It hath been long since observed to my hand, that Daniel sets forth the several monarchies of the world by sundry sorts of cruel beasts, to shew that as they were gotten by beastly subtilty and cruelty, so they were supported and maintained by brutish sensuality, craft, and tyranny ( * This you will find fully cleared up in the following treatise.
8 AN ARK FOR ALL GOD'S NOAHS.
I have read of a Lacedaemonian that said, that they well deserved death that did not quench tjrranny, they should quite have consumed it with fire. But whether he hit the mark or missed it, let the reader judge. Well, Sirs ! you may be the lords of this world, and yet you will certainly be miserable in another world, except you get God for your portion. The top of man's happiness in this world lies in his having of God for his portion. He that hath God for his portion en- joys all ; and he that wants an interest and propriety in God enjoys nothing at all.
Gentlemen, I have read of an heathen who, seeing a sudden ship- wreck of all his wealth, said, Well, fortune, I see now that thou wouldst have me to be a philosopher. Oh that you would say under all your heavy losses and crosses, Well ! we now see that God would have us ' lay up treasure in heaven,' Mat. vi. 19, 20; we now see that God would have us look after a better portion than any this world affords ; we now see that it highly concerns us to secure our interest and propriety in God ; we now see that to enjoy God for our portion is the one thing necessary. Have not many of you said, nay sworn, that if you might but see and enjoy the delight of your eyes, that then you should have a sweeping trade, and abound in all plenty and prosperity, and grow rich and great and glorious in the world, and be eased of everything that did but look like a burden, &c. If it be indeed thus with you, why do you so complain, murmur, and repine ? and why do many of you walk up and down the Exchange and streets with tears in your eyes, and with heaviness in your hearts, and with cracked credits, and threadbare coats, and empty purses ? and why are so many of you broke, and so many prisoners, and so many hid, and so many fled ? But if it be otherwise, and that you are sensible that you have put a cheat upon yourselves, I say not upon others, and that as you have been self-flatterers, so you have been self-deceivers, the more highly it concerns you to do yourselves, your souls that right, as to make sure [of] God for your portion. For what else can make up those woful disappointments under which you are fallen ?
It is a sad sight to see all the arrows that men shoot to fall upon their own heads, or to see them twist a cord to hang themselves, or to see men dig a pit for others and to fall into it themselves ; and it is but justice that men should bake as they brew, and that they which brew mischief should have the first and largest draught of it themselves.
Now the best way to prevent so sad a sight and so great a mischief, is to get God for your portion : for when once God comes to be a man's portion, then 'all things shall work together for his good,' Rom. viii. 28, and then God will preserve him from such hurtful and mischievous actings. The whole world is a great bedlam, and multitudes there are that think madly, and that design madly, and that talk madly, and that act madly, and that walk madly. Now as you would not be found in the number of those bedlams, it highly concerns you to get God for your portion, that so you may be filled with that wisdom that may pre- serve you from the folly and madness of this mad world.
Gentlemen, the following sermons I preached in the year 1660, at Olave's, Bread Street, and God blessed them then to those Christians that attended on my ministry, and I hope he will bless them also to
EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 9
the internal and eternal welfare of your souls, to whom they are now dedicated. They are much enlarged; the profit will be yours, the labour hath been mine. I judge them very seasonable and suitable to present dispensations, else they had not seen the light at this time. Curiosity is the spiritual adultery of the soul ; curiosity is that green- sickness of the soul, whereby it longs for novelties, and loathes sound and wholesome truths ; it is the epidemical distemper of this age and hour.
And therefore, if any of you are troubled with this itch of curiosity, and love to be wise above what is written, and delight to scan the choice mysteries of religion by carnal reason, and affect elegant expres- sions and seraphical notions, and the flowers of rhetoric, more than sound and wholesome truths, then you may eiise yourselves, if you please, of the trouble of reading this following treatise ; only remember thi^, that the prudent husbandman looks more and delights more in the ripeness and soundness and goodness of the corn that is in his field, than he doth at the beauty of the cockle ; and remember, that no man can live more miserably than he that lives altogether upon sauces ; and he that looks more at the handsomeness than he doth at the whole- someness of the dishes of meat that are set before him, may well pass for a fool.
Well, gentlemen, for a close, remember this, that as Noab was drunk with his own wine, and as Goliath was beheaded by his own sword, and as the rose is destroyed by the canker that it breeds in itself, and as Agrippina was killed by Nero, to whom she gave breath ; so if ever you are eternally destroyed, you will be destroyed by yourselves ; if ever you are undone, you will be undone by yourselves ; if ever you are scourged to death, it will be by rods of your own making ; and if ever the bitter cup of damnation be put into your hands, it will be found to be of your own preparing, mingling, and embittering.
Behold, I have set life and death, heaven and hell, glory and misery, before you in this treatise ; and therefore, if you will needs choose death rather than life, hell rather than heaven, misery rather than glory, what can be more just than that you should perish to all eternity ? If you will not have God for your portion, you shall be sure to have wrath for your portion, and hell for your portion, &c.
Well, sirs ! remember this at last : every man shall only thank his own folly for his own bane, his own sin for his own everlasting shame, his own iniquity for his own endless misery.
I have now no more to do but to improve all the interest that I have in heaven, that this treatise may be blessed to all your souls, and that you all experience what it is to have God for your portion; for that will be my joy as well as yours, and my crown as weU as yours, and my glorying as well as yours, in the great day of our Lord Jesus ; and so 'I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among them that are Banctified/ Acts xx. 32 ; and rest, gentlemen, your souls' servant,