, that 
 then he might recall his sentence or mitigate the 
 punishment ; otherwise to be corrected so much the 
 more severely. Thus God in the punishment of sin- 
 ners, how patient is he ! how loth to strike ! how slow 
 to anger if there be but any hopes of recovery ! How 
 many knots doth he untie ! How many rubs doth he 
 make in his way to justice ! He doth not try us by 
 martial law, but pleads the case with us, * Why will 
 ye die, house of Israel ? ' and all this to see whether 
 the poor sinner will throw himself down at his feet, 
 whether he will come in and make his composition, 
 and be saved. 
 
 Poor professors preserved by God's provi- 
 dence. God hath always been ambitious to preserve 
 and prefer little things. The Jews c the least ' of 
 all nations ; David their king ' least ' in his father's 
 
A PLEASANT STORY. 187 
 
 family ; * little ' Benjamin the ruler ; c little ' hill 
 of Hermon ; the Virgin Mary f the lowliness ' of thy 
 handmaiden. God's children, severally, are styled his 
 * little ones,' and collectively make up but a 'little 
 flock.' And, surely, it renders the work of grace 
 more visible and conspicuous, when the object can 
 claim nothing as due to itself. A pregnant proof 
 hereof we have in Divine Providence at this time pre- 
 serving the inconsiderable pittance of faithful profes- 
 sors against most powerful opposition. This handful 
 of men were tied to very hard duty, being constantly 
 to stand sentinels against an army of enemies, till God 
 sent Luther to relieve them : and the work was made 
 lighter, with more hands to do it. 
 
 A pleasant story of King Henry VIII. King 
 Henry VIII. as he was hunting in Windsor Forest, 
 either casually lost, or (more probable) wilfully losing 
 himself, struck down about dinner-time to the abbey 
 of Reading : where, disguising himself (much for de- 
 light, more for discovery, to see unseen), he was 
 invited to the abbot's table, and passed for one of the 
 king's guard, a place to which the proportion of his 
 person might properly entitle him. A sirloin of beef 
 was set before him (so knighted, saith tradition, by 
 this King Henry), on which the king laid on lustily, 
 not disgracing one of that place for whom he was mis- 
 taken. ' Well fare thy heart ! ' quoth the abbot, 
 ' and here, in a cup of sack, I remember the health of 
 his Grace your master. I would give a hundred 
 pounds on the condition I could feed so heartily on beef 
 as you do. Alas ! my weak and queasy stomach will 
 hardly digest the wing of a small rabbit or chicken.' 
 
188 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACT. 
 
 The king pleasantly pledged him, and, heartily thank- 
 ing him for his good cheer, after dinner departed, as 
 undiscovered as he came thither. 
 
 Some weeks after, the ^abbot was sent for, by a 
 pursuivant, brought up to London, clapped in the 
 Tower, kept close prisoner, fed for a short time with 
 bread and water. Yet not so empty his body of food 
 as his mind was filled with fears, creating many sus- 
 picions to himself when and how he had incurred the 
 king's displeasure. At last a sirloin of beef was set 
 before him, on which the abbot fed as the farmer of his 
 grange, and verified the proverb, that * two hungry 
 meals makes the third a glutton.' , In springs King 
 Henry out of a private lobby, where he had placed 
 himself, the invisible spectator of the abbot's behaviour. 
 ' My lord,' quoth the king, ' presently deposit your 
 hundred pounds in gold, or else no going hence all the 
 days of your life. I have been your physician to cure 
 you of your queasy stomach ; and here, as I deserve, 
 I demand my fee for the same/ The abbot down 
 with his dust ; and, glad he had escaped so, returned 
 to Reading, as somewhat lighter in purse, so much 
 more merry in heart than when he came thence. 
 
 The only cure for old age. -Christ when on 
 earth cured many a spot, especially of leprosy, but 
 never smoothed any wrinkle, never made any old man 
 young again. But in heaven he will do both (Ephes. 
 v. 27) : when ' he shall present to himself a glorious 
 church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, 
 but that it should be holy and without blemish.' 
 Triumphant perfection is not to be hoped for in the 
 militant Church ; there will be in it many spots and 
 wrinkles, aa long as it consisteth of sinful, mortal man. 
 
FORGOTTEN MARTYRS. 189 
 
 It is Christ's work, beyond the power of man, to make 
 a perfect reformation. 
 
 General promises of special grace. Isaac, 
 ignorantly going along to be offered, propounded to 
 his father a very hard question : ' Behold the fire and 
 the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt-offer- 
 ing ? ' (Gen. xxii. 7). Abraham returned : ' God will 
 provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering.' But 
 was not this a gratis dictum of Abraham ? Did he 
 not herein speak without book ? Where and when 
 did God give him a promise to provide him a lamb ? 
 Indeed he had no particular promise as to this present 
 point ;, but he had a general one : * Fear not, Abraham, 
 I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward ' (Gen. 
 xv. 1). Here was not only a lamb, but a flock, yea, a 
 herd of all cattle, promised to him. It hath kept many 
 an honest heart in these times from sinking into de- 
 spair, that though they had no express Scripture that 
 they should be freed from the particular miseries 
 relating to these vows, yet they had God's grand 
 charter for it. ' And we know that all things work 
 together for good to them that love God, to them who 
 are the called according to his purpose ' (Rom. viii. 28). 
 
 Forgotten Martyrs. God's calendar is more 
 complete than man's best martyrologies ; and their 
 names are written in the book of life who on earth 
 are wholly forgotten. 
 
 Martyrs. If they had not been flesh and blood, 
 they could not have been burnt ; and if they had been 
 no more than flesh and blood, they would not have 
 been burnt. 
 
 Hope. Hope is the only tie which keeps the 
 heart from breaking. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
The R, T. S, Library Illustrated, 
 
 Edited by RICHARD LOVETT, M.A. 8 
 
 AUTHOB OP " NORWEGIAN PICTDBES," ETC. 
 
 /~\NE great aim kept in view by the RELIGIOUS TRACT 
 ^^^ SOCIETY, from its foundation, has been to provide 
 useful, entertaining and cheap literature for the people. 
 The success which has attended the Society's efforts 
 in this direction for the last eighty-six years is well 
 known. 
 
 Over thirty years ago a series of books called " The 
 Monthly Volume," was published, each consisting of 
 192 pages, imperial 32mo., in paper covers, sixpence 
 each; in cloth boards, tenpence. These books dealt 
 with various classes of literature, and the total number 
 sold amounted to 2,196,000. The last of these volumes 
 has quite recently gone off the Society's Catalogue. 
 
 During the last four years the Society has published, 
 under the name of " Cheap Reprints," well- known tales, 
 like "Jessica's First Prayer," "A Peep Behind the 
 Scenes," etc., at prices ranging from a penny to three- 
 pence ; of these 2,500,000 have been sold. 
 
 The Committee have recently been considering how 
 to meet the increasing demands of these days for cheap 
 books, and have come to the conclusion that it can be 
 done by issuing a series of Volumes, very nearly uniform 
 in size and shape with the old "Monthly Volume." 
 Each book will contain 192 pages ; the size of the page 
 will be slightly increased, and most of the volumes will 
 be illustrated. In paper covers the price will be Three- 
 pence ; in cloth, Sixpence. 
 
 The scope of the series will be made as wide as 
 
( 2 ) 
 
 possible. It will contain popular stories, biographies, 
 narratives of adventure in the mission field, papers on 
 natural and social science, reprints of some of the great 
 Christian classics, collections of fables and anecdotes, 
 popular treatises on recent discoveries that throw light 
 on the Bible, together with books specially suitable for 
 Sunday and devotional reading. 
 
 The following Works are now ready : 
 
 1. Canada. With Hints to intending Emigrants 
 
 and Settlers. By the Marquis of Lome, 
 K.T. With six Illustrations. 
 
 2. Pilgrim Street. By Hesba Stretton, author of 
 
 " Jessica's First Prayer," etc. With three 
 Illustrations. 
 
 3. The Life of Oberlin. By Mrs. Josephine Butler. 
 
 With a Portrait and two Illustrations. 
 
 4. Adventures in New Guinea. By James Chal- 
 
 mers, of Port Moresby. With six Illustrations. 
 
 5. Olive's Story. By Mrs. Walton, author of 
 
 "Christie's Old Organ," "Shadows/' etc. 
 With five Illustrations. 
 
 6. Adventures in Mongolia. By James Gilniour, 
 
 M.A., of Peking. With five Illustrations. 
 
 7. The Wit and Wisdom of Thomas Fuller. With 
 
 Portrait. 
 
 8. The Life of Latimer. By K. Demaus, author of 
 
 " William Tyndalo : a Biography/' etc. With 
 Portrait. 
 
 Other volumes are in preparation. 
 THE RELIGIOUS TBACT SOCIETY, 56, PATEBXOSTEB Row Lo:ttX>N. 
 
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