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The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation LI

23 Friday Jun 2017

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MEDITATION LI
Upon First Fruits and Gleanings

What the apostle says of the heavenly bodies, that one start differs from another star in glory (1 Cor. 15:40-41) is also true of the heavenly laws and commands of God, as well ceremonial as moral, that they differ from each other in their weight and worth. Some of which set forth the greater things, and others the less, as may be easily seen in this double command of first fruits and gleanings. One of which is far greater than the other though the last is not to be neglected, because it is a stream that flows from the same fountain, the sovereign will an appointment of God.

But that we may the better take up the dimension of this law of first fruits, Let us View it by the help of some considerations, as astronomers by instruments judge of the altitude and magnitude of a star. We may first see it in the extent of those things and the offering of which God would be honored and acknowledged. He required the first slings of man in cattle the first fruits of the trees and of the earth, in the sheath and in the threshing floor, in the dough and in the loaves. It did reach to all their substance and increase, which without this service was but a polluted and an uncleaned heap. (Lev. 23:39, 27:26; Dt. 18:4).

Secondly, in the solemn manner of the offering of them on to God, which was to be done with a humble confession of their fathers’ poverty, A Syrian ready to perish was my Father, (Dt. 26:5), up the hard bondage in Egypt sustained by them, and with the acknowledgment of God’s gracious looking up on their affliction, labor, and oppression, bringing them also forth with a mighty hand an outstretched arm, with great terribleness, and with signs and wonders, I’m giving them a land that flows with milk and honey.

Thirdly, and the expressed command for the speedy payment of them [the first ruits] , they were not to be delayed, much less withheld. To keep them back was a robbery, to do for them was disobedience, and renders them rather to be of the gleanings and corners of the field which God had appointed to be reserved for the poor. It was an injury to the moral duty which they did teach of consecrating to God the first and prime of their years and abilities, which is to him far more acceptable than all the offerings and sacrifices what ever.

For how could it be, that he was careless of the rite and ceremony, which typified his duty to him, should ever be mindful of doing that which was the marrow and substance of it. And now when I think that the first fruits only where the shadow of our early honoring God, and remembering him in the day of our youth, when all the faculties both the soul and body are in their vigor and strength. (Eccl. 12:1). I cannot but wonder as well as mourn to see that under the doctrine of the gospel, which teaches men to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts (Titus 2:11-12), that thereby they might become a kind of first fruits onto God and the Lamb.
So few make religion the work of the morning of their age, and so many of the evening. What else’s this, but to give the first fruits to Satan and the gleanings to God. To him (Satan, you give) the finest of the flower, and to God the bran.

But tell me, O ye deferrers of holiness, who make it both the least and last work of your lives, is it only necessary to die to God and not to live to him? Or is it reasonable to say is that young man did to his companion, When he saw Ambrose dying, I would live with you and die with Ambrose? this to Mark God, whom yet you would have to save you? And to minister matter of trying up to the god of this world whose captors you have been, that though the God of heaven pay your wages, yet you would have done wholly his work?

Unto you, therefore, O men I call and my voice is unto the Sons of Men, be not deceived, God is not mocked: It is not the owning of him when you serve 90 yourselves nor your last any longer that will be acceptable on to him: it is not a few bedridden prayers that arise those ears of corn which the Pharaoh’s dream (Gen. 41:23), withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, that will expiate those black crimes with which your ill-spent life is over spread. Can an offering of gleanings, which is made up of robbery and disobedience, of wrongdoing the poor, and violating the command of God, ever hallow the whole harvest? No more can such duties be availing to reconcile you to God, Who requires that you should seek him early (Ps. 63:1).

Yea, has he not cursed the deceiver, which has in his flock on male and sacrifices onto the Lord a corrupt thing (Malachi 1:14), and what are you but deceivers? Who weighs the lamp of the time that God has given you to work by in this sinful Delites of the flesh and alienate the chief of your strength and parts from him that should have been honored, both with the first and best of your abilities and in your age have nothing to offer him but a large bed role of heinous enormities which may justly bring down your gray hairs with sorrow onto the grave (Gen. 42:38)? How blessed are thing is it then from then to give God the first fruits of their youth, that he may not give them bitter after fruits and cause them to feel more smart of their sins and their old age than ever they found pleasure or delight in them in their youth?

And what better persuasions can I suggest than to consider

That early piety gives both to the person and to a service a peculiar preeminence in dignity above all others. The naturalist observes that the pearls that are bread of the morning dew are far more bright in clear than those which are bred of the evening dew. And so are those duties of a greater worth and beauty which are the fruits of the morning and not an evening godliness.
It is the commendation of Hezekiah’s reformation, Above all others of the kings of Judah that in the first year of his reign in the first month he open the doors of the house of the Lord (2 Chron. 29:3). It is that which makes Josiahs memory to be as a box of precious nard, that while he was yet young he began to seek after the God of David his father (2 Chron. 34:3). It is an honorable testimony which Paul gives to Epaenetus, that he was the first fruits of Achaea unto Christ (Rom. 16:5). And the like is that which he gives onto Andronicus and Junia, that there in Christ before him. (Rom. 16:7). To have a precedency what glory can be greater, then to be a Jeremiah sanctified from the womb, or Timothy nourished up in the words of the faith? (Jer. 1:5; 2 Tim. 1:5).

Secondly, the comfort of age is a well spent life. When a man comes to the grave as a shock of corn in its season, and not as a bundle of tares to the fire; when the bones are full, not of the sins of youth but of the services that were then done to God. When a man can say is dying Hezekiah, Remember O Lord I beseech thee see how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight. (2 Kings. 20:3).

It is sad when the sins of youth become the burden of age. If the grasshopper then via weight to the body, what a pressure will heaps of mountains of sins be to the soul? Age at the best has sufficient griefs, it is of itself as sickness, and a neighbor to death, and needs not the bad provisions of youthful follies to make it worse.

Let then the counsel of wise Solomon be acceptable unto to you who are yet in the flower of your age, To remember your creator in the days of your youth. (Eccl. 12:1).

And then if death make you pale,
Before age make you gray,
You will have this comfort,
That you are old in hours, though not in years;
And have lived much, though not long;
As having lost no time in sowing seed unto the flesh,
as most do,
making seed-time a mourning age;
and old age a bitter harvest to a foolish youth.
Or if your almond tree shall flourish,
And that a more gracious old age shall succeed a gracious youth,
Old age itself shall be followed with a crown of endless glory.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation L

02 Friday Jun 2017

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(From William Spurstowe’s 1666, The Spiritual Chymist. The previous post in this series may be found here)

Upon the Vanity of Wishes

True and perfect happiness is a good with neither the light Nature can discover nor its endeavors obtain; it being as impotent to the acquiring of it, as it is blind to the beholding of it. And yet there is nothing in which man less apprehends himself at a loss than in this: of fully contriving at least, if not effecting, his own happiness.

Who is it that is not confident, that if he might have the liberty of his options to wish whatever he would, and to have them turned into realities for him, but that he could readily frame to himself a condition as full of happiness as the sun is of light or the sea of water?

What poor and contemptible thoughts would he have of all that glory of the world which the devil showed to Christ as a bait when he tempted him the worse of sins, to those stately schemes and representations which he could suppose to be the objects of his delight? (Matthew 4:8-9)

If wishes were the measure of happiness, what is it that the boundless imagination of man would not suppose and desire? What strange changes would he forthwith make in the universe, in leveling of mountains, in raising of valleys, in altering climates and elements themselves? Happily he might wish that the sea were turned into a delicious bath, in which he might sport himself without any fear of drowning; that the rocks were so many polished diamonds; the sands as so many fair pearls to beautify it; and the islands as so many may retiring houses of pleasure to betake himself unto he pleased.

He might that all the trees of the earth were as the choicest plants of paradise, every one of which might at his beck down own their branches and tender their ripe fruit unto him.

And thus multiply his wishes until every spire of grass and every dust of earth have undergone some remarkable mutation according to the lust of his fancy, and yet be as far from any satisfaction in his desires or rest in his thoughts. As the apes in the fable were from warmth [became warm], which finding a glow-worm on a cold night, gathered some sticks together and blew themselves breathless to kindle a little fire.

For all these supposed gayeties are not the perfection but the disease of the fancy, which has (as I may so speak) which has (as I may so speak) a bulimia in respect of objects, as some corrupt and vitiated appetites have in respect of meats, who thought they eat much are yet never satisfied.

And hence it is, that men who enjoy plenty and are far from having any just cause of complaint of want [they are not lacking anything], do yet, as unsatisfied persons, feed themselves with fond suppositions of being in such an estate and condition of which they can have no possibility, much less any real hope to obtain. The ambitious man pleases himself in thinking how bravely he could King-it, if he were but upon the throne, and how far he would out strip all other princes that have been before him for state and glory: he fancies what pleasures he would have for his recreation, what meats for his table, what persons for his attendants, what laws for his government, and then, Absalom-like, he wishes in himself, O that I were king in Israel. (2 Samuel 15:4)

The covetous person whose heart is set upon riches, never ceases in the midst of his abundance to desire more. Riches and his desires still keep at a distance, as they come on, so do his desire come on too, the one can never overtake the other, no more than the hinder wheels of a coach can overtake the former.

If she should, as Peter, cast his hook into the sea and take up the first first that came up with a stater or piece of money in his mouth, how eagerly straightways would eh wish to take a second and then a third, yea, how would he still renew his wishes so as sooner to empty the sea of all its fish than to satisfy his desires with accumulated treasures.

But are these, O vain man, the highest wishes with you could impede you present enjoyments and so make your speedy flight unto perfect happiness? What if all these suppositions and wishes, which are (as I may so speak) the creations of fancy were real existence? Yea, what if your condition did as far exceed the pump of all human imagination, as Solomon did the fame that was spread abroad of him? (1 Kings 10:6-7)

Might I not say as David did, O ye sons of men, how long will ye love vanity and seek after leasing? (Psalm 4:2) Are these things for which Angels will give you the right of hand of fellowship? Or will this glory make them stoop to become ministering spirits unto you? Though you may conceive as highly of yourselves as the Prince of Tyre did of himself, who said he was a god and sat in the seat of God (Ezekiel 28:2), yet they will look upon you no better than as gilded dust and ashes.

That which they adore, and with wonder look into, (1 Peter 1:12), is not the happiness of the worldling, but of believers who are blessed — not according to what they ask or desire, but far above whatever could have entered into the thoughts of men and angels to conceive. (1 Cor. 2:9)

Who could ever have said to God, as Haman did to Ahasuerus, if he had been asked, What shall be done to the man whom God delighteth to honor? (Esther 6:6).

Let the foundation and cornerstone of his happiness be laid in the exinanition [an emptying, enfeebling] of the Son of God (Phil. 2:6-8), let him come from heaven to earth to purchase it with his blood: let his nature be dignified by being personally united uno the Divine Nature, let him be a co-heir with him who is the brightness of the Father’s glory (Romans 8:17; Hebrews 1:3), sit with him upon the same throne (Romans 8:17), and be conformed to his likeness (Romans 8:29): let him stand forever the highest and sweetest relations uno the three most glorious persons ,having God to be his Father, his Son to be his Elder Brother, and the Holy Spirit to be his Friend and Comforter: are not these things, as may pose angels to tell whether is the greater wonder or the mercy?

May it not be truly said, that omnipotency itself is exhausted so that there remains neither power in God to do, nor wisdom to find out a great happiness than this, which he has vouchsafed to man in his lowest condition?

Can there be any addition made by the narrow conceptions of weak creatures Let me therefore expostulate with Christians whose happiness in Christ is compelte, and yet, as if there were an emptiness in their condition, are still hankering in their minds after the world’s vanities and wishing, like carnal Israelites to eat of the fleshpots and garlic of Egypt. (Numbers 11:4-5).

Is there nothing in this world which you cannot find made up to you in Christ? Are not all the scattered comforts which can be had only in the creature by retail, parceled out some to one and some to another, to be had fully in Christ, in whom they are summed up, as broken particulars are in the foot of an account?

Though he be a bonus formaliter simplex, a good formally simple; yet he is eminentur multiplex, a good eminently manifold. And there is more to be had in Christ than can be had any-way out of him [that is apart from Christ]. Who, as the first figure in a number stands for more than all the figures that can bee added unto to it. Whom, saith holy David, have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. (Psalm 73:5).

Surely, if heaven which has legions of beauties and perfections in it, yield nothing worthy of his love and affection but God and Christ, we may well conclude, that Earth, which is a void of God as heaven is full, can have nothing in it that is to be desired by us. Why they should any, in whom Christ is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27) be as the men of the world, who cry out, Who will show us any good? (Psalm 4:6)
For them to be unsatisfied who feed upon vanities is no wonder; but for those who possess him that is and has all things, it is strange that they should seek anything out of him [apart from him]. Quid ultra querit cui amnia suus conditor fit? aut quid ei sufficit, cui ipse non sufficit? What can he seek further (saith Prosper) to him God is made everything?

Or what will suffice him, to whom He is not sufficient?

I know but one wish that any believer has to make, and that is the wish of St. John, with which he seals up the Book of God, as the common desire of all the faithful, with which I shall shut up this meditation, as the best of wishes,

Come Lord Jesus (Rev. 22:20)
even so come as thou has promised
Come quickly
In whose present there is fulness of joy
And at whose right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11).

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XLIX

16 Tuesday May 2017

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(From The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe, 1666). This an interesting discussion as to what a Puritan would have thought the duty of politicians:
Upon a Spring in a High Ground

The additional blessing which Achsah sought of Caleb her father was springs of water for her dry land, who gave her the upper and the nether springs. If the distinct recording of this particular Scripture Carry anything of importance with it, it is not that he gave her some portion of land that was well watered, As the low valleys for the most part art. And that he also gave such springs that by their high lying were apt to convey their stream to the enriching of other parts that stood in need of such help to make them fruitful.

Now what is it that can more commend a spring than a free diffusion of its waters and spreading of its moisture, not only to the grounds that are near, But to such as are at a distance from it; and what can more conduce onto this commodious usefulness then the Springs rise from some hill or place of ascent?

Another spring may haply serve to water some little spot I’ve ground, To benefit some private garden, but an upper spring will greatly advantage a large inheritance.

Such a late difference methinks there is in the moral wellsprings of grace and holiness as is between the natural, according to the diversity of subjects in which they are seated.

Grace and a poor man is as a nether spring, which is not less useful through a defective water let’s ruining capacity to make any large Communication of it in regard of the circumstances in which he stands. His wants, his paucity of friends, a the world takes of him, the slightings that poverty exposes most men unto, are all great obstacles to the eternal diffusions of his grace, though not to the intrinsical fulness of it. But Grace and a great person is like an upper spring, which may convey itself far and near, because of the many advantages which he has above others. His councils will sooner be hearkened onto, his reproofs will over-awe more, his conversation [manner of conduct, not just speech] Will win more, his example having the force of law.

So willing have many been to make greatness their pattern, as that they have imitated their infirmities. Dionysius’ courtiers affected to be purblind and jostle against one another that’s so they may be like their prince. Alexander’s followers would imitate him in their gesture, and go as if their shoulders were one higher than the other, because there was some inequality in his. Among the Persians, they were wont to highly esteem a long and narrow head because some of their kings’ heads of that figure.

Oh what pity is it then that the greatness in goodness should be ever out of conjunction together, or to be stars of different hemispheres, that are never seen shining at the same time? Yes, why should not those who are the highest among men affect also to be the best, that so they might bring a beauty and shine into the world, that they might allure others not only did the hold it, but also to imitate, by conforming themselves to their happy example?

It is the saying of Plutarch, that rare moralist, that God is angry with them that counterfeit his thunder and lightning; his scepter and his Trident; and his thunderbolts he would not have any meddle with: he loves not that any should imitate him an absolute dominion and sovereignty: but he delights to see them guarding for those amiable and cherishing beams of justice, goodness, and clemency. Without these things be conveyed down to others by those who have the reigns of power and government in their hands, though they look upon themselves as gods on earth, yet they are is unlike to the God of heaven as a blazing comment is to a bright and glorious sun, or deceitful glow worm to a heavenly star.

What low thought Solomon himself has of sovereignty when put into an ill hand, we may read in his book of the preacher, we’re he tells us that better is a poor and a wise child, then an old and foolish king who will not be instructed to manage his power and authority for the good of those that are under him.

It is wisdom that makes a man’s face to shine, most of all those that are in highest places. Good in them is most conspicuous, And both more applauded and imitated then in others. What evil can a king not forbid, whose wrath is as the roaring of a lion? What good can he not encourage, whose favor is as a cloud of the latter rain, which promises at a harvest of blessings.
I cannot but wonder at the great changes which this scripture reports to have been made by godly princess in the midst of a general apostasy, such as Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah who purged the land from a spreading idolatry and restored sabbaths, and temple worship to their power and purity, who have bowed the heart of the people towards them like to the top of a fisher’s angling rod, this way or that as it pleases them.

Who but princes that had grace in their hearts, and power in their hands could have ever affected such things as might well seem to be insuperable difficulty? Oh that I could therefore suggest such considerations that might prevail with all whose conditions God has raised above others, to be accordingly instrumental in the doing of good to others that move in the lower sphere. Shall I say, God expects it from you? If I do, it is no other than what he himself has spoken, when he has said, He will get him up to the great man, four they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God.

Or shall I say, that God signally commands it from you above others? Is it not to you that he particularly calls, Be wise now O ye Kings, Be instructed ye judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way.

Do you think that greatness does rather exempt from been obliged to obedience, or that you shall have a more favorable audit at the last day when every man must give an account of himself unto God? Be not deceived, God will require what you have done more from him about others, as he has for you about thousands, and will be on to you if you be found too light.

Your exultation in this life will serve only to make your casting down to be the more dismal in the other, and to confirm the truth of that proverb, that hell is paved with the corslets of noble men and the skulls of priests.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XLVII

12 Friday May 2017

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Upon a Perching of a Piece of Cloth

Laws signally good oft time derive their birth according to the comment saying, from evil manners springing like a fair and beautiful flowers from a black and deformed root. And so likewise the many and ingenuous explorations of finding out the difference between things of worth and their counterfeits; and so seeing into the particular defects of commodities have been occasioned from the multiplicity of deceits, which ever is an either from natural semblances or corrupt practices.

The skillful lapidary has, by his observation, learned to know a false stone from a true, which common eye cannot distinguish. The herbalist do difference plants sometimes by the root, sometimes by the taste, when the likeness of the leaf is perfectly the same. The cautious receiver, that he be not cozened by the adulterated coin for the true, makes an artificial touchstone of his senses, he bends it, he rings it, he will rubs it, and smells to it, that thereby he may find out what it is. The circumspect merchant contents not himself with the seeing and feeling of his cloth as it lies made-up, but he puts it upon the perch and draws it leisurely over; and so discovers not only the rents and holes that are in it, but the inequality of threads and the unevenness of spinning, the spots and stains that are in it, and what not, that may make it either to be rejected for its defects for its goodness.

O how impartial a judge is light, which neither flatters friends, Nor wrongs enemies; which manifests the good as well as the evil to whatever it is applied. This kind of trial hints to me the best manner of doing that work, which every Christian ought to perform at the greatest care, the searching and examining of his own ways. I may learn from what is done to the cloth to do the same spiritually to myself, by setting my actions between the light of the Word, and the discerning power of conscience, that’s so the one may discover and the other may judge what there will rectitude or pravity [depravity] is. And this is best done when every parcel of the conversation [conduct, manner of life] is looked into and scanned, as the cloth that is drawn over the perch. Then it is that I find the on evenness of my duties, the distraction of my thoughts, and the unbelief of my heart, which runs as a continuing thread from one to end of the duty onto the other. Then it is that I espy those secret stains of hypocrisy which discolor my services and blemish them onto God, when they seem fair to the eye of man. Then it is that convinced of my filthiness I cry out, My person wants the priest, which is the form with infinite guilt, It without him cannot be discovered. My nature wants a priest, which is overrun with the universal leprosy, that without him cannot be cured. My send wants a priest, which are for their number as the sands, and for their greatness as the mountains, that without him can never be pardoned. My holy things want to priest, which are defile with the daily eruptions of sin in folly, that without him can never be accepted. And who is it that thus views himself by this perfect law of liberty, that is not thus affected?

What’s says Paul of himself? I was alive without the Law once, but when the Commandment came sin revived and I died. Who was wants more full of conceited abilities to perform the righteousness of the law without blame? Who is more presumptuous in self-justifications and elated thoughts of his perfection, than the Apostle while he was without the law? That is, not without the letter but without the spiritual sense and penetrative power of it. But when the commandment came in its vigor and life, how’s suddenly did those mist persuasions of his own righteousness vanish into nothing? He then lost his confidence of being saved by his obedience to the law. And by the light of it discover those inward lustings and desires to be sinful, and such as subjected him on to death, which before were wholly neglected and unseen.

As I would therefore incite Christians to an exact discussion of their ways, so what I also direct them to look up on them through no other medium than the light of the Word: Wherewith (as David says) shall a young man cleanse his way (or, as the original imports, make clear as crystal) by taking heed thereto according to thy Word?

The Heathen we’re not altogether aliens to the studio self-examination; it was Sextius his custom, as Seneca reports, when he betook his night’s rest to question his soul, Quod hodie malum tuum sanasti? cui vitio obstetisti? What malady have you this day cured? What vice have you withstood? It was also Pythagoras his counsel to his scholars the each man should demand of himself, Wherein have I offended? What good have I done?

But alas! How confused and indistinct was that light which they made to search. How little can the candle light of nature discover of the evil of sin, Whose rules and principles do so much falling and suit with the wills of the flesh? What camel sins did the very best of them swallow down, without straining at them? What swarms are there sins, which Christians complaint of, but the natural man is totally ignorant of an can no more discover without the aid of the Word, than the eye can discern of its own blood shed without the help of a glass?

We have Paul’s own confession in this particular, I had not known lust, except the Law had said, thou shalt not covet. Before he only saw some sins that were as beams for their magnitude, but now he is sensible of the smallest motes. To the law then, and to the testimony do you betake yourselves, O you sincere an upright ones when you go about this work! Fear not its purity, but love it; shrink not added searching power, but you up your selves to a free and voluntary admission of its light; yes rejoice and be exceeding glad, the by the Light of the Word you can trace in home onto its receptacle, and can both judge it and mortify it in the seed and root of it, which is the sheerest and best way of destroying it. He is among the first born of Christians, who communes most often with his own heart and looks most often into the books of conscience, which rights journals and not annals, and is most likely to obtain a double portion both of peace and grace; but when he has done all, let him make David’s prayer the close:
Search me, O Lord, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my thoughts,
And see if there be any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.

MEDITATION XLVI Upon Contentment and Satisfaction

07 Sunday May 2017

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The Spiritual Chymist

It is our Savior’s maxim that Man’s life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesses.

If there be any happiness upon earth it is in that we call contentment which comes from the mind within and not from things without. Perfect satisfaction is to be had only in heaven, where we shall be happy, not by contentment but by the fruition of our desires. Then, says David, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. [Psalm 17:15] How happy therefore is every godly man’s condition who are the only persons that are instructed in the mystery of contentment while they live on earth and shall be in heaven the sole possessors of perfect an everlasting blessedness. True it is, that philosophy has greatly priced and earnestly sought this rich jewel of contentment; the Christian has only found it.

The Moralists have exercised their wits in giving rules to attain it (and have let fall some sentences that may deserve to be put into the Christian’s register), but they could never look into the true grounds from whence sound contentment does arise, and upon which it is to be built. The highest of their precepts have not (as I may say) the root of the matter in them, and are therefore insufficient wholly to compose the mind to such a calm and even temper, as may in the variety of changes show and discover [disclose] itself to be so reconciled to its present condition as to not lose inward peace and serenity, whatsoever the storms and cross accidents are from without.

What are the considerations which they prescribe as a support against poverty, sickness, imprisonment, loss of friends, banishment, and such like evils? Are they not persuasions drawn from the dignity of man, from vanity and uncertainly in all outward things; from the shortness and frailty of life, from the befalling of the same things unto others? But alas! what slender props are these to bear the stress and weight of those armies of trials which at once may assault the life of man. These may haply serve as secondary helps to alleviate the bitterness of some afflictions, when we are apt to think them greater than what others have felt or longer than others have endured.

But to keep the mind in peace in the midst of all aestuations from without [outside of us], there must be more effectual remedies than either Nature or morality can suggest. From whence then can true contentment arise but from godliness, which has a sufficiency to establish the heart? It is that alone which brings man home to God, out of whom neither contentment nor satisfaction can ever be had. It is that which acquaints a man with that great secret of God’s special providence over his children who rules the world not only as a Lord to make them sensible of his power, but as a loving Father to make them confident of his goodness, whereby he disposes all things for the best.

O when faith has once apprehended this, how firmly can it rest upon the promises which are made to godliness, both of this life and that which is to come? How can it work far more contentment with the meanest [basest, poor quality] feed than other have with the costliest delicacies; with the poorest raiment [clothing] than other have with their richest ornaments? It is faith only that teaches a Christian, like a skillful musicians to let down the string a peg lower when the tune requires it; or like an experienced spgirick [alchemist, chemist] to remit or intend his furnace [raise or lower the flame] as occasion serves.

Such a one was Paul, who learned this heavenly art [Phil. 4:11]not at Gamaliel’s feet but in Christ’s school, the Holy Spirit of God being his teacher, so that he knew both how to want [be in lack] and how to abound, and in whatsoever state therewith to be content [Phil. 4:11].

Let none then so far admire those heathen sages in those speculations of theirs concerning this mystery, as if they had attained to hit that mark at which they leveled [aimed] and had arrived at the utmost boundaries of it. When as in all their essays [tries, attempts] they have fallen as far short of true contentment as sick men’s slumbering and dreams do of a sound and healthful rest.

Of all their precepts and rules I may as as Erasmus [the humanist scholar] did of Seneca [Roman philosopher] in an epistle of his, Si legas cum et paganum, scripsit Christiane si ut Christianum scripsit paganice; If read them as they sayings of Heathen, they speak Christianly; but if you look upon them as sayings of Christians, they speak Paganly. And how could it be otherwise? They being wholly destitute of the light of grace and the guidance of the Spirit, which are both requisite to this high and holy learning? The one as a principle, the other as a teacher.

But yet this I must also say, that they have done enough to shame many, who, enjoying the benefit of Divine Revelation and living in the open sunshine of the Gospel, have profited thereby in so small a proportion beyond them. Who can forbear blushing to see those who profess to be Christians to live so contrary to the law and rule which they should walk by?

To see contentment, not by moderating their desires but by satisfying them, which will still increase as things come on; like unto rivers which the more they are fed and the further they run, the wider they can spread. Can it rationally be deemed by any that those things which are sums in the desire and cyphers in the fruition should ever effect contentedness in the mind? Is not the deficiency that men see in their abundance the ground [reason, source] of them multiplying it? And can they ever, by the additions which they make heal its deficiency? Why then should any try and attempt such fruitless projects which cannot but end in disappointment? Methinks I should not need to expostulate the matter with Christians: That anointing which teaches them all things should instruct them in this, that godliness is the only way to contentment in this life and satisfaction in the other.
But Lord, however others live,
help me to bring my mind to my condition
which is as well my duty as my happiness while I am on earth;
and to rest assured that in heaven thou wilt bring my estate to my mind,
which is that I may enjoy thee
in whose presence is fullness of joy
and at whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XLV

21 Friday Apr 2017

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Meditation XLV

Upon a Beehive and a Wasp’s Nest

Those two insects have, as naturalists observe, a likeness in sundry practiculars: The wasps have one common habitation, as well as bees, and are under the government of a king; who, as the king of bees, is the largest and most beautiful among them. In the building of their cells and combs they are exact, and make them much like the bees both for their figure and size. But they make no honey at all, nor yet any wax that is for service; they live only upon rapine, and are injurious to most kinds of fruits; like thieves they enter by force into the hives of bees and devour the honey which has with much industry been gathered by them. So eager are they after what is sweet, as that any narrow mouth glass set near the hive with the little sweet liquor becomes a snare to drown and destroy them, and a security to the bees to prevent their theft, which pass the more freely into their cells, not tempted to endanger their lives are to neglect their work by the sight for such a pleasing bait.

And now whither my thoughts carry me, who cannot easily conjecture? Is there not a double polity, or society of men, the one of which maybe justly resembled to wasps and the other two bees?  It was Tertullian’s saying long since: Faciunt favos & uspe, faciunt Ecclesias Marcionite: Wasps make combs but they are empty one; and so heretics make churches, but they are void of truth, which is that sweet honey that is to be found only  among the assemblies of the faithful.

What else is the Church of Rome, notwithstanding all the pretenses which makes to being a mother-hive, but a nest of angry wasps, under the rule and sway of a spiritual Abaddon? How many swarms have gone out from thence, not to make honey, but to destroy what others have made?  Frauds, robberies, violence have been the things which they have practice, and with which their habitations have been filled. Have they not thrust their stings deep into thousands, who have detected their impostors, and have endeavored to hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience? Have they not wasted many places, which were like the garden of the soul, full of precious fruits into which her Beloved might come and eat his honey and honeycomb? Who can express the rage and scorn with which they have trampled upon those, that would not abet their impieties?

How fond  [foolish] and fruitless then must be the attempts of those who, as they had forgotten what Amalek had done [Deuteronomy 25:17] , are setting on foot overtures of peace between Protestancy and Popery? As if the distance between the one and the other were more seeming than real, and might as readily be brought together as the two extremes of the serpent, who can, when he pleases cast himself into a circle and take his tail into his mouth? But who knows not that a little leaven leavens the whole lot; and so will a little error defuse its poison through the whole body of truth, like a drop of oil on a cloth, it no sooner falls then spreads. Like a spark on tinder it catches and runs at once. And therefore Paul would not for one hour give place on two false brethren, least the truth of the gospel might be endangered. To do it then with the least prejudice to the truth is sinful; and to effect it without it is impossible. Sooner may they reconcile antipathies in nature than in religion: when therefore they have combined fire and water, without the extinction of the other, and made an amity between the dove and hawk, between the wasp and bee; so that the one shall not infest the other, then may they promise themselves success, and making up the breaches between Babylon and Zion. But O that they who are studious to make strife to cease between the Philistines in the Israelites would bend their minds to heal the divisions of Israel, among whom their are great thoughts and searchings of heart.

Is it not pity to see the industrious bees, whose labors are so useful to their owners, to make a war in the mouth of their hive, and to kill one another by those stings which they should defend their cells against wasps and drones? And is it not been a sad spectacle to behold Christians who should be joined together, fidei  vinculo, glutine charitatis; by the bond and cement of faith and love, to be divided from one another and in animosities to draw the sword and to sheath it also in the bowels of each other? And yet such heats there have sometimes been, and still are between brethren. I could methinks give way to sorrow and let it overflow the banks to see professors to be less tender of Christ’s body than the soldiers were of his coat; and few or none to prize that unity which is the glory of faith of the gospel. Have we not all one Father, God blessed forever? Have we not all one elder brother, Jesus Christ , who is first born of every creature? Are we all not quickened by one Spirit, who is a Spirit of Love?  Are we not all under one solemn vow of baptism in which we have dedicated ourselves to God’s service as soldiers? How can we then turn enemies one to another?

O God, do thou, who hast made that blessed promise to thy people

One Heart

And one way

Put into them a Spirit of Wisdom and Love,

That they may walk wisely to those that are without

And Lovingly towards another;

That by this all men may know that they are Christ’s Disciples

And believe that those has sent Him.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XLIV

19 Sunday Mar 2017

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Upon a Physician Feeling the Pulse

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How often and how exactly do physicians feel the pulse of their patients? Not a day passes without a strict observation of the motion that it makes, according to which they judge both of the greatness and danger of the distemper, and what issues are like to be both in respect of life and death. They do not as other visitors, ask the patient how he does, but rather inform him how he is, and from the report which they make of his malady, his fears and hopes are more or less.

And yet how rarely do they feel their own pulse, who are so seemingly anxious about another’s. Days, weeks, months do elapse and pass away without any such studious heeding of themselves, as they continually in their profession exercise towards others. And yet happily and so doing they are as the priest in the temple who (as our Savior says) profane the Sabbath and are blameless.

But they osscaion me to think of the practice of many, who cannot so easily be acquitted; such you are severe observers of other men’s ways and actions and yet as great the neglecters of their own; who are far more glad that they can espy a fault than others, than grieve but it is committed: who presume to two look into the breast and To discover how the affections, which are the pulse of the soul, do beat and work in every duty.

And someday mistake the heat of their zeal as resembling a high and vehement pulse who strength comes not from health but from fever. And others, they condemn lukewarmness, an indifferency, whose affections they judged to be as weak and slow pulse, or is the springs of a watch that is well nigh down; which clicks and moves very faintly. In some again, they observed an inequality in their profession, which is accompanied with frequent stands and pauses that they make; like the asthmatic and short breaths persons, they run a while and blow longer, before they can move again. And upon these they look with this sad accountants as a physician does upon his patient as a false and intermittent pulse.

Few or none can be found to escape their censure, who observe the feelings of others, as some ancient critics did the imperfect verses of Homer, which they learned by heart, not at all regarding the many good. But what can be more contrary to law and rule of Christianity in such practices? How many prohibitions are gone out of the court of heaven to stay such a regular proceedings? Are we not by Christ forbidden to judge that we be not judged? To judge nothing before the time the Lord come?

And yet what if any man could know the true temper of the affections of others, as as fully as a position can distinguish between a well in sick pulse, would this knowledge be any great advantage onto him while he it Is both ignorant and regardless of his own estate? Would there bye find such joy and comforting himself as he that by an impartial examination of himself can discover the truth and sincerity of his own heart to Christ, though he can say nothing of others? Surely this man, as the hungry, would be filled with good things; when the other, as the rich, should be sent away empty.

He as the humble publican would be justified, when the other is the proud Pharisee should be condemned. Let others then physician like Study the condition of others, I shall look upon it as my duty and make it my work not to find out what others are, but what I am in regard of my unfeigned love and affection under Christ who has transcendently merited my love, when I am wholly unworthy of his.

The Spiritual Chymist: Meditation XLIII, Upon Time and Eternity

18 Saturday Feb 2017

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What is happiness that will expire, but misery at a distance?

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(Eugene Delacroix, Lion Rending Apart a Corpse)

The two estates of this and the other world are measured by time and by eternity as their just and proper measures, there being nothing in this world which is not as transient as time, nor in the other which is not as fixed and lasting as eternity. How inexpressibly then must be the good and evil, the happiness in the misery of those two estates differ from each other? [How different must good and evil, happiness and misery be in those two worlds].

What is the duration of all earthly greatness in respect of the stability heavenly glory, but as a flash of lightning to a standing sun in the firmament; or is a spark ascending from the furnace to a never setting star? What are the most fiery trials of this life, either for intention [intensity] or length, onto the everlasting burnings and torchings of hell; but as the soft and gentle heat of a blushing face, onto the constant flames and torments of the bowels?

What are racks, stone, colic, strangury [a slow painful discharge of urine], convulsions, heaped together in an extreme horror, but as the simple grudgings of an ague to the desperate rage and anguish which the least bite of that worm that dies not [Mark 9:48] creates in the lowest faculty of the soul?

There are additions to things which are limited and diminuent [lessening] terms of that to which they are annexed and contain in them (as logicians speak) oppositum in oppsito one opposition in another. He that says, a dead man or a painted lion, by saying more, says less than if he had said but a man, or a lion only, without any such additions; it is all one in effect as if he had said no man, no lion. For a dead man is not a man, neither is a painted lion a lion. Such are the additions of time, which [when] put to good or evil, express less then if nothing had been added.

He that says, happiness for a season, or sorrow for a time, says less than if he instead happiness or sorrow only: for perfect happiness or sorrow cannot be circumscribed in the narrow limits of time, no more than immensity in the points of a space. What is happiness that will expire, but misery at a distance? Or what is sorrow that endures only for a time, but an evil supported by hope? But add eternity to good or evil, it makes the good to be infinitely better and and the evil to be infinitely worse.

Can I then do less than wonder that men, who carry eternal souls in their bosoms, such as are kin to Seraphim’s, yea, advanced to the participation of the divine nature, that are the immediate subjects of endless well or bless, should yet so live, Ac fi esset omnis eternitatas, as if Eternity were a fable; as if they had neither God to serve nor souls to save? May I not say, Be astonished O heavens at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate as the Lord himself did at Israel’s folly?

What greater stupidity can there be, than this which most are guilty of, to busy themselves, like Martha, about perishing trifles, and to neglect the one thing which is necessary? To be thoughtful of things below, and seldom think of Heaven, till death summon them to leave Earth? To make salvation the by-work [incidental, unimportant task] of their lives, and fulfilling of the appetites of the flesh their chiefest task and care?

Were it not a strange thing if a man, who is to be judged on the morrow, and to receive the sentence either of a cruel death or of a rich and honorable estate, could not keep in mind the concernments of the next approaching day, without tying some scarlet thread up on his finger as a significant ceremony to remember him? Or the writing of some caveats up on the posts of the prison, which might hint on to him what danger his life is in?

Is it not more strange that the weighty matters of eternal life or eternal death should not by their own greatness press the heart of man unto a constant remembrance of them, especially when he knows not what a day may bring forth?

Can a miscarriage of such a person be other than dreadful, when their follies as well as their pains show makes them to gnash their teeth and to curse themselves for the neglect of that great salvation which has been often tendered them in the Gospel? When they shall feel everlastingly what they could never be persuaded for to fear? When they shall be convinced that at a far cheaper rate they might have been Saints in Heaven rather than salamanders in hell?

Oh that I could therefore awaken and excite all those whom the present enjoyments of the world serve as opium to cast them into a deep sleep and will happily be angry with those that seek to raise them out of it, though they keep them from perishing in it.

How can I do better then in St. Chyrsostom’s expressions to this purpose: suppose a man, says he, much desirous of sleep and in his perfect mind, had an offer made of one night sweet rest up on the condition to be punished 100 years for it, would he accept of his sleep up on such terms?

Now, do they (who would be loath to be reputed fools) do far worse, that for the short fruition of a transient delights, hazard a double eternity, the loss of an eternity of blessedness and the sustaining of an eternity of miseries? For what other proportion can all earthly things bear to heavenly, in respect of the duration, and a few beatings of the pulse or twinklings of the eye onto myriads of ages?

Be then timely wise ye wordings in a frequent consideration of your eternal being, that you may not pass away your life and a dream of happiness and awake in the horror of a begun eternity in misery. Say onto yourself, are we not in the world the child conceived is in the womb, not to abide there but to come out in a due time to a more full and free life?

Why then do we fondly think of building tabernacles here? Why do we so please ourselves in our present condition, as to be wholly regardless of our future? Is not death such a combat as we never entering to but once, and therein are either saved or slain eternally?

Do we think that our glory shall ascend after us and screen us from God’s fiery indignation? Will our riches purchase heaven or bribe hell? Will the first born of our body be accepted for this sin of our soul? What is it that makes our cares and fears so preposterous, are we anxious for tomorrow and thoughtless of eternity? We fear the grave and mock at hell, we dread the lightning, and slight the thunderbolt.

O methinks such pungent interrogations should startle the most secure if they would but put conscience up on an answer and not, like Pilate, only asked the question and then go their way. It is men’s living by sense that is the stone of stumbling upon which they ruin themselves: some surfeit and overcharge themselves with sensual delights, as that their intellectuals are wholly lost to all acts of reason; others who have jealousies concerning their future estates, are more willing to venture what the issue will be, then undergo an impartial trial; they fear more what sentence conscience will pass, and the condemnation that God will inflict.

Few there be that put time and eternity in the balance, and weigh them one against the other, or consider that life, is a vapor, a wind, a span, at most, which the further it is stretched, the more painful it is. And that eternity is a bottomless gulf which no line can fathom, no time can reach, no tongue can express. It is a duration always present, a being always in being, an everlasting now; it swallows up all revolution of ages, as Pharaoh’s lean kine did you eat up the fat, which when they had eaten them up, you could not be known that they had eaten them, but were still as at the beginning.

What strange thing can we imagine that in its duration would not be affected? A tear let fall from the damned once in 10,000 years would fill the earth with far more water than it was covered with in the Deluge. A dust taken from the mountains, and even parts of the world, were in that like intervals level of the universe [the slow accumulation of dust throughout the entire world would eventually fill in every canyon and ocean], and turn into a plain, and yet there would be still an eternity behind.

Never, never, is the killing word that breaks the heart of all these hopeless prisoners that library in the flames of hell. Suppositions and possibilities which I tremble to think of, if they might be but turned into promises on to them of the termination of their anguish and torment, O how would their hearts revive within them and how thankful he would they acknowledge God’s goodness onto them.

Oh glorious Lord, who art the Ancient of Days,
the Rock of Ages,
the Father of Eternity,
teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto true wisdom,
that I may walk in the way of life which is above to the wise,
and depart from hell beneath.

The Spiritual Chymist, Upon Mixtures (Meditation XLII)

17 Friday Feb 2017

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From The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe, 1666:  Upon Mixtures, Meditation XLII

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The wise God has so tempered the whole as state of man in this life, as that it consists altogether of mixtures. There is no sweet without sour, nurse our without sweetness. All simples [something simple is something without compound or mixture], in any kind, would prove dangerous and be as uncorrected drugs, which administered onto the patient would not recover him, but destroy him. Constant sorrow without any joy would swallow us up; and simple joy without any grief with puff us up: both extremes would agree alike in our ruin. He being in as dangerous a case who is swollen with pride as he was overwhelmed with sorrow.

This mixture then, though it seem penal and prejudicial to our comfort, is yet medicinal and is by God, as a wise physician, ordered as a diet most suitable to our condition. And if we did but look into the grounds of it, we shall find cause to acknowledge God’s Wise providence, and to frame our hearts to a submission of his will without murmuring at what he does.

For have we not two natures in us, the spirit and flesh, the old and new man? Have we not twins in our womb, our counter-lustings and our counter-willings? Are we not as plants that are seated between the two different soils of heaven and earth?

Is there not then a necessity of a mixed diet, that is made up of two contraries? The physician is not less loyal to his prince if he give to him an unpleasing vomit, and to a poor man a cheering cordial, because his applications are not according to the dignity of the person but to the quality of the disease: neither is God the less unkind when he puts into our hand the bitter cup of affliction to drink out of, then when he makes us to taste of the flagons of his sweetest wine.

Paul his thorn in the flesh, what ever the meaning of it be, was useful to keep down the tumor of pride which the abundance of revelations might have exposed him onto (2 Corinthians 12:7); and so join together they were like the rod and the honey which enlightened Jonathan’s eyes (1 Samuel 14:27): when he had tasted the sweetness of the one, God would have him feel the smart of the other. At the same time also when God bless Jacob, he crippled him (Genesis 32:32), that he might not think above what was meet of his own strengths, or ascribe his prevailing to the vehemency of his wrestlings, rather than to God’s gracious condensation.

Yea, who is it that has not experienced such mixtures to be the constant methods which he uses towards his dearest children? What are the lives of the best Christians but as a rainbow which consist half of them moistures of a cloud and half of the light in beams of the Sun?

Weeping, says David, me endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning (Psalm 30:5). And what other thing does the apostles speak of himself, when he gives the Corinthians and account of his condition? As dying, and behold we live: as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, and yet always rejoicing; as poore, yet making many rich; as having nothing, but yet possessing all things (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Blessed then is he who does without repining yield himself to the dispose of divine providence rather then accuse it, (who) looks not so much too what at present as grateful to the sense, as to what for the future will be profitable to the whole. For in these mixtures, Magna latent beneficial et si non fulgeant, Great advantages do lie hid, though not shine forth.

Hereby we are put upon the exercise of all those graces which are accommodated to our imperfect state here below, whose acts shall not be completed in heaven, but shall all cease, as being not capacitated for fruition: and yet are of great use while we are up on this side of heaven. How greatly does hope temper any presents sour by its expectation of some happy change that may end will follow, and so works joy in the midst of sadness? How even to wonder does faith manifest its power in all distresses, when it apprehends that there are no degrees of extremity unrelievable by the arm of God, or inconsistent with his compassions and friendship?

Again, such mixtures serve to work in us a greater hatred of sin and an earnest longings after glory; in which our life, light, joys are all pure and everlasting. Our life is without any seed of death, our light without any shadow of darkness, and our joys endless hallelujahs, without the interruption of one sigh.

We should the more groan to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven (2 Corinthians 5:2). Therefore yet have we the reminders of sin, by which we are unlike God; and the first-fruits only of the Spirit, by which we resemble him; that we might long and wait for the adoption and redemption, wherein whatever is blended and imperfect should be done away. When not to sin, which is here only our duty, shall be the top branch of our reward and blessedness.

Oh holy lord, I complained not of my present lot,
for though it be not free from mixture,
yet it is greatly differing from what others find and feel
whose lines are not falling in so fair a place:
But still I say,
when shall I dwell in that blessed country were sorrows die, and joys cannot?
Into which enemy never entered,
and from which a friend never parted?
When shall I possess that inheritance which is the kingdom for its greatness,
and the city for its beauty,
where there is society without envy,
and rich communications of good without the least diminution?

The Spiritual Chymist, Banishment

04 Saturday Feb 2017

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William Spurstowe, 1666, Meditation XL

On Banishment:

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(Photo courtesy of Marco Mora-Huizar)

Exile is a change of place that brings no evil it, but in opinion: a complaint and affliction wholly imaginary is the description some have made of it. but it seems to me to be rather a Stoic vaunt than a Christian’s just estimate of the evils of that condition.

What trial else would it have been of Abraham’s faith to leave his country, kindred and father’s house and to go to a land God would show him? Or why did God enjoin Israel to pity strangers, because they themselves were strangers in the land of Egypt. Why have legislators deemed as a punishment for grand crimes and next to capital [punishment]? Of why have many looked upon it as worse than death, choosing rather the lot of the goat that was to be sacrificed, then the lot of the scapegoat, which was to be sent into the wilderness?

Is it not because (as Philo says) death is the full end of all evils? But banishment the beginning of many new ones? Want, scorn, oppressions, unjust jealousies, are the daily hard measures that exiles must expect to meet with; he must thank him who demands his coat, that he asks not his life, and he must oft redeem his life with the little money he has that should buy him bread to preserve it. He must be armed with nothing but patience, least he be apprehended as one that has in design the death of some other.

And yet how many arguments of comfort can my thoughts suggest to such Christians, who for the truths’ sake either dread this cross or feel it. They break forth so on the right hand, and on the left, as methinks I may say,
Sing O ye banished,
cry aloud
for more are the comforts of the desolate,
than the comforts of those that sit under the shadow of their own roof.
I will not tell you that you have the same Sun and Moon to shine upon you that kings have; that the stars appear unto you in the same greatness and beauty which they do to others. That you enjoy the same common elements that they do.

These and such like topics are to be plentifully found among the moralists. But all their precepts and sentences are like arrows that fall short of the mark. They could never reach that solid contentment they leveled at it.

Hear then, ye dejected Christians what your comforts are
Whose crosses are no more than others,
and whose supports are far greater.

Are you banished from your native country? What other condition do you do you undergo then Abraham did, the Father of the Faithful and the Friend of God, and will you murmur if God deal with you no worse than his favorite?

If you are out of your own land, do you not still tread upon your Father’s ground? Is not the Earth the Lord’s and the fullness of it? Did never any thrive in a strange soil and like transplanted trees gain by the change? Have ye forgot what God did for Joseph in Egypt Of for Daniel and his associates in their captivity? who like stars when they set in one hemisphere did rise gloriously in another?

But if still you be impatient, and in dislike with your estate, lest me ask you if the best of a wicked man’s condition be not worse? Is it not better to hunger and thirst for righteousness’ sake than to fare deliciously every day with the rich glutton of the Gospel? Is it not more eligible to be an Israelite in the wilderness, than to be a courtier in Egypt?

Can you not speak better of your miseries than wicked men can do of their mercies? You may say, blessed hunger, blessed poverty, blessed mourning, blessed persecutions and reviling Christ himself having blessed your afflictions and also cured their enjoyments: He has entailed an eternal woe upon all those things wherein they place their welfare: their riches, their fullness, their mirth, their applause, and credit with all men. And he has promised to them that endure temptations a crown of life when they are tried. Be not therefore dismayed O ye of little faith who have every bitter thing at present sweetened by promises, and within a little while shall have all the hardships of a desert turned into the plenty of a heavenly Canaan.

And yet methinks some there be who are still unsatisfied and ask if it be nothing to party with dear relations and society of friends? And to be caste upon strange faces and languages that they understand not? To be a once in great measure both deaf and dumb, not hearing what others say to them, and beings also unable to speak the least words to others. That these are sore evils, I shall not make it any part of my task to deny.

Put yet how many are there who have exposed themselves to all these evils and have undergone them voluntarily, which you suffer out of constraint? Have not some for curiosity’s sake, and a thirst for knowledge, traveled through vast and dangerous wildernesses and borne, with much patience, the excess of heat and cold? Have not others out of a covetous desire of gain parted with friends and country for many years? May I not then send the faint-hearted Christian to learn of the resolute worldling, as Solomon does the sluggard to the pismire [Middle English for “ant”]?

Shall he set a higher estimate upon earthly treasures then you upon heavenly? Shall he out-face dangers that you shrink at? Shall he quit parents and children that are pieces of himself and embrace solitude in foreign regions, and shall you reckon yourself as free among the dead while you do the same thing? O what advantages do you have above him, both to do and suffer?

In your solitude you may say as Christ did in his, Yet am I not alone, because the Father is with me. In your sorrows, you may glory as Paul did, This is our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world. In loss and spoil of your estates, you may pray as Pauline’s did when the Goths wracked Nola: Domine, ne excrucier propter aurum & argentum; ubi enim omnia mea sent tu scis: Lord, let not the loss of these things disquiet me; for thou knowest where I have laid up all my treasures

In your banishment, you may comfort yourself with the common lot of all believers, who are no other than pilgrims and strangers while they are at home in the body and absent from the Lord? I shall add-on more but an excellent saying of Basil:

Cui adhuc patria solum dulcis est, nimis delicatus est, cui omnia terra patria fortis est, cui omnia terra exilium sanctus est:
He to whom his native county is only sweet is too delicate:
He to whom every land is his country is valiant;
And he to whom all earth is a banishment is truly holy