I must also confess that that general acceptation that my lormer labours have found, both in the nation and in foreign parts, and that singular blessing that has attended them from on High, hath been none of the least encouragements to me once more to cast m my mite into the common treasury.^ Besides, I am not unsensible of your candid esteem of some former endeavours of mine m this kind neither do I know any way wherein I am more capacitated to serve the glory of God, the interest of Christ, the public good, reproached truths, and the interest of the churches, in my generation, than this, as my case and condition is circumstanced; and I am very well satisfied that there is nothing in this treatise but what tends to the advantage, com-
1 Cf. Herbert, as before.— G.
2 Supposed to be a portion of a mediseval pentameter hymn.— u.
* U^-LYiykVTmi.s, concerning his first portraiture, If it be liked, I .ill draw more besides this, if loathed, none but this.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY,
fort, support, settlement, and encouragement of those whose concern- ment lies in peace and truth, in holiness and righteousness, through- out the nations.
Sir, the points here insisted on are of the greatest use, worth, weight, necessity, excellency, and utility imaginable ; they are such wherein our present blessedness and our future happiness, yea, wherein our very all, both as to this and that other world, is wrapped up. It will be your life, honour, and happiness to read them, digest them, expe- rience them, and to exemplify them in a suitable conversation, Deut. XXX, 15, 19, and xxxii, 47, wliich, that you may, let your immortal soul lie always open to the warm, powerful, and hourly influences of heaven.
Let it be the top of your ambition, and the height 'of all your de- signs, to glorify God,i to secure your interest in Christ, to serve your generation, to provide for eternity, to walk with God, to be tender of all that have aliquid Christi, anything of Christ, shining in them, and so to steer your course in this world as that you may give up your account at last with joy, Mat. xxv, 21, seq. All other ambition is base and^ low. Ambition, saith one, [Bernard,] is a gilded misery, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original of vices, the moth of holi- ness, the blinder of hearts, turning medicines into maladies, and reme- dies into diseases. 2 In the enthronisation of the pope, before he is set in his^ chair and puts on his triple crown, a piece of tow or wad of straw is set on fire before him, and one appointed to say Sic transit gloria mundi, The glory of this world is but a blaze.3 St Luke calls Agrippa s pomp ^era 7roXX^9 (fiavraaia^, a fantasy or vain show Acts XXV, 23,; and indeed all worldly pomp and state is but a fan- tasy or vam show, St Matthew calls all the world's glory J6^av an opinion, Mat iv, 8 ; and St Paul calls it ^xvf^"-^ a mathematical figure rT1^^^*■^Jl, ' ™^.i8 a mere notion, and nothing in substance. 1 he word here used mtimateth that there is nothing of any firmness or sohd consistency in the creature ; it is but a surface, outside, empty thing; all the beauty of it is but skin deep. Mollerus,* upon that Ps. Ixxiii 20, concludeth, ' that men's earthly dignities are but as idle dreams, their splendid braveries but lucid fantasies.'S High seats are never but uneasy,_and crowns are always stufi^ed with thorns, which made one say of his crown, '0 crown, more noble than happy.^ Shall the Spirit of God, the grace of God, the power of God, the presence of vou 'pvAl? ""^Tt ^^1 °i^r '^^'' ^^^«' «^^^^«' ^^d temptations, as
Peo^DlVTsaHv^r ^^^^^ *^^* f.^^' 'H«^°^^ ^^ t,efore the people, 1 bam. xv. 30; and he was a Jehu that said, ' Come, see my
an?glS^;-b;t?ce7St/Sod'^' --^itiously labour, we count it our highest honour
Aci?nf si^Toftr^^^^^^^^^ r '"^ "^"^ '^^ '^^ p^^ ^^ p^'-^^^^- f^°-]
wa; l^t^:tZu'tLl^'':i^Z'AlZ^S^ *^°^P^^ <^^- *«^«^^-> ^ «t- that the
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
7Pal for the Lord of Hosts,' 2 Kings x. 16 ; and tliey were^ three Irish Stfthat reMled in Henry the Second's days, being derided for thefr rude habits and fashions; and they were some of the worst of cLdTnalsTat when they were like to die, would give great sums 0 mon Tfo^^^^^^ hat, that they might be so styled upon then-
?ombs ' and they were the Komans and other barbarous nations that we^e most ambitious of worldly honour and gW; and he .^s a Tulius tear whose excessive desire of honour made him to be mor- faHvLted by t^^s and all others. God grants no man a
patent for honour "durante vita, but durante henefacito, as the d^ers speak, during his life, but during his o- good pl^^^^^^^^^^ worldly honour and glory is subject to mutability. Honours, ricties, Ind X ures are the" three deiti'es that in these days a world of men adore and to whom they sacrifice, morning and evemng their best tWMs and tS, for their unparalleled vanity, may we 1 be called the viidt; of van^tie;, Eccles. i. % Worldly honours are but a mere conce" a'shadow, a Vapour, a feather in the cap without sub ance or subsistence, and yet the most powerfiU f f ^,^^^?^f ^^'^^^^^^ he lulls men to sleep in the paradise of fools; to cast them, wnen they a e awake into the bottomless pit of eternal woe. For had not SatL hdd them to be the strongest of all temptations he had not ™d e^f^^ his last battery against the constency of our blessed Saw, as S did, Mat. iv. 8, 9. And although this roaring cannon TZ^ouX^ not p;evail against Christ, the ^^^^ o^ges. Mat -v^^ vpf bnw TTianv thousands in these days are captivated and deluaea oy the XriX^^lisS- of worldly honours ! Men of great honour and trldly g^^^^^^^^^^ in 4pery place^ Adonibezek, a mighty
DrTnce was made fellow-commoner with the dogs Judges i. 7; and EdX^zar, a mighty conqueror, ^^ turned a-g^^^^^^^^^^^ the oxen Dan. iv. 28 ; and Herod was reduced from a conceitea goa to tWost loathsome of men, a living carr on, arrested by the vi st creatures, upon the suit of his affronted Creator, Ac s xi. 23. The lice did fully confute his auditory, and triumph over his thione. A g^^^^ Haman is feasted with the king one day, and made a feast for crows +V.P TiPvf Esth vii 10. In all the ages of the world (rod nam l^ken a iSs'toli^^ pride of all the glory of this lower world, Tea Yviii 0 See it in a few instances : —
'"vSn''the EciJiau emperor, fell from being - emp^-or te be a footstool to Sapor, king of Persia as often as he took ho^^^^
Bibulus the consul, riding m his ^rmmpliant chariot by the^ a tile-stone from a house was made a ^a^^^^, ^ff f^ A^d ^^^^^^ the canitol to offer up there the bulls and garlands he had prepared %uSnus, L Ro^an empeiw, brought .Tetncus hisjPO^^^^^^^^^^ the brave Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, m triumph to Eome m golden
SeTanus that prodigious favourite, on the same day that he was at- tended by the senate,%n the same day he was torn m pieces by the