IDLENESS,

The Capital of those Indulgencies, that conspire the delivery up of our hopeful Youth, bound hand and foot into the vassalage and torures of impe­rious Vice: the punishment of him who was bound to an heated Stag, that could neither command himself nor the swift Beast; but tyed and un­active, yet ran all the Stages of his Bearers excursions, and was held fast to all it's petulant vagaries: Such is the hurry of restless passions in the Idle Soul, through the many regions of Phansie, and boundless Appetite; till it be tyr'd and fall down in some co­vert of obscene darkness. The Idle person is the only common Hackney, and, having no employ of his own to work off Time and his faculties, stands ready to let out himself Post, on the easie rates of the next stirring device and lubency. A Play, a Ball, a Mi­stress, a Glass of Wine engage his [Page 9]Soul as profoundly in contemplation of his dawning felicity, as the Turks Zeal is enspirited by their brutish pa­radise. But We compassionate these poor Infidels, whose knowledge is con­fin'd with the brandish'd Sword; and perhaps were ours forbidden on as pe­nal curiosity, it would become more desirable. While though, we every day make bold plantations (how success­fully I will not adjust) upon every Creek and Point of Philosophy, and outbid all Antiquity on the fair terms We proffer knowledge: to see the refined and most improvable part of our own land uncultivated, the Youth and strength of our Nation lay fallow, and only shoot forth into those spungy Mushroms and Wild-daisies, their soft­brain makes grow into it's entertain­ments; is enough to perswade us that true knowledge is as inaccessible as the Tree of Life, and that Our Age is most unfortunate to be debarr'd the proper scrutinies and direct approaches to­ward it. For certainly knowledge and [Page 10]Wisdom it self is still the same pure and subtile concentration of light; It cannot as to it's real worth and lustre be depretiated, and would alway de­serve the utmost insudation, the best of our Oyl and Labor in it's acquest. It must be therefore the dismal disaster of our time, that denies us all possibility of discovery, where this lucid Pyra­mid is erected, and how we may come under it's vital influences. Were we not thus lost with the Eden we have lost, without doubt we should not be contented with our low and puerile attempts after it; But awake from our sluggish velleities, vigorously to string and strain our minds, to work some other furniture for them, beside Couches and Pallets; we would break open some way to let in the bright rays of Knowledge and Virtue, and not imagine we had lamps given us only to hang up against the wall, to drowze, or be pensively befotted un­der them: while nothing but the Chi­maera's, follies and shadows of a dream, [Page 11]haunt the thin Ghosts in their living Sepulchres, till these are commuted for a thicker, but not more heavy or useless Arch of Stone.

But to free us from the inchant­ments of this kind of dead-sleep, and excite us to a noble inquisition after Virtue and Science; let the whole World be convinc'd, that they are as accessible as immutable, nor do on any parts of the Universe vary their Com­pass, nor can be Retrograde on the Dial of any time. Our age is as freely irradiated with their beams, as with that benignity of the Sun, which ripe­ned our Ancestors Cucumers, and now stripes and paints our Melons; 'tis our want alone of rising will not suffer us to see day. While beside Man (the lesser scheme of the Creation) the fair­est portion of Mankind (I mean those of your degree) and the Soul of Man (it's noble Heaven-born inhabitant) nothing is found idle in nature. She is every where, and continually, pregnant with new labors, and productions: see [Page 12]how in the Vegetative World not a spire of Grass creeps out of the Earth, but is elevating its head still nearer to Heaven: In the Sensitive the choicest Animals receive our commands, and execute our drudgeries: That Coloss of life, the Elephant has its understanding, strength, and service apportioned to its bulk; and among Insects, the very Fly and Ant make a supplement to their close dimensions, in their wonderful agility and industry; by which they fill up an equal space with vastest bodies. In the fabric and constitution of Man, she is still busied in accumulation of similary, or exporting useless and dis­cordant particles. Life it self seems to be but the result, and harmony of an even-flowing motion; and that Auto­maton which keeps pace with every step of time, striking all its own minutest and remotest wheels with a regular sa­liency, tells us lowdly by the pulse a­gainst the pillow, that we were not born to slumber away our hasty time and life; which hold more of a Race than [Page 13]walk in their motion and tendency to their last pawse and rest. Nor does Na­ture with so much exactness elaborate and exalt the spirits in the body, instant­ly to put off and lose their name and nature, by being blended and perishing in an insipid Caput mortuum; or as if they were so curiously contriv'd and design'd, only to officiate in that scul, once Head of the Roman Empire; which rival'd Jove, but stoop'd below his very Eagle when turn'd into the device of a Most August Fly-Trap.

Can you have leisure to admire e­nough at that impertinency, which would summon the utmost skill and consort of Music to play his Dormouse asleep? or would to Oriental Bezoar and Ambar dissolve Gold and Pearl, to maintain a Mole? To no higher archievements serve the fair Titles, Re­venues, and Complexions of a great part of Mankind; beside these, no­thing is intelligible about them, nor can more be said of them: so near to no­thing do they shrink, whose souls lan­guish [Page 14]under the irreparable decays of tabific inactivity; or are broken with pitiful low and sordid lubencies of idle entertainments; wholly superseding those brave actions, sublime and profi­table speculations, which would infuse the life of men into them, and render them, off Men, immortal. Thus their Heroic Progenitors traced Virtue and Honour, through all its intricate and dangerous mazes; and this was the as­cent they made to that high serenenes, where every Pearl of their Coronets was stellified: And this only high-way to Happiness is still as open, and more delightful than you imagine the com­mon descent to Avernus. And indeed it can be no other than the very dregs of Idleness that can sink the spirit (or may I not rather say, the Sediment of a soul?) below all handsome action, in such an age as we live, which pretends to such extraordinary Knowledge and Politeness; however must be most fa­mous for those Grand Actions to be enroll'd in it, wherein Posterity will [Page 15]imagine none could be born but to some laborious part.

Had we the generosity which did alway breath with English spirits, it would be so far from being extinguish'd in ignoble silence, and limited to the narrow stage of our own Iland, that it would break forth and display its valour through all parts of the habita­ble Earth. Have we no Messieurs de Villa, Fevillade, or St. Mont-brun kindled with the sparks of honor, that will flie to the succors of that Chistian Garrison (before whose walls more blood has been shed, than would serve for Cement to a far greater City) ra­ther than expire at home, as unknown as their Tombs will be to the Candiots! Certainly That place is now the fairest Field of Honor, which has so long been the Christians strongest shield (under their great Captain and Prince) against Infidels, and it will be worthy learn­ing with how vast expense of Treasure, and prodigality of Lives, they study to defend their dearer Country. And [Page 16]in the long story of that single Siege you will read all the old admired Ro­man Courage, Conduct, and Felicity; which will be so signaliz'd to after times, that our latest Nephews will take a Voyage only to visit its vene­rable ruines; wherein are now in­closed those gallant Souls, that have shaken off the softness, and stupifying pleasures of Ease, with the grim ter­rors of Death, to sacrifice all in so glorious a Quarrel, and for the com­mon security. Can we lie immersed in wanton Idleness, when Christianity is concerned for her battered Bul­warks, that suffer again the Siege of Rhodes more nearly; and that in such sanguinary Scenes and Tragedies, as the very naming them will fright the young Gallants out of the Pit?

Where being brought by my di­scourse, I do not much admire to see the Theatres crowded with our Idle Spectators; the hours here spent are a tolerable exemption from lewder diversions, and with some obtain the [Page 17]credit of a School discipline, periodic Lectures, and Academic exercitations; which teach as much gravity and expe­rience, as they think can amount to necessary aphorisms, to regulate their own lives by, and be diagnostic of all others. I may not envy the Dramatic Ingeniosos the Empire they here sway over Wit, nor the Models they give of the world, and the delectable variety, in which they serve up the humors that are abroad: May the Stage never want a florid Laureat to Chastize predomi­nant Vices, and troublesome Follies; but so prudently and industriously, that they may no longer be fear'd to teach them. But I could wish our No­bless would here alway admit the but necessary ceremony of a Taster; that they may have its salubriousness ap­prov'd, before it take possession of their Stomach, and it prove too late for an Antidote. But supposing the Stage less dangerous and nauseous than some Pulpits; and that every day brought forth a work as consummat as [Page 18]Father Ben's: Yet I would advize them against their common frequenting Plays, if I took it not as an evicti­on, that they knew no more congru­ous advancement of their Noble fa­culties; and were burthened with too long and empty parentheses of Time. For, I conceive, whoever transmits his affections to be wrought on by every fiction the Poet engages them in, shall in a little time cease to be Master over them, and they will be at the com­mand of every passionate Romantique: Or they will be so broken or extirpa­ted, wholly by such continued and vio­lent efforts, that they will altogether be unserviceable, if he lose not all the due sentiments of Nature: Either of which extreme is so palpable an imbecillity of mind, as need not be pointed at, for it too easily betrays it self in dayly con­verse? Greater inconveniences you may hear continually nurs'd up at the Stage, and fear worse; unless it be ju­diciously purg'd and refin'd.

But indeed what place, time, and oc­casion [Page 19]is not poison'd in a dead Sea of Idleness, though they be never so free and innocent in their own disposition? Virtue and Generosity it self coming but neer it, though but in a volatile thought or Action, is suddenly suffo­cated with the noysome exhalations of this almost Stygian lake. I have heard in a very serene Oratory affirmed; that two parts of three, that are now sen­tenc'd under unquenchable flames, had those first kindled here on earth, in the fire of their burning and impure lust. However, it is scarce dubitable, that all those miserable Souls, now fil­ling up the regions of darkness, did first fit and adopt themselves to that state, by contracting a supine torpor and negligence of Spirit: For without controversie, idleness lets in upon the Soul all the inundation of Vice, and is that unhappy plot oregrown with eve­ry weed and noxious burthen of the Earth; so that as some Gardens are a collection of the choycest and most use­sul Plants, this becomes a seminary of [Page 20]all the horrid excrescencies can grow out of a Dunghill.

We indeed see some of active lives and full of businesse fall into exorbi­tancies of as dismal effects, as can be the off-spring of the dullest brain and hours: But you may not surmise this the genuine birth of any honorable or necessary employ. Those publick spi­rits were to be commiserated more than they who offered their lives as their Countries Victims of old, if there were any fatal connexion of Vice with their Offices; which are consecrated as the very Rewards and Asylums of Vir­tue, and are so many Thrones on which she may display and dispense her So­veraign dignity and influences. No, I must believe any vices nourisht under their protection to be the scrofulae, and luxuriant impetigos of fowl humors. They will prove the disease of the per­son not the office; and entrench so much upon the borders of Idleness, that you will entertain the greater in­dignation against that evill, which can [Page 21]prevail upon the strongest and noblest constitutions. For I grant that person to be fal'n beside his businesse, and to have quitted his own Station; that is at leisure to contrive and persue his private stratagems of ambition, avarice and malice. This is a degeneracy and corruption growing upon the Soul, by a vacation from his proper intendments of Time and Labor: while instead of his attendance on the steerage of the common Vessel, the man is so idle as to row forth his own Cock-boat for shells and pebbles. But whatever smal­ler and justifiable gratifications are here to be glean'd up, their Country would add their blessing to the heap, might it encourage every one nobly endowed to adapt himself and fortunes for the honor and service of the Pub­lick. But let this Idlenesse never bear the impudence to steal upon an hono­rable presence, it being as indecorous, as to see a rude clown cover'd near the Chair of State. And what distance that was to observe at Court, the very [Page 22]proud and barbarous Turkish Sultans in their profession and skill of some mechanic art still teach us; and we may better learn from our late Glori­ous Soveraigns Royal mouth, that He thought He could earn a Livelyhood were he so low reduc'd by any Trade he knew of, but making of Hangings: his Clemency will allow you the allu­sion to any fair fence of the word: and his constant instructions to the Nobless craving his permission to tra­vail, had this alway inserted, to keep the best Company, and never be idle. May it therefore by so canonized an ex­ample be banisht all Societies, as that which wherever it comes is sure to shut the man out of doors; For 'tis the man of businesse gives denomina­tion and life to the world: And many an Age will be buried in oblivion, as silently as if it had lost an entire suc­cession of mankind, and all that was worthy recording.

Idleness may it once be expell'd; I dare promise we shall obviate two ca­lamities, [Page 23]which become our mortal afflictions, and almost immortal com­plaints; Our unreasonable dissatisfac­tions, and decay of Trade. Idle peo­ple and such as have none of their own create businesse for all about them; and their proper concerns being trivi­al or discarded, those of others to their unexercised apprehensions appear strange and difficult: Hence Curiosity (the idle mans Mephostophllus) posts through the air to catch intelligence, and adviso's upon the several emer­gencies, being sure to meet some loose dispatches, out of what quarter soever the wind does but breath. These still conjure up new perplexities, fresh and fantastique conjectures, which first creep forth in whispers and night dis­coveries, then more boldly come a­broad, and stand the censures of their full Burnt-to-water Conventions, or higher Club-Assemblies; if in private affairs, they are insolent and disgustful; if on publick, their interpolate Jealou­sies, and wildly wise Apothegms eve­ry [Page 24]where bring in growing discontents and murmurings: not without a mira­cle indeed can it be expected, any thing should please and satisfie them abroad, who never knew the Art to make con­tent within, and at home. But if this ubiquitary medling seem to absolve these kind of persons from Idleness, and they will hence be thought as active in the Intelligencies of the spheres, and the only they that keep all in motion; Those that know what harmony is re­quir'd to a motion regular, and how sure a stop the least dust and check will cause in a fine contrived piece of work, will wish them quiet, and unin­terrupted rest, may but the businesse of the sober and industrious part of mankind be removed out of their trou­blesome Orb. And as to our increase in Riches, when every hand and brain promote and incourage a prosperous diligence; None are found so idle as to question it, though so d sobliging and unworthy of their native Country, as to stigmatize and empoverish it with [Page 25]their sloth. For sensible will be the decays of that body, from which you substract nourishment and exercise; the latter whereof mends all the defaults of the former, stirrs up a kindly warmth, facilitates digestion, discusses excre­mentitious humors, purifies and exhili­rates the depressed spirits. But no more need be added on this tenacious subject, than that if your years and quality could get above the dross and dregs of idlenesse, so as to lay out your selves vigilantly in the service your Generation calls you unto, and may expect of you, if Idlenesse be exploded; We shall have lesse news and more money stirring.

Having beheld the Soul under this close and obscure incubation; Let us view the brood hatched by ignorance and Folly: and the earliest we meet up, is

PRIDE,

Breaking thorough the thick shel; which, hasting to be the first displaying its gay Plumes abroad, forgets how much of its nakednesse is exposed, and that it ows all its pomp to a borrowed Gawdiness, Man enters the world bare and unarm'd, all other creatures growing into their furrs, shels, barks, down-quilts and scaly Coats of Mail; each of which has as much of defense as ornament: Yet none of these but willingly bequeath their spoyls, to rob man of his poor Pride, who cannot so much as shrowd himself from the inju­ries of the air but in some of their live­ries. Yet who but computes the Dra­pery which curious invention has spun us out of all the parts of the inferiour creation; some from its very bowels as fine drawn as the web of Arachne, the loom-work of the Brain, and the very net of love it self; and considers withall how many operose preparati­ons, [Page 27]various interweavings and mi­stures of diff'ring elements meet in the meanest shreds of our Wardrobe; must necessarily inser that the whole studies of man were to beguile the Creatures of their designe; as if he scorn'd to be indebted to them, for what they can never distinguish again, to have been their old cast cloaths; Or as if he intended in his very attire (not contented with the covering of any sin­gle Animal) to stitch together another Epitome of the Creation for his out­side also; and, in the far distant growth of his gorgeous apparel, would array himself daily with a new map of Geo­graphy.

But all this pageantry covers not the miserable inside, but like the ragged embroidery of a Beggars patches, con­fess [...]s the wretched poverty within; the poor mind neither knowing it self, nor any thing beside it self, from either of which it would learn humility. But Pride is the spawn of Idlenesse, and the foam of Ignorance: Where ever [Page 28]you meet her, give her rather your hat than your tongue; for it is unreasona­ble you should reverence her in any o­ther dialect than that she wears, and you will otherwise run the hazard of being understood. Is it not a splene­tic divertisement to behold two Gal­lants as formally rigged forth, as Lon­don, Amsterdam, or Venice can equip them, attaquing each other with a full bearing up to the salute, sometime vei­ling down every inch of their sails, streaming out all their loose colours, and pendents, and suddainly closing with whole Broadsides of embraces? while not a word attends the Ceremo­ny, (which is like the great CZars dump representative of a sage Coun­cil) and they come off perhaps with a furled cuff, a silken rope slack'd, or a curle unpitch'd (I mean ungumm'd, or ungreas'd) This you may call the School of Antiques, a very variation of Postures, a Tryal of Agility, and such a mute comparison of empty Noddles, as we make of Bottles by [Page 29]oft and quick shaking them.

And this is the stately outside and high-raiz'd Front of Pride: which content your self to have thus superfi­cially seen, if you will not rest here but enter further, look for no recepti­on or refreshment within, there are no commodious rooms contriv'd to that intent; for this is a pile wholly loftyfied into Garrets, and they either empty or the Frippery of all Trash and Lumber: but here most of the world chuse to dwell, as where they can best overlook themselves, as well as their vicinage.

I may give Pride the Title (or she will take it) of Heir apparent in the masculine, to the greatest portion of their Time and Care. With the o­ther sex let her be advanc'd for their Mirrour, that which flatters them even out of themselves into a kind of fond Apotheosis: You must no longer read there flesh and bloud no, the eyes, the lips and breath, are the very portals of the radiant Apollo, the heavenly blush­es [Page 30]of Aurora, and the fragrant incense that must appease some such Deity. Thus Youth and Beauty in either Sex, kindled by a constant reflexion of its own beams, and having no other fair object to attract it powerfully and vir­tuously, glows with a burning self­complacency, till a rapid Zeale of Pride snatch the conceits of themselves beyond the terms of mortality, and they deem they sensibly change regi­ons, and step into a deifying naturali­zation, so that you may no more ex­pect a converse with them that savors of humanity: all the rest of mankind are to be treated by them as their vas­sals and creatures, and their very words must be thought to sound more then man. And that they may command this devotion and maintain a just ado­ration, they appear not without the pomp and splendor which are worship­ped in the Images of Saints and up­on shrines and altars, that do not ob­lige vulgar veneration, unless em­bellished with sumptuous ornaments, [Page 31]and glittering oblations: In such a mantle of Gold they will imitate Jove, and conceive they have no imperfecti­ons, which these ductile leaves do not gloriously hide and heal.

Thus Pride sacrificeth to her self, not only with the grosser material trea­sures and riches imploy'd in her ser­vice, but with the refined odors that rise from her own persumed delights with her self, and the high conveiv'd pleasure in her own felicities. But can the rough bush of a quick-set haire fence off all frigidity from the Brain, and shelter the tender Pia mater from scratches? Do's a bespangled Vest cast a greater heat and blaze on the hearth of the Breast? To what then, serve the exquisite study and profusions la­vish'd out on our dressing? some Va­let de Chambre, Player or Common woman, shall surpass your bravery when you have born the patience of the nicest accoutrement. Believe it, the Art you bestow and Value you set upon your dress and habit, lay more [Page 32]open the uglinesse, poverty and sick­nesse of your Soul, and shew that first needed fucus and Emplaisters to pal­liate your inward sores and defects.

But our Otioso's here plead the in­dispensable morality, and that they are hound to the strictest observances of the Fashion; than which word none can breath more infection, nothing appear in a better mode and more sure to captivate and destroy us: As what allows us neither constancy in our present fluctuancie's, nor any fair calculation of hopes for futurity, if it must be omnipotent then also: It can introduce the most fanatique Me­tamorphoses of our selves, and patro­nize all the Caprichio's of the famous Shrew-Tamer. To instance but in one assimilative attraction in its very Ca­pillaries, no less remarkable than that which is perfective of nature: Observe how fashion has prevail'd against na­ture to Perruque all complexions with the fairest hair; where many must be wholly drown'd, as the Portuguez, [Page 33]Amorettaes at Goa their Negro women, whom they dresse up all in white, to make up their admired Beauty of a Fly in milk. But as this shades and destroys the distinctions and native fea­tures of each face, it may unluckily be brought to confound all distinctions of birth too, by supposing those ma­ny indiscriminated (not to say unknown) Heads to have had but one common Parent; At least that this connatural similitude links them all under the same Hereditary Crasiness of the Brain.

How predominantly successful is this Supreme Legislative Fashion? Laws, Examples, Rewards, Punish­ments cannot enforce an Uniformity in any other Medium; while she a­lone translates and alters the world at pleasure, making it solicitous to o­bey her, deriving her Formulaires and scanty Praescripts to it, with the same Authority the Medes and Parthians sealed up their Laws, and that alone in that these are most alterable.

But I am not at leasure to give lon­ger attendance on Pride, who I doubt will disdain to have its measures also taken by a countrey hand: Without a Complement I assure her, I ad­mire her inconceivable pleasure and self opinion on which she lives; as much as I should have done Regio­montanus his Fly, if he could have shut up life as well as motion in so narrow room. For to see a Gallant flutter and buzze, with no other wings than his Taylor has imp'd on, to strut like a dancing Mr. to speak by determined and unaccountable motions and springs, and nothing to be signi­ficant without a multi-screwing body; can I look upon him to be other than a fine articulate Engine, a Counter­feit of Man, and the larger ingredi­ents of some Puzzionello? And thus taken in pieces you see the stuffing and crutches, Pride swells and stalks on. But what esteem wise and sober men ballast themselves with, you can take from the true knowledge and study [Page 35]of your selves only, to make your own sufficient instruction and support: Where you will soon learn the enno­bling of the mind to be the most per­fect accomplishing of the man; which, by its fairer accessions of virtue and wisedome, debaseth the inferior gra­tifications and mistaken opinions of its own Dignity; to keep it self up with an equal moderation, and mag­nanimity too great to stoop to any Vice; especially the depravations of Pride, in the effeminacies I have branded of those persons, whose high­est attainments are the dear purchase, most accurate ostentation, and tran­scendent Vanity of their Attire.

That Hero, who is a Denizon of the Universe, no where devests himself of his invariable habit of Virtue; which, as the richest, warmest, easiest, and immaculate, can never be worn out of Fashion.

That Pride, which grows out of pregnant faculties and ample improve­ments of Time and Parts, is so far [Page 36]from falling under our censure here, that we may rather applaud and promote it; that it may retain its in­dignation and just contempt of these insignificant Poppets and Mormoes; whose souls, bodies, and cloaths seem to be but one Composition; and as if they were all taken up at the same shop and artificially bombasted and com­pacted to sustain a burthen of wealth, and fairly turn it self to all the Ar­rests of brutish sensuality. Of this nobler and more substantial basis of Pride let this though be here said, and considered with all the weight of seriousnesse: That their brave spirits will bear an higher flight, and there is yet above them a pleasure as sa­tisfactory and durable, as this of their high-born Pride is certainly most je­june, and no less low and transient.

But the Epicure must be serv'd in the next place to Pride: and

INTEMPERANCE,

Is usually willing to yield unto her precedence, but on good provision to be made for its Appetite immediately to succeed. For it well relisheth the Genius of the Marcese in their recep­tion of Messire, and this Honorific Ti­tles return, in discovering to them the rate preparation of the leaf of a Swine. So low a rate has been set upon the Man, since the fairest part of his Cha­racter is, that he eats and drinks well, and knows good food, nothing better. As if the soul of the Glutton were be­stowed upon him only to be a Cateresse to his carcasse, and see the larder of the stomach be not unfurnisht: Nay, it often has no higher office than of a Cook, and feasts it self with the skill to provoke, as well as allay Hunger and Thirst. What Adepti are those admired to be, who can discourse lear­nedly on a studied dish, can anoto­mize it dextrously, shew you what con­trary [Page 38]qualities meet in its temperament, give you all the criticisms, and ana­lize the various Gustoes of meats and liquors? To have the presence of such a Vertuoso is the best countenance you can give your Treat, and your Friend; you may be sure in his company you supp'd in Apollo: Such a mans palat and Face (for there you may tast his assay) are as cautiously observ'd by the whole Table, as if they were un­der his prescriptions for diet; and as necessary as the previous infusion of the Unicorns horn to the patient Herd. His frown is as fatal to the Cook as the Judges on the Bench, and scorch­eth all he sends up worse than at the rack. This man needs not Philoxenus his wish, for whatsoever is born down the swallow of any at the board, I may say, he has the pleasure of its gust; for it becomes Manna to all the Guests by yielding the tast he put upon it, and he may easily be understood to have the volupe of his Palat extended in all theirs.

Seems not this to be the instinct of a gallant and acute soul? is not this a Gusto raised and fitted alone for Am­brosia and Nepenthe? Yes certainly. And you may believe such choice Vi­ands will yield a concoction of Spi­rits, that cannot but colonize the brain with most defaecate and noble Conceptions. For they farse themselves with the most exquisite delicacies, as if neither their bodies were cast in the mould of Earth, nor their regalioes but the various-form'd figures of the dust they raise, nor the spirits from them other than the brood which o­ther Animals generate out of the grass we trample on. But in truth do they not by their excess and high feeding oppress the brain, and suffocate its o­perations with fuliginous steams from the kitchin, obstructing the fine chanels and pipes, which should transmit the finer and nimble spirits to all their stages, and for all their admirable di­spatches and functions; while the re­dundancy of dull pituitous moisture [Page 40]unstrings, and intercepts their vigorous tension, and sensation?

No, they are phlegmatic souls who think a load of dainties enrich this soil with any other product than what we cast out, and spread upon the common. The mind is that dry and clear light, maintain'd in its Vi­gils by an even, constant, and mode­rate confluence of pure and innocent Spirits: You drown it by powring in too much (though never so rich) Li­quor; if you impregnate its oyl with too fat and drossy a Sulphur, it sends forth as noysom stenches as Vulcan's Cave, and is orecast with an encir­cling shadow: if you fret it with acid and saline particles, how disturbed is its flame and offensive with conti­nual crackling explosions of those bu­sie bodies? While the poor soul starves for want of its mean and kind­ly repast: The pamper'd body too, surcharg'd with crudities, or an over­grown stock of flesh, becomes its own unweildy impediment (needing [Page 41]some Engine, like the Chariot the In­dians annex to their sheep, to bear up thei [...] monstrous train of Tail) & not seldome is it an Hospital of diseases, and its own House of correction too.

Into an unshapen bulk have we seen many extended, whose parts are as useless to them as if growing in another Countrey; like the unvisited rooms of some great Houses (so lit­tle the care and concern of the fami­ly) that Vermin have come to nestle and burrough in the wide tenements of their Flesh. And truly they must of necessity devize some proportio­nable accretion and enlargement of their Soul, if they would have all their apartiments and needless super­structures well tenanted and kept in constant repair. But the direct con­trary is their ruine; for they appear with so little of the presence of a Spi­rit animating them, that what they have of life is like that to be seen on the bodies of Witches in their ex­tasies; where the soul is withdrawn [Page 42]into the most close and silent recess, (the state of the voluptuous Egyptian Calyphs of old) while they dawb up the pores and outward chinks, to make the retiring room more dark and warm, and guard the passes against foreign invasions. The soul is in so little case in these additional out-jet­tings, and looser edifices; that immu­ring a larger compass of ground, it is but more labyrinthally and securely imprisoned. So some number of the world are buried under the curse of their much building, and not a few masters famish'd to keep their beasts lusty: by the inverted divine admoni­tion to fortifie the inward man upon the ruines of the outward.

But our Apitii scorn to have their enjoyments streightned, though more safely ensconced; they must every day rove abroad to fetch in sacrifices to their Oesophagus, and lowdly so­lennize the festivals of Comus, crown'd with fresh chaplets of Ivy and Myrtles: offering up the most delicious morsels [Page 43]the world has in store, in their Lati­tudinarian Targets of Minerva; as if she were here to be again born out of the variety of far-fetch'd brains, and Tongues: with no less libations of the Falernian grape, in their lofty sur­veying Tricongio Goblets. By the full draughts they quaff off in the no­blest bloud of the Vine you would guess they designed to imitate Jove and Mercury, and having fil'd a bot­tle of an whole Oxe hide (once the Continent of a City) with this caele­stial Liquor, would with equal ad­vantage and authority, constellate it into an Aethereal Urinal. Or if Ori­on may not owe his rise from so low springs, you would conceive they had new cast themselves into humane a­lembicks, from whom nothing less then Spirits of Wines should be ex­tracted; and from the same copious and rich luxury of meats they prey upon, that some Chymist had dearly purchas'd their more terrene excre­ments, out of them to exalt his Occi­dental [Page 44]cidental zibeth. So laboriously does Gluttony plough up land and seas; and prohibit the free and open refuges of the ensna [...]ed Air; to serve up that plenty to our surfeited Tables, which is in its second course must be exonera­ted at the Esquiline port. This and the Vrinary evacuate those Oceans of voluptuousnesse, and mountains of wealth, out of which you cannot on the nearest research derive and gain one least grain of Profit, or the sma­lest drop of remaining pleasure. There in corruption they all perish; where man himself must at last alight from his Journey, to cast up the total of his expenses, in the short conclusion of Vanity and Vexation.

We need no more admire the cup of Circe, and the fictitious mutatious Poets have licenced: they relate men turn'd into ordinarily known Beasts: but we every day see a new species of brutes, as cruel as monstrous, en­gendred in our luxuries; which were I to digest into one collection, you [Page 45]would see a stranger Pyramid and larger than great Abbess erected in his Capital City of Persia; you might also phansie every dish, and glass of wine, productive of a different kind of Animals. But what rubricks the nefariousness of our Times, is to be drawn from drunkenness, which draws more swords and blood of our Nation in one year, than any one bat­tail spends in the same compass of time; The sanguine quarrels of our Compotations, like the famous set of Teeth, whence so many armed Cham­pions grew, divide the Bravoes, and their interests, into new and sober contests, and spring up into a war­like harvest of factions and Duels. For we continually see these intempe­rancies creating more Enemies, than good nature (to which none more pretend) can make Friends, and the strongest fidelity shipwrackt and split in a small glasse of wine drank or re­fused.

But beside this dangerous Service, wherein a man ventures his life as cheaply and commonly, as a poor Souldier that for six-pence the day stands in the breach, and tempts every shot; there is a secret poison envenoms this Good-fellowship, a sting that makes a breach in a mans bosom, be­yond his skill ever to compose, and reconcile with a perfect cure. Wine for the most part eludes the Guards every man ought to have upon his own breast, and breaks open the locks of all his Conclave and Cabinet Secrets: He is then like a Vessel full of Leaks, and the Liquor washeth all before it: if he have any infirmity of mind or latent Vice, this empties and disgorgeth all: he shall need no other Indictment than his own treacherous evidence, and im­potent folly; which the most sober of his protests and retractations shall ne­ver expunge. Should another be pri­vate to the confident trust and affecti­on some One reposes in his dearest Friend, to whom he embosomes his [Page 47]whole-self; should he break in upon the free Caresses and Amours of the Conjugal Bed, about which the Night has drawn a second and modest Cur­tain; should he hear his open Confes­sions to Heaven of all his baseness, and and unworthy abuse of infinite conde­scentions: As soon as this person who thought himself in the dark shall find himself exposed and betrayed, I can­not imagine but his indignation will be all thought too little to torment him­self alone, without regard of any o­ther Traitor. And I am confident, were Windows thus made into our hearts and actions, Man would so far hate converse, as rather to seek the most solitary and dismal Wilderness; Nay, knowing his own misery by the view he would not have had of it, but from others prying examinations, He would even flie his own shadow, and study how he might run from and avoyd himself, as the only derided and insulted on by all the rest of the world.

The more noted disguises Ebriety put's upon men; with the detriment, mind, Body, and Estate suffer by the ir­revocable lapses of them all: The most sottish of those, who most study to amuse their own heavy hours, thoughts, and company with the con­diment and fallacy of Wine, yet can­not measure it out, but with the many observations from their own acquaint­ance they miss at the Club, and rem [...]m­brance of their former jovialties toge­ther. I therefore industriously dismiss them, having but insinuated the height of Passion it inflames, and sometimes feeds with blood, and the life of Amity it self; with that exulcerate feebleness of reason, which by an impotent tenes­mus betrays the infirmities of those, we almost Idoliz'd, to scorn and hatred.

Those who indulge Gluttonous vo­racity fare no better, by exchanging sanity of mind and Body for the cor­ruption of both; the former in many, scarce owning the preservative quality of being a living pickle to the latter. [Page 49]Not Cleopatra's dissolv'd Union, the Spicery of Arabia, with the genuine Balsam and skil of the Egyptian Em­balmers, can long keep those bowels from putrefaction, which we so solici­tously pamper: These being the very first conceive it, on the dissociation of soul and body. Methinks those very Fingers with which we carry our dain­ties to our Palate, that with our Rings bear the Sepulchral heads of some of our former familiarity, should indigi­tate to us a Lecture of our own mortali­ty, and tell us, we all the while feed our animated Sarcophagi. I shall not de­termine whether Fire or Earth be the most faithful Heirs, Assigns, and re­positories of our Reliques; for perhaps every Tomb may enclose in it a self-subsistent lamp, as the Heart alive en­joys it's vital flame, and the Spirits render the whole body luminous, as well as pervious, till Death breaks open, and let's out the light. But I am sure our Glutton gormandizes, as if he would make his Friends their last [Page 50]Treat of his own Corps; and, that in which has liv'd to devoure so many Thanks giving meals, serve them up a bill of Fare equal to the Prince­like Arch-Bishop of Yorks Inaugura­tion Feast; and with the same cour­tesie instal himself in the kind graves and Monuments of his last Officious Friends surviving Stomachs.

From the good chear and wine, that has dispos'd our Gallant to the embrace of any near hovering and baser Form, we most usually trace him to the lap of his Venus: the little bu­sie Cupids of

LUST

Dancing about in the loose Air, instantly gliding into possession of his mind; where all the weak chara­cters of Virtue and sobriety are washt out, to make a Table fair enough to render any Vice more legible that shall be first impress'd in it. The Cittadel of the Heart thus unmann'd, [Page 51]is easily surpriz'd and garrison'd with a miserable woman; Who never thinks the Victory absolute and secure till she have demolisht all the Fortifica­tions of his reason and modesty, tri­umph'd over his cap [...]iv'd tame passi­ons, and raised in it a Mosque to the blind God of Love. Here you see a­nother Cytherea born out of the des­pumations of our Seas of Wine, with this only difference, she is not naked, but appears more formidably arm'd to conquer man than Jove and Nep­tune, with their Thunder and Tri­dent. Upon this Ocean you may cer­tainly fear the incursions of this fa­mous Rover, whom I may call a wo­man of warr (with no greater solae­cism than that, which gives the femi­nine gender in ordinary discourse of a man of War) drest only with slight tackling, and wary concealments drawn over her shot, to amuse you; or make a more speedy chace after you when flying from her: Here lading is not worth reprizal whatever damage she [Page 52]had done you: Her vessel suffers not by storms or repeated wrecks; nor can you any way direct a shot to sink it; she only suffers by Fire, and carrying so prodigious store of Ammunition is to be blown up not boarded.

Let me essay to give you some such Character of Venus, (if any be to be taken of her, pozing us with her Pro­tean disguizes, not perfections) and directions in your obnoxiousness, by which you may avoid the dangerous incantations of these Syrens. That which first betrays us is the supposed Beauty we drink greedily in at our startled eies, if not join'd with the heats of some too kind and close sa­lutes: and how desperate madness is it, when the heart is the Mine of so combustible Lust, to suffer the loose globuli of powder catch fire at the eies and lips, which with the twinkling of an eye spring the incendiary Train to the magazine of its Wildfire? But in­deed we are here fairly cheated in our pursuits and reveries to single beauty; [Page 53]We admire that for Orient, sweet, and perfectly symmetriz'd, which is but the tincture and odor she borrows every morning from the Closet, and the Tailors ingenious farcings: For when she is drest, so little a part she is then of her self, as is the small Chap­pel of the Lauretan Lady, under the great and rich cover they have cloath'd it withall: and indeed a Woman un­drest to her self drest, is like a Cot­tage to a Palace; Dressing is a Wo­mans Art of Architecture, and the extraordinary niceness and expenses thereof the Curse and disease of too much Riches.

But supposing a face as lovely as e­ver you ador'd in a dream, or can phancy without the help of one; This complexion is but vanishing and skin deep. Sickness, Grief, or Age make as heavy devastations on it, as the barbarous Tartars can doe, in their inroads to a flourishing Country: Raise up but the skarfe skin which covers this fine mould, and you never [Page 54]beheld a more ruefull object: Or con­ceive it as the admired frontispiece of an excellent Fabrick, and but consider what is done within, how these fair embellishments are but neat contriv'd emunctories to the Brain; and you must think of something loathsome also. 'Tis your own phancy feasts it self with the perfections it has created to worship; So prompt and cunning it is to cook up a known and ordina­ry entertainment, into new and de­licious blandishments. But if you are not to be out of conceit with the face, consider what manner of deformed In­habitant inspirits this Beauty; and that a monstrous soul in an illustrious case, needs your compassion on the incon­veniency which is greater than that Galba paid rent for▪ Nay it requires your utmost vigilancy too: for this Creature feeds on poysons, and kills with her looks and breath. For to sup­pose all must be fair within, because of this specious superficies, and that a sweet countenance necessarily dul­cifies [Page 55]and clarifies the soul; is to place the Lanthorn of Judas, and adore it among sacred Reliques; be­cause it lighted the Traitor to the pro­dition of our Blessed Saviour. If that sex, as virtuous as beautiful, be An­gelical, 'tis more diabolical by its Apo­stacy.

It is an unparallel'd slavery to bow your affections to the imperiousness of such a lewd soul, who requires the quite contrary experiment of servitude, to that the bestial Duke of Ossuna fright­ed his naked Barber into: for she ex­pects as easie command of your passi­on as her skill has perfected hers into by the art of obeying wholly her li­bidinous appetite. What misery must it be to be enthrall'd to a sort of infe­riour Animals than mankind, of whom I may almost virifie the Turkish Re­ligion; that such as these have lost their soul? Tacitus himself aphorizeth no less in his short and poynant con­clusion with Messalina. Could you see the inside of this strange Woman, [Page 56]you would find it altogether a pra­ctice of outsides; an exchange of dif­fring habits, looks, and phrases sha­ped to every circumstance of dissimu­lation. Sometime she is as inaccessi­ble as Valentia, to which no other then a narrow bridge permits approach and all seems to be horrid Alps about it, rocks frozen harder and colder with frost and snow; and none but an Han­nibal would hope to break thorough them. Anon, like the Town Plura on a suddain fall of a rock subverted, and nothing to be seen of it but a dire­ful Lake.

Such an one indeed is a common sewer of Lust, and Druggs. For the latter like the Hospital near the Church-yard of magnificent St. Peters at Rome cannot lay farr off: and 'tis well if she have not the quick dige­stion also of that Earth, once part of Holy ground. I am sure you know not what dangers and evils you re­pose on. Inconstancy, Impetuosity, Fallaciousness are the composition of [Page 57]their Love, Lust the informant. Scarce ever do any reassume chastity, who have once depos'd it. For immo­desty straight enthrones a Plebeian u­surping community, that attaint the noblest spirits which use to blush at Baseness, and by its hatred of all sence of Honor puts all that is honest and generous out of countenance. Then you will too late groan under the Tyranny and fatigues which mind and body are involv'd in, when you find your self both as far from the satisfaction and happiness you sigh af­ter, as in that hour you first became her Votary; and no nearer liberty then the Galley-slave, who expects Death alone to unchain him from the Oar. For like the labors of Hercules some new exploit will still be conjur'd up to destroy or ensure your courage and obsequiousness, and like him you will endure a dying life, in those flames Love, and Jealousie can never make too hot for their Purgatory.

Yet at the no easie rates of a Gal­lican Limbus, our Age will buy the pleasure of its Lust. Neither the dis­appointment of their hopes, vassalage of their passions, nor Penances (At the price whereof they would renounce Heaven it self) can make these mani­ac's temperate. And indeed they seem to be under an high distemper of mind and body; the solicitude, insaciety, vicissitude of violent affections, and di­stractions, are symptoms of that: the pale face, vibrated eies, inequal pulse, and their waking Coma shew this to be under an acute feaver, which all their long sighs cannot hasten in breath enough to cool.

But if you obtain the utmost fru­itions of your Amours, if you fear no Rival, if your joynt affections be embosom'd in one common breast, and you know not how to express or entertain a more full indulgency of Love; All the history hereof does o­penly confess this your happiness, to be empty, shallow, and miserable: For [Page 59]the most pathetic Language of your melting affections can speak or sig­nifie no more than bare commiserati­ons, or bold wishes over your Belo­ved; wherein you rather pity and be­wail one another in the short capaci­ty of Love, than take or give any perfect proof or content in it: While your greatest efforts of passion doe but instruct the mind in its tremulous flu­ctuancies, that it is at the wrong point of the Magnet; and only condole over its affections to be so frustrated of their rest, and permanent satisfaction. For the acquest then of no more; Consi­der you stake the All of your self, whatever that can amount to, for the hectic feaver of a consuming, incer­tain, fugacious, phantastic brutish pleasure, which concludes, without extorted acknowledgment, that you are deluded, and infinitely short of that good, the Soul would quietly rest in, without forming so much as one thought to uncenter it self.

None that finds Opinion the Empress of the world, but observes Pas­sions to be the ladders by which it as­cended: Passions which supplant Rea­son, to whom they were given in sub­jection and service, and gain the intire government of our wils. So does lust assign it self to its ensnaring object, That it uses to prefer it abundantly, before the particular content, which every individual enjoys of his Crea­tors goodness, to reckon himself ab­stractedly happy in: (had not every one such an innate principle, emulati­on and envy would continually torture the Soul, and we should wish to be any thing but what we are) now an unlawful Love cancels this beatifying apprehension, and connatural emul­gency of delight, which is suckt from out of it self alone; and imposes ano­ther Standard of your joy. What you love you live; Your passion, suppres­sing all other concerns, erects a Court of Requests, out of which nothing is to be transacted, and the whole busi­nesse [Page 61]and design of living shall be to love: And that love, adoreing its be­loved so transportedly, never ceaseth to consigne it self over by its own exina­nition; to become and be transform'd into what it loves. I could hence philosophize nicely on the cause of the distinct formation of either Sex, con­trary to the receiv'd Tradition, that the predominant virtue determines the conception into its own similitude: which would solve divers subtleties, but it is excentric. From this discourse you have this sad consequence, that the object possessing and impassiona­ting you, will certainly infuse into you all those vitious defects her degenerate mind has contracted, and you yield up your own integrity to be de­form'd by her monstrous depravati­ons.

Thus much more you see you ven­ture of your self for so remarkable an infatuation; and if you will add unto it the diuturnity, and (I had almost said) impossibility of vindicating your [Page 62]self from this Bondage; You have sound out a State of direful misery, ineluctable and deplorable sadness. For Love though it be slowly and late ascendent, seldome setts, but with our selves descending into shades and ob­livion. 'Tis not the first living, but of the last dying emotions of the soul: You see it will strive under all the infirmities of old Age, to render it as ridiculous as insufficient. You cannot when you please divorce it your af­flicted bosom: it wakes with you, and laies down beside you; and when you court some soft repose and silence, it breaks in upon you withal the noise tumult and lancination of distracted passions, holding your eies open to its ravishments, though you behold no­thing therein but your own suffrings. So have I seen a poor captive Bird, when attempting a free and open flight, rudely checkt with the short twine, and after a small hovering and fluttering resistance in the affected air, fall breathless groveling on the earth. [Page 63]On the folly of poor stupid man, that, as much as it abhorrs the very shadow of restraint and fetters, which are of anothers imposing, yet studies to build himself a Labyrinth, and thinks him­self not secure of his liberty; till he have contriv'd how ingeniously to in­carcerate his freeborn affections! Thus those who dreaded the Roman yoak, by the same methods of Fear subject­ed the Nation to their voracious Ea­gles, only having the election how to perish.

Should I after some dark and rough draughts delineating your misery, de­sign to heighten the few faint appea­rances of your imagined felicity and light titillations of sence; and fill it up with the many deep shadows, and strong grounded horrors which the passions draw upon amorous Gal­lants: You would think it the very picture of that Carcase which had been martyr'd in Venereal fires, and was conserv'd as a specific against Le­chery. Or that you saw some dis­mal [Page 64]night-piece, on which one loose touch of the Pencil had thinn'd the air, but so as if it had but with a thought only follow'd the swift flight of an Angel thorough it. So transient is the extasie of your delight and pleasure, over the black visions of Lust.

Can I say more to prejudicate and arm you when your Soul will be in­danger'd by this assassination, know­ing what circumventions will some­time be prevalent, which these Salva­ges to our nature would wholly en­snare you in; and that all I can say will be little enough to instruct your innocence, and I fear much too weak to rescue it from a surprize, much more out of the fastnesses of a secure­ly accustomed and Familiar Vice? These kind of Creatures therefore the Predatory spirits upon the life of man we have not a word in all the vocabu­lary of evills bad enough to signifie their hideous Turpitude, unless I could pliancy it so completed, that they had nothing more to add to make it [Page 65]more Fatal to us. Put the malice of these sorceresses is so fruitful of mis­chiefs, that we are only happy that the Fount of Goodness is inexhaustible, when we see all degrees of misery dis­seminated out of their circulating Pan­dora's Box. You cannot comprehend the mystery of the sacramental Dedi­cation they have made of themselves in their Vow of Prostitution: Where­in they devote themselves to corrupt and debauch Man from his Integrity and felicity: So difficult will it be to prognosticate what villanies will not be broached by them, to poyson the world with a worse plague than that from Naples. Shew me that sincerity Grandieur, Sapience that has escap'd their pernicious attempts: Shew me the greatest combination of nefarious­ness has but been meditated, and I will more than exemplifie it in some notorious impudence, or profligate treachery of a woman. Our blessed Lord and Saviour among all tentati­ons, permitted not this of the [...] [Page 66]so much as to be levell'd against him; so immaculate Virtue could no more admit a conflict with this impurity, than the Sun it self can be suppos'd assaulted with midnight. And we know it the Guardian, as well as honour of Innocence to be free from all suspicion and darings of a very tempting vice. But the first, best, strongest, greatest and wisest of meer men, speak their diminution in all these, by their un­happy connexion to these indeclinable particles of Levity. They are indeed themselves the nullity of all words: Nothing they speak is more substanti­al than their very looks, which every breath of yours, and (what is out of all compasse more variable) their own desultory phansy alters often in a mo­ment.

I am angry with my invention to be so jaded in so fowl a Road, every progression is more squalid and miry to me, yet I want dirt enough to cast upon these seeming Viae Lacteae. Who [...] rubb'd on so exquisite a dealbati­on, [Page 67]that my very Ink looseth its blacks upon them. Neither think me provo­ked or in passion beyond the Antipathy every good Soul has to Hypocrisie. Believe me then, these are the grand Favorites of Hell, or the aptest dis­ciples Lucifer ever school'd, that are so easily and naturally accommodated to that Art, that what we say of common Lyars own belief, that to them warrants at last their often questioned, and therefore more cau­telous Fictions, we may here apply, That so industriously are these disci­plin'd, that not their dearest friends, but their vilest selves too fall by their own Cheats and Dissimulation. And would the Imposture rot with them­selves. But to see these Hyenae ensnare truly generous Souls, that are guilty of betraying nothing but themselves, raiseth so high an Indignation in me, that methinks every point I direct my pen to should be the sharp Execution of a stile at their hearts; for, if they have any, they have more than the [Page 68]Creation form'd in them.

But they have not yet their deaths wound, who outlive and outvie the transmutation of Cats themselves: Suppose you saw such a beautiful countenance at parting, orecast with an heavy cloud of seeming Sorrow, because it leaves you perplexedly grieved: When instantly upon your vanishing it clears up all its beams and displays, to melt the next face and heart into a warm thaw, and court him as the Travailer out of his Cloak and modesty, into the barefac'd nudities of lust. Would you not wish with me such a common red Lattice were alway as pervious to the eye, as signal in the paint; to abhorre at once the Goatish stench, loathsome impurities, and trea­cherous embraces of a Brothel Af­fection?

In the mean while how intire and meritorious soever your love be, it can have no fairer reception in her breast, than that Room which is the thorough-fare of a common Hostelry: [Page 69]and here your Heart will be lodged; not under so consecrate custody and regard, as those donaries and votive Tables, which some Sts. Chappels with ostentation reckon up: But rather strung up, as a long file of faln teeth, by which some vagrant Operator girds his Art about him; where if there be any of the Catalogue of greater esteem than other, 'tis not for any kindness he ows it, or any its native excellecy, but from some extraordinary monstro­sity in it. I could hazard so much in­timacy with such a Publican Soul, as might procure me but an inlet upon her thought, when she is casging, up the roll of her Copy-holders, and the duties they pay her: For I guess I should find her caressing her self with greater delight, to have made so many Proselytes, than pleasure of fully gra­tifying her enflamed Lust, She may well admire that versatile sagacity of her skill, that has deluded and exco­riated so many Booties, over whose innocent credulity, she solennizeth and [Page 70]insulteth with the Soveraignty and Triumph of the haughty Scythian up­on Caged Bajazet.

Can a man be willing to serve on­ly to fill up her Muster, to increase the names must approve and licence her skill; that she is one perfect in the my­stery of her Faculty; and of as refi­ned dissimulation as the Trade can bear? O Heavens! O tame Figures of Men! rather than want choler and indignati­on at this indignity, may you be all over icteritious. Could I wish worse than these Miscreants are forging upon themselves, it should be Cassandra's destiny, to find none perswaded by them: So far I pity, so much just wrath have I against these Megaera's, whose Hypocrisie may Entitle it self another Fury of Hell (their bottom­less Patrimony) and have Primacy of the other there. The very Beasts can shew us out of their brutal appetite and converse, nothing to be an Hie­roglyphick of this Synopsis of Vice: The bosoms of these Wretches only, [Page 71]enclose this monstrous propagation of promiscuous evils, not to be conceiv'd in all Africa. These are the Ignes fa­tuae, and Precipices too, of benighted and wandring Affections; the wanton touches upon pruriginous spirits, which instantly gripe with the stings and pangs of a Scorpion; the Velitation of a mad Sardian laughter, which termi­nates in mortal convulsions. Those haggish Succubae, which not only drein the bloud of its purest vitals, but by Aco­nite to the parched heart.

Can I say more to awaken an En­chanted soul, than that it is upon the margin of all horror? Open but your sight to one beam of sober and clear Reason, and you will be amaz'd to see how insensibly you have been hur­ried and transported by these infernal Emissaries, to such a distance from your own home and knowledge, and that in so short a time: And if any good word may be now of force to dissolve the charm you are under, [Page 72]what ever this folly has cost you; Be­lieve me you cannot pay too dear for a Repentance that will snatch you out of their Gremial graves.

In a word, these mistresses of the Magistery of dissimulation, are the greatest Enemies to the convers of the World. For whereas nature im­pressed one royal and plain stamp on the noble mine of our Affections, These first debase them with their dross then form what impress soever they list to transfer upon them: So while we pay them with currant and solid mass of unalloyed Love, they cheat and beggar us with exchange of their base obtruded Gounterfeits. And this is a mystery they anvile without any noise, it needs no load nor tryal of Artizans tools: Their Hearts are the mineral, their Breasts the hot forges, their Brain Hammer and Vice, their impudent looks, lascivious words and wanton gestures the exposing stalls to their cozenage: their ware and shop how cheap and open soever, is yet [Page 73]too dark and dangerous to advance one step nearer perdition. Thus like dan­cing Masters they are born with the Engines of their Trade, and can set it up as easily as Tumblers vault; and without hardship of an Apprentiship become free of any Corporation. This is enough to decypher them to your knowledge without the infallibility of the Porphyry Chair. Avoyd them therefore as the most dreadful under­miners of your liberty and happiness; somewhat stoln upon the quiet of man again to cast him out and bar Para­dise against us: which shall be charge enough to impeach those seducing Spi­rits, and confirm you in your blessed Innocence.

But I cannot have so great detesta­tion to this herd of Satyrs, as venera­tion to that Love which is pure, and refulgent in the Conjugal or Amical Love-knot. I even adore that Affecti­on, which springing from a sacred root sprouts forth its still flourishing blos­soms to enammel the fair plantations of [Page 74]Nature with a perpetual Spring: The present, the after ages while time and mankind cohabite shall rise up to ho­nour you with their due benedictions, and with the whole bank of Huma­nity shall acknowledge it ows its Stock to your liberal improvements. Friend­ship I no less admire as one of the fra­grantest flowers in the garden of the Creation, that Odor which delights the Soul with the sympathy born from the same spot of Earth into an uniting coalition of Affections: Which in dif­fering sexes may sometime grow into elegancies not otherwise educible: and if the terrene nourishment thereof be not too rich and luxuriant, the com­placencies of nature will by their fair attractions, more powerfully and en­gagingly corroborate and sweeten it. But a true principle of Amity in all persons and Relations, will not cease to sublime it self into an Angelical per­fection, and innocence of Love; both in wishing nothing so much as one anothers happiness, and pursuing it [Page 75]by all the amicable obligations and assistances of Virtue, with a caelestial efflorescence of Joy, to have together ascended above the dull and tumultu­ous cares and hurries of unreasonable passions; and be so farre emergent from sense, as to distinguish and pa­lat a condition that is serene, conge­nial, the Banquet of the most intelli­gent and amiable Spirits, and a prae­libation of what the happy Glorious above enjoy and feast upon.

But loe, we are brought down a­gain, to this gross Orb of Grief and loss, our Gallants Tragedy of

GAMING

Where we find his Royalties and Mannors parceld and rent into a small pack of Cards, his money ebbing and flowing with the pace it keeps to the rifing and falling Dice: all his hopes cast into a narrow box; his deeds and conveyances in as little paper, as the Conqueror pass'd whole Countries o­ver [Page 76]by. Not that our Gallants love Abridgments of our voluminous laws, much less a sure and speedy way to be rich: Nor do they curse the tedious formalities of Tribunals. Only they admit of a distinct Court from West­minster-Hall, from which no appeal is allowed: Every Ordinary has its So­lon and Lycurgus; and as a particular Chancery expedites all the rules of its try'd and well consulted Equity: and from these you shall sometime meet our Gamesters return, with the countenances of those that had just pass'd a Tryal at Bar. The famous Painter Angelo might from their looks have finisht his last Judgment: The loosers bearing the gulfs of despair in their very faces, being undone and e­jected out of all their fair affluences, and so much as the hopes and possi­bility of having one cast more for a Fortune: not one minute more of the whole stock of time to turn up a fa­vourable revolution; They themselves Relations, dependents, expectancies ex­cluded, [Page 77]and for ever debarr'd approach near to their abdicated prosperity. On the other side he might have the high spring-tides of exhilient Joy enlar­ging their channels, oreflowing all its banks to import an Ocean of new rais'd spirits, to welcome and take ac­quaintance of the great success and de­light the winner brings off: In whose look, not a Line Fear dares lay hold on, nor thorough this crowd of exultations can one sad thought justle up to an Audience: And our Painter may fear to begin a Face so full of life, as all his skill and oyl, will be too little to tarifie and air, to brisk and rutilate.

But those in whom our Gaming can draw so pleasant a Prospect are indeed herein more like the blessed Heirs of Heaven; in that they are the rarer in­stances of Beatitude, some few select reserves of the collection of mankind, like the crowned Victors of the many that contended for the Prize, and lost it. Only here our Gallants rashly com­mit the whole course to Fortune and [Page 78]chance. Those who exterminate Pro­vidence may here behold, what fair provision they assign to the prudence and industry of the World, and ac­count it the unluckiest advantage man could stumble on, to be born with eyes, endowed with understanding to discern happiness, and a soul spirited to its enjoyment; but have no way distinguishable to seek after and ac­quire it, nor any means to retain it longer than the mutable contingen­cies of Affairs settle in one Posture: For when the four stirring Elements, like the suits at Cards, are shuffled in­to another hand, or such numbers fall into a benigne or cross chance; there will be no bearing up against these blind events, and the Age must be left to play its own Game, and us; without any mediate disposures or mo­tions of our own.

This would be to infatuate all the designs of reason and diligence. For though we know we must hazard storms, unseen rocks and shelves of [Page 79]dangerous Seas; Yet who puts out, without his skilfull Pilot and Compass? Nay who puts himself upon the perils of waves, but on the fairest expectancy of profitable returns? Only our home Adventurers here, that contract their whole substance into so little bulk, that they may easily heave all over­board at one lift, and cast all away in one suddain wreck. Nor will they be adviz'd to beware of those armed Land-Pirates, that lay ready to prey upon every ventur'd Estate, the arts they have to make out a Prize, their stratagems to hunt it, their violence and treachery invading it, and barba­rousness to divide the spoil in the ve­ry sight of the naked Gull. So do we often see an old stout Carrack, that has made many a successful honoura­ble and rich voyage; that has long carried all the fortune, name, and ven­ture of a brave Family embarkt in it: neither split on the fatall hardness of the times, nor broken by fury of con­tinual Tempests, or lost by its old in­discoverably [Page 80]growing leakages; no, nor yet nobly sunk after manly resist­ance by the prevailing enemy of its nation: But basely assail'd by an un­suspected crew of Villains in the very harbor; unladen, pillaged, and cleft into so small planks, that you find not so much of it remain, as of our great Drakes vessel to be but a narrow Seat of that once famous name.

What the admirable wisdome and conduct of your Ancestors gathered into one safe Hive, to be the stock and shelter of the whole Tribe; to Head & Countenance; to all the Line­age; One night surprizeth, destroys, the Oeconomy of the Family, extin­guishes the fair Colonies it might have peopled the world with; and there re­mains nothing of it but the shade of a great Name; the empty curtail of its faint Eccho. I know no law can be form'd to prevent these frequent miscarriages, wherein Posterity suf­fers abortion, and many a pregnant Spirit is suffocated, in the streight en­closures [Page 81]of a confining vellicating For­tune: who had they opportunity of fairly lanching forth, their sails had been fill'd with the same breath of their Ages Honour, and Applause, which was a propitious gale to their Grand-fathers: whereas now your own farthest extended Line shall remem­ber your name, but to lash it with their heaviest execrations. For the rob­bing of the whole by your exportation and alienation of what was theirs more than yours, has also like the Peter-pen­ny ship stranded in Sandwich, together with it sank the Harbor; and made its convenient situation more regretfully deplorable in the sad disaster. For it is a misery to be born to the remem­brance of those honors, which con­templation and sense of our present in­digencies suffer us only to grieve o­ver, and sink in that also below the calamity and loss it self.

I could wish there were kept a Re­gister in each shire of all, who, by this or any other profusion, end as the [Page 82]Snuffs of noble and wealthy descents, that their Country may exclaim at and abominate the stench; And that some proportion of every fair Revenue might by no Law niceties be alienable; but, upon such a declination of the Fami­ly, immediately pass into the Coun­ties possession: not to erect Hospitals for the devastator, but be wholly converted to the education of the most hopeful Youth can be recommended (those of that Name primarily respect­ed) for the making up the breach a­mong them, and raising up as flouri­shing a name again to the Nation. Nor can your severity be too rigid upon the spend-thrift, who has submitted himself and Fortune (as the Military discipline sometime does its offenders lives) to the lot upon the Drum-head, and his posterity under the Spear to infamous slavery and sufferings: Spirits so ignobly base, that, were their Fa­thers dust intrusted on their inheritance, would even pawn their quiet ashes and old monuments, to build one poor bank at play.

These are less worthy our commi­seration, than the many Malefactors we with dry eies follow to Execution. He that salcheth or robbs on the high­way is not in hope of such booties, nor capacity to destroy more than sin­gle lives: Here we see play'd away the lives and beings of those, they have no more just power to dispose of, than the Church has, to alienate its consecrate rights to profane abuses; or than we can force of satisfaction, for the cruelty, and rapines of Romans and Danes upon our Fore-fathers. I might add to the shame of our Gal­lants madness, what their hopes of gain can be upon their greatest success. Did you ever see any great Family made greater by accessions at Play? Certainly Industry and honest Labor rais'd all that we now see, bearing up above the malice and fate of old Time: An Estate thus built has no one rafter but is seasoned, every stone has the stability of a Quarry; 'tis ce­mented with long wrought sweat, and [Page 84]is a morsel on which Saturn himself will break his fangs: What we gain by fair diligence has a sweetness, which stollen waters shall sooner become wine than emulate, a sweetness which from the soundness of its constitution forbids corruption; and must needs conserve every particular, as being the condiment of Time it self: which would be so burthensome to us, that were there no industry necessary, to till, sow, and reap our fields, our bread and life would be alike embittered to us. All your gains at play can never be adopted to serious and noble uses, like the I holoze Gold, and all Sacri­legious spoils, they rather bring a Coal to consume your own high-rais'd hopes and Fortunes: Those that rob you, are anon under the pilferings of their own vicious Lusts; and the Infi­dels that depend on Events of as great succes evey day will find their own Family unprovided for.

I will joyn to this Quixotry its in­separable Sancho through all the ad­ventures [Page 85]of Gaming; that bears the weapons; and Portmantua full of Lightning and Thunder: I mean the

SWEARING

That attends Gamesters; which is so much the more inexcusable, be­cause all this while our Gallants must play with as little concern and regret as the Don had, whether he did beat or was beaten; the generosity of his spirit and glory of the Adventurers would not bear a second beating by his own passions. But certainly that great Isabella, who in her extremities of Childbirth cover'd her face, and not so much as by her looks would derogate from Majesty; could not so quietly look on the intrenchments up­on her state and Soveraignty, but would passionately assert it, against her own Ferdinand. And I will not believe Oaths and Curses, because they ac­cent our ordinary Language, and are used to veil many natural defects, [Page 86]sound no more when we part with an arm or limb of an Estate. If they are not all this while in passion, these might have been well spared; if they be, these like bellows blow it into grea­ter heat and fury: and this can be but the very blowing away an overture to an excuse.

However these are the Gamesters, Artillery, and Trumpets too: if they come off with a fair Atchievment, these proclaim the Prize; if worsted, they sound the foile too. They have not Oaths enough to magnifie and invoke Fortune in her favourable as­pect: Nor ever hope to be reveng'd of her frowns, by belching up their hasty and fowl execrations on the Mig­nion. As temerariously and blindly they cast round about them these fire-brands and fatal ponyards, as she seems to them wantonly to dispense her de­stinies. But where the Fire catches, and the Wounds fall, the Nature of this fulminant Gold will lowdly direct you: You think to blow and shoot [Page 87]it up against Heaven; but it kindles below, and breaks downward, re­coyling fearfully, with the noise and burning of a Cannon upon your own bosom.

Might I enquire what these bold Gigantic Combatants think of For­tune, or a surer hand guiding their Game: If there be none, why do the Brutes so rave, at what do they discharge their continual brayings, why so tormentously rend their weary throats? If there be a Fortune, She is blind and unconcern'd. Why should they commit their hopes and enjoy­ments to the Winds? But if indeed you strive with Heaven; 'tis because you can subject its decrees to yours, or fear them not: If the first, you only are in fault if you be not as happy as you would be: Conquered, frighted Heaven must have stoop'd to your commands. Why complain you far­ther of it? If the latter steel your au­daciousness, They are very impotent and despicable cannot reach, and pu­nish [Page 88]your daring impieties. Be con­fident however, this is not the way to call down caelestial auxiliaries (as in­fernal Spirits are willing to answer hard and terrible words) your defian­ces arm them against you, to powr down greater fury, to compleat and triumph in your extremest misery.

But our Gallants plead not so much the ventilation of Passion, the explo­sion only of some fired discontented Spirits by their cursed Oaths (where. I cannot conceive the Devil for their Example) They use them as the Ele­gancies and figures of speech, as ne­cessary as the Ornaments of their dress. They are their supplements unto all parts of discourse and Rhetoric: Oaths and imprecations file off all rudeness and barbarisms, act the full force of perswasion, and the very acuteness of a declamation and Satyr. They can be as ill layd down by our Nobless as their Muffs in winter, so frigid and shrivel'd would their converse be with­out them. They have a way to com­prize [Page 89]much of their great minds in this kind of Laconic brevity. Their Pa­ges, Coachmen, and Watermen with but one round mouth'd Ejaculation, and a hand toward their sword, straight know what they mean, and, as Spani­els are taught, readily execute their pleasure. The same again breath'd with a melting accent, smooth face, and bending body, serves in the quin­tessences of complements, and pro­tests of most oblieging friendship and service.

O depraved times, and more de­generate Humanity! Is there no way left us to be ingenious, and facetious, but by obscenities or monstrous abuse of all that is sacred? Does Profane­ness and contempt of Divinity encir­cle our Wits with that Laurel, which will both dare the Thunderer, and evade the blow! Then let us yield them immortality, and dread the stroaks of their incensed Wit, as the vulgar doe the tails of Comets, and the multiplication of Suns. But if we [Page 90]reflect on the genuine evaporations of these Ingenioso's, how like are they to Meteors, and Hurricanes of wit, rather than fixed stars, or the Heaven born placid and fructifying Dew: ra­ther lowd foaming forced and angry Torrents; than the smooth and Chry­stalline stream flowing easily from a pure Fountain of happy invention? That which can run with an even un­interrupted vein of fertile ingeny and knowledge, thorough all the wind­ings of Art and Nature; Sometime emptying it self in the profound specu­lations of abstruse Philosophy, to try the most reaching fathom; Anon, playing with and turning up the loo­ser sands, resting on the sides of the courted shoars, crisping its light divi­ding waves into limpid curls, with whispred purling murmurs; as if wea­ving into bracelets, and with its stu­died musick obliging its Muses stay and delight. 'Tis the facility and ferti­lity of Wit alone can impregnate the most barren Subject, make a Garden [Page 91]of a Common, contrive an oregrown Forrest into a Grove, or innocent La­byrinth; cut a rocky Precipice into a delightful Grott, and Waterworks; and is at no knotty emergency so stopt and plung'd, that it needs to call a Deity down upon the stage, to make its way open and disembogued.

Since then the essentials of true wit are of a different Origination and pro­gressions, from the Spurious attempts of those who laying their titles so bold­ly from Heaven, are but the mon­strous race of Centaurs, and far from Demi-Gods; Let the Nobles confess their mistake, when they find this cloud break in noise and smoak, and include no other Juno: And may they the more easily quit this superfluity of Vice, as what sounds with no other effect than the vanity of Childrens Potguns and Crackers. 'Tis a wickedness yields so little present satisfaction, and may so easily be shut out of all discourse; that it is the huge amazement of sober men, that any will venture paying [Page 92]dear for so fond a Lubency. That con­verse, which would be not only inno­cent but delightful, is often thus ore­spiced, and made too poynant with sprinkling those hot and high Oaths and Curses: that our spirits are in dan­ger of the air they breath, like nee­dles and launcets piercing a tender and sedate Soul; at the same time ma­king the wounds deeper with regrett, to be so unhappily bound and sow'd up in a bag, with nettles and Wasps.

This Vice may more decently now also be relinquished as being the Fa­miliar of their very Lacquays, the Blazonry of the dregs of the Popu­lace. In births, cloaths, diet, diversi­ons, and the heightning your pleasures; in the melioration of your minds by education and converse, in your hopes, designs, and noble employments you far outstrip all their enjoyments, and attempts: But here they can Rival (I doe not say) outvie you, in number, volubility, and as lowd volleys of Oaths and execrations. Now it con­cerns [Page 93]your Honour to retire, leave them the sport and quarry, which is not worth your Time, and does but dishonest your truly noble Entertain­ments.

You may here make a most profita­ble experiment upon the world (most docible by Examples that descend) You have convey'd this cursed sound through the whole Iland in an instant; as in the whispring pipes, the Roman wall is said to have carry'd in so long a Traverse. Would you might be en­treated to change these harsh and ter­rible sounds into soft and peaceable, that the affrighments and Furies, those have alarm'd, may be appeas'd; and we may appear to be seriously busie; not tumultuously startled and hurryed together as to an uproar and Riot: You may hence inform us, whether signal Virtue can be as exemplary as Vice has been by imitation destructive. So may you recover the reputation your births have given you above the commonalty, and your Faith remain [Page 94]inviolable: That your but necessary asseverations upon your Generosity and Honour, may be reverenced in your selves, and sacred in the esteem of your Inferiours.

We should now at last be grosly deluded, if we expect to find Religion in those Persons we struck at in the se­ries of our discourse: For none of those Vices can be the Rule of that Profession we have espoused: No soft­er a word and power than

ATHEISM

Regulates these mens lives, and em­boldens their impieties. With this Ge­neralissimo of the Powers of darkness, this skirmish shall be concluded, as that (which some glosse) the race of man shall at last set and conclude in. And now indeed, when we see the notion of a Deity usurp'd, but as the occult qualities to be derided only and exploded: We cannot but find the sha­dows growing and stealing apace up­on [Page 95]us. But certainly 'tis an affectation of obscurity envelopes us in night, and shuts out those raies, which cannot but in every point clear up to us the be­ing of a Creator. 'Tis grosse Igno­rance, Inconsideration, malitious wick­edness of the world, that dares not, will not admit a God into their thoughts, to become the Supreme Arbiter of their hearts and lives. Therefore they perplex their brains to dispute it off the stage. and with far greater anxi­eties labor to entangle the conception of a Deity, than they can so much as suppose in acknowledging their makers infinite perfections.

For shall fond man, whom we eve­ry day see crumbling into Earth, that knows not his own beginning nor set­ting, his composition nor capacity, judge of those things which as infinite­ly transcend our comprehension, as Nature; and could be no longer ado­rable if not perfectly mysterious? shall shallow we, lost in diving but to the bottom of every sensible, hope to fa­thom [Page 96]the immense Abyss of all power, knowledge, goodness? Would you a­ny longer worship, love, or fear God, if you had an apprehension of his be­ing, which you could any where ter­minate in finite limits? This would be to heathenize the Earth again, and re­duce such a slight and formal venera­tion, as heretofore was bestowed on their race of Gods, that once grew a­mong themselves; and on the Idols they shaped according to their own phansied Images. I need not say it is necessary, for it is impossible, we should here have any more plain no­tions of our Maker, than those in which He is pleased to reveal himself to us. All of the knowledge of himself is my­sterious, adorable, admirable, but most consummate: All of our Duty plain, easie, and most necessary. I say e­nough for the reasonableness thereof, that if it had been no Tryal of the will and affections to renounce the world and our selves, God would ne­ver have propounded it in the middle [Page 97]between an Eternal Glory and Mi­sery.

But it is a vain Curiosity (which first made the breach upon Man in the mass) which will not be confin'd to its duty, under our present possessi­ons, and hopes, greater than man can raise his vast soul to contrive. The state of which happiness, because en­tring upon no avenue of our senses; nay above all the reaches of our what not amplifying Heart, and almost powerfully creating Imagination; con­founds our conceptions and belief of it. But doe I believe God the maker of this fair fabric of this visible Cre­ation; wherein every one phansies he could carve out portion large enough for his most importunate desires: and in the poor pittances, fragments and Atoms whereof we every day see ma­ny reposing their utmost felicity, and could be content to sing eternal Requi­ems to their Souls over them? Do I not herein also admire the wonderful delight, beauty, use, and harmony re­sulting [Page 98]from every part of it, and con­centring within my self in fullest plea­sure and content, from my contempla­tions and fruitions thereof? And shall I not now be confident, that the most wise Creator, that raised this glori­ous frame but as a Pavilion to be spread over Pilgrims, or a stately Theatre for some few daies exhibiting the various Scenes and Actors upon the world, and then be taken down, has a Pa­lace of infinitely more excelling work­manship and entertainment; that the happiness reserv'd must transcend what soever I can see lovely and desirable here in my passage, and therefore must be Heaven?

Where the yellow clay, glasse beads and pebbles we reckon our selves and riches by (in our Sanguine dreams here) which we fear under our kee­ping, and bitterly bewail being lost; All these will be contemptible to the diaphanous yet solid Sun of the metals, pearls, and truly precious starry Gems; which are not to be the treasures but [Page 99]materials of the Caelestial mansions. The satisfaction I now take in one good word or work virtuously accomplisht, will then pass into a festival of Joy, by being asserted into a blissful activi­ty of all goodness, to the utmost of my enlarged powers. The refined pleasure my Soul now takes in, with every fresh gleam, and discovery of New found knowledge, and embra­cing a truth consentaneous to the prin­ciples of my own reason; shall then be the quickning it still to move on the inexhaustible deeps of Science and wisdome, with free expansions, and heliotrope conversions to that eternal light; that will irradiate and inform the intellectuals with the Spirit of all understanding. The affection of love, which here at some time carrys me out, to a delight and union with any at­tractive amiableness, and my ravish­ments in the harmonious repercussions of a Beloved, shall there transport me [...]o one endless Extasie of Love; where I shall enjoy what can alone (without [Page 100]grating on any one affection) perpe­tually invite out and meet the Soul in its purest ardencies and zeal, with in­extinguishable freeness, and fulness of divine goodness and bounty: so that this inconceivable energy the soul shall feel, will carry it wholly forth to the Vision of Beatitude, and pass it into the Glory it sees, adores, and loves with endless Delectation. Now then if I may have leave to call the will of the Blessed Souls, purity; their understanding, all eie; all their affecti­ons, Love: You will think the world you now live in a sink of Vice; a Ca­vern of dark ignorance; and a den of monstrous and salvage malice and cru­elty.

Could I here also pourtray the hor­rors a dejected, guilty, astonished, bro­ken, despairing, and self-torturing spi­rit, which way soever it turns, feels, and fears; I should from our own sen­ses, which are often sabled with me­lancholy, from the ravings of a Fea­ver, the pangs and groans of acute [Page 101]pains, and deathbed agonies and strug­lings, say enough to confess, though not constitute the misery of an Hell. Both these states with all the notions our narrow conceptions form of them, having all the demonstrations our un­derstanding, and the nature of the thing can admit, nothing being wan­ting to convince and support the most penetrating and cautelous Reason; let us no longer deny their being and cer­tainty, because so incomprehensibly a­bove us, and ours. For I am perswa­ded as to a distinct and clear appre­hension of them, we are as incom­petent, as the Embryo is in the close and dark womb to conceive of the vastness, order, and beauty of this lar­ger nest of Nature; wherein the com­parison you will also find to be more streightned. From your enjoyments here only consider whether you think the Author of them could not have heightned and perpetuated them, had it seemd good to infinite wisedom.

We in all these behold a continual [Page 102]vicissitude various interchanges and suc­cessions of all things sublunary. And it may not be amiss to grant such a rotation of States and families; as may suppose that they have all had their e­qual portion of prosperity and adversi­ty; so also that the very highest and lowest pitch and fall of either have, in some age or other, made some of the same stock most eminent in both conditions: that in every line some may be accountable for the trust of Princely power, and tryal of meanest debasement. However in all the varia­tions of our affairs here below, we may easily see and admire a Provi­dence disposing them, and bearing up a most constant tenour of unerring re­gularity: That days and seasons have their unalterable returns, the minds and shapes of each man their proper sentiments and impresses, every nation its particular distinct genius, the le­vity and excellency of each so counter­poiz'd (even to the turning with the two hundredth part of a grain) by [Page 103]some other defects and virtues of a neighbour Countrey, to the setting of due bounds to all: For the wilyness of that ballanceth the strength of this; the heat and agility of another is temper'd by the Phlegm and industry of their Enemy: to their innate ambition, is oppos'd the inexpungnable zeal others have to their native soil. Thus we see the Empires of the world have their periods, declination and expiration; as well as a Rise, augmentation, and flourishing.

That the conceptions and designs of every individual admit so many transmutations with their years; and that all of them sooner or later retire, and clear the stage to another Gene­ration, to which must be committed the whole concerns of Mankind; and yet all this while among so different traverses, the world has faln into no decay; no Encroachments have been made on Nature; nor such inundati­ons on its Inhabitants as to drown a­ny of their specific temperaments, or [Page 104]so oreflow any one part of them, as not to be recovered in some revoluti­ons; does lowdly proclaim and justi­fie the most wise decretals ef Heaven, managing so many dissenting heads, and new hands to the carrying on the wonderful business of Providence. There is no novelty under the Sun, all will still proceed with the mea­sures of a man, if we do not put off our own natures and principles. For 'tis Atheism alone can unhinge all, and invert the whole order of things; by destroying all opinion of the wise­dom and integrity of former ages, the happy security of the present, and all concerns and hopes for the future.

But had we a considerative view into the causes, actings, and termina­tions of those grand occurrences, which first startle, then leave us as much careless as unsatisfied; we should ad­mire the deep agencies of Providence. Did every one but seriously regard the wonders that have signaliz'd a great part of his own private concerns [Page 105]and contingencies; the notices arising thence would shew how he had been acted and guided by another hand and intention, beside and beyond his own. Round about how many notable in­stances daily break forth to instruct us, that Blind Nature alone could not so happily Time and finish her wise mistakes? As Embryos we can­not conceive much of the Order and Power of the Intellectual World. But I am perswaded much more is done among us by the concurrence of good and Evil Spirits, in common converse and Accidents, than we imagine or observe. Had we an history of those unaccountable remedies (which are no small nor unwarranted part of Me­dicine) some from animals, other from Vegetables, taken inwardly, or used as Amulets; we should acknowledge a great deal to their benignity, or some permitted delusions in their discoveries. The Temple of Aesculapius famous for its cures prescribed in dreams, and re­gistred into a Dispensatory on the [Page 106]walls therof; beside many later re­markables of this nature, justifies this my conceit.

Withal I suppose them very prone, if not by rule disposed, to concern themselves in all sorts of Offices, wherein they may employ their powerful activities; and have the pleasure unseen, to guide, assist, and patronize many of our undertakings. Many sudden and uncouth friendships, antipathies, strange deliverances, ad­vices in extraordinary distances, solu­tions of intricacies, presages, and power­ful influences upon other Creatures I may favourably refer to their presence and ministery; not denying but there are some persons by nature and temper (without recourse to an Asterism) fit­ted to wonderful intimations, and per­formances beyond the Vulgar. Yet I cannot but admire to see some suddenly grown up into an opinion and repute with the World; wonderfully made the darlings of Fortune, from one lucky article of an occasion instantly [Page 107]outstripping all others, and their own thoughts; thrive and prosper to the amazement of all, where every one before was defeated and wasted; in every enterprize and but petty hazard successful and victorious: and all this without anxious solicitudes, laborious insudations, or more than Common stock of comprehension or contri­vance. At the same time, a person wherein nothing is wanting to the Or­nament, as well as strength and vigor of Reason and Prudence, no defect in industry and Art; sinking, unfortu­nate, every way oppressed, and quite broken in all his designments: When I presently reflect on the admonition gi­ven Mark Antonie, in his competitions with Augustus; and that there is more truth and mystery in it, than we are aware of, and advized by. On a due collection, you will conclude, even where all seems to lay open to the sports and frolikes of Time and Chance, a most sure Hand from above, beyond our determinations and [Page 108]reaches, disposes all events how ca­sual soever in appearance and (by many Instruments [perhap] of some nearer degree of Intellectual Agents.)

From the promiscuous successes and conditions, Virtue and Vice are here equally involved in with industry and Imprudence, you may as necessarily infer the consequence of a state of life after this; where one shall account for the impious abuses of long provo­ked and most attractive goodness; the other meet a remuneration, suitable to the exercise of a suffering, throughly tryed, and perfected integrity. To which I may joyn the insatiable thirst, the soul of man pants under, toward a state of immortality: It beholds it self made to distinguish, and comprehend, the truth and worth of all about it (be­yond the power it sees any other Creature born unto) But there remain­ing so great a part of it undiscovered upon the Continent, as well as wide Ocean of knowledge; All the principles hereof also being but precariously and [Page 109]dubiously admitted; How does the Soul lay down and bewail it's sad con­dition, finding it's clearest resolves and conclusions, subject to cavillation and torture, when raising up an appetite large enough to take in the coveted delicacies, appearing only as if but to tantalize it? But now that do­ctrine which meets us heated, ty­red, dejected in despair of ever reaching, what our greediness has transported us out after; how well­come, pleasant, satisfactory will it be to us; reviving and raising us up again on our feet, so as to forget all our past toil and weariness; Especially when to the possession of this Terrestrial knowledge, It bids us look up to Hea­ven above, and reckon upon the in­numerable Lights and worlds of wisdom and understanding there, which we are created capable to look and pass into, and shall eter­nally reside under their illumina­tions?

We shall suddenly then make up [Page 110]the arrears of the longest lives (and an hundred years are brought into as small a point as twenty, to the review of a dying person.) The Philosophy, we grope after all the short night of our duration here, will (I con­ceive) by the first approaches of the light of our never setting day, be plain and illustrate to us: The First and Wisest of Men had not larger notices of the Creation, than the uncaptiv'd Spirit instantly enters upon; for that (as Adam at first) is born and springs forth from it's clay, arrayed with the same connate beams of knowledge as of life. And the wisdom of Solomon was that Celestial Charisma, which in it's very illapses enlarged his Soul to it's reception. Thus ennobled, the Spi­rit rises to the dignity of an Empyreal Guest, presently as it feels it self un­manacled from dust, and above it's distresses and fears, finding eternal joys set wide open to him: Otherwise it would be a surprize of such amazing happiness, enough to make it fall into [Page 111]such a Syncope it left the body in, were it not instantly transform'd and adapted with generous instincts of it's Glorious inheritance. To demonstrate the quick dispatch of so great a trans­action, it's means and methods, you shall respite me; Till you find any one determine the instant and manner of the Souls connexion to the body, and the affections it brought with it: Or let another tell me how long time he is learning to see, and by what degrees he apprehends the benefit and use of light: Or a Third when he first knew he had Reason, and what was to be done by it: Or another shew, how an Antipathy or Sympathy immediately break forth, and act all their violences, without calling the Soul down to Counsel.

'Tis enough, that these, and more in­conceivable Truths, are not only the subject of our rational examinations, but shall once be the convictions and experiences of our apprehensions: which affords me a wide field of won­der, [Page 112]that the unhappy curiosity of our Nature; which has (I believe) drawn many to converse with any order of Spirits; Either that they might be sa­tisfied in the being of such Creatures, or from them gain some intelligence and notices above ordinary disquisi­tions; do's not produce in us all an extraordinary satisfaction and delight, in the knowing that Truth which is our Light and Way to arrive at a blessed Communion, and Union with the Fa­ther and Fountain of all Spiritual be­ings. I cannot, to the highest Specu­lators, urge a greater cogency of their duty to their Creator. The very ad­dresses to the Father of our Spirits inti­mate no less than our return to, and quiet, in that bosome which delighted to give us a being: And to be brought to the knowledge and favor of the most pure Origine of all Spirits as strongly imports our arrival, at that Center of Truth and happiness, which is the Summe of All that created be­ings can possibly know or enjoy. Nei­ther [Page 113]will your capacities be contract­ed, but as infinite Perfection is the object of your Fruitions, so will your Souls (emptyed of the burthens, and coarctation of incumbring matter) be dilated and stretched out, into your proportionable entertainments of o­verflowing Beatitude. And what more can any desire than he can enjoy? The Soul it self can go no farther; because it cannot, need not to, desire any thing more.

And those that are in such eager quest of the Cheifest Good and pre­sent happiness, will find the Soul pos­sessed of uninterrupted Joy, and Sere­nity; only as enjoying the favor of the Moderator of all things. The quiet con­tent and fixation flowing from this as­surance no distractions, incertitudes or impediments abroad can intercept, or diminish: And hence you will have an Argument as full as it's brevity will bear, to invite your Soul to trample on all the dross and defilements, which steal away your hearts, and ob­struct [Page 114]your early engrossing of happi­ness and ascent to Heaven.

As ignorance is the Parent of Su­perstition, so is Atheism the unhappy birth of Inconsideration: That is wil­ling to rest on any thing; this repudi­ates, and carelesly rejects all: that re­quires sobriety and attention; and this, because the inconsiderate will not be at leisure, thoroughly to be ac­quainted with any thing, much less themselves. Would they be so kind to their own Souls to hear what they can say for their own Original, how they derive their Genealogy by Authentic Patents from Heaven above; they would not so easily relinquish their Title to it, & pass away their primoge­niture for every ready mess of Vanity. Nor do they understand more of the rest of the World, and regard all they know as little, as if wholly Ignorant of it. They live as on a wide open Ocean, where every wave and wind com­mands them from Anchor; whither they cannot, nor care to learn. How [Page 115]'tis with them they cannot inform you, nor how they would have it, nor what they shall be next day, or year; much less, all their life time.

While He that own's a Providence, and depends upon it, has one certain scope to which he directs all his de­signs, and moderates all his hopes and fears, in a certain perswasion of the Divine Wisdom Supremely disposing him, and all Events for the best pur­poses. So that, among the greatest ele­gancies and utmost beauty of the Crea­tion, nothing is more fair and lovely, than the uniform obedience, and con­stant acquiescence of the Good Soul with his Makers Commands and Plea­fure; to be without the rule and sup­port whereof, would be his very Hell, as tormenting as it would be destru­ctive to him: For 'tis that extirpates his doubts, and dark ratiocinations to a most satisfactory submission. Hence is he that Cube, which way soever turn'd, still resting on the same equal [Page 116]Square. So that he can be as infallible in the conjectures of himself, through the many hidden changes of Futurity, and whatsoever shall on any juncture occur; as he can safely and contentedly judge of his present state of life and in­joyment.

The rest of the world have their minds still under suspense, as so many Crows met and hovering over some Carrion; Or as a loose flight of Atoms broken and wafting away from them, and they left an empty lodging for the next kind gale of a new life and in­tention. For here they live without any determinate and proper designment of life to bind them together; they ne­ver account with themselves for what purpose they live, not what they aim at, or where they would rest: but from this, hast to another delight, and so to the next; Still upon the wing, and still frighted, or tyred off, from their enjoyments. Thus they, like meer sensi­tive beings, neither know, nor have any other business of life, but still to live [Page 117]on, as far as they can go, in the meer determinations of Matter and Motion: Like those Creatures altogether, who are but the plainer and ruder pieces of Workmanship, to the nobler and most exquisite frame of the body of man: they being as it were made but with one single and easie motion, but we with the wonderful movements, of fi­ner complications▪ of wheels within one another: The observation of that Great Luminary of Philosophy and Physic, from whose unwearied abi­lities and penetrations Anatomical, I beg leave to borrow one of Singular consideration, distinguishing the en­ginry which our Spirits employ, of more special and curious contrivan­ces, than are to be found in other ani­mals.

In his accurate discovery of the use of the Intercostal nerves, in the fair branches thereof Communicated to the Region of the Heart, He main­tains: that by these are kept up a continued commerce between the [Page 118]Brain and Heart: so that hence are derived advices of each others affe­ctions, and all the diversity of their phancies and sentiments. Divinity and Nature hitherto teaching us that Wis­dom's residence is in the Heart: we here (says the same admirable Per­son) learn it to be rather in its clear conclusions, from the conferences and constant intercourses between the Heart and Brain, and that this reci­procal correspondence maintains the heat and light of mutual intelligence; and, duly interchanged, perfects our most complete intendments of Virtue and Prudence. Dissecting a Natural, this texture of Nerves was found very small and of fewer strings than that branch in man oridnarily grows up with. In the body of an Ape this shooting forth some few insertions toward the heart twined its fibres with the Nerve of the Diaphragm. Hence he infers this Creature has its ingeny and docility, not only expres­sing us in our gestures, but even to [Page 119]some faint resemblances of our very manners and affections.

Thus far that Inimitable Professor gives us light to our Brain and Heart to judge that they would be thought, in this stupendous Fabric, not the bare conflux only of loose A­toms; But that we have a body instructed to execute the orders of the Nobler Soul, and to act in joynt Commission with it; in a faithful ob­servance of those distinct regular mo­tions, their most wise Creator de­sign'd them unto: beyond the utmost abilities of the nearest order, and most similar of all inferior Creatures. So that for man to own no dependence on his Maker, not to raise his thoughts to the contemplation, and adoration of that hand, which stretch'd out the rule of his being and motions, and length­ens out all his lines as seems good to It, is to renounce the Heart and Brain of a reasonable being; And like the Assyrian Monarch while he views the stately and glorious built of his body, [Page 120]Cry out in a Philosophic Rapture; Is not this the wonderful Machine of Nature, which I with the strength of my deep wisdom have found to be rais'd upon my own Atoms, and can to my Honor ennoble these very particles with excellent Ornaments and Riches, out of the store of my own admirable Understanding, which soars above the low and timorous flight of Vulgar knowledge, and scorns to own any Deity to Rival me in the boundless Empire of my self-advancing Reason, Will, and Affections? Do we not, presently upon these haughty Rodo­montad's, see the just decree of the Great Watcher fulfilled upon the Ro­mantic Sophies? Who turning them­selves into Commons with the Beasts, and refusing to hold of the Sovereignty of Heaven, forfeit the shape & heart of Man: nor sill up the business of their life with the true designs of Prudence and Virtue; to the happiness where­of, they were in their very make and motions born and instructed.

But the Soul, whose foundations are [Page 121]laid on unerring Providence, and affe­ctions enlarg'd and raised to a perfect dependence and conformity with the mind of Heaven, can now truly say (what another Emperor as fondly vaunted, when his vast Palace was contrived) that now at length it has began to live like a man.

The sum of all is this, these Pri­mates of the world of knowledge, lose themselves and the knowledge of their God, in the Mist of their affect­ed ignorance and inconsideration. They that think nothing impenetrable to their sharp Judgment, and that their understandings are large enough to draw in the Ocean of all Science; a Fly straying into their Eye, blunts and blinds the one; and a few Atoms on the breach, gravel and dam up the narrow entrance of the other. While they imagine they comprehend and encircle Nature in a Girdle of their own weaving, and know all the intri­gues of indiscernible Wheels, as plain­ly as the face and outside of the work: Take but the least part of this Crea­ture [Page 122]in pieces; You will at once ad­mire their folly, and the fearful Art shut up in so little room; and that all this unaccountable workmanship, and cost is laid out on him, who so under­values and abuses his Makers Wisdom, and bounty still waiting upon him. For it is an incessant miracle that pro­longs the Creation, and maintains our lives with the even uninterrupted pa­ces of so many curious Wheels and Motions, as we turn upon; the un­stringing of the least whereof may dissolve the whole order, break the chain which links all together, and put a full stop to the work and life of it. So little do they understand of their own dreadfully organiz'd Frame, and but just nothing how their understand­ing acts that by which they are become such Monopolizers of know­ledge.

Did they not rest on some aiery con­trivances of the phansie, which com­paring one part of the Creation with another, blending the Originals, paw­ses [Page 123]and periods of several beings with the pleasant power of crea­ting; did not ambiguous terms, and some bold defiances against Heaven, engage and confirm them; they would confess a Providence: and would they consider and attentively examine themselves, and the works of Time and Nature (which word retains with me it's innocent power and subserviency) they would certainly acknowledge the hand of God in all this. A light and desultory glance upon the Crea­tion puffs up Sciolists, with an opinion of their omniscience; but who ever seriously, constantly, intimatly acquaints himself with any part and passage thereof, shall behold such amazing my­steries of infinite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, as will reduce him joyfully to resolve all into that Primary Great Mover, and Ultimate Center of All.

Of whom to have any mean and unworthy apprehensions is as impious, as the conception it gives to Atheism [Page 124]can make it: So that what represents God less adorable in his Goodness and Justice, thereby destroying the hopes of an invited and willing duty; or takes off our obligations, and dispenseth with our least indulgencies and relaxations; ought to be the abomination of our conceptions, as much as they be the direct contradiction of the Nature of God, and clearest manifesto's of his Will. Those seem to be the most Ho­nourable Apprehensions of the Divine Attributes, which debasing man most, do possess the Soul with a pure Love, and awful dread of that Glorious Ma­jesty, which our weak intellectuals can more securely contemplate in the reflex, than the direct essence and acts of tremendous Perfections.

Though Providence appear writing it self every where, with the point of a Diamond darting a Sun-beam; Yet we endeavor to puzzle our interpretations and acknowledgements of it with our confused shallow and biassed notions, impeaching the equity of the great [Page 145]Ruler of the World. But may I advise such subtle disputants, and aggreived peevishness, to await the Judgment of the last day, not doubting but that all the most blessed Attributes will be then vindicated from the silly interests, petty arguments, and calumnies, with which wretched Creatures asperse their Great Maker and Judge, darkning the secret Counsels of the Almighty, with words that want ingenuity and candor, no less than knowledge and wisdom.

The Meditation of those summons to a General Account yields me ano­ther satisfaction to the curiosity of bu­sie and inquisitive man, which that day will afford. How far would not an active prying brain travel, to make a faithful collection and relation of the History of the whole World? even to an Amara for the fragments of Livy, and as far for the Supplements of Ta­citus would some venture. What la­bor and price, nay, fraud is thought too great to unlock some Cabinet Coun­sels, [Page 126]perhaps those no otherwise con­cerning our times, than for the high opinion they left of their influences upon their own; with the notable aims and instruments of their manage (in whose breasts they died) would be the sweat of many brains to recover, and embalm, with politic remarks of their own, from putrefaction in se­cret.

This may be no small inducement, considering our daily Inspection and bold censures and examinations into the lives, actions and relations of all that are round about us, and the ac­counts we make of all events; to en­joyn us the greatest care of our own particular duties: that so we may ap­pear unconcern'd and acquitted in that great Rendezvous of spirits; and look for that blessed day with desires, and expectations to receive in it a full nar­rative, and faithful History, of the lives and most famous actions of all Mankind: when we shall behold with what apprehensions and Justificati­ons, [Page 127] Alexander, the Coesars, and all the haughty Conquerors of the World will enter on that dreadful Theatre, and be brought also to the knowledge and admiration, of so many Noble Souls most deserving of their Genera­tions, by their unvaluable and sup­pressed worth; who, trampling on the gayeties and follies of the World, with their own Rich Stock of Virtue and content, have silently (like the kind of subterranean fraternity of Bohemia) stoln into the dark and quiet of their Graves. All the Mysteries of Providence we are now solicitously and too curiously inquisitive into, so far as concerns our revolutions, shall be there unfolded; and of Prophesie also, that we are strangers unto, as to the manner of their accomplish­ment.

For may I have leave to suppose, many obscurities, in the last and con­stantly mistaken Revelation of Futuri­ties, cannot possibly be brought down to our lower Stage of Earth, in the [Page 148]dress they are there represented. I should rather suppose great part of those visions of the bosom Evangelist to figure out the State, Glory, and Polity of the Great Court and Council of Heaven, giving dispatches and orders to our Affairs below; which both speaks the care, and consultations (as I may phrase it) our Maker graciously de­termines us withal: And somewhere it seems to me, not unlike the great con­vention, wherein the wicked King of Israels ruine was resolved. And con­sidering so much of the history thereof acted in Heaven, within the Veil (as I may say) of the Temple; and our succeeding revolutions to be but the immediate consequents of those my­sterious Conclave results; and that Angels are Ministers of State to the most High, and Guardians of Persons, Nations, and Places; with Reverence due to the Arcana of the Empire, I should the rather retain this Opinion. For were it also necessary to take place in our clear revealments of [Page 129]knowledge, or of use and influence on our practice, I am assured, it would as clearly and fully answer the name it bears unto us; unless that also be to be understood, of what remains to be uncovered and revealed in after times.

Without breach however of Faith, and obedience unto the divine dispo­sure: Let us wait the opening of these grand Truths to us, so far as is fit for the Courtiers and Favorites of Heaven to be acquainted with them. But if the greatest part of its History be by its accomplishment to be ex­plained, the World has a duration beyond what we ordinarily allot it: And they are to be reprehended who think their own Age so great a portion of Time, and of such eminent regard; That there shall be no great instance of extraordinary moment, which they will not bring down to be born there­in: and that their own persons and concerns are so wholly the peculiar care of divine benignity and conduct, [Page 128]that there is no eie nor hand of good­ness watching to be favourable to the rest of the Family (which is an in­veterate tincture of the spirit of Ju­daism) so that if they feel any pres­sures or contradictions, the current of Providence must be suppos'd at a stand, and no less than fire from Heaven fetch'd down, to rescue their pittiful proper Concerns: If the times they live in prove favourable, they gild them over with such transcendent Glories as must make them outshine and o­verweigh all other: But if they en­counter deserved or but ordinary dif­ficulties; esteeming themselves the only true Gold of their Age, for whose refining these Tryals are per­mitted, they will not want the plea­sure of heating the Furnace hotter than in those famous Persecutions, when the Church was yet in the mint: In the midst whereof they are so far from the Doxologies of the Primitive Martyrs; that a meek Christian would judge their mouths had contracted the [Page 129]whole fire, and that their Tongues only were under the scorching heat of tormenting Flames. But if thorough various emergencies they land on a good old age, upon the secure brink of the Grave; as if when their pa [...]ts are over, there was nothing more to be acted on the world, and it became insignificant when they are to be left out: They unwilling to spare their beloved Carcasses the time of a Patri­archs life (much less so long as theirs have been under divorce from the flood) presently design with cruel Nero's wish the conclusion, (if not confusion) of all the rest of mankind; hastning the Funerals of the Universe upon their own, that nothing may retard their private hopes and advanta­ges: not reckoning up the Excellency of every member to rest in the com­plement of the whole body; which considered extensively, would enlarge the latitude of our converse and mu­tual Charity.

If then these will be perswaded to attend the infinitely wise motions of their Maker, we may guess by them, the Worlds age not so full of the ag­gravated symptoms of its senescency: Take but that one Intention, and the only for which the Creation seems to have been rais'd from its nothing; the grand work of mans redemption: wherein the Power, Wisdom, good­ness of the Almighty concur, to give us an evidence of all engaged for our redress: to the design whereof so in­comprehensively mysterious, to the work of it wonderfully gracious; All we know or can desire beside, is but Vain and Despicable: and the whole not worthy nor able, to be the shell of this ineffable transaction of mercy. Yet this we see not till a full expired Period manifested; Heaven permit­ting some thousand of years to ripen its birth, and so long keep off the de­sire and longing of the whole Crea­tion. So that if it shall now please the only Wisdome, to prolong this free [Page 133]exhibition of Grace, and replenish e­very corner of Earth with the joyful visits and abode of this light; That a day may spring forth proportionate to the shades and twilight of a long morning (dwelling in the dawning East of the Jews) by a culminating high Glory, and the leisurable pro­gressions of Time: if it have not yet ascended its Meridian Lustre, and greater beams and glories will be dis­plaied unto after ages; if there be re­served a succession of greater wonders, in which the whole world shall at once see and adore the Scepter of their Redeemer, and every part of it feel the power glory and Joy of their De­liverance from Death and Hell: Why should our evil eie envy this happy ex­altation of Light, and the munificence of our Lord? Why should we bind up the hands, and restrain the sweet influences of Heaven? Rather may we suppose that this late manifestati­on was no Niggardice to the Happiness of man; but that it will be extended, [Page 132]with the most free and open effusions and largesses of divine bounty.

But I dread to approach these My­steries with a bold hand and profane foot; and advise others against time­ratious putting forth theirs to the Sa­cred Ark, which needs not humane support. For we may be so mistaken in our dark conceptions, and self re­lations; as to run into a quite contrary resolution, of the egresses and moti­ons of the Deity. And all the liber­ty we take in meditation on these hid­den verities, will be most allowable; which makes way for our enlarged ap­prehensions and adorations of Infinite Goodness. And indeed a wise man is not so much in prospective, and fore­seeing Futurities; as (if I may use the word) in a continued Retrospect, here he may attain certainty in his know­ledge of things Past; a sober conject­ure of the following, an insight into himself seeing the Errors overseen; and setting up a fair rule for the time to come.

But I would not be thought all this while apologizing for Christianity, especially to those great Souls, who by their solemn initial Vows, more special obliges, and all the marks and bonds of their Nobility are engaged to defend the honour thereof with their utmost perils. For notwithstan­ding that Sarcasm of railing Julian to the complaints of the poor persecuted Christians, To you it is given to suf­fer: I am confident the greatest oppo­sition of the mad world cannot prevail against this greatest Truth.

I might spend Volumes, to give you the Arguments our Religion defends it self withall. While Reason and the tongues of men and Angels can speak, they cannot be silent nor want demonstrative justifications, of that Goodness, which form'd them to a communication and declaration there­of. Christianity (for I will not di­vide and weaken it into factions) has of late been so powerfully vindicated, that Atheism can find out no new ir­religion, [Page 136]which has not been beaten down, prevented and obviated. And may that Tongue be for ever useless, which will not speak in defence of his glorious Maker: Our Profession ha­ving suffered of late by ostentation of those who had no Religion; may not another Thief come on this hand, and steal away that necessary Declaration and maintainance of our Faith and hopes, in too nice and modest Conceal­ment of the truly devote Soul.

I may fear a trespass on the Labors and Victories of our late Crowned Champions of Christianity; whose Learning and Piety will render this our Age notoriously famous, by the challenges they have answered of bold impiety. Nor can I quit my self per­fectly in the rules and method of my discourse; wherein I have rather ta­ken the liberty of a Letter (and pray allow it to be like what it was born) the rest is most of the notions, and long retained Sentiments of my own mind. And I believe would every [Page 137]one turn over those of his own Brain, many would be found so connatural to the being of the Soul, and Truth it self: and those in a distinct Cha­racter from others legible: that I may imagine, as God has given each its specific Spirit, so by differing Ideas this Principle is stamped and visible upon every one: for we see a Diver­sity of all faculties and capacities di­stinguishing the minds of men, God revealing himself also according to the module of our Intellectuals; Yet so, as all confesse and read this one great Truth of his Essence, though in various impressions on the Soul.

And that our conceptions of the Existence of a Deity so much differ, destroies not the reality of what we diversely apprehend. For bring into any Company (how great soever) some exotic and unknown Rarity, There shall not two agree perfectly, in all the modes of apprehending it; because they have an essential Diver­sity in the Faculties and Organs; as [Page 136]also a different stock and possession of former Notions, to which they have recourse, and refer this present ob­ject. If it be so in things incurring sense, and where often no affection is touched; In this Pure Abstraction from all sence, and a notion that stirs up and works on every passion (which are all so variable, that none of them can ever be said to appear again in their former Phases) no wonder that our Conceptions hereupon are as di­verse as our Souls and Countenances. But that all have their proper and in­nate notions of the being of their Ma­ker, I have greatest reason to affirm; and confidently appeal to any person, whether he found not this, the only Indelible Principle upon his Soul, and after all his labour and art of oblivi­on, if it does not yet fairly upbraid the sponge?

But this is a subject so copiously and methodically elsewhere, and by those whose profession has exercised their notions and parts, eventilated; [Page 137]That I refer all mine to their Better directed, and therefore more confi­dent Speculations; only craving par­don of those our venerable Guids in Holy things, for any sudden es­capes of long confined thoughts: which (without offence [I hope] to their consecrate function) I have bundled up together to try how con­sentaneous they will be one with a­nother; and out of an humble hope to serve our hopeful Young Gentry, in the early measures they are to take of themselves, and their Age.

My whole design being, to gain but so favourable an influence on our young Nobless, now fairly blos­soming; that outliving the noysom Blasts, and Morning Nippings of the dangerous Vices, their Age and Qua­lity are too obnoxious unto (no sea­son being more bewailed than that of the forward and tender Spring, killed by hard and unnatural Colds) They may yield a pleasant shade and protection to Virtue, and de­rive [Page 140]the wholesome and lasting Fruits thereof to succeeding Ages, flouri­shing in the Cions of their Noble stock. May you therefore thus revive the high Renown of your Famous Grandfathers that their great Images may seem in­spir'd to live again in you the Genu­ine Heirs of their Noblest Possessions. May you among all Nations recover, and advance the high Honour and In­terest of your dear Coutry. May the Glory and Puissance of your long de­sired Soveraign be aggrandiz'd by the happy Aceessions of your wisedom, in­tegrity and courage: That the Saga­city and Gravity of your Heads may seem to constitute under him a Judica­ture and Council as large as his Do­minions: The Loyalty and Generosity of your Hearts, be the Beams and Se­curity of the Crown: The Valour and Activity of your Arms, his Forts, and Navy Royal: and your very private Families represent, and every where maintain the Splendor and Sanctions of a Regal Court. Then shall that good [Page 114]hand of Divine Providence (which we have seen to rise in a small cloud, and suddenly span ore the face of our whole Horizon, with amazing dark­ness and desolations) turn all its ter­rors upon our Enemies, and showr down [as of old] the wonderful Deliverances of his Power and benignity upon us: which shall sill up our furrows, with the blessed encrease of Truth and Peace. And England clear'd of all its noxious weeds and Briars: under the constant irrigation of Heavenly muni­ficence and care, shall no longer bear the folly ingratitude and curse of so long Barrenness: but become a fair planted Enclosure of all its former Plenty and Prosperity.