THis Text wich I have named unto you, is such a Text, that if it be well squeezed, it will afford abundance of matter. Truly beloved, it makes my teeth water to think on't; You shall hear it over again, And they did eat their Plum-pies, and re­joyced exceedingly. Now you must consider, that these words have a coherence with something that went before: For they do plainly imply that the persons of whom the Text speaks were invited by some or other of their brethren to dinner. And now being invited to dinner, and being set down at the table and having also teugh'd the Rost Beef, then I say, they did eat their Plum-pies and rejoyced exceedingly. Thus you see how that And is in this place a Conjuncti­on Copulative, Lyming words and sentences together. And now we talk of a Conjunction Copulative, give me leave my beloved to step a little aside from my text, for these words have more Marrow in them then you are aware of. To tell you the truth there are several sorts of Conjunctions Copulative, there be your Astrological Conjunctions Copulative, as when the English Merlin lay with Mistriss F—. For a Con­junction Copulative, is a carnal closing together [Page 4]of Male and Female, to the satisfaction of their wanton desires; Now this is a thing much us d among Professors; who are exceedingly offend­ed that increase and multiply, was not made one of the ten Commandements. Then there is your praeter natural Conjunction Copulative, as when an Elders maid lyes with a Mastiff or as when a Quaker buggereth a Mare. I will not positively determine whether it were lawful to do it or no: Yet this I will say in the defence of our brother; that truly man hath a very great liberty as being Lord of the Earth and of every creature that is therein. There is also your unlawful Conjunction copulative, and that is, when a Man lies with another Mans Wife. And lastly there is your lawful conjunction copulative, and that is when a Man lies with none but his own Wife: but when that will come to pass we know not for it is now a­days out of fashion. Now these Copulative Con­junctions do produce Monstrous Children, & Cuck­olds. But to a Ball, whether am I going: Truely I had almost forgotten my text, but my beloved 'tis the same thing; for so a man keep talking, you know, 'tis no great matter what he talks of; however since we have a beaten road, we will keep it if we can, let's see then what is next. And they. Now here ariseth a nother doubt, to puzzle a Prophet, yea even Daniel himself. For how can any body tell, who these They are, unlesse they behold. For my part I can't divine who these They, should be for my life. I do believe they were men; and men that did not use to eat Plum pies; for the text says, that when they had Eaten them, they rejoyced exceed­ingly. Our brother James Naylor in his learned com­ment [Page 5]upon Reynard the Fox, saith that these They are Women. But Cardan in his book of Subtleties utter­ly denys it. But you'l say, what reason do they give? Nay, they neither of them give any reason for what they say, onely they tell us flat and plain­ly, like our brother Hinderson, that it is so: now one of these two must lye; but which of them, I pro­fesse I can't conceive. Truly my beloved I am in a wood: I wish some person of judgement and in­dustrie that has nothing else to doe, would endea­vour to satisfy us in this difficult question; for, for my part, I think tis of as great concernment, as many things that were handled at the Councell of Trent. Now let's go on, And they did. He does not say, they did not, but they did. I, but what did they do? Why? they did that which no body could do for them: what was that you'l say? why then in plain English they did Eat. Marcus Tullius Cicero is of an opinion they did Drink too, as you may read in his Tusculan Questions. But Harry the eight writing against Luther taks an occasion to quarrel with Cicero and to deny it. For, saith he, it is not usual to drink after sweet things: because that sweet things never relish drink: neither is it probable they were such fooles to put the sweet tast of their good Plum pye out of their mouths by drinking. Truely my belo­ved, had he not bin a KING, I should have agreed with him: but being that he was a KING, yea an Idolatrous KING, I am resolved to contradict him: and therefore I do hereby openly declare be­fore ye all, my beloved, that they did drink. But you'l object and say, how came I to know, I was not in their company: 'tis no matter for that, I will [Page 6]have it so, & if you will not have it so too, Ile be your Pastor no longer. But what did they eat all this while? why mark the words, And they did eat plum-pye. O ho! did they so? notable cunning rogues, they knew what was good for themselves I warrant ye. Here now we are to consider what sort of Plum-pye this was, and how many sorts of plum pyes there are. For you must know, my beloved, that there are more then one sort of plum pyes in the world: I my self have seen plums put into an apple pye, and it hath tasted exceeding savoury. There is you neats foot pye, there is your calves chaldron pye, there is your Lamb pye, there is your veal pye, and all these pyes have plums in um; but there is your Christmas pye and that hath plums in abundance, that is your Metropolitan plum pye, tis the cream of all plum pyes, and in brief there is no plum pye like it. Truly my beloved, I wonder at the little wit of our brethren, that persecuted these pyes so furiously in their pul­pits: for can they undergo a worse persecution then to be eaten? take away Christmas I say, if you take away our pyes, especially our plum pies. Truly my beloved, I wonder who invented these pyes, who ever twas, Gods blessing on his heart; surely twas a man for certainly a woman could never have so much wit. They talk of the invention of Guns and Printing; but doubtless the invention of plum pye doth far exceed it. He that discovered the new Star in Cassiopea the other day, deserves not half so much to be remembred, as he that first married min­ced meat and Raisins together. Mark but the in­gredients. [Page 7]There is first your Neats tongue boyld; Now you know a Neats tongue boyld alone with turneps how good it is; but being mixd with plums and spice, ther's your precious creature-comfort my beloved. The Ephod was beset with precious stones, and every one of them had their signification, and minced pyes are beset with plums and spice; and they have also their vertues and their Hieroglyphical significations. Your Neats tongue is the Hieroglyphic of pastoral authority. And therefore the Pope, who calls himself Christs Vicar hath got a cap, which is called a Miter, and this cap is made in the shape of two tongues. Your Currants are purgers of the blood and purifie the seat of Anger which is the spleen; therefore do they cause mirth in men, and revive the spirits of times. Your raisins being mixt with wormseed preserve a man in the d grave, and destroy those crawling enemies of mankind, A New way of embalming. that would continually diet upon his flesh. Now as concerning the original of these pyes, we are in a very great quandary what to say. For our brother Starkie a man excellently learned in Chronology, at­tributes the invention thereof to St. George, one of the seven Champions, who travelling with the King of Egypts daughter, was mightily call'd upon by his stomack for victuals, for that the Kings daughter and he, had had nothing to feed on but his greasie socks for three days together: but at length mee­ting with a gyant he chopt him to pieces with his sword, and put plums to his flesh, lest it should of­fend the squeamish stomack of his Mistris. But Kitchin [Page 6] [...] [Page 7] [...] [Page 8]an ancient English author and of good authority, tells us a story how that the Goths and Vandals com­ing into Italy, and being angry at the Romans, did threaten to cut them as small as herbs to the pot; now it so fell out, that having slain a very great number of them, they were (as every honest man ought to be) as good as their words; then searching further they found a great quantity of plums which the Romans had brought along with them to put in their puddings, for as you may read in Lipsius, the Romans never went without store of meal; then said the Vandals one to another, (they made a very fair speech,) let us be merry, and let us put these plums to our minc'd meat, and eat up the carcasses of our enemies; with that the Vandals shouted so loud that they shook the very Alps themselves. Others relate and among the rest Dr. Harmar in his treatise of the ex­cellency of mustard, how that the daughter of Astra­gon, she was the sister of Gondibert, did by chance being a liquorish dame, and not knowing what to doe with some cold meat that was left at supper, mince the same meat and put plums thereto, she also mixed some herbs with her meat, which was well approved of; so that having tasted the sweets thereof, she commended it to her father and it be­came the fashion to eat plum pyes, and hath been used in the Court of Princes ever since, so that there was hardly any time of the year but you might have had these Lombardy pyes at White-hall. But Col. Pride a Saint of the Greek Church writes in his Comment upon Tom Co [...]iats Travels, how that St. James of Com­postella [Page 9]a Spanish Saint, being in the Wilderness of Arabia, was overtaken with hunger. Now seeing that in that place he could have no assistance from Earth, he fell to his prayers; now as he was at prayers, gaping and winking, as our brother Case uses to doe, it so fell out that a mince pye dropt from the skie into his mouth, even as Ancilia or sheilds of Mars dropt from heav'n into the Capitol. He could pray no longer because his mouth was stop'd: therefore he Eat what Heaven had sent him. Now you must con­sider that this miracle was soon divulged abroad; so that this sort of Pye became to be in a kind of sacred and reverent esteem among the people. And this was the reason of our fore-fathers, out of their great wisdome and piety did set this Pye aside among all the wonderful variety of Pyes for the celebration of that solemn Feast called Chri­stmas.

Now you'l say how are these Pyes to be eaten? why they are to be eaten hot, or to be Eaten cold; Now if you eate them hot, you must take a great care least you burn your Chaps. But if you Eat them cold, there is no great danger of that, and you eat them more securely and with less trouble. And therefore my advice my beloved to you is, that you eat them cold. For I have heard of a Bridegroom that was kill'd before he could lye with his Bride, for adventuring to shovel hot minc'd Pye down his throat for a wager. Truely, my beloved, Sweet meat must have sowr Sawce. Dr. Harmar, who, much good may it do him good man, did eat up a whole Rump of Beef for the [Page 10]love of the mustard, and would have eat up the Parliament for its name sake, had Fleetwood em­ployd him and given him Mustard enough; I say this Dr. Harmar saith, that a man ought not to make above two bits of an ordinary Minc'd Pye. But Dr. Mariot a notable Casuist, in these disputes, and a Man of a sharp Stomack, is of opinion that a man ought to Swallow them whole. And there­fore he was the first in the world that caused them to be made after the fashion of Boats that they might swim down his gullet the easier: & indeed he was a mighty enemy to four cornerd pies, for he said they were used to stick in his throat. How these persons mentioned in my text did eat their Pyes I cannot tell, or whether they did put any Sack in them or no: yet tis very probable; for Wine maketh the heart of man glad; and it is said in my text when they that had eaten their Plum pies they rejoyced exceedingly. Now my belo­ved to tell ye how they rejoyced will be a mat­ter of great difficulty. Onely this we can say in General, that their hearts leapt within them, that is to say their hearts danc'd Sarrabands and Co­rants for joy that they had eaten their plum pyes. Now there are several ways to express a mans joy. Some men weep for joy, whether these people wept for joy I cannot tell, and because my text doth not speak at all of it, I would not have you to be­lieve any man that tells you so: for that the world is now very full of Seducers and false teachers. But Secondly some men dye for joy. Truely I do not believe that these men did so. Nay I will ad­venture for once though the words of my text [Page 11]speak nothing as to the point, to assure you out of my text that they did not dye. Not that it is a­ny thing to me, for I confess had they bin hang'd I had not car'd a straw. But onely to shew you that a man is not always bound to keep close to his text. Thus Don Lewis de Haro's Uncle dy'd Embracing his Mistriss, for joy that he did Em­brace her; but was not he a Fool? yes truly: Why? Why? because he dy'd before he could en­joy that thing which caused that joy within him.

But the joy which proceedeth from the Eat­ing of Plum pyes is worth a thousand of these joys, for it causeth men to rejoyce exceedingly. But you'l say when doth a Man rejoyce exceeding­ly? Why when a Man or a Woman laughs till they Piss again, then may they be said to rejoyce exceedingly; when Men otherwise Grave and Re­served, sit after dinner, opening their hearts and telling the wanton stories of their Youth, then are they said to rejoyce exceedingly. When a Ci­tizen Kisses his Wife before all the Company, after Dinner, then is he said to rejoyce exceedingly; but when she Kisses her Servant in private then is she said to rejoyce exceedingly. And thus you see how it is the Duty of every one that Eates Plum pye to rejoyce exceedingly.

Is it so then that every Man who Eats Plum pye ought to rejoyce exceedingly. Then let us Eat Christmas or Plum pye and rejoyce, Drink, Eat, and be Merry, Play at Cards and win Money, for that the dayes of the Year, are now like the dayes of Man, short and soon Vanishing.