IF I did intend to word it only (as the use is now a dayes, the use and principall, even in Doctrines and Uses) I might easily stile the seven Bishops and Churches in the three precedent Chapters, S ^t Iohns Re­formed Churches, his Heptarchy, his Patriarchy: this the rather, for though in his two latter Epistles he is an Elder; yet in [Page 2]his first a father; and, lest hee should bee mistaken for a Lay-Elder, in this Apocalyps, a Divine. So like his embleme the soaring Eagle (though perhaps not so clearly from ver. 7.) he not only gazes on the worlds light himselfe, but beares his Eaglets on his wings, to teach them with undazeled eye to fixe on Alpha and Omega, an ever rising, never setting sun.

But now in this fourth Chapter, he begins to discover in aenigmaticall Idea's of Gods decrees, the future militant Churches mournings to the worlds end.

Vers. 2, 3. A throne, not empty, but the Jasper, Sar­dine, Emerald stone, the Eternall Trinity on it. vers. 4. Four and twenty Elders enthron'd, i. e. the triumphant Church, Jewish, Gentile, in their lawfull Representative twice twelve Founders, Patriarchs, Apostles. vers. 5. God writes contra gentes, lightnings, thundrings, &c. black lines. vers. 6. A sea, i. e. the world, in which his militant Church is tost, that I say not shipwrackt. Re­joice yee faithfull, for though vers. 6. your pressures great, yet ver. 3. the great God is your judge, and your avenger, [...], you are before his throne.

I intended no other division for my discourse before this honourable presence, but that of soul and body; but the Scripture is so brief in this matter, speaking but one word or two of the greatest persons Funerall, that I am forced to present you with these particulars.

1. A show, a spectacle, the world. 2. A Spectator, God: both their actings under three severall disguises.

The world. 1. A sea tumultuous. Yet 2. 'tis glasse, quickly broken. Yet 3. like crystall, shining clear. But again although, 1. Like crystall, bright. Yet 2. 'tis glasse, brittle. 3. A Sea brinish.

God, as on a throne, intimating in respect of himself, 1. His judgment. 2. Majesty. 3. Eternall rest. In respect of the world, 1. His power. 2. Presence. 3. Essence.

See the pretty knack, the thing they call the world. 'Tis 1. a sea, Why do we immerse our selves in it? Air is mans element. 2. Glasse, Why build on it? Earth is mans pavement. 3. Crystall, its congealed Atoms, yeeld nothing but coldnesses, hardnesses; Fire (love) is a Chri­stians element. Else,

See 1. the power of God in judgement to condemne thee. Or 2. the Majesty of his presence to shame thee. Or 3. the eternall rest and happinesse of his essence to allure thee. [...].

They that goe down to the sea in ships, Psal. 107.23. they behold the great Gods works and wonders: we are shipt for an houre, and though it be dangerous travelling at sea, yet the right spirit of our righteous Saviour with his gentle breathings, his effectuall gales will harbour us in quiet; for lambs may wade here, where elephants drown'd. The comfort is ver. 1. the doore (which the lambs well know) is open. Sweet Jesu, we know no doore but thee: How shall mans beetle-cy'd body, nay eagle­cy'd soule pierce into heaven, but through thee? Lord open, before it be too late for fooles to enter.

First, the world is the sea [...]; so Ribera, Bullinger, Pererius, Paraeus here; so Scripture (the best Expositor) Mat. 13.47. Christs Kingdome is like a net cast into the sea: where the Ship is the Church, the Sea the World, the Net the Word, the Fishermen Ministers, Fish the Men of the world: 'Twas good fishing when mutus ut piscis was in date, our fish will catch the fishermen. So the Church of England (the Catholicke Churches best Ex­positor) in her forme of Baptisme—may so passe the [Page 4]waves of this troublesome world. And he that rests not in her judgement, sink or swim at his own perill bee it.

[...] the world's a sea; and then needs must it bee dangerous, where the Prince of the Air throwes downe his blustring stormes, those shortned dayes, Mat. 24.22. will ere long leave him to his eternall night; where sinne in stead of sand to ballast us, is quicksands to bury us; Honour bubbles, Passion froth, Company waves crow­ding on one another, Misery the ebbe, Successes the tide, a stream (however Trowts beare up against it) against which no striving. Our teares, as soone as borne progno­sticate its brinishnesse. Our life being teares for misery, at the best for sin.

'Tis a sea, see this 1. in its rage, Psalm. 93. & 98. the flouds have voices and hands, so like the wicked world, cry down with it, and put forth sacrilegious hands to pull in the poore ship the Church; or under pretence of having it to the dock, pare it, and patch it, till it have as little of the ancient ship in it as that of the Athenians. Christiani tollantur has been the voague of all ages, deci­mentur, let them bee tith'd; nay what is worse, let no tithes be paid. These worldly ones are properly the sea, Esay 57.20. a boiling sea, their heart casts forth mire, dirt, scum: Murders, thefts, &c. Mat. 15.19. Oh how it troubles David, Psal. 73. to see how the fish of this sea rant it, these prosper. They are not curst, that dwell in the sea, only the Earth, Aire, Gen. 3. nor are they suffe­rers in that great drowning time, Gen. 7. these tyrannicall winds and waves make for them. I may in a word decide those [...]. 1. That there be Men-fish, Tri­tons, Nereides, Syrenes. 2. That the earth and sea (joy and sorrow, good and bad) make up one globe. Yet 3. that there is more sea than land. And 4. that the sea is higher than the dry land. If you see,

2. Depth, for here you see Gods footsteps are not known, Psal. 77.19. no tract of God: his discipline in the Church. His faithfull must take notice of sin, and of the punishment of sin, and fear to sin. His Israel must make bricks, whilest their Nimrods, Pharaohs perpetuate, their names in Babels, Pyramids. St. Iohn himself like an hoary apple, having scaped the locust, the wind and storm, the pluckers hand, hung neer an hundred years old on the tree of life, yet then unseasonably enough, must be coddled in a caldron of oil because Christians derive their pedegree from Christ, and Christ his from, his spiritu­all chrism. O when thou comst to Heaven, thou shalt know how Domitians brazen Sea hurt him not, onely prov'd a Bath to renew him: then thou shalt clearly see, why Adam falls, why Cain kills Abel, Apryes seremy, Esay sawn asunder by Manasses. Then thou shalt plainly read what the four Beasts be. What and whose that ma­zing knot of figures, [...] 666. What God and Magog, what Harmageddon. Be not rash in judging. St. Paul made but a glance as it were at that future light, but had he not borrowed a thorn from his Saviours Crown, much Re­velation had made him mad. [...] tis deep.

3. Inconstant; wavering ebbs flows, now calm, now storm, so inconsistent the great World. So its compendi­um, Iob 14. never continues in one stay, for 2 Sam. 14.14. all spill and glide away like water, in continuall hast to fall into this Sea; No Planet more hastens Westward then this wandring Tabernacle of Dust, this sod of earth to its center, this rivolet to its Ocean. He findes a fall and a spring tide in his veins, till as Psal. 2.14. he is powred out clearly like water, not a jot sticks to the vessell: alas, What advantage has that water that is exalted above the Heavens? but to see his greater ruin from an higher place. [Page 6]Thus in this world, Psal. 107.26. Mounts up to heaven, then sodainly drops down to hell, (the Poet owes per­chance to the Prophet, Iamjam tacturus, &c.) now all's serene and wee mistake it for heaven; then Wars, Fa­mines, Plagues, in a necessary chain, nay the Plague of all plagues, civill Wars, muddy us, and hell seems not more sooty, more black, more divellish; thus in States. Now repent, then justified, then sanctified, in a necessary con­catenation too; then in heaven, but that a great billow, some sinfull stumble, slip, fall rebounds us to our earth, glues our souls to the pavement; then in hell. Thus in Church, temporall, spirituall state in this world is [...], mutable.

Yet though 1. Never so variable, so long as we six not our Ark any where but on Ararat, so long as we sit not down with our Tabernacle till we come to Shiloh; so long as with those celestiall bodies we sail on fixed poles, only making the great God, not this little earth our center, we shall be blessed at least in our Haven. Our ca­stles on earth may sink in their ruines, our castles on the Sea in their seditious waves, our castles ith' air in our gid­dy fancies, we have a castle higher than Earth, Sea, Fancy: the Lord is our Castle, Psal. 31.4.

2. Though the Sea in Dogdayes, (such dayes as these) is thicker and darker, no wind to hinder the Suns-salting-power, yet is it safer swimming in these deeps than in shallows, in salt waters than in sweet. Nay Israel is safer in the red Sea than on land: nor are fishes salt because in the Sea, Abraham, Lot not tainted in the dead Sea, Gods children make all waters sweet. So as Elias, 2 King. 2.20, 21. by throwing in salt: a salt to which I may truely apply Homers Epither [...] and which they having with­in themselves Mark. 9.5. (faith) relish all things, be they [Page 7]never so bitter and distastfull to humane sense; and also give the right seasoning and Hogoo of Gods palat and mans: and hence is that, they say, there are sweet Fountains in the deepest saltest Seas. Nay;

3. Though never so raging and boistrous, there is no Sea, but, he that had sounded all of them sayes, 1 Cor. 10.13. is navigable, nay profitable, for Gods Halcyons can breed here. Onely as they that travell through those Tides of Sand in the Arabian deserts doe shelter them­selves in Arks, or Castles on Camels backs, make thee an Ark according to Gods command, and thou shalt sail in safety in a deluge; nay thy child with Moses in the Ark of Gods covenant thou shalt find in safety. Oh if like a fly thou cabin thy self in some little crevice of this great ship thou wilt come to the Haven in Peace. Be the red Sea nere so cold, be the Furnace never so hot, both stand up like a wall to Israel. Ever since Christ the true Hal­cyon was born, here was peace, and [...] was but [...].

Secondly, This Sea is Glassie, every fall, every knock, every clash breaks it. Whether it be that microco [...]me, man, witnesse those unperceiv'd needles from the Italian bow, yet where they are not cunning enough to enter, grief, envy, malice, more subtill engines will dash him to pieces: or whether those great worlds, the world of pleasure, the world of profit, the world of honour, such they are. Ice not more slippery, Glasse not more brittle.

1. Such in respect of their chief matter, sand, ashes: their parts as impossibly coherent into ropes, and yeelds the foolish soul a foundation, Mat. 7.27. as inconsistent.

2. In their effects as dangerous to their intrails. So taken inwardly do their hard angles grate and pierce the inward man. Here swelling it with pride, there inflaming it with [Page 8]those dropsie desires of having and in a word spoiling the bowells of mercy. Yet;

3. Such in respect of the continuity of their parts; so that a heart made up of these worlds, is indeed become glassie, yeelding to nothing without breaking, but the Diamonds points, the quicksilver to which I compare the Word and Spirit of God) that bores through me­talls, gold, silver, &c. or stone; enters not a worldly heart. All the dews of Gods graces spend themselves like Hony-falls on the Dead Sea, as little fruit as notice of them. The beams of his Spirit, fall as on a Sea of glasse rebounded in his face: and like glasse only ductile in the fire; the Lord can do no good on this world till he bring it into the fire. The water that he manifested his anger in to the old world, or the water that he shows his mercy in, to the present, Baptism, or the Baptism of tears no good. Nay not culinary, ordinary fires, he must drop downe the Element, or Mat. 24.27. come like lightning so swift, so sodain, so consuming, yet though never so hard, it is but b [...]tle.

'Tis a sad truth, what many melancholly people have fancyed, that we are glasse: not that Christian Religion is only a fit of fancy or melancholy, O there are such transcendent enjoyings in God, such joyings in the exercise of the habits of grace and vertue beyond the dreamed musick of Aristotles eleaven morall Crystall spheares which make the proudest, calmest smiles this world af­fords madnesse; but because this great treasure, this soul presevre is in gallipots or course green glasses, [...], 2 Cor. 4.7. earthen shells. Alas that wee so admire the shell, that we feed not on the meat. Alas that weso gaze on the glasse that we regard not the face that it represents. Alas that with the filly Indians, we so are ta­ken [Page 9]up with this glasse, that the Merchant Rev. 3.18. that sells gold (grace) has no custome: though the price of his gold, be only to take it while he offers it, and put it to use. This Sea is a false glasse; like those false glasses that are contri­ved, so, as to represent all faces, much unlike the naturall. Such was that mirrour of Smyrna which show'd such mutability in the face, that a fair one might show ugly; and an uggly one fair. Think now what a poor portion thou leavest thy child, though never so fair an estate, a cupboard of glasses, a shelfe of gallipots; All worldly estates and conditions are glassie. How glassie that Sea of Rome, that once was marble? How brittle Jacobs stone, though it will prove marble? Glassie e­ven the keys of our Church, though one should have esteem­ed them more durable then Iron. Glassie our Bishop Seas, though pure Venice break ere hold poyson, [...].

Oh then let us go down to the Glassemans house as Ier. 18. you shall not only see mans spirit imprisoned in a glasse, but sayes St. Paul 1 Cor. 13.12. & 2 Cor. 3. ult. if you will see God in this dark time of our earthly pilgrimage, you must see him in a glasse; not that you should beleeve the eternall Spirit is imprisoned in a glasse too, (as some black Artists, or rather cheating Hocuspocusses, seem to promise you) but twice he calls you, to see him in a glasse, that you might not only as men see him in the creature, but as Christian men, in the Word: as for his creatures, the more clear they are, the more lively they represent him; yet see again, the more clear they are, the more glassie and brittle they are: so that as it is no wonder to see man, the nobler piece of Gods creature, broken, much lesse need we strange to see the noblest of men, make such hast to their unripe fall, [...].

Yet stay, the world's not the worse for being so glassie; if so slippery, so brittle, 'twill teach us not to stand on it, not to rely on it; Nor is the little world the worse; Oh it will [Page 10]make us very carefull, that we do not fall into sin with pre­paration: into the grave unprepared. Nay, nay, ever since I knew Psal. 51. that, Gods Gospel-Sacrifice was a broken heart, I can't think but that we are the better for being so ea­sily broken. Rome only can show the man, (however Tiberius is reported to have put him to death) that makes glasse fle­xile, or an heart that is only attrite, by the turn of a key, con­trite. Lord give us breaking hearts: Which though 1. in their nature, they be not feysable with good, though 2. in their effects they be dangerous, not being well broken: Yet 3. by the power of thy Word and Spirit they may be­come malleable, and consequently an acceptable reasonable sacrifice to thee.

Thirdly, this Sea is like Crystall, [...]. Where if I may beg leave to speak with the Vulgar (as the use is, with those that interpret Gen. 1.16. and such like places of Scrip­ture) I shall not need to quearee after its lapidificall principle, but say with Scaliger 'tis a white pellucid stone concreted of ice, or with the Etymologer, tis [...], wa­ter hardned by extream cold. And so here again discovers.

1. The worlds and worldings temper; cold and congeal­ed by nature, and so buryed in earth, that heaven can't thaw it. Pharaohs temper, a crystallized heart. The furnace that melts glasse findes this a Salamander. Yea,

2. Appears white, clear and clean; you shall see his inside so clear, his outside so clean, that you will find it a very hard province to write slut in a Pharisees cup, very hard by the eye to discern his sowre leaven, from the Saints lump, but you may easily smell him out: for Matth. 23.27. they are but whi­ted Sepulchers. And,

3. There's the mischief on't, they are transparent to Gods eyes, thence their stincking rottennesse within, though they can gull and cheat mans eyes, yet [...], they are pel­lucid, [Page 11]as clear as Crystall to the all searching eyes of the great God. Oh then,

1. Do not brag thy Crystall-eyes; but Leahs eyes, tender, still dropping, still running with crystall tears. Brag not the ranting, the crystallized heart: no crosse, no losse mollifie it; no Balm, no anointings of Gods Spirit supple it. Consider this ye that have forgotten God, Psal. 50.22. Alas, remem­ber God is a Lyon as well as a Lambe, lest hee tear you to pieces, and all your forces can't deliver you: if he can't hew his passage through your mountains with intreating tears, he will do it with vinegar. Pray that he will change this stone-heart, for a flesh-heart, Ezek. 36.26. that he would send forth his crystall (as the Lxx. read Psal. 147.17) like mor­sels, all in pieces.

2. Boast not thy clearness of knowledge: such a light as Lucians men in the Moon have, and a thing they call the Spi­rit, which they ever hold forth as the only Gorgon to stun reason withall: Alas, how dim sighted, how dark in this world we are! glad the quickest to use spectacles; 1 Cor. 13.12. and then see but riddles too, even then when thou com'st face to face, thou'lt hide thine eyes with the highest Seraphims, Esa. 6.2. and for all that so much talkt of glasse of the creatures, or matutine knowledge of Angels, thou wilt finde thy selfe unable to fashion Gods depths, to comprehend an incompre­hensible essence, God as in himself; though thou dost cer­tainly find inconceivable happinesse in him, as he is towards thee. Sprirituall pride, is medicorum pudor, the spirituall Phy­sicians Gout. The Kings Evill, none but the King of Heaven can cure it. Silly animals, what doe they doe but spoil their wings, the fly that so giddily flaps the flame, or the bird that so securely built her nest in the circle of the Sun. But so un­satisfied is the eye with seeing, or the ears with hearing: whilst all true light, all true revelation, throwes us downe with [Page 12] Paul, Act. 9.4. humbles us, blindes us, makes us in appearance not seeing, a while here, that we may see and live for ever.

Boast not the whitenesse, cleernesse; lest, seeing thou art but crystall, thou hast, not that white stone, Rev. 2.17. Gods mercifull acquittance of thy wofull sin; for although thou thinkst thou canst travell towards heaven, with all thy earth­ly bunches as fast as the Indian camels, can towards Canaan, yet the needles eye requires [...]. Luk. 13.24. wrestle to enter in, 'twill be worth your best indeavours. Though now thou appear to thy self and others as cleer as crystall, yet at that clear light of that great fire, thou wilt finde many strawes, many cobwebs, much foulness; and plainly read what secretly thou writst with a Lemmon, what counter­feitingly thou writst with an Onion. These Temples of Egypt will show their Crocodiles, Rats, Onions, at our Sa­viours second coming, more than at his first. For,

3. They are all crystall, most transparent to Gods eyes: their-windows are in their tops; glasse towards heaven; the all-seeing God discovers those leeches, envy, malice, crawling up and down in their glasses. [...]. So then we must fall on to the second Generall,

God the Spectator, before whose throne the world acts; only you must not conceive him to be an idle care­less Spectator. You see his Throne placed on these three particulars, so much as concernes the Spectacle the world. 1. His Power. 2. His Presence. 3. Essence. That is, he sits o­ver all the world, 1. as an omnipotent Judge; 2. as an om­niscient King; 3. as an omniprovident cause.

1. His power, hee makes scorpions, rabbets, frogs, [...], locusts, bees, pismires, lice, devour sinfull nations. The Sun that great gyant, that had not sin'd, swounded at Christs death to see his Creator in that despised humility, oh how wil he darken and die at that generall Sizes, when he shal see him [Page 13]in that glory of his power! David, Psal. 14.17. for lack a little of the presence and countenance of his gracious com­forter, feels his bones within him jumble together like ar­rowes all in a Quiver. So Hezekiah, Esay 38.13. and that for a little check: What, think you, would these Kings have done, if the omnipotent God should have mated them? His arm is not shortned, it is as able to help in these hopeless days. The Gentiles Atlas may faint, the Jews Samson may fail, but the Christians Iesus, the truly victorious Samson will never fail. No snipping his golden lockes, the beames of his free Spirit: What bands will you get to chain him up with, that rents rocks aswell as vailes? What engine to bore out his eyes, flames of fire, that dazle the Seraphim aswell as the sun? [...].

2. His presence, all things are naked, present to him, dark­nesse as well as light, the things that are past, and the things that are to come to passe, to him they are alike visible. Hee needs not others eyes to see withall, nor the help of glasses to strengthen his sight withall; it may befit Nero to behold his fencers at their exercises, through an emerald; wearinesse, dimnesse like cobwebs, will quickly hang in our windowes, and darken us, but God sees through crystall: What, shall not he that made the eye, see? He needs no Iacobs staffe, not Galilaeus his telescopium; sees all: Shall not he that made the care heare? he needs no whispering places; heares all: Shall not he that made mans soul understand? needs not discourse knowes all intuitively. 'Tis true indeed, occaecatur, at prae amo­re, he sees not sometimes, but it is his love that hides us; hee seems deafe sometimes, but it is prae irâ, because he is of­fended with us; he seems ignorant sometimes, but it is prae justitiâ, because hee knowes not sin, how to sin, or sinners. Go, go shade thy Arbour, so that the lynx can't dart a beam through its leaves: make thy closet so close, that the day [Page 14]light can't peep in: dig thy vault so under ground, that it will damp a flash of lightning: yet there where the quickest sight is baffled, where the light is bolted out a doores, where the lightning stands at a dare, even there the all-searching eyes of the Lord are. Such, just such an arbour, had Adam seeking shelter under his fig-leaves, Ionas under his gourd, Nathaniel under his fig-tree; so, so close did Saul thinke himselfe under the stuffe, Achan his wedge under ground, Ionas in the ship; so deep was Darius his den, in which they buried Daniel, Malchiahs dungeon, in which Ieremy, Iosephs sepulcher in which Iesus, or such a vault was in Absolons heart, when hee would steal the peoples heart, in Sauls religion to spare the rich, in Iudas his bag, when he would spare for the poore: all are crystalline, [...].

3. Of his essence: giving all things, being, well being, all having support from this throne. Independents excluded from this throne. The whole creation, being linkt to it by a chaine of causes in an harmonious subordination, hang on it, as in esse, so in conservari; he concreates and conserves even the souls of the sons of men; rules all, does all, causally, cardi­nally, totally. What is nature but Gods will? What is fate but his word? What is that so much adored Fortune, but his wheel to wrack us, to confesse the mutability of mortal man? His wisdome [...] in this great musick schoole, the hea­vens about him dancing and singing Te Deum; the glassy world of men like the harp in his hand, where the [...] the string that gives the highest sound, is the quire of blessed spi­rits, inhabitants of heaven; the [...] the string that gives the lowest sound, is the earth and its inhabitants, where if hee windes some strings higher, or slackens others, it is surely to make musick to his own glory. But what talk I of musick or musick schoole? wee are not come to Platoes Creed yet, that God is the worlds waggoner, his waggon running on the [Page 15]four elements, as on four wheels. Alas! the professors of Chri­stianity are turned infidels. O see, it is Christs Creed, Mat. 4.4. man lives not by bread alone, but by his word that sancti­fies it: Shall Grashoppers live by dew, and shall not I by the word of the Lord? See, it is the Angels Creed, Luk. 37. [...], every word, that is, every thing is possible with the Lord. Nay, see it is the Devills Creed, Mat. 43. [...], speak, i.e. make these stones, &c. because he does what he speaks, as easily as we speak what we would do, & without him nothing comes to passe, all things by his providence, [...].

The throne is mentioned no lesse than 28. times in this booke, oh sure it is to put us in mind still to have an eye to it, as encouraged by his power, as awed by his presence, as gui­ded by his providence. This world, the sea, the glasse, the cry­stall, vanishes away. But the Spectator, God, is ever; the Fa­ther is an Ocean of mercy, the Son a true Glasse reflecting, representing such a Father, the Holy Spirit the true Crystal, through which wee see most clearly both the Father, and the Son.

So that though 1. here be a sea of misery, yet know the sea of mercy loves us, cares for us. Though 2. our nature bee very glassy, yet the Son makes it strong by uniting it to him. Though 3. we are full of blindnesses, yet the spirit of Christ is the true Crystall, showing us all things. Wherefore as I have heard spoken, what the sea washes from the Low-coun­treys, it leaves in our Easterne parts, so may I say here, what we have have lost in the first part, we may find in the second part, God restores supplyes one way or other, what ever the world robs us of. His Power, Presence, Providence is for us. 1. Crystal sees us as a potent Pilot to steer us to a safe harbor. 2. Glassy, yet strengthned by his comfortable presence. So that 3. though the sea rage against us; yet there's not a wave dashes on us, without his Providence, he is not a sleepy Spe­ctator. [...].

Have you heard how it is a sea of Glass? of Glass, because he has set all its roares their bounds, which they cannot pass. Hence our Saviour, Mat. 26.39. not only intimates to us in what kind these brinish waters are sprinkled on us; that is, in kindness, they come from God, i. e. our father; but also the measure, but a cup, a glass of teares, they are proportioned to us; 'tis but thy cup, 'tis but my cup, drinke it off; make not a fire, not a god of thy Cross, but carry it patiently to thy Golgatha, and make it a cup of salvation. For here is matter of true consolation, the Devill cannot tempt the first or the second Adam, but in Gods word, and he that holds fast that word of truth cannot be deceived. He cannot make one [...] without our God, Exod. 8. nor hurt an Oxe or an Ass till impowered, Iob. 1. not drowne that unclean beast of the more unclean Gergesens, Mat. 8. not plucke a bristle from the Hogs back, as the learnedst Father expresses it, without our God.

Yet lest we go too fast, I must beg you to take this along with you; that as there is not a sparrow falls to ground with­out him, Mat. 10.29. so not an idle word, Mat. 12.36. Does God, think you, take such care of hogs, of sparrowes? sure he rather intimates what care hee hath of us, whose providence reaches to sensitive creatures: Oh how canst thou be so swi­nish, to bemire thy reasonable soule in those stinking sinks, which even beasts do loath? How canst thou hope an haire from thine head should not perish, when thy sinnes are more than the hairs of thine head for number, and for fashion sake less cut off.

O do but view thy self a little in this glass, and dress thy self accordingly [...]. How dar'st thou sin, when as the Lord has a glass, a thing which that most eloquent Ora­tor wisht for) in every mans breast, trying, searching, judg­ing, hearts and reins? O rather since thou art glass, bee like [Page 17]that in these windowes, fight against the stormes of passions; fight them all, all the strong holds of sin, of satan, of thine own reason; but let in light, true lights, faith, love, &c. And like those Harpers, Rev. 15.2. stand on this sea of glasse, de­spise what is below your high birth, Gods off-spring, trample all the things of this world under foot, that as St. Paul, Rom. 8.38. we may in all things be more then conquerors, even in this life; more! How can that be? yes, because we shall never be ashamed of our victory through him that loved us, wee shall parta tueri, no man shall pluck us out of his hand. Yet know that to conquer is not to keep one commandement (as the use is now a dayes) cry up the fourth commandement, and 'tis no matter what becomes of the fifth, sixth, seventh, eight, &c. O let not sin break in at one commandement! if once you give it but a little leake, and take no care to stop it, you call your ship in question. For sin is more dangerous then a Remora, it not only stayes your progresse in grace (though it be but small) as an externall agent, but weakens grace, as an enemy within, as a Torpedo, benums the soul, and senselesly sinkes it.

Me thinks I see a soul at the generall Resurrection, going to assay its new clothes, with what squeamish horror it beholds its former dust. Is this that sea that was so flourishing, so green in mine eyes, that I forsooke the ocean of mercy that ran softly, for? Is this that brittle and weak glass that I had thought Gods free spirit had been coopt up in? Is this that glass that I lookt into more then the perfect law of liberty? Is this that Crystall that I prefer'd before the true loadstone that pulled me so kindly, so strongly towards him? How dark now is this shel that made such a glittering show in the dark? How were mine eyes deceived with that which seemed its proper colour? How perishable was my fancied immortality?

Alas! when death, pale chilly death comes crawling down [Page 18]thy snowy Alpes, drilling down thy hoary hill, when thou beginnest to feel him at thy gates besieging thee, puls up now thy pallisado, now is in thy outward works, nay now in thy suburbs, has taken thy senses, thy eyes dimme, hearing dull, tasting done, nay is taking a limb of thee, thy feet cold; How will thy heart beat up a march into another world? How wilt thou shrug, groan? How wilt thou hope that this last minute shall be accepted, who hast not spent one day truly in Gods service all thy life long? What is now left thee, but those un­utterable prayers of the spirit, sighes, groanes, if then accep­table? For there is a time when God is stone, as you have seen from ver. 3. Thou think'st him a father, and he is Jasper; thou thinkst to find him a brother, & he is Sardin; thou doubtst not to find him a comforter, but he proves an Emerald. Yet pray, thou art in the glass house before the throne. Nay pray, Heb. 4.16. with all liberty of speaking, for he will be bread to his children, Luk. 11.11. and not stone, he will be found by such as seek him in the acceptable opportunities: and though, Rev. 20.11. his throne be a great one, to show his power, majesty, providence; yet it is a white one, to show his meekness, mercy: and that this throne is a mercy seat, was re­vealed, although but vailed, Exod. 25.22. standing upon the arke, trampling as it were the law under feet. After some si­lence of his, after some tryall of us, after much rage of the world, and the worlds prince, comes Tace, obmutesce; so that though he lets sorrow flow in full tides ore-night, yet it ebbs in the morning. However, I beleeve he can make iron, swim. I beleeve, it he throw me into the sea with Ionas, hee will pro­vide me a fishes belly, for my ship or coffin. Hee that counts of his body, but as of his souls prison, may easily rejoice when the Lord shal be pleased to snap this frail glass a pieces, to rench open these prison doores, and give us footing in a more lasting world.

That bad spirit, Mat. 4.8. was but the goods spirits Ape, who also lifts us aloft to see this glassy worlds glory. Only the Devill drawes a curtaine before its glassinesse, its fading­ness. But see here, as plainly as in Archimedes his spheare of glass, how sleepily, how dully, the earth and its adherents be fixt; whilst the heavens and heavenly things are weariless, restless in declaring Gods glory: see plainly mans life (which is like a thread spun from the true distaffe of Gods decrees, though with many turnings and windings) as the Scripture elsewhere compares it, like to a visage in a glass. O since this world is so brittle that wee cannot carry it up to heaven, it must be crumbled to pieces, let us bring downe heaven on earth, and take it by force. To do this we must not only have our head (by faith in Christ) in another world, but with that great Mathematitian our footing too (our conversation.)

To this purpose I hope it may be, if I present you with a­nother world, though a Microcosm, a little one, disgus'd now under those blacks, and he, 1. a sea, a man of sorrowes, or a sea of troubles. 2. Yet glassy, a mortall man, there's an end of all perturbations. Yet 3. Crystall, he was a Christian, an immortall man. For though 1. like a sea he had his ebbs, his flowes, yet he had his immensities, his depths too. Though 2. he was glassy, being made up of such a sandy, dusty princi­ple, yet 3. he was Crystal; ennobled with so clear knowledges, so perspicuous excellencies.

Yet for variety sake, bee pleased to take with mee another method, another way to the same City. And 1. the same great God, creator and preserver of all things (and more e­specially of man) being placed in his throne of power, pre­sence, essence: Let us 2. view this narrow sea, this little world brought on the stage, in his severall actings. Many very emi­nent men in the Church of God, have compared the life of man to a Play. So does St. Pauls [...] 1 Cor. 4.9. [Page 20]his [...], Heb. 10.33. seem to allow it, and allude to it. Expositors find such drames, such interlocutors, such chores in the Canticles, and even in this Apocalyps.

I am sure, here are some in this honourable presence do ve­ry well remember the time when he spake his Prologue (as all do at their entrance) in teares, which though not divine, yet divining the future brinishness of this troublesome sea.

His [...]—but here I must be silent, lest I revive that ocean of teares, that neer nine yeers since seemed to drown'd his countrey aswell as his family, or those last years torrents which heaven and earth seemed to weep, to carry on the cele­bration of his most honourable parents funerals.

The sun is again entred Cancer, and we mourning. It is Gods harvest time, & he hath taken the tithe, whether we wil or no.

His [...], he acted a while under Artists at home, which could both give him the sunny side of the garden, and with fine reflecting glasses ripen him; and we well know, that his vast memory, sudden apprehension, fine expression, refined judgment, &c. must needs place him in the first Classis of Gentlemen. But lest our coal or turfe smoake, should be thought equally sweet, with the cryed up frankincense of o­ther countreys, he passes that neck of sea that cuts the head of England, from the body of Europe; where his tongue so quaintly relishes the honyed language of the French, that it makes mee thinke, that though our Bees make hony the same way, yet theirs have more flowers of Rhetorick.

His [...] may show you his returned state, when his na­turall Father leaving him, he findes quickly a political to ad­here to, and with that Vestall zeal, that resolved constancy, that all other tyes, nay his houses and lands, nay his life must a while stand under sequestration. Mercifull heart, thy sta­bles and studies, thy horses and houses plundered, whilest ma­ny of thine enemies owe their houses, their lives to thee! Few [Page 21]Gentlemen in Oxford gave more groats then he shillings, and that to his foes sometimes as well as his friends, knowing that when their sins were greater, Calice would be wonne a­gain. It was here that he made choice of his Vertuous and choice Lady, where al that censure him say; his aim was rather to joyn man and wife than house to house. His [...] be­gan at his sad coming hither last year. And since his late King dy'd, he lived only as headlesse bodies do, in some strugles of forma corporeitat is: & now you plainly see, that the King was indeed the breath of his mother; or like to that of Psal. 131.2. My soul is even as a weaned child. Blessed Lord, thou hast given me fair and full breasts to live on, yet so much worm­wood withall makes me nauseat the nibble. The Crosse of Christ, like the Mathematicians point, begins and ends the line of our learning and life.

It was just two months before that Sabbath (on which I hope he began his eternall Sabbath in heaven) when after a week spent in continuall prayers and preparation, he incorpo­rates himself into the body of Christ in that sacred Ceremo­ny (so much slighted) of his own institution, after the form of the Church of England, yea notwithstanding much bodily indisposition in the sacred place. Pious soul, I fear'd, that the cold assembling, the clownish behaviour, the non-sense devo­tion used there, had quite frighted thee away from thence long since: so that as we see in heavy bodies, the neerer they approach to their center, the more speedily they hast to it, so pensive souls, the neererthey draw to God the faster they go to God: so that though ever before he did converse with the Lord in prayer twice or thrice daily, yet now as aiming at the Apostles [...], he has been observed to have trebled that thrice and more, nay least [...] devotion should be dryed [Page 22]up or not grow, he used to water it with clouds of tears, surely of tears from Heaven: and now how is it possible, for malice not to give way for me to speak, what was said of once-wick­ed St. Augustine, A son of so many tears can't perish.

Yet because our love to man is the Index of our love to God, oft, oft did he beg of the Lord that he might live to do that good which either he had hitherto omitted; or his estate not permitted: Weep Charlcote, weep you sister towns; weep Hampton, thy annuall commings in, must have gone only to make thy poors goings out, and comings in to bless the Lord for him. Weepe Highcleere, thy barren hill knows what it is to have him to water thee. How oft did he send secretly to enquire what poore were at his gates? And then how oft send meat and money secretly, whereby the hungry soule might be satisfied?

And now Elias-like he cries, take away my'life; yet flies the Iezebel, that would have taken it; because he would not that death should take it till the Lord that gave it, was willing to receive it, insomuch that when he went to Bath, he said plainly he went to Bath to dye: so he bathes himself in those minerall waters and dyes. So having bathed himselfe in the bloud of Christ, he lives; and to say all, Had not the malig­nancy of conjunctions above and divisions below, had not the goodness of God and the wickedness of man, in all this stage been predominant, that lending his clock wheels, and this weights, his dayes had not been so short, his houre so soon.

This is the grassiness, this the glassiness of all humane things. On this ground it was that Ptolomee raised that glas­sie tombe to Great Alexander: yet me thinks I may com­plain with St. August. Sivitrei essemus, &c. If we were glass, we should not be so easily broken. A glass may be kept from breaking some hundreds [...]ears, but at threescore and ten [Page 23]begins mans fall. Alas! he has made a [...] and must dy, he has a dying principle within him, a spark of naturall heat, which being outed, we are but ashes. Oh when we only dress our selves by our own glass, and not by the Gospel, Iam. 1.23, 25. consider only how green, how spacious our Sea is, and not how deep, how dangerous: how shining our Crystall, and not how transparent, how hard our glass is, and not how brittle, our Sun knows no Eclipse, no set. But when in the free Law of Christ we take our dimensions, our Sea is Glass, our Glass is ashes, our Crystall is Ice. In earth we are dust, in the Water a buble, in the Air a vapour, in the Fire smoak, in the Light a shadow. Well, since we are no better, but a sha­dow, Psal. 102.11. Oh then follow you the gre at Sun of Heaven, the truth, for though; all men are said to be lyars, yet men of high degree, Psal. 62.9. are in the Abstract, a lye. And such a viall of bloud, such a weak glass of nature is this, which it hath pleased God should at last come thus broken home.

Most honoured Sir, pardon me, and give me leave to speak one word to you, you succenturiate him. I see many mourners followers of this Herse with tears that are not here. 1. Poor hungry bowells, they are the Lord treasury: cast in thither your mites, at least your superfluities, they are Christian Sa­crifices. He that slights Bullocks and Rams, accepts a peece of bread, he that slights rivers of Oil, disdains not a cup of cold water. 2. Orphans, widows, those hope to have you a Father to them, these an husband, they are the test of your Religion, Iam. 1. ult. despise not the sighings of these poor, destitute, and helpless, that sit alone on the house tops. 3. Vertues divine, morall, all mourners, as the times go, and beg some countenance from you and from this honorable presence. So he that can raise bodies will raise your Estate, he that can curse and ravell and crumble an estate, will bless, will in­crease yours.

And then here needs no tears to embalm this Corps, no sheet to shrowd him; we shall all wind him up in a white clean memory; and for his humane frailties, let this black coffin, and that dark vault lock them up for ever. Nay, then weep not Charlcote, let not Charlcote bee made an Hadadrimmon. Weep not his countrey, he hath added to it a loyall name. Let it bewail her Absalons that dy in Paricide, &c. when she shall see those tame ridden mules leave them dangling (like those harpes Psal. 137.2.) in the trees; it need not lament her innocent dead children. But I have been too long I fear con­versing in this lower world, let us now addresse our selves to the upper.

Mereifull Lord, we now come to dip our buckets in thee the only boundless, only bottomless Ocean of Mercy: Oh let every one according to the severall measure and capacity of the ves­sels wee bring, draw life (grace, glory) out of thee. Though in Adam thou hast made us all mortall, yet in Christ, through the death of Christ hast revived us; and when thou drankest that cup of trembling for us, didst swallow down death and all, and brokest open the prison gates of the grave, so that wee are all prisoners of hope, raise us here from sin to grace, that thou maist hereafter raise us from the grave to glory, that here and ever all glory, power, majesty, may be ascribed to thee the only true God, &c.