Commentary on 2 Peter

1 The main attractive of the eye is Beauty: and of this the fancy is informed by the eye: yet being so informed, then the eye is ruled by the fancy; and as that imagines her, so the eye sees her. Beauty is the glory of Nature, a glimpse of the soul, a beam of the Makers brightness: so ravishing the heart, that it is more present with the body it loveth, than in the body where it liveth. Yet as the meat which pleaseth the taste, is but a mixture of well-compounded materials: the music that delights our ear, is but a harmony of proportionable voices or instruments: so the beauty which so takes the eye, is but a just correspondence of the parts and colors of visible bodies. Why should not that spiritual beauty be far dearer to us, which is the image of God; the elements or lineaments whereof be righteousness and holiness? The bodies beauty is but superficial, skin-deep, hiding that within which we cannot look upon without horror. Spiritual beauty is like a diamond, fair to the center. Time will plow furrows on the fairest face, and fill it with wrinkles: but the wrinkles of a beauteous soul are done away with time: the older, the fairer. Many a woman's beauty hath been her ruin: but blessing never forsook a beautiful soul. When thou comest near to a fair face, thou becomest never the fairer for it; nay, thou appearest the fouler by being near it. But a virtuous soul by a kind of exemplary influence, diffuseth into thee some ornaments; and is indeed, as they talk of that imaginary Stone, by the touch of that pure metal, so diffusive of goodness; that thou shalt be the better for it. No miseries can blemish this beauty; Thou art black, but comely; tann'd and sun-burnt with persecutions, yet still amiable in the beauty of holiness. In this, Sarah was a figure of the Church; who was as fair at a hundred years old, as she was at twenty; and then, the fairest woman of the world. It is said of Christ, that he was without form or comeliness, or beauty to be desired; yet even then, he was fairer than the children of men. Cleane through a corporal beauty, a spiritual eye can see the very image of the devil: but a gracious soul in her worst estate is but like a slubber'd Diamond; which after a little polishing shines with a radiant luster. The kings daughter is all glorious within: but who can persuade carnal minds to this? It is the Image of Adam they dote upon, not the Image of God. A fair skin surpriseth a fleshly heart; and he thinks there is no other beauty in the world, but that which toucheth his sensual desires. So the horse that loves a mare, thinks that in the world there is no other beauty.

2 But if a man's eye be delighted with beauty, may he not enjoy it with chastity? Why may he not think his own wife the fairest upon earth? She is so to him, if he so imagine her: opinion cannot err in matter of opinion. He sees her daily with the same eyes he first chose her. But the ranging eye cannot be so limited. Proprietie in other things is a content, here it is a burden: and were not the adulterers fair wife his own, he would give much to enjoy her; but being his own, he cares not for her. Stollen waters are sweet: but will a man leave his own delicious wine, to steal a draught of his poor neighbors water? It is uxor, that he loves, but not sua: and this aggravates his wickedness, that the strumpet is not solitaria, her own woman; but Aliena, under covert Baron: not a straggling Deare of the heard, a beast of the common; but one upon whom be set the marks of propriety. God hath set his mark, and resolves not to know her, if she knows another man. The Church hath set her mark of solemn Marriage, refusing to be the mother of that daughter, that defiles the Marriage-bed. The husband hath his mark of a holy Covenant made before men and Angels; and is allowed a divorce upon such a fedifragous forfeiture. To pick this threefold lock with a false key, to undo a knot thus tied before heaven and earth, will call God and man, heaven and earth, not only to witness it, but to take vengeance of it.

What a laborious, what a dangerous way the lustful finds out to his pleasure! as if no water could please David, but what is brought through an Host of enemies: no content was worth their desiring, but what was fetched from the gates of hell, snatched out of the devils teeth, handed out of that burning furnace of unquenchable flames. Those delights are not esteemed, that are not troublesome: the malice of lust supposeth all ways of obtaining better than the lawful. Simple fornication (say some) offends but four, single adultery five, double adultery six: God, the Church, the two offenders, and the two injured parties. Suppose the two sinners forgive one another on earth, will they not curse one another in hell? Suppose the Church pass it over, either through ignorance or connivence, will not the Judge of all the world plague it? Say he is patient, will the wronged husband, brother, friend put it up? Doth not Absalom pay Amnon the wages of his sisters constupration? Two whole years that sly Courtier smothered his revenge; but it was not for nothing; it was so much the more exquisite, by being longer protracted. If David will not punish it, Absalom shall; not that he cared for Justice, but for revenge. Absalom did it wickedly, but God righteously; human partiality hath neglected it, inhumane malice shall punish it. God punisheth sin with sin, while Absalom punisheth sin with death. If either David had called Amnon, or Amnon called himself, to account for it, the revenge had not been so desperate. How often hath the adulterer been slain by the abused husband, when he least suspected it; righting himself unjustly, as he had been secretly injured? Abimelech was the son of a Concubine, yet he murders all his fathers legitimate children. If Gideon had lived to see that bloody day, how would be have cursed the knowledge of a luxurious bed? So some write, that Ulysses was slain by his own base son. Paris his adultery was the desolation of all Troy.

I will not tire you with examples. It is an adulteress their eye is full of, they seek a like to themselves. These lusts they conceive by the mediation of the eyes, as Laban's sheep did their young, at the sight of the pilled rods, which Jacob laid in the watering troughs. Placet interdicta voluptas: they slight the fruit of the tree that is easily climbed. What is Ahab's kingdom to him, while Naboth hath a pretty vineyard? The cloyed husband sits carelessly looking on that wife, for which another languisheth. Herein David's plot failed him, when he had sent for Uriah: he imagined that the beauty of Bathsheba must needs attract a husband so long absent; that it was his grief to be detained from so pleasing a bed. Because that face, those eyes and breasts had so enchanted him, and stolen his heart, that they could make him sin; he thought it could not be possible, but Uriah must be allured by them to a safe and warrantable fruition. He was deceived; though Uriah had another end; many a wanton stomach plays with that meat, which to the hungry affecter would be above all dainties. Nabal is churlish to that wife, whom holy David thinks himself happy in, and makes his Queen. O the boundless vagrancie of irregular lust; whither will it go, where will it end? Will one harlot serve the adulterers turn: No, could he renew his strength as fast as his desires, and multiply objects to both, a nation of women would scarce suffice one adulterer. It is a sin that seares up the conscience with the blood, dries up grace with the marrow; and when it can sin no more, yet it cannot repent. Happy soul that never knew it, and next happy that forever after detests it.

3 Lastly, it is a whore they love, and that is but one bow short off the devil. Some have mistrusted, that it is not a reasonable soul, but an infernal spirit that enliveneth such a licentious shape; to do that by a fair strumpet, which he could never do by his foul self. We have heard witches confess, that they have known devils in the proportion of men: and me thinks, men should fear to know harlots, lest they embrace devils in the proportion of women. What hath not a guilty conscience cause to dread. The strumpets soul cost Christ his precious blood: yet half a crown, or little more, or sometimes less, is the set price of it. What need Satan tempt her, when for so small a value he may have her? We hate the Turks for selling Christians as slaves; how odious are they that sell themselves? Soone is their lively color wasted, their blood parboil'd: that were it not for superficialized cheeks, and enticing dresses, the most graceless Lecher would abhor them. But it is the devils special care to keep them gorgeous. A soldier having a sword which he hath well proved in divers combats, and knows he may surely trust it, will be c • refull to scour and polish it. Woman hath done Satan singular good service: by her he overthrew the first man, by her the wisest man, by her the strongest man, by her many millions of men: no marvel therefore if he be curious in dressing her with ornaments, in dishevelling her hairs, and fitting her with all conducements; that she may still help to people his infernal kingdom. Fowls of the air, though with never so empty crawes, fly not for food into open pit-falls. Quae nimis apparent retia, vitat avis. An adulteress is the devils pit-fall, a trap to catch our souls; let us not run into the gin with open eyes. Now the Spirit of Grace keep us from the strange woman, that we may be no strangers to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Full of adultery.] This is the pursuit of the game, full cry. The eyes do not engross all their uncleanness; they are not only full, and the other parts empty. The Cater fills his basket with provision; but this serves afterward to fill the mouth, to fill the stomach, to fill the belly. The eyes be first full, as the cistern: but the cistern serves all other offices of the house. Nor is this a fullness of satisfaction: for as he that loveth silver, shall never be satisfied with silver; so he that loves women, shall never be satisfied with women. Unnaturall desires are infinite: hunger is soon appeased with meat, and thirst allayed with drink: but in burning fevers, Quo plus sunt potae, plus sitiuntur aquae. They still love amore concupiscentiae, never amore complacentiae. The hunter hath killed today, he is fresh again for the game tomorrow. This guiltiness first takes the eye, but stays not there: the procurer provides for another, not for himself. The lustful heart is the great commander, that assigns all members their several offices. So the ear is full of luxurious discourses, the eye full of provoking pictures: both full, at an obscene interlude, of exemplary and visible carnalities. The bones are full of idleness; they rest on that pillow of vices. The thoughts full of contemplative uncleanness; for it is not hard to be an adulterer by speculation. The mouth is full of filthy jests. They come to do evil by these accessories; yea, the evil is already in those accessories. Some flatter themselves that they are chaste of body; but their eyes, their ears, their thoughts have committed adultery. Therefore if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: what the substance? No, but viti •• substantiae. The liver is obstructed, and makes the body sick; what then, shall we pluck out the liver? No, but let the arm blood, take some course to draw out the corruption. Lust is a fire, if it be inflamed in the heart, there is no part of the body but shall feel the heat.

Full. There is no mediocrity in sin: in extremes can be no mean; and every sin is an extreme, either deficient or excessive; in medio virtus. The heart of man affects fullness; and if it be not full of God, it seeks to be full of something else. The wicked are full of unrighteousness, full of envy; their hands are full of blood, their houses full of spoil, their lips full of deceit, their mouths full of cursing and bitterness, their throats full of slander, their bellies full of new wine; Implentur veteris Bacchi: their loins full of lust, their inward parts full of malice: let me add, their heads full of mischief, their hearts full of rancor, th • ir ears full of petulancy, their eyes full of adultery. These be the fulnesses that shall bring the fullness of torments. Sin will not leave a graceless soul empty: the house is no sooner swept, but it is filled with seven worse spirits. The drunkard cannot give over till he be full of wine, the swearer delights to fill his mouth with a monstrous oath: the covetous never feels himself full, though he enlarge his belly like hell. All like Pharaohs lean kine, though they have devoured the fat, are lean still. Ambition, like the grave, is never full. What a thing is the heart of man, that it should swell as big as the world? Alexander was but a little man, yet an hundred worlds could not have filled him. The babbling tongue is not weary, though full of prattle, and is scarce silenced with sleep. A full wardrobe cannot content pride, it is still longing for new suits. All Haman's honor could not fill him; he would swallow Mordecai's head, and that choked him. O the insatiate desire of sin, when will it be full? When the eyes be full of sorenesse, the hands full of palsies, the houses full of misery, the faces full of infamy, the bones full of aches, the mouth full of cries and roarings, the loins full of diseases, the head full of pangs, the heart full of distractions. Yea, their mouths must first be full of earth, their souls full of torments: this world could not, hell shall render them full enough.

But for us, there is another fullness. Be ye filled with the Spirit, full of good works, full of fruits; our mouths full of blessing, our hands full of charity, our eyes full of modesty, our bowels full of pity, our looks full of humility, our hearts full of honesty, our souls full of God; that we may lie down full of peace, and rise again full of glory.

I conclude; whoredom is an epidemical disease; almost the whole world is turned Stews. That if Christ should now come down, and call none to follow him, but they that have not been defiled with women, his Court would be very thin. Rome hath been notoriously branded for this execrable vice; especially since the Popes have bound them to contain, to whom God gave not the power of continency. Hunger will break stone walls rather than want meat; aut tolle appetitum, aut concede cibum. If their Monks be pampered horses, will they not neigh? Nicolas Clemangis says, that the people will not willingly admit a parish-Priest, nisi concubinam habeat, unless he have a whore of his own; for fear of their wives; and yet they are scarce sure of them by that course neither. He that abstains, is counted by the rest, either an Eunuch or a Sodomite: so unpossible they think that law to be kept, which they put upon themselves to keep. If they cannot get other men's wives, yet they have Nuns of their own, that will open their feet to them at all seasons: and so instead of adultery, they commit incest; for so themselves call it. What are Nunneries but religious Stews; ut idem sit puellam vetare, & ad scortandum exponere; as if it were but the same thing in other terms; to make a Nun, and to make a whore. As our Chronicles, yea even theirs, report of Cardinal Cremensis; who in a Council holden at London, inveighed bitterly against Concubines in the morning, and himself was taken with a Concubine the same night. And it seems he was taken in the manner, for the Writers add, Res notissima, negari non potuit; otherwise they would have concealed it. For this the Jesuits have railed at other orders, not that themselves are more clean from this intemperance, but more cleanely in their conveyance. For Hassen Muller reports that in Bavaria the Jesuits caused a great tub to be carried to their College; which breaking by the way, a wench dropped out at the end of it, in the midst of the street. They will not allow us an honest wife, but themselves a dishonest harlot.

But enough of their filthiness, let us look to reform our own. Some, (who it may be, speak of their knowledge) tell us of whole Hospitals of Strumpets in this city: by whose allurements, servants rob their masters, sons their own fathers. They are the sink of the world, the common Sewer of all corruptions, not for passage, but for confluence: the standing-pool, the vault that sucks in all odiousness. They have excellent gifts of wit and beauty, which they convert to pestilent uses of turpitude and brothelry. To Church they never come, not in their whole life would they ever hear of God, but for their fearful swearing and blaspheming his holy Name. The souls they bring forth, shall stand up at the latter day, and give evidence against them. To enfranchise them of hell, the devil shall do no more but produce the misbegotten of their loins. Those that be unfruitful, he shall accuse of a thousand murders, by confusion of seeds, and barrening their wombs with drugs. There is no such murderer on the face of the earth, as a whore. She shall not only be arraigned and condemned for spoiling a great number of God's Images; but for defacing and destroying the mould wherein he hath appointed them to be cast. Indeed God never said to Adam and Eve, Encrease and multiply, till they were married; to show that he hath a curse, not a blessing for that increase which is not lawful. But even to destroy that fruit which was unlawfully begotten, before the Lord chief Justice of the world will be found murder. That God, who knows how to raise good out of evil, doth sometimes bless an adulterous copulation with increase: and sometimes to the chaste embraces of honest wedlock he denies it. The honest wife hopes to be a joyful mother; the harlot fears that title, and therefore hides adultery with murder.

The receiver is ever worse than the thief; the Bawd, than the Harlot: she is the devils own spouse, for she helps to damn souls as fast as he. How is the eye of Magistracy gull'd in this city by pretences? The matron of this foul cloisture is either a wise woman that tells fortunes; and under that shadow hath the resort of unfortunate dames. Or her husband is a Physician, and hath spare chambers for such luxurious patients. Or a painter that draws pictures, and und • r that color shadows villainy: a thousand evasions to wind out of Justice. But the most currant trick of all Bawds is to give themselves out for zealous Catholics: and whereas they dare not come to Church for fear of wonderment, they pretend scrupulousity of conscience: that they (forsooth) refrain for religion, when indeed they refrain from religion. So if ever they be justly punished, they cry out, They suffer for the Church. It is a common thing for them that have lived whores and thieves, to die Papists: the drowning body will rather catch at a weed, than have no hold. They have so dishonored God living, that he so gives them over dying. In pollution, anima fit tota caro, and loseth it self in the sense. Whom God hath joined, let no man separate; yet the Adulterer does what he can to separate them. For Virgins, Laesa pudicitia est, and Deperit illa semel: when God can do all things else, saith one, he cannot restore a deflowered Virgin. Our flesh will corrupt fast enough, though we never admit these corruptive forwardings. We have sins enow of our own, though we bring not upon us the sin of another. By other sins a man goes to hell alone, but in this he rides double. Our Savior speaks of Bundles that shall be cast into the fire. The proud man burns single, the homicide burns single: but the Adulterer and his Harlot shall make one bundle, and burn together. Like Zi ••• : and Cozbi, as they were conjoined in the sin, they shall not be parted in the torment. When two be bound together, and thrown into the Sea, they have less power to help themselves. Marriage hath made one of two, that they might fructify together, like Aaron's Rod. Palms are the emblem of marriage, that do not bear fruit divided. Cursed is that heat which shall make two of one, and dissolve so sacred an union.

That cannot cease from sin.] All sin is a labyrinth, whereinto the entrance is easy, but it is hard to get out. Possession is eleven points of the Law, we say; and that which begun by an unjust title, fortifies it self by custom. Stampe garlike in a new earthen pot, it will never out. I do not wonder at the continuance of sin; to break it off by repentance is the matter admirable. Facilis descensus; sed revocare gradum: down stream the boat goes fast enough; to stop it, is the cunning, before it strike on a shelf. I do not say that the greatest sinner is evermore in the act of wickedness; yet so long as the habit is unmortified in him, he does not cease from sin: the slave asleep discontinues the acting of his masters business, yet he is still in service.

Sin like the Sun runs his continual course; though sometimes clouds by day, and always the interposition of earth by night, hides him from our eyes. Yea and Sin hath his circle and line, as the Sun his orbe and Ecclipticke; if we may compare the real passages below, with those imaginary signs above; and let us compare them.

1 Conceive Sin to begin with Aries, the Ram; in petulancie and youthful wantonness, ready to butte at every Passenger. Remember not the sins of my youth.

2 Thence it proceeds to Taurus, the Bull; to strength and tyranny in evil; a stiffnecked disobedience. The Prophet calls them the Bulls of Bashan, goring with the horns of oppression.

3 It comes to Gemini; the Twins: it can no longer continue single, but must have a partner in transgression. The Adulterer must have his Strumpet, the Drunkard his boone companion: Babel cannot be built alone. Society makes good men cheerful in good things; and assistance makes evil men confident in their lewd attempts. It is rare to see single sins, or single sinners.

4 Then to Cancer, the Crabbe; a crooked, irregular course, anfractuous, full of subtle windings; circumventing his neighbors, as the Crabbe doth the unmistrusting Oyster. Here sinners get themselves hardened ribs, a shell not to be pierced by any reproofs.

5 Next to Leo, the Lion; a raging and roaring kind of life. Thus they grow on from petulancie to obstinacy, then to conspiracy, from that to hypocrisy, now to cruelty. The Lion fills his den with prey, his hole with rapine. He contemns all admonition, and without respect of Justice, will be his own carver: this is the height of ungodliness.

6 He comes to Virgo, the Virgin; a sign which Astronomers ascribe to the Belly. Now he gives himself to rapes and whoredoms, and looseth the reins to his brutish and boundless appetite: that were his power equal to his desire, he would not leave a Virgin in the world.

7 Then to Libra, the Ballance: and there's a demure in his proceedings. Human Justice begins to examine him, to curb his impetuous violence: and in this house sometimes he stays longer, than the Sun does in that Sign. For if lewd men should not fear the Magistrate, more than they do God or the devil, there were no living among them. Now Libra delivers him over to

8 Scorpio, the Serpent. When he hath been corrected by moral Justice, he is then taken in hand by Conscience; a tormenter that hath a worse sting than Scorpions. This haunts him like a cursed wife at home, like a que •• lous scold abroad: nowhere can he be quiet. No intrea • ies can persuade her, no bribes can corrupt her, no music can charm her, no noise can drown her thunder. He talked his pleasure, while she said nothing: now she roars as fast, and he knows not what to say. This the Prophet calls the Lord's Rod of Scorpions, wherewith he scourgeth wild offenders. This happily sends him to

9 Sagittarius, the Archer: he takes the bow of devotion in his hand, and shoots up his prayers to the throne of Grace. The Fathers have called our Prayers, the Churches Artillery, arrows of zeal; which if we draw up to the head, and send up from the heart; they shall pierce the very heavens, and wound the Lord of hosts with pity; and he will have compassion on us. The Bow is Repentance, the string is Faith, the Arrow is Prayer, the hand that draws and looseth it is Zeal, the mark is God, and the errand it goes for is Mercy. At this sign he would dwell longer, but because he must go on, he lights upon

10 Capricornus, the Goat. Even after his humble devotion, and pious resolution, he falls into sin. The Ram, and Bull, and Lion may be mortified in him; Pride, Obstinacie, Crueltie: yea Gemini and Cancer, double dealing and hypocrisy may be abhorred of him: to Virgo he will offer no more violence; he loathes all constuprations and turpitudes: yet still he smells of the Goat: some tang of the old corruption remains, the beast is not quite worn out of him. But it is fallen down as low as the knees, to which place they assign Capricornus: it is far from the heart, out of the reach of any vital part. But in this house he is but a passenger; the Sun does not make more hast than he from it: and now having sinned, he posts to

11 Aquarius, the water-bearer: he knows no sin, which he endeavors not to wash off with his penitent tears. This fountain he hath always about him: and if the air of bad company hath made him sin with Peter, yet he can go forth and weep with Peter. Mari's tears did not more wash the dust from our Savior's feet, than the sin from her own soul. If Capricornus have made thee offend, let Aquarius be ready with this repentant water; that Christ may answer thee as he did Mary, Thy sins be forgiven thee. So well the devout soul loves to dwell in this watery Sign, that he concludes his journey in the very element of water; with the Fishes;

12 Pisces: this is the foot of the song, as they appropriate Pisces to the feet in their Anatomy. They be clear and cleanely creatures, delighting to swim in the crystal streams: if they strike into the mud, it is but to avoid the net: and when the danger is past, they soon cleanse themselves. True converts, if they cannot be Semper puri, yet are cito purificati. First, as fishes Tunduntur fluctibus, non deficiunt; so the billows of temptation beat upon the godly, yet they fail not. Secondly, as fishes swim thrice, in water, in vinegar, and in wine: so doth the Christian, in the water of Baptism, the vinegar of affliction, and the wine of consolation, the Sacrament, which cheers the heart. Thirdly, Fishes being wounded, have recourse to the Tench, the Physician of fishes, whom if they but touch, they are healed. Souls wounded with sin repair to Christ, the Physician of kings, the king of Physicians; and touching him by faith, they are cured: as the woman with the bloody issue, did but touch the hem of his garment, and was presently as whole as a fish. Thus swimming in the pure streams of grace, removed from the sordid and dreggish corruption of earth, we shall at last be translated higher than that Sydercall Sign in the Zodiac, even to the heaven of heavens, the Kingdom of Christ.

But now, alas, how have I lost my theme? The argument of my discourse is sinners obstinacy, and I have concluded with their Salvation. Pardon me, it was a merciful mistake: I wish it should be so, though I find it otherwise of these in my Text: for they are wretched adulterers, that cannot cease from sin. Well then, it is but bringing you some way back again: if you remember where I turned the sinner out of his rode of condemnation, you find it in Scorpio. Libra, public authority had him sub flagello: but, suppose that favor dismisseth him, and so gets out of the hands of Justice; yet Scorpio will have a boat with him, Conscience will trounce him. This like some ghastly apparition to a soul forlorn, upon the threshold of desperation, with a show of fresh bleeding wounds, and an astonishing countenance, presents it self in inexpressible terror: how will he pass this Sign? Yes, he will stupefie his conscience with a deluge of wine, never allow himself to be sober; and with a vicissitude of sensual delights, lust and drink, as with two hot irons quite sear up his conscience; and is then confident that the dead dog will never bark.

Thus he passeth from that dismal house of correction, a very Bedlam to his soul: but now Sagittarius comes: Justice shoots at him from heaven, that unerring Archer who never missed his mark: the arrow of sickness sticks in his ribs. Now his down-bed is troublesome, and after many changed sides he complains of uneased pangs. What now? this will be a tedious sign to him, perhaps the end of his voyage. Physicians are sent for, who receive gold, and give drugs; keeping him sick the longer, that themselves may fare the better. But at last he recovers; after many promises to God, and vows which he never means to keep, he is enlarged from his bed; up he gets.

And now he posts to the next Sign, to try what better cheare Capricornus will make him. He finds him like some Goatish host, close at his cups and ribaldrie; and here he falls in, relapsing to his former sensuality: riot and intemperance renew their old acquaintance with him: whoredom and new wine take away his heart; and thus being intoxicated with sin, he lays himself down to sleep. Thus many passages of execrable wickedness he hath got through; pride, injustice, hypocrisy, oppression, uncleanness, and voluptuousness, without any interruption; saving those short disturbances of sickness and conscience; and now he slumbers in security. But yet his race is not done, he hath two more Signs to pass.

From this sleep, Aquarius or the world calls him up; and whispers in his ear a golden word, Be rich. Now age and covetousness seize on him at once, and he projects to fill his barns with corn, with money his coffers, and thereby his heart with joy. To do this, he refuseth no course, be it never so unjust; neither friend nor father must stand in his way, now he is set upon it to be rich. He will starve his family, perhaps his own body, to be rich. He will be an Aquarius indeed; the devils water-bearer, a water-drinker, so he may be rich. The law reproves him, his neighbors hate him, the poor curse him, God threatens to condemn him; he cares for none of all these, so he may be rich. Well now, rich he is, a rich beggar, or a beggar in the midst of his riches; for upon all his estate there is set a spell, Touch not, taste not, handle not. Noli me tangere, says his wealth to him: Noli me relinquere, says he to his wealth. Bonum est esse hic, in this house he would dwell forever. But he must not; there is a Bell that tolles him into another Sign, the last of his Ecclyiticke, that shall eclipse his glory forever; the grave and hell; the one to devour his body, to other to swallow his soul.

Pisces looks for him, and thither he must come. Thou fool, this night shall they fetch thy soul from thee. Pisces are placed at the feet of man; this is the last foot of his journey, the standing house at the end of his progress, the period or full point of his travels: Et turpiter atrum desinit in piscem. Swimming in the mare mortuum of this world, he hath swallowed the bait of riches, and now is caught with the hook of death: and he that never ceased from sinning, shall never rest from suffering. Though we sin often, and much; too often, too much; yet let us break off our sins by repentance, and cease from sin that we may be saved.

Beguiling unstable souls.] The wicked cannot be quiet, till their vicious desires be accomplished; they have oculos inquietos ad peccandum, as Calvin renders it. Their meat and drink is to do their fathers will, that is, Satan's: restrain them from wickedness, and they complain of famishment: either they call for poison, or no food. Ahab is sick, because he is denied Naboth's vineyard. Whether his spleen or his gall were more affected, it is hard to say; whether more of anger, or of grief, but he keeps his bed, and refuseth his meat, as if he should die no other death. Because he cannot have his will on Naboth, he will take it on himself; as the mad man tears his own hairs, because he cannot come at his enemies. The wicked cannot sleep till they have done mischief. Saul will not give over the chase of David, but hunts him dry-foot through every wilderness. The very desert is held too good a refuge for innocence: the hills and rocks are searched in an angry jealousy: the very wild goats of the mountains were not allowed to be companions for him, that had no other fault but his virtue. Still David's success is Saul's vexation: where shall that man rest, who seeks rest in sin? In this life he cannot, for he walks in circuitu, grinds in the devils mill. Shall he rest hereafter? no, then he shall eat of his own griest, and labor in torment. Only there is some difference in the manner of their working, and of the time; here with pleasure, there with horror: for a while here, there forever. Still these obstinate seducers go on, from strength in sin, to strength of sinning, till everyone appear before their master in Tophet.

Beguiling unstable souls.] This verse yields us a fourfold description: First, of their filthiness, eyes full of adultery. Secondly, of their craftiness, beguiling unstable souls. Thirdly, of their worldliness, exercised with covetous practices. Fourthly, of their wretchedness, they are cursed children. In this branch we have two particulars; The fish, Souls: The net, Fraud; Beguiling unstable Souls.

1 The fishes they take are Souls: the Prince of darkness says, as did the king of Sodom, Da mihi animas, Give me the souls, take thou the rest. There is no taking the body, without a former winning of the soul: nor can they make those bodies tractable to their lust, whose souls be not first prostituted. And if the flesh could be abused without the consent of the mind, they might make themselves merry with the case without the instrument. A virgin ravished against the will of her soul, is more a maid than she that with an untouched body hath desired filthiness. But deceivers compass sea and land to make stru • pets, as the Pharisees did to make Proselytes. In vain does the thief look in at the window, when he sees the master standing on his guard in the house. Joseph's garment may be rent, his body escapes, because his mind was whole.

The soul is their fish, and so they are compared by Him, who gave his Apostles that office, to draw men out of the sea of this world by the ears, that they may be served in to his own Table. The poets tell us that Bacchus began his empire with the transmutation of mariners into fishes; the moral whereof may be, that when mariners come to shore, they drink like fishes. Bacchus, his genitus. Christ, God of his Fathers substance, begotten before the world: and man of his mothers substance, borne in the world; began his spiritual kingdom by converting souls; that as fishes are caught lineis textis, with a net of twisted lines; so men are taken lineis ex Scriptura contextis, by the holy Word; not sea-fish, but land-fish.

But these be none of Christ's fishermen; they do not fish for him, they rather fish from him. The element that preserves fishes, is the pure stream of the water of life: out of this they labor to fetch them that they may perish. They are of Philopenus his mind, in Plutarch; Ex piscibus, qui non sunt pisces, s •• vissimi: no fish with them so sweet as the Soul. Yet as they do not catch the body but for their lusts sake, so nor the soul but for the bodies sake, and neither but for gains sake. Indeed there is difference between God's spiritual fishing, and the taking of material fishes: for when fishes be taken, it is death to them; but when men are taken, it is life to them. Fishes are taken to be devoured by the jaws of men, men are taken to be delivered from the jaws of hell. But these deceivers catch souls for their own ends; that they may pickle them up in vices, and make them the food of their insatiate lusts.

2 The Souls which they beguile, be unstable, inconstant, tottering. If they were firm, they could not: if apostated, they need not; but in this wavering plight they are fit subjects to work upon: the weather-cock will be ruled by the wind. To day the unstable soul is for a Mass, next Sunday for a Communion, the next week for neither. Rome thinks him theirs, we think him ours, his own conscience finds him neithers: this makes him waxey to persuasion, servile in imitation. His heart is in such an Aequilibrio, that the next scruple turns the scale. Now comes the tempter with a bait, and this foolish fish is caught. This Laodicean temper is far worse than the extremes: heat and cold have their uses, lukewarmness is good for nothing but to trouble the stomach. Spiritual heat hath God's promise of acceptance: stone-cold hath an easier reckoning: that which is betwixt both procures vomiting: the nearer it comes to heat, and is not hot, the more odious the Lord holds it. Why do ye halt betwixt two opinions? The Prophet doth not so much rate them for their superstition, as for their irresolution: not so much for being unsanctified, as for being unsettled. One Israelite serves God, another Baal; yea, perhaps the same Israelite serves both God and Baal. How long will you halt in this indifferency? God is less offended with going upright in a wrong way, than with halting betwixt the wrong and the right way. I yield that in ceremonial or circumstantial differences, indifferency is the safest; both for opinion and practice: but in the oppositions between God and Baal, woe be to him that is a neuter.

Curse ye Meroz, because they took not the Lord's part in the day of battle. Here, even to stand and but look on, is treason: to take part with neither, is to be an enemy to both. God doth not hold them so capital foes that serve him not at all, as those that serve him with a rivall. There are points which the passions of men have set farther asunder, than needs; wherein the persons indeed fight more than the things: it is charity to reconcile these; or at least, better to state the questions. But when the quarrel is betwixt Jerusalem and Babylon, truth and falsehood; woe to the unstable soul. We may sit at home and weep, bless God that we are in the right, pray for them that are in the wrong: but to labor a peace between them, is to bring a curse upon ourselves; to work, not a satisfaction, but a stupefaction upon our conscience. Some things may admit reconciliation, as differences between men and men: some are in their nature irreconcilable, as the differences wherein men differ from God. Every man is a little world, yea, every man is a little Church; wherein there be two factions, two armies that fight continually: nothing but a lethargy of conscience can cease this war. It is a civil war, yea rather a rebellion than a war; yet cannot it be absolutely quenched. To make these two friends, were a labor not less vain than impossible. Every militant Soul is a Soldier in that general war between Christ and Belial: now as Quae Deus conjunxit, nemo separet: so Quae Deus separavit, nemo conjungat. To set up the Ark and Dagon under one roof, is an impiety that ends in scorn. Ponam inimicitias, saith the Lord: we and the devil should never have fallen out, we agree but too well; but that God hath put an enmity between us. This quarrel presently shown it self, and begun between Cain and Abel, and it is not yet taken up. The truth of the Gospel, and the errant wickedness of idolatry, are so diametrally contrary; that whiles we would reconcile them, or by any colorable modifications bring them together, we fight against our Maker. For he hath infused such an incompatibilitie, and imprinted such an implacabilitie, between Truth and Falsehood, that they can never flow into one another.

In quarrels betwixt brethren, Beati pacifici: in quarrels betwixt Christian Princes, Blessed are the Peace-makers: but in the wars betwixt Christ and Belial, Maledicti pacifici, cursed are they that go about to make peace. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. The wit of the world, and the pestilent wit of hell to boot, hath long labored to bring these two Lord's together, to dwell in one house, and to feed at one table; that they might do them service both at once. But how vainly? Ye cannot: we will try; you may, but ye cannot do it. Day and night may join and meet; yea they do so twice every four and twenty hours; in Diluculis & Crepusculis: the dawning of the day in the morning, and the shutting in of the day in the evening, make day and night so much one that we cannot tell which to call them. But lux & tenebrae, midnight and noon, never met, were never joined together. What communion hath light with darkness? what do you call that between Grace and sin? hath it a name? Almost a Christian, saith Agrippa: what's that? one neither with Christ, nor without Christ; neither holy, nor unsanctified; sure there is no such creature. But it is plain, He that is not with me, is against me. If a man be almost a Christian, God will almost pardon his sins, but he will not pardon them; he will almost save him, but he will condemn him. For him that is neither man nor woman, we have a name, Hermophradite: but we have no name for him that is neither a believer nor an unbeliever, neither true nor false, neither for God nor for Belial. There is a Christian, and there is an infidel; there is a heeven, and a hell: he that finds a third kind of creature, may fool himself with the belief of a third place; Purgatory.

Vnstable souls.] Here first let me give you a Character, then an application.

1 The unstable man is in an evil case; for while he professeth neither side, he is hated on both sides. He is still asking for news, and scarce thinks it news so soon as he knows it. Quid rari, chari, miri? To whom it was well answered; Vir sapiens rarus, vir bonus charus, vir pius mirus. He may well be compared to the wave, for he is ever wavering. He now says it, in an anger swears it, and within half an hour renounceth it: as if his understanding did write upon his will, as a man writes upon water; it tarries not long enough for an impression. All his resolutions be but flashes, fiery, and momentary. When he begins a business, he goes about it hotly: ere you can say a Paternoster, he is dog-weary. Yet (by way of paradox) we may commend him for a good Common-wealths man, for he sets many on work; Diruit, aedificat, mutat qu • drata rotundis: you shall never have him but either building, or pulling down, or altering; as if he meant to make more business than Time it self. Commend him also for this, he is a professed enemy to idleness; for he is never out of action, though what he doth is to no purpose. His heels carry his wit, neither his wit nor his heels know whither. His feet, like the harlots, cannot keep within doors; he loves to be a guest in his own house. Proprietie is a disease to him; he likes everything better than his own. He longs for every rare thing he sees; and his purse gives it him, like a rattle to still him; and before night the child is weary of it. He is a piece of clay tempered with running water, which keeps his wit in a perpetual motion. He is anything, or everything in possibility; but for the present he is nothing.

He is no dangerous enemy; for his hate cannot be more constant than himself; but the worst friend that can be chosen, for he is never the same. He were good to inhabit the fleeting Islands, for he treads upon moving earth: and like some ill broken horse, he hath no pace. In what a wretched case is the unstable man; whose religion is yet to choose? He knows he shall die, yet he will not know what faith he should die in. If he should die in that doubt, there were great doubt of his eternal state. His religion (it may be) lies in wait for the inclination of his Prince; as a Spaniell hunts according to the face of his master. Of all creatures, he is like the Bat, which hath both wings and teeth; if he could cast off one of them, he might show himself either a bird or a beast. The unstable man shall receive nothing of the Lord. Hear this ye neuters, that hold Christ with one hand, with the other Antichrist; and know not whether you should choose or let go; that would fain mingle the colors of Saint George and Saint James in one Scutchion; while you are not settled in religion, in irreligion you are settled. Christ will not save you, because you were not wholly his: Rome cannot save you, though you had been wholly hers. If you must settle, when begin you? if you must begin, why not now? Choose therefore, and choose right, and cleave to it. It is not enough to resolve, but we must rather lose ourselves, than the truth of Jesus Christ.

2 We have chosen, and blessed may we be in our choice. It is happy for us, that God hath put the meat into our mouths; that we are baptized, catechised, and confirmed in the truth. Many thousands would have been more thankful to him; who exceed us in devotion, more than we do them in illumination. Are there no unstable souls among us? They write of a place in the I will of Paphos, where never fell rain: the Island wants not showers, but none falls there. There is a place within us, our Heart; so roof'd with hardened lusts, that no dew of grace can have access. With what fear and unwillingness do I think of the state of a great multitude; so unstable in their devotions, that it is a high extent of charity, to believe them Christians. The Lawyer professeth Christ, yet a round fee can tempt him to plead against Christ: he doth sell his speech, and he will not give his silence: as he said, Non omnibus dormi • ; so this, Non omnibus taceo: you must hire him to hold his peace, if you do not to speak. So indifferent and irresolute are such advocates in their religion, as they are in expectation of judgments: they hear both sides, yet know not on which side the cause will go. Indeed too many deal with Christianity, as they do with a suit at law: the matter is plain enough, but they cloud and pussle it with their wranglings. So Papists dispute, not voto discendi, but studio contradicends. As Cyprian speaks of one in his days, that challenged hi • • o dispute, and used to amaze the people by holding the conclusion. The Preacher would boldly reprove some vices, but then his Parish withdraw their benevolence; are not these unstable souls? The Magistrate would do Justice, but then a Great man's letter conjures his forbearance; is he not unstable? Some go to Mass, yet flatter themselves that their hearts are right to God: a man does not walk in the Sun with a purpose to be tanned; yet he cannot but know that he shall be tanned with walking in the Sun. Et agere & pati, Romanum est, said Scevola: we are naught at Agere, at Doing; but when it comes to Pati, suffering, we are gone. We are glad that Christ suffered all for us; but we will suffer nothing for him. It is the happiness of these cold times, that we are not put to the hot fire; for trial of our faith and love. If the wheel were turned, which the mercy of God forbid, how many would turn from Christ, rather than burn for Christ? But if there be a recompense for a cup of cold water in Christ's name, how shall a cup of warm blood yielded for that name, be rewarded? yet such is the niggardly devotion of men's unstable hearts, that they will scarce afford the poor even a cup of water from their cisterns. The distressed have God's mandatory and commendatory letters for them, yet toward the advancing of a collection, some Great man's letter doth them more good. We all love to be of the taking hand, but will part with nothing: we would r • ceive Christ's bounty, yet grudge our duty; we would be like him in glory, not in grace. If man's law should not prevail more than conscience, what order would be observed? So the Host answered his guests, when they could get no flesh at his house in Lent, yet might have it in other places; alas, saith he, we are bound, and they are but sworn. The tale looks like mirth, but the meaning of it is in good earnest. Two many fear an obligation, more than religion; and are more careful of a Recognisance, than of their conscience.

It were easy to find among us the faults and fates of the twelve Tribes, praised be God that we have also their blessings. The very first puts me in mind of all the rest. Reuben unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. Such a bar in the arms of Great houses is Inconstancy. Reuben was the first borne, yet he lost the principality: and you can say, This hath been the fortune of many an elder brother. Simeon and Levi, brethren in evil: the Papist and Seminary, in mischief against the Gospel, sworn brothers. He that calls to mind the fifth of November, shall find Instruments of cruelty in their habitations, and see them digging down a wall. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel: yea, O Lord, divide them from Israel. Judah hath the Crown, and the Blessing, and the Crown of Blessing be upon Judah, our gracious Sovereign: let him and his hold the Scepter, till Shiloh come again. Zebulon shall dwell in the haven of the sea: Merchants are for the sea; but let them remember, it is a wavering element, governed by the inconstant Moon; and that all their voyages are but adventures, their ships but reeling vessels; all unstable. If their conscience should be infected with this staggering disease, that were the worst shipwreck.

Issachar is a strong asse, couching down between two burdens. Issachar, the usurer; an asse that feeds upon thistles, while he stoops his back to the burden of riches. Let them be made servants to tribute: they are the fittest subjects for subsidies. Poor men labor for a little; they grow rich with ease: It is but walking out six months; then sit down and tell their monies.

Dans place is to judge his people▪ and far be unstablenesse from the place of Judgment. Yet alas, there is nothing more unstable: the cause that goes on this side today, is tomorrow judged on the contrary. But we dare not say, the fault is in the Judge, but in the Law: just as the peremptory Sexton said, Howsoever the day goes, I am sure the clock goes true: the Law is difficult, but there is no fault in the Judge. I, but Dan hath officers under him; bad Lawyers, crafty serpents, adders that bite the horses heels in the path of his journey; and that so sore, that no Leech can cure it. The Client comes riding up in haste to his Lawyer; but by that time the suite is ended, he may walk a-foot home at leisure.

Gad, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at last. He had his name of a Troope, Gen. 30.11. he is overcome by a Troope, and at last shall overcome a troop. We have many troops of them, abundance of the Tribe of Gad: some gad to Rome, others to Amsterdam: it is still (according to my argument) an unstable soul that sets them a gadding.

I find no fault in Asher, unless plenty be one. He yields bread, and fat bread; dainties, and for kings; Royal dainties: his Emblem is a Cup or Boule of delicates. But as Noah was drunk with his own wine; so the cup of prosperity hath intoxicated many a soul. And God hath no worse servants in our land, than they that can live on their lands, and care for nothing else.

Naphtali giveth goodly words: we have too many of this Tribe, hypocrites, that can give nothing but goodly words. They will speak so fair, and deal so foully: that you would not believe they are made all of a piece. But when the wind sings, and whistles in the leaves, look for a storm.

Joseph is a fruitful Branch: and blessed be God, we have also a Tribe of Joseph, fruitful of good works. Though he be the But of contradiction, and the Archers have shot at him, and hated him; yet he is made strong by the hand of the mighty God: and an universality of blessings from heaven, earth, the womb and breasts, and the everlasting hills, shall be on the Crown of his head that was separated from his brethren.

Benjamin shall ravine as a wolf: the last is a wolf, the merciless oppressor, that from morning to evening doth prey upon the poor, and divide the spoil: but at last they shall be divided; their names to infamy, their wealth to the world, their bodies to the dust, and their cruel souls a prey for those more cruel spirits of darkness. Reuben had his divisions, and the rest their waverings and infirmities; only we have Judah and Joseph among us, that faithfully adhere to the truth of Jesus Christ.

They beguile.] the net wherewith they catch these Trouts is Fraud. If we continue the sense from the foregoing words, they charm them with the witchcraft of the eye. That is a silent oratory, and discourseth the meaning of the heart in a dumb motion. The tongue is a speaking eye, and the eye is a silent tongue: and by this dumb language, lovers understand one another's mind, though their lips open not. But I rather take this net to be the tongue; a subtle persuasion to lewdness. A deadly net, like that in Soudas, which in single combats one did cast over another, and being so ensnared slew him. They hunt every man his brother with a net; a bloody net. Not a fantastical, imaginary net, such as Purgatory; which Szegedin calls Amplissimum rete ad capiendas animas, a large net to catch souls; he should have said, A large net to catch fools: a net wherewith the Pope catcheth fish enough to serve his kitchen.

Fraud hath a thousand tricks of cheating; but of all instruments, the chief is the tongue. A handsome tale drunk in at a thirsty ear, is a philtre to the soul. The tongue is either a man's glory, or his shame. When it is the servant of an honest heart, it is an especial organ to glorify the Maker. If otherwise, the devil is more beholding to it, than to all the body besides. It hath a thousand ways to do good, and mille nocendi arts, as many to do hurt. When Satan had stripped Job of his riches, children, health; and laid him so full of sores, that no part of his body was free; yet all this while he spared his tongue. The reason might be, because the devil looked that that should do him some service; even such as his wife prompted him too, Blaspheme God and die. Still he expected when all his vexation should break out at his lips. He that offends not in word, be is a perfect man. But where is that man? The Lord sanctify our ears, that they be not seduced by others tongues: and sanctify our tongues, that they offend not the ears of others.

They have an heart exercised with covetous practices.] There is not a more dangerous vice in all the storehouse of hell, than covetousness. To other sins S • tan tempts a man often; but covetousness is a fine and recovery upon the purchase; then he is sure of him; as when the Jailor hath locked up his prisoner safe in a dungeon, he may go play. It is an imperious sin; and sits like a Justice of Quorum, in his chair, while Religion must stand cap in hand to it. Heaven is the highest place, earth the lowest: yet covetousness sets the lowest in the highest esteem, and the highest it undervalues to the lowest. He respects heaven but on the By, for recreation; his main game is the world. While Christ was preaching, a covetous younger brother interrupts him with the division of an Inheritance. Make an end of your Sermon, and come and end a difference betwixt me and my brother: you shall do a deed of charity, a neighborly office, and save a great deal that would be idly spent in Law. We have many of his religion; that think we do God better service in composing their quarrels, than in preaching heavenly doctrines. This is to call Christ from dividing the word, to divide the Inheritance. I know there is no Christian but condemns this vice, and yet this vice shall condemn many Christians. The difficulty here, is not so much to win consent of Iudgem • nt to the point, as conformity of practice to the Judgment. There may be a conviction of conscience, without any preparation of obedience: and truth will be sooner confessed, than practiced. If every man were his own Judge, there is not a covetous man among us: but the Judge of all the world will find many, that flatter themselves with not guilty. The world hath very ill luck; for many affect it, admire it, adore it, yet will not be known of it. But God hath more injury; for they profess to love, serve, trust in him, yet indeed care not for him. The world hath many servants, but they wear not his livery: God hath many that wear his livery, but they are none of his servants.

They have an heart exercised with covetous practices.] Me thinks here be four words not unlike the four elements. First, the heart, like the earth; it being the Center of man, as the other is of the world. Secondly, covetousness, like water, soaks into it, and makes it hydropicall, yea, turns it into dirt. Thirdly, exercise, like the air; which is Elementum mobile, agitabile, circumfluum, full of exercise. Fourthly, practice, like fire, active and devouring. Or covetousness is the child borne; the house it is bred and brought up in, is the heart: her education is the exercise of cruelty: and her whole course is the practice of iniquity.

But covetousness must formerly be defined, that we may not lose ourselves at the first setting forth. Some say, It is a desire of having more: but we must have more in the definition of it than so: he that hath not enough, may desire more, and yet be free from covetousness. Other say, It is a desire of having more by unjust means: but covetousness is beholding to them for so favorable an expression: this were rather to confine it, than define it. Avaritia est plus velle quàm sat est: Covetousness is a desire of more than Enough. But now what is that Enough? There is no such word in the worldlings Dictionary. It is enough; Israel said so: it is a word only known in Israel. Enough is both necessary for being, and competent for well-being. Having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. In those boundaries doth God hedge up our desires, like wild Bucks in a Park. If we have money enough to bear our charges to our journeys end; to desire more is covetousness.

But who then is not covetous? It is a disease of nature; but here is the difference: some give it physic, and no sustenance: others give it sustenance, and no physic. Some would destroy it, and those it molests, but kills not: the other maintain it; and those it kills, but molests not. These latter are the covetous. The good man feels it as his enemy; the bad loves it as his friend. If you see a man that hath sufficient for his family, yet scraping for more, know him for covetous.

Covetousness is like the father of it, of many names, but never a good one. As the same soul in the several faculties, hath several titles: or as the same river, passing through divers regions, hath divers appellations: so hath Avarice. In the Church, it is Sacrilege: in a Church-man, Simony: in the place of Governement, it is oppression and tyranny: in the place of Judgment, it is corruption and bribery: and when this river swells up to the Bank, it is usury. First, it is called idolatry, Col. 3.5. All idolatry is not covetousness, but all covetousness is idolatry. Secondly, adultery; as a man forsakes a wife peerless for beauty and virtue, to embrace a wanton and common strumpet: so doth the covetous man relinquish piety for gain, God for the world. Thirdly, homicide: for betwixt life and living, there is no such wide difference: cut the poor man's purse, he thinks you cut his throat, and the throats of all his children: such a merciless cut-throat is oppression. The Prophet speaks of Princes that were such butchers: The thief steals to satisfy his hungry soul: but they can plead in themselves no necessity, for they are Princes: in the other no superfluity, for they rob the poor. This is a sin which the poor man cannot commit though he would; the rich man doth, because he can. The high rate and port that divers live at, can be maintained by no dribblets: but in the country by racking tenants, inclosing commons: in the city, by diminishing quantities, corrupting qualities, taking advantages, falsifying balances or measures, by mixtures, blendings, and such sharking sophistications: a small bootie will not serve their turns. Mise may be nibblers, and live; but the Cat that keeps them in awe, is of the eating kind: she devours more at one bit, than the poor mouse would have done at twenty. This sin is the rich man's peculiar.

Lastly, it is theft; There is a Flying roll that shall enter into the house of the thief. Are none thieves but they that scour the plains? Yes, there is a thief that dwells in a house, a house of his own; In domum furis; and that commonly one of the fairest and stateliest, for it is built with blood. Thieves? rich men scorn the name: a thief is the only man they are afraid of. Yet they that lie in itinerant ambushments, shall in comparison of oppressors be justified as no thieves. Alas, they be poor shallow fools, soon taken and clapp'd up in chains of iron; whereas the other walk like Senators in chains of gold: the great thieves are a terror to the little ones. Without partiality, to take men as we find them, the universal practices of covetousness occasion me to make an humble suit to free men, and rich men, and gentlemen, to lawyers and Judges, and Magistrates; that they would think it no scorn to be no thieves. Let not the motion seem harsh, that you would not disdain the commendation of being no thieves. As portly and stately as they bear their heads, were they but stripped of that pomp wherewith injustice hath clothed them, and to beg in the world anew; those poor people whom they now despise, would scarce be bound for their truth and honesty. Thus the covetous man may be called an idolater, an adulterer, a murderer, a robber.

But some will not believe the plague, till they see the tokens. Take therefore some concomitant signs. First, solicitous care for the future; as if God that was here yesterday, and is today, would be gone tomorrow. Quid faciam senex? What shall I do when I am old? So he breaks his sleeps while he lives, to think what shall happen to him hereafter, perhaps when he is dead. This is an extreme folly of avarice, when a man makes himself miserable for the present, for fear of being miserable afterwards: not suffering himself to be free from a burden while he may, because he doubts he shall not be free when he would. Thus the fool leaps into the water, for fear of being drowned in the boat. Secondly, engrossing of too much business: they censure Church-men for Pluralities; but there be temporal pluralists: and many have made themselves so much to do in the world, as if they had nothing to do with the world to come. They only say that they love eternal life; but if you mark their employment, you will confess they prefer the temporal. Thirdly, no business at all; when they give over their profession, to live with less faith, and more security: and make themselves of that desperate number, whereof ten in the hundred go not to heaven. Fourthly, Religion must not stand in their way to riches, without contempt, without violence. Moses broke the Tables of the law in pieces for anger at the golden Calf: these men would have broken them in sitters for the gold that made the Calf. In their conscience there is kept a Court of Faculties; whereby they can give themselves a dispensation for any sin at pleasure. Fifthly, their discourse is of nothing but riches. He that is earthly, talks of the earth. His breath, like a dying man, is of an earthy favor. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom; why? Because the Law of God is in his heart. So the covetous hath earth in his heart, and his v • ry breath smells of it. Take off his tongue from the market, it walks to the Exchange, then to the key or wharfe, and from the custom-house to the warehouse; it never comes near the Church. These be the Signs.

The heart;] that is the throne of covetousness. It is bad enough in the eyes; so Achan took the infection that cost him his life. Worse in the tongue; Let not covetousness be once named among Saints. As if that world, which many prefer before heaven, were not worth talking of. I will not take the name into my lips, saith David. The worldlings worship those idols, which the Saints will not so much as honor with a mention. But the covetous man's mouth is full of earth while he lives, and shall be fuller when he is dead. Yet worse in life; let your conversation be without covetousness. But worst of all is the heart: alas, that any disease should come near the heart; and yet any disease less dangerously, than avarice. Lord, incline my heart to thy Testimonies, and not to covetousness. Our contemplation, our conversation, our communication, yea, our very cogitations, should be clear from covetousness.

Exercised with covetousness.] The worldling will acknowledge covetice to be a sin, but he will not acknowledge himself to be covetous. Whoredom, and blasphemy are notoriously convinced; they wear their Masters known • iverie. But avarice, like hypocrisy, will needs be a virtuous vice, a gracious sin. It wears the cognizance of Frugality, the complexion of good husbandry, and would be called by the honestest names that are. There is no Text against intemperance, but they think it makes for them. Because the drunkard spils the wine in wantonness, doth this excuse the miser that grudgeth himself a draught in necessity? A man may sin damnably, though he never come at the Tavern; as at the Tavern a good man may be merry and guiltless. The covetous wretch, that locks up his cupboard, and rageth at his servant for eating a poor crust more than allowance, cries out against riot; the times are prodigal; and rails at him for lavishnes, whose snuffes he is glad to drink of in private. He tells his children how thirsty our predecessors were; how long one gown served his grandfather: and himself is still known by his forefathers coat, which with his blessing he bequeaths to his posterity, that they may be known by it too, for many generations. Thus he praiseth plainesse, not for less sin, but for less cost; because it is cheaper, not because it is better. He persuades his family into meanness; as the tyrant served the idols; he took away their golden robes, which were too cold for winter, and too heavy for Summer; and made them linsey-wolsey coats, that might serve them better for both seasons. He condemns others for wasting time, and never blames himself for selling time; which he doth so punctually, that he will neither prevent his day, nor defer it. Bring him principal and interest before his day, he fears you have law against him: after his day, he hath law against you. Some gratuities in the mean time are morsels to stay his stomach. He grudgeth a coal of his fire, a bucket of his water; and of all things next stealing, he hates borrowing.

Divers sins have the Saints of God been taxed with; never with covetousness. Once Noah was drunk with wine, never drunk with the world. Lot was twice incestuous, never covetous. Peter denied his master thrice; it was not the love of the world, but rather the fear of the world, that brought him to it: for he had denied the world, before he denied his master. Once David was overcome with the flesh, never with the world. Grace may stand with some transient acts of naughtiness, but never with covetousness, those were acts, avarice is a habit: grace is not overthrown by every act, but by the habit of sin. Therefore of all sins, the children of God have cleared themselves from covetousness, when they would approve their integrity before God and men. So Samuel; Whose ox or asse have I taken? He that was the Judge of Israel, would not now judge himself, but be judged by Israel: they shall acquit him, and of all sins, from covetousness. So Jeremiah; I have neither lent on usury, nor on usury borrowed; yet they curse me: as if that practice had deserved a curse. So Paul, I have coveted no man's silver or gold. He was covetous of nothing, but of their souls for Christ. Why did they not purge themselves from adultery, anger, contention, and the like? Because into these sins the infirmity of a Saint may fall: but if once into covetousness, there is nothing of a Saint left, not the very name. A guest may lodge in my house all night, yet leave me master of it still in the morning: but avarice, when it gets admission, turns grace quite out of doors. Exercise facilitates things in their own nature troublesome: the old cart goes quietly under a heavy load; when the new cannot away without creaking. This makes them call their wealth, their substance; while themselves wait on it like base circumstances, and servile accessories. Their Heart is obdurate, like rammed earth, to be the foundation of mischiefs, and bear the weight of all villainies.

With covetous practices.] Ex ungue leonem. He that prescribes medicines, and undertakes cures, professeth himself at least a practitioner in physic. The covetous are not without their practices, yet they deny the name. When Christ preached against covetousness, one man gave the hint or occasion of the Text, the whole multitude heard the Sermon. Good reason, for from the least to the greatest, they were all given to covetousness: some sins are peculiar to some places and conditions; but covetousness is an epidemical disease, infecting all persons. Let me discover to you some of these practices.

1 According to the rule of charity, I begin at home, with the Church. If we should love the world, that teach others to contemn it; this were like the fox, to dispraise the grapes we keep for our own tooth. There is much art to elude the law; as a wager to be lost, that the living may be gotten: a poor Iade bought at an hundred pieces, and a benefice at the tail of him; as one wittily said; The case is clear: the benefice is cheap, the horse was dear. Such a Simonist is not Tutus, quamvis astutus: he applauds his own wit, that he is no bungler in carrying of a business. What follows? He that bought dear, cannot sell cheap; unless he means to live by the loss; and he that so buys, hath no such meaning. I do not deny, but the Patron hath as damned a share in this bargain: for he sels what he should give, and the other is fain to buy his own. Again, to take God's wages, and not to do his work, is a legal sacrilege. We find men of the world, mentioned in holy Writ, and their worldly practices: But thou, O man of God, flee these things: Man of God, stands in opposition to those. Let fishes love salt-waters, birds of the air fly up towards heaven. God and Mammon are two contrary cures; and they be so infinitely distant, that no Court of Faculties can give a dispensation to serve both. Bernard observes of Saint Paul; Omnia quae mundus amat, illi cruci erant. But indeed, all the charity of the world is put upon us, other men rid their hands of it: as if we only were bound to do all things for God-have-mercy. If the least recompense be afforded to our pains, they think it is their courtesy, not our merit. God is much beholden to such men, and without question at the last day he will thank them to their faces; but they had better be without it. In this City, for the Tenth, they have scarce left us the fortieth part; yet if we demand but that, we are censured covetous. But oves pastorem non judicent. Deo, Parenti, & Magistro, non redditur equivalens. God made thee, thy parents begot thee, thy Preacher saves thee; where is the fourth equivalent to these? Yet as if God and the Preacher had nothing to do with us, and nothing had done for us, there is none whom we so boldly defraud. There was an order and custom in Saint Augustine's time, that the poor should beg of none but the Priest: and if he had not wherewithal to relieve them, they might exclaim ag • inst him, for not more effectually moving the people. Then the poor came to us for succor, now all the succor we have, comes from the poor. The rich rob us, only the poor are more willing than able to bestead us. We dare not plead for our own, then sacrilege would not hear us; the Law must not help us, their evil conscience will not help us, the poor cannot help us; now the Lord help us.

There be some that have brought down the price of our function; and for the bettering of their own severals, have inveighed against the Churches commons: in Judas his language, Ad quid perditio haec? Crafty cub, he would have had it himself. O how these Preachers tickle the people's ears, that can fit them with a cheap religion! If I should prophecy of wine and strong drink, I were a Prophet fit for this people • , saith Micah. Now it is but turning wine into water; and strong drink into small charges, and then he is an excellent Prophet. Faith, and all faith, and no good works, but to the household of faith, by which they mean themselves. I could also mention Non-residents, and self-silencers; but they are my brethren, and I will not accuse my brethren: my fathers, and I will not lay open the nakedness of my fathers: only pray for them, as Noah did for Japheth; God persuade them to dwell in their own Tents; and purge all avarice from the house of Levi. You see I have not spared ourselves, shall I flatter the rest? God forbid.

2 Church-patrons; who instead of Levites to divide the Word, put in Gibeonites not worthy to divide wood. Their question to him that moves them for a living, is Judas's, Quid dabis? let their end be Judas's; despair and a halter, Quid dabis? God gave him a halter. They that ask the same question, why should they not receive the same answer? Sacrilege is the highest theft; and by their own confession, the thief is worthy of a halter. They are in some kind worse than Judas; he sold the body, they sell souls: his barter bought but a Potters field for burial: theirs doth make the Church Acheldama, a field of blood, for slaughter. Besides all their other damnable traffic, they shall answer for Soul-blood at the day of Judgment.

3 For Magistrates and Judges, they have their practices too. Isaiah calls the unjust ones, The companions of thieves. Why? for taking purses of travellers? no, but for taking bribes in their chambers. The thief hath as much right to the one, as the Judge to the other. They plead gift; and what is freer? so the true man gives his purse to the thief, to save his life; and the Client gives his money to the Judge, to save his living. This sin is able to turn Guild-hall into Shooters hill, and make Westminster-hall more dangerous than Salisbury Plain. They cry, Give; and the thief says but Deliver; and what is the difference betwixt Give and Deliver? Yet Give, sits on the Bench; while poor Deliver stands at the Barre. If places of Judicature were to be bought for money, (and I would to God they never had been so) we have them among us, that would buy them up by the whole-sale, and make them away again by retaile.

4 Covetous Lawyers have their practices too. See, thy matters are good: so Absalom stole the people's hearts, so these steal their purses. Shall I say with the Apostle, Such were some of you? No, Such are some of you.

He is a dissembling chapman, that says of a good commodity, It is naught: and he is a coozening Lawyer that says of a naughty cause, It is good. Tertullists will plead against Paul, and Abiezrites for Baal; such Lawyers are advocates against Christ, and Christ will be no Advocate for them. It is a proverb not more old than true: Logic, the Law, and the Swiss may be hired to fight for anybody.

I must omit many practices of covetousness. As that of the covetous gamester; who when he wins, plays the thief with another, and losing is a thief to himself. Or the oppressing Land-lord, who while he makes his Tenants beggars, makes himself a fool. Thou fool, when thy soul is snatched away, whose shall these things be? yea worse; for if he be a fool that lays up but his own goods; Vos invenite ei nomen qui tollit aliena: find out a name for him that takes away other men's. Or the severe Creditor, that useth his debtors, as Darius did Daniel; first cast him into the lions den, and then solicit God for his deliverance; Thy God deliver thee. So he casts them into prison, and prays God to help them out. I have heard of prisoners, that on their death-bed, when they had scarce one hour to pray for themselves, have spent half of it in cursing their Creditors; and instead of their own pardon, have desired their vengeance: It was a fearful condition, yet remarkable; the parties thus cursed falling into such insufferable diseases, that they have been desperately ready to blaspheme God and die.

Or the sacrilegious purloiners of Tithes: who fed the rich gluttons of Rome with the fat of bread, and will not allow poor Lazarus of the Gospel the very Crummes. Nor is it the fault only of impropriators, some of which number are cursed for reaping where they never sowed; and do not value a Minister so much as they do their horse; with whom, as with men given over to a reprobate sense, there is nothing more to do: for no voice of God can awake them out of their dream, nothing but the Archangels Trump; at which day they will be found to have impropriated their own souls from Christ. Thieves are broke in upon the remainder. The world is busy about the disquisition of the Tenure of Tithes; and many are cunninger in this, than in the Articles of their Religion. But why does custom over-bear God's Law, man's law, and all? Let this point be argued in the Court of Conscience; and if God determine on their sides, we have done, much good do it them. I pay tithes of all that I have, saith the Pharisee. I should have feared he had lied, but that our Savior justifies him, even to Mint and Cummine. A Pharisee of Jerusalem was in this an honest man to many a Citizen of London; yet the Pharisee went to hell. The least sheaf the covetous man culs out for God, and what he steals from him, he thinks the clearest gain.

1 If the usurer were not desperate, I would say something of his practices too; but the very name is enough to condemn him. He breeds of money to the third generation; and a shilling is not sooner his, than he sets it to beget another. The Bear cannot drink, but he must bite the water, the usurer never cools his thirst, but his draught is a poor man's estate. Saint Augustine fele a heavy burden on his Conscience, for robbing of a Peer-tree in his younger days; he calls it his perishing, his falling from the Firmament. Usurers rob men of whole Orchyards, and never grudge at it. A Gentleman in the Country takes in the Commons, which in the City he takes out in Commodities; and for his racked rents, he is furnished with rattles. The devil had a Serpent to tempt Eve, and the usurer hath a Parasite to tempt the young heir: bring him but once to riot, and then he will want powder, and who should supply him but the usurer? Thus his mind is quite transposed from his original: the usurer furnishes him for the Tavern, the Tavern for the Brothel, the Brothel for the devil. If one entice an Apprentice to rob his master, the Law makes it felony: if he maintain him being run away, there is a penalty. And is there no law for him that enticeth a Son to rob his Father, yea that shall rob a father of his son, rob God of a soul? Mee thinks, such injured Fathers should put up a Bill in Parliament against such Caterpillars. This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. They are like foxes, that use their wits and their teeth together; they never talk, but they take hold. Bees, of all creatures cannot abide sheep; because being once got into their wool, they are so entangled that they cannot get out again. Usurers have the countenance of sheep, they look simple, and go plain; you would take them for sheep, but they are sheep-biters. They make no other use of their wool, that is their wealth, but to snarl and enwrap men; and once in their books, it is hard getting out.

2 For practices of avarice in Trade; preventions, interventions, circumventions, adulterate wares, blended mixtures, a weight for the Hall, and a weight for the stall, a measure to buy with, and a measure to sell with; they transcend all numeration. There be certain mystical principles in every science, which cannot be declared; wherein caveat Emptor. Call them what they will, they may all be reduced to fraud, that's the formal, yea and practical part of them. Gehazi runs after Naaman for a talent of silver and two change of raiment, with a lie. The good Syrian greets the servant in that language wherewith he was dismissed of his master; Is it peace? So sudden a messenger might seem to argue some strange news: but the breathless Gehazi soon satisfies him, if he will as soon satisfy Gehazi. Had he come for this reward in his own name, as a fee for the Prophets servant, as his gain, so his sin had been less: but he must have a greater sum. Light profit will not content a covetous Tradesmen; therefore he stretcheth his conscience; as Gehazi belied his master, robbed Naaman, burdened his own soul. Avarice is ever cunning, as having the mother wit, and the fathers wit to help. Two young men of the sons of the Prophets be come from mount Ephraim. What a sound and formal tale hath he devised? Of the number, the place, the quality, the age of his Masters guests? The value of his demand was so proportioned, that it might not be unlikely of his master, and yet well enrich himself. I ask you but reason, saith the Shop-keeper. But the love of money can never keep good quarter with honesty: there is a mint of fraud in the worldly breast; and it can coin lies as fast as utterance. Covetousness never lodged in the heart alone: if it do not find, it will breed base companions. We are not to do evil, that good may come of it. But there is no evil which they will not do, that goods may come of it.

But now what is the end or project of all these practices? To be rich; an impatient desire to be rich. They that will be rich, fall into temptation, &c. Qui dives fieri vult, & cito vult fieri. All is fish that comes to their net, though it be a snake instead of a Lampreele. He that makes haste to be rich, shall not be innocent: yea sometimes, he shall not be rich: the more haste, the worst speed. Cushi runs apace, but through chubby and rough grounds, uneven disadvantages: Abimaaz out-runs him, because he takes the way of the plain. Plain-dealing doth not seldom get more riches, it ever gets more happiness. The spurred horse soonest tires: many a one is so hasty, that he loseth the game. When the wind is strong, and the sails full, then let the Mariner beware the rocks. How many had been rich, if they had tarried God's leisure? If Saul will not stay for Samuel, his sacrifice shall do him no good. But now when they will be rich, and God shall not know of it: rich, and never trouble him about it: when fraud is employed as a coagent of trade, to ripen and forward it, as Art helps to improve Nature: when the spring of Conscience is skrewed up to the highest pin, that it is ready to crack: when Religion is locked up in an out-room, and forbidden on pain of death to look into the shop or warehouse: then is Covetousness in the full practice. The Poets feigned Pluto to be the god of Riches, and of hell; (as if hell and riches had both one master) and to be lame; yet withal, swift and nimble as fire. When Jupiter sent him to a soldier or scholar, he went limping: but when to one of his Bauds or mistresses, he flew like lightning. The moral was; The riches that come in God's name, and are sent to honest men, come slowly: but they that come by unjust dealing, flow in apace. He that resolves to be evil, may soon be rich. All the wealth which the worst man hath, is for the matter the gift of heaven: yet for the manner of getting it, millions go to hell. Health cannot come but from God; yet how many have sought and obtained health of the devil? But more safe and welcome is the gain that comes in the slow wane of honesty, than that which comes hurrying in the swift chariot of iniquity.

Thus I have discovered some practices of avarice; but who can declare them all? not he that hath done them, the covetous: not he that is undone by them, the guiltless; not he that teaches them, Satan himself; but only he that shall judge them, the omniscient God. But to what purpose is all this, if the covetous man will not be found? While the Preacher walks in generals, declares the nature of avarice; every man can be the master of his own patience. But descending to particular application, Thou art the man; then he is held to leave his Text, and to mistake his Auditory. For my own part I profess, that I should be far from Jonah's passion, to vex or fret at it, should God's mercy and your innocence make me this day a liar, and prove all my speeches impertinent; yea, I will pray that it may be so. But when the Pharisees came to Christ with an errand of accusation, there were at first many sinners: when they had charged the woman with adultery, there appeared but one: but when they all went away convicted by their own Consciences, there appeared never an one: but this did plainly show that they were all sinners. O that men would ransack their own Consciences, and make a stricter inquisition into all the suspected passages and practices of their lives. You shall find this sin full of fetches, pretences, excuses: believe it not, spare it not: shrive it to the proof, arraign it, condemn it, punish it. Punish it in the body by fasting and mortification punish it in the soul by repentance and contrition, punish it in the purse by works of charity and restitution. Break open your consciences, more rusty than your coffers. The Law will not allow of the defendants bare negation, without witnesses. Thy own word will not be taken before God; let the poor witness for thee that thou art not covetous. Their prayers shall unlock the gates of heaven for thy soul, and their testimony avail thee, when no riches shall, in the day of Christ.

An heart exercised with covetous practices.] This is the disease; now let me ask thy soul two questions. First, Visne sentire, wouldst thou perceive the danger of it? Secondly, and then, Visne sanari, wouldst thou be cured of it? If so, first, consider the Effects, then the Remedies. The Effects are many, and mortal.

1 It ineffectuates the instruments of Salvation: covetous thorns ch •• ke the seed, it is but cast away. It may breed a swimming, but not a saving knowledge: furnish the head, but not better the heart. Nabal is his Name, and Fool is his Sirname: the wisdom of God is shut out of doors, while this folly keeps the house. We wonder that our Sermons take no better effect; that among so many arrows, none should hit the mark. But God tells us the reason; They sit before thee, and hear thy words, but their heart goes after their covetousness. The damps of the earth do not more quench fire, than the love of the earth stifles grace. Neither trees nor grass grow above, where the golden mines are below. If money be centred in the heart, no fruits of goodness can appear in the life. What, look for grace in the covetous? We may as well look for a harvest in a hedge. They do but serve us, as they did Christ; when we preach against covetousness, they laugh at us.

2 It impossibilitates the entrance into heaven. Where the treasure is, there is the heart: no man hath two hearts, or two treasures; the one is but counterfeit, if any at all. The world indeed sometimes falls into men's mouths; but God doth not spill his heavenly riches: he parts not with them without suit, without thanks. He must strive to enter into heaven that misseth not, and he shall miss of entrance that striveth not. The Covetous is like a Camel, with a great bunch on his back: heaven gate must be made higher and broader, or he will hardly get in.

3 It disposeth a man to all sins, be they never so horrid: he is a fit piece of timber for any place in the building of hell: this mercenary soldier will refuse no office in the devils campe, for booty. Any sin doth prepare and habitually dispose the mind to every sin: but this doth actually tr • nsgresse the whole Decalogue.

1 Commandment; Thou shalt have no other gods but Me. If the covetous have not another god, why does Paul call him an Idolater? Either he doth offer sacrifice to his gold, or if he does not, yet he refuseth no desperate adventure, it puts him upon, and obedience is better than sacrifice. One of Jupiter's many names was Money: Pagans gave unto their god the name of Money: and the covetous give unto money the worship of God. The Romans had a God which they called Terminus: I fear we have made it a London -god, and a Westminster -god, too. The Israelites made a calf, and then danced about it, one calf about another: with no less joy do the covetous adore gold.

2 Thou shalt not worship an image. But mark how the Prophet joins them; Their land is full of silver and gold; and presently, their land is full of idols. It wa • gain that made Diana so great, and Demetrius to ro • re, and make so great a noise for her. They be the coffer-doctrines that Rome is most violent to justify: Masses, which bring in masses of wealth: Praying for the dead, which is a trick to prey upon the living: they are somewhat colder for those Tenants that do not warm their kitchen: yea, I would that covetousness had not robbed God of his worship among us. How many Churches of this land have no better than a ten pound stipendary, that hath less learning than living, whiles one of another coat goes away with the Churches Salary?

3 Thou shalt not take the Name of God in vain: this the covetous thinks a very vain Commandment. What equivocation, oath, lie, blasphemy, perjury, will not he swallow in the sweet broth of Commodity? It is a principle in his Catechism, Gaine is Godliness; and he never likes Godliness, but when it brings in gain. Sometimes covetousness strips off all religion, at other times Religion must be the cloak of covetousness. Shall not their substance be ours, saith Shechem? So shall not their custom be ours? Are we brothers at the Church, and shall we not be Cosins at the shop.

4 Remember to keep holy my Sabbath. But the covetous thinks, Religion makes men idle: the Sabbath is one day lost in a week; above seven weeks lost in a year; and Ad quid perditio haec? The people are idle, saith Pharaoh, therefore they cry, let us go sacrifice: as if men would never think of sacrifice, unless they were idle. Sacrilege hath impropriated God's Tenths already; and now covetousness would impropriate his Sevenths too. Christ should have neither Tithe nor Time, if avarice might have her will. Not to speak of some Lawyers chambers, which on a Sabbath afternoon are fuller of Clients, than some Country-Churches are of suppliants. We read that on the Sabbath days Jerusalem was troubled with fish-merchants: and does not London abound with drink-merchants? Suppose that these Temples of Bacchus are better visited among us, yet what are the suburbs and adjacent villages? When will the Sabbath be gone, that we may sell corn? There was some honesty yet in that covetousness; they had the patience to tarry so long. But our borderers cry, When will the Sabbath come, that we may have our houses full of Citizens, and vent our tippling commodities? So they turn Sabbatum Dei, into Sabbatum Bacchi: and make it both a selling day, and a swilling day.

5 Honor thy Parents. The father says of his child, as Abraham did, O that Ishmael might live: the covetous son, like Esau, O that the days of mourning for my father were come: Haeredis lachrymae, such tears be grown into a proverb. This is one practice among the Romish orders, like that of the Pharisees: they must give all their goods to the College, and go as naked into the Cloisture, as they came into the world. Thus their poor parents that depend on their maintenance, must have empty bellies, that the others Corban may be full: as if the very smell or steam of the sacrifice were enough to give them their dinners. Did we never hear of such unnatural prodigies, that have denied relief to their own Parents?

6 Thou shalt not kill. Yet this is a common effect of covetousness. He that is greedy of gain, takes away the life of the owners. The Lamp is not only put out by pouring on of water, but by not pouring in of oil. Was not the rich man guilty of Lazarus his blood, while he relieved him not? It will grieve those Churls, that have either made beggars, or not comforted them, to be found at the last day murderers. Dishonest gain is accompanied with blood, saith the Prophet. Judas did not so much hate his master, as love the money: yet the love of the money moved him to betray his master. Naboth will not part with his vineyard, he shall therefore part with his life. He is accused, condemned, stoned; here is a ready payment for a rich vineyard: Ahab will drink his blood, that he may come to taste his wine. What makes Rome give toleration of murder, by ordaining refuges for willful blood, but avarice? Murder is condemned by the light of Nature, as the Barbarians concluded upon Paul: yet to the golden shore how many fear not to swim through a stream of blood?

7 Thou shalt not commit adultery. Yet coy Danaë will admit an adulterous Jupiter in a golden shower. The purse hath often prevailed more than the person. Do not too many Gallants plot how to get into the Merchants bed, rather than how to get out of the Merchants book! What doth countenance the Romish Curtesan, but the Popes Corban? Out of those licenced Stews, he makes himself pleasant broth. Some force themselves to a single life, merely to avoid the charges of the married condition. They that had rather fry in their own sensuality, than quench that fire with an allowed remedy, do (as it were) offer up themselves to Moloch, in the burning flames of lust. Thus a covetous father in the marriage of his child, inquires not after virtues, but riches. Abigail signifies her fathers joy, yet she was matched with Nabal, and sorrow together. If her father had meant her joy, either in her self, or in her life; so unworthy a Churl had wooed in vain. But he married her Nummo, non viro. O how many a child is thus cast away upon riches? What is the usual effect of it; but either for the discontented wife to want issue, or unlawfully to seek it?

8 Thou shalt not steal. All cozenage is theft; and ostende mihi avarum, remonstrabo tibi furem. Extortions, Depopulations, Impropriations; Enclosures, engrossings, monopolies, with that whole litter of vipers, are bred in the dunghill of covetousness. Now the covetous man may be counseled by his lawyer, that he hath an action against me, for calling him Thief. But if we should come to trial, there is a witness within him that would cry, a Thief, a Thief, his conscience would attach a Thief in his own bosom. I could tell you of an eulogie made by an orator of a magistrate, wherein he commended him for being no Thief. This, replied another, were a good commendation for a servant; if besides, he be no runagate. But at the great Assizes, he is no lover of riches that shall clear himself from being a thief.

9 Thou shalt not bear false witness. But he that scruples not at false dealing, will never stick at false accusing. The tongue is an ill apprentice to the covetous heart, if it cannot lend the false hand a lie or an oath. I know there be hackney consciences, Knights of the Post; and flatterers that admire persons for advantage, as dogs fawn for a crust. But does not the tradesman, that tells me a tale in my ear, while he cuts a hole in my purse, deceive me with a false testimony? Lest I be poor, and steal, and take the Name of my God in vain. Poor and steal; poverty brings in theevery. Steal, and take the Name of God in vain. Theevery brings on Perjury. The lawyer that pleads his clients cause, against his own conscience, is hired by covetousness to bear a false witness.

10 Thou shalt not covet that which is thy neighbors. But if the covetous man's hands were as able, as his wishes be nimble, like another Adam, he would have the whole world to himself. They talk of the Philosophers stone, your rosy-cross brethren; there is no such thing in Rerum natura, unless it be a covetous man's heart. That is of a chymicall virtue, and would turn all into gold, a perpetual limbecke that labors of projection: till on the sudden the glass breaks and all flies out in fumo. He doth wish the whole earth were mines and Indies; the ocean a sea of gold, as S. John calls it a Sea of glass. If every fish had so much money in it as S. Peters, he would quickly turn fisherman. Heaven it self cannot tempt him, unless it were all gold, and every star a diamond. Pope Benedict. 12. refused to make another Cardinal, unless he could make another world: for as that was not sufficient for his Cardinal, so one is too little for the covetous. Si offa totius mundi injiceretur dentibus, & faucibus eorum universa rerum massa; if the whole world were thrown as a sop into their mouths, it would not content avarice.

Thus is he a transgressor of every law. Go now ye fools, and flatter yourselves, that you are no Atheists, no Idolaters, no Blasphemers, no Sabbath-profaners, no parent contemners, no murderers, adulterers, thieves, nor liars: you have been all these, are all these, or may be all these, or whatsoever else the devil will, if you continue covetous. The opinion of honesty is put on this sin through the world; An honest man, but something hard: but yet in the Judges sentence, the adulterer and thief are as honest men. Read 1 Corinth. 6.10. and Eph. 5.5. There you may learn what to think of his honesty. He is got into the midst of that desperate throng, that shall never see the face of God. We rank him with Addermen and Gentlemen, give him the best offices, the highest room at the Table, and Pew in the Church: God reckons him amongst whores, and blasphemers, and thieves, and dogs, which be indeed his companions. Certainly, if such a man be honest, there are abundance of honest men in hell. We are loath to keep company with swearers, and swashers, and harlots, and drunkards; but we have as great a charge of separation from the covetous. Eate not with him: and Solomon gives the reason, Because he hath an evil eye; that wisheth a man choakd, when he bids much good doit him; when his guests are gone, he talks how much this man did eat, and how fast the other called for drink; and feeds his family with the mouldy remnants a month after. If such muckewormes were as odious to the rest, as they are to me: they should appear in the street like owls, with whom no honest man will converse. Why should I prefer him before a piece of copper, that prefers a piece of gold before my Maker.

It is time to come to the Remedies of this desperate disease; and to stop that violence and precipitation, wherewith we are transported to these rotten inconstancies.

1 Faith overcomes the world. What doth it bring the riches of it into our coffers? no, but it casts the love of it out of our hearts. The world is not overcome by gaining, but by despising it. As covetousness is an Alchemist, that turns gold into God; so faith makes Christ unto our souls All in all. The more hold a man takes of the world, the more he loseth hold of the Lord. Covetous men cleave to the world so long as they can; but when that staff breaks, then to the Lord. Extremitie of distress will send the profanest to God: as the drowning man stretcheth out his hand to that bough, which he contemned whiles he stood safe on shore. So Saul retired himself to inquire of the Lord, but be answered him not. It is an unreasonable inequality, to hope to find God at our command, when we would not be at his: to look that he should regard our voice in trouble, that would not regard his voice in peace. Let your conversation be without covetousness: why? Because he hath said, I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee. We credit the promise of a wealthy and trusty friend: yet man may lie, man may die, man may be unable to help himself. God is too constant to be changed; too potent to be crossed, too wise to be deceived. I will never leave thee: not in a dear year, not in age, not in sickness, not in death: they that believe this, cannot be covetous. The wealth thou keepest, is not thine own, but God's: he must give it thee out of thine own chest: and if thou hast little, cannot he give it thee out of another's chest, as well?

2 Content with our own condition: he that hath wrought his heart to this happy resolution, hath disfurnished Satan of a deadly weapon. The King is forbidden so multiply to himself silver and gold: yet who hath greater uses, or fairer pretences, for this multiplying, than a King? Solomon says there be four things that cry Nunquam satis; and we may add a fifth, the covetous heart, that shall care with them all four, and yet rise up with a Never enough. Esau was an honest man to thousands of these; for Esau had Enough. Naboth's vineyard lay too near Jezebels court, it had been better for him in the wilderness. The vicinity did not make it more commodious to the owner, than envious to the beholder. It was now the perpetual object of an evil eye: his vines grew too near the smoke of that Tyrants chimneys, too much within the prospect of Ahab's window. The sight of it breeds those desires, that can neither safely be denied, nor honestly satisfied. Eminence is still joined with peril, obscurity with peace. An inheritance needs no worse inconvenience, than the covetous eye of a Great neighbor. There is no such annoyance belongs to a house, as an Ahab's avarice. He had vineyards enough of his own, but all their grapes were sour to Naboth's. His heart covets it, his tongue demands it, the possesser denies it, he grows sick upon it, Naboth must bleed for it, and then he will have it. Ahab was sick of a Plurisie, and Naboth must be let blood to cure him. O the impotent and insatiate desire of avarice! what is there that can make a man rich, but content? Ahab was Lord and King of all the territories of Israel: Naboth is the owner of one poor vineyard: yet Ahab can have no joy of all Israel, if Naboth enjoy his vineyard. Besides Samaria, Ahab was Lord Paramount of Damascus, and all Syria; conqueror of Him that was attended with two and thirty Kings. Naboth was a plain Townesman of Jezreel; the good husband of a little vineyard. Whether is the richer? Naboth wisheth for nothing of Ahab's; Ahab longeth for something of Naboth's, and cannot brook a repulse. Riches and poverty is more in the heart, than in the hand: he is wealthy that is contented, he is poor that wants it. O poor Ahab, that carest not for thine own large possessions, because thou mayest not have another's. O rich Naboth, that carest not for all the dominions of Ahab, so thou mayest enjoy thine own.

3 Look up to the Promised land: if but one glimpse of those heavenly treasures were presented to our eyes; how scornfully would we behold the world, and call it as Hiram did the cities given him by Solomon, in indignation, Cabul, a 〈◊〉 or dirty land. Thou lovest gold, there is a city whose streets be gold. Who would be raking in the kennels of the earth, that might gather pearls out of those chrystalline streams of joy? Our Head is in heaven, what make our Hearts upon earth! It is fit the Head and the heart should go together. Sicut Ecclesiam praecessit Caput ejus, sic Christianum praecedat cor ejus. We cannot yet get up our bodies, let us send up our hearts. Sequetur totum nostrum, quo praecesserit aliquid nostrum. The way to mortify covetousness, is to lay hold on eternal life. The looser hold we have of the world, the less hold the world shall have of us: and the more we fasten above, we loosen below. Men of the world have their portion in this life; but my teeth shall not water at their dainties.

4 Let us free ourselves from a false opinion of riches: we think they will satisfy us, and they cannot. Non plus satiabitur cor hominis auro, quam corpus aurâ. The heart shall be satisfied with gold, when the body is contented with wind, ye • , does not Aurum rather make Auarum? S. Augustine tells of an oration which he made to the Emperor; wherein he exceedingly pleased him, because he exceedingly praised him; and was so eloquent in his commendation, that all the hearers fell into commendation of that eloquence. But for his reward, it was like ours; for our good words, the people return us only good words again: as when a Poet presented Augustus with Greek verses, he for his reward gave him Greek verses again. Home he came, and by the way in a green meadow he spied a poor beggar, well lined with strong drink, frisking, and singing, and dancing, and taking care for nothing. Whereupon he thus sighed; What is riches, that it should not give so much content as beggary? Miserable is that life, wherein none are happy but the miserable. All our labor for wealth, is but care and travel, for travel and care. He that hunts this game in the worlds forest puts up more beasts than he well knows how to be shut of. This beggar hath not burnt candles all night a month together, he made no oration to the Emperor today, yet he is merry. His purse hath no crowns, his flesh wears rag • , yet he is jocund: sure there is no art leading to felicity, but the art of beggary, The meditation of this beggarly content wrought that learned man to provide for the posterity of his soul unperishing riches. Thus though the beggar had more joy than Augustine, yet Saint Augustine had more joy than the beggar. With how different aspects and affects do diverse men look upon the world! The Prophet and his man did not look upon the Syrian treasure with the same eyes. The one with the eye of contempt, the other of admiration: the one refuseth it offered, the other runs after it forbidden. I will destroy the whole land, and seekest thou great things for thyself? Mundus perit, & tu mundana quaeris? Alas, they are but speciosa supplicia, fortunae vomitus. If they like true servants could continue, yet we like frail Masters must vanish.

5 Lastly Charity. The sheep is overladen with wool, if it be never shorn; and no coat is made for the child while it grows there. The worldlings wealth is too heavy a burden for him: let him be clipp'd, and his wool then may do much good. Do good, and distribute. Call your riches what you will, you shall never find them to be goods, till you do good with them. Men are mistaken in riches: God is called Rich; not for his money, but for his mercy: not for having good, but for doing good. The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Wherein rich? not in being Lord of all, so much as in doing good to all. Thus covet to be rich; Rich in Faith, rich in God, rich in good works. It was the worldlings folly, to think that wealth consisted in having goods, not in doing good. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God; So, that is, as very a fool as he was. Covetice is that iniquity, which hath cast upon riches that reproachful Title; to be called The riches of iniquity. This inconvenience can only be helped by charity; Make you friends of that Mammon. Otherwise, a treasure of riches gathered and hoarded this day, is but a treasure of vengeance gathered and hoarded against the last day. Whereas he that gets to give, doth give to keep. Thou fearest to lose thy money by giving it, and yet fearest not to lose thyself by keeping it. Every man shall leave his riches behind him, and every man shall find them again. They that have done good with them, shall find them safe in heaven, with the advantage of glory: they that hoarded them here, shall find them again too, and with usury; but the super-addition is the plague of conscience, and eternity of torments.

God hath appointed himself the rewarder of alms, even to a cup of water: and a punisher of covetousness, even to the want of a drop of water. Dives would not give Lazarus a crumb of bread, though it might save his life: and Lazarus must not bring Dives a drop of water, though it might save his soul. Discused riches do not more rust in the coffer, than in the conscience, they be not only Corruptae, but corrumpentia. Moisture was not given to the springs, that they should remain in the places where they were bred; but to run along in their watery channels, and to spend themselves upon the dry and barren grounds. Plato had a conceit, that nature at first was delivered of two daughters, Plentie and poverty: that need might be beholding to plenty, for supply to her indigence: and Fullness to poverty, for ease of her abundance. The rich man was made for the poor, and the poor for the rich. Pauperis est rogare, divitis erogare. Rich niggards are like blessed Thistles: when death hath cropp'd them, some water may be distilled out of them, medicinal to the disease of poverty.

Rich men should imitate Job, as he did the eagle; who is so honorable, that he will not eat his prey alone. The conceit that keeps rich men from giving, is a faithless fear that they shall want before they die. Therefore God often takes them away in the midst of their Mammon; and so rids them of what they were afraid, and provides for others whereof they have need. It is easy for avarice to find an excuse to save the purse: the widow of Sarepta could have answered the Prophet, with her own want; as the Macedonians could the Apostle, that they had poor enow of their own, to take up their relief: yet they did not. God loves a careful giver. An alms given with a grudging hand, doth not only lose all reward, but deserveth no pardon. Erogando pecuniam, augebis Iustitiam: thy righteousness shall shine forth as the Sun, when the Sun of righteousness shines forth in his glory. Otherwise, audiant irrogare supplicia, qui nol •• t erogare subsidia. Men receive but ten for the surplusage of a hundred below: there shall be a hundred for ten repaid hereafter. What do we give, but that which was first given us, and we cannot keep? He hath dispersed and given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth forever. The good man hath both riches and righteousness: he gives his riches, his righteousness he shall keep forever. Good deeds derived from faith, are rampiers and fortifications against Satan: what shall become of those cities, that have no such walls? they are a tribute we owe unto God, for defending us from our enemies, and planting peace in our consciences: he requires now no burnt offerings nor sacrifices; but the fruits of mercy. Thus our Religion affords us more, and costs us less: yet when the Lord gives us the whole harvest, we scarce allow him the very gleanings. The Idolatrous Gentiles shall condemn us; for they bestowed their wealth in Fanes and Shrines and Images; whereas we to the living Images of the true God will not give our superfluities. Our devotion can away with anything, rather than this same Pharisaical alms-giving. Yet the Cart that is overladen and crammed too full of sheaves, hath a tail that will scatter: let those full gorged worldlings take heed, lest hogs come to glean after their carts tail; and their heirs be made Wards to usurers. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath. It may be for his soul, he gives it gone; but his goods (he hopes) shall last: the extortioner says Nay to that; and his children shall not have enough left to keep them in prison. The Miser is the thieves mark; if he would prevent robbing, let him be bountiful. The Catle comes to distress, and no man pities him. Be charitable, that you may save your heirs from undoing. If there be in your bags but one shilling that should have been the poor's, that shilling shall be the consumption of all his fellows.

But after all this, he will build an Hospital. Will he? Now blessing on him: when he hath taken away a man's land and inheritance, he will give him a staff to walk withal. By oppression he hath hedged into himself great pastures, and now he will allow the owner, the running of a nagge. When I pass by an Hospital built by a money-monger, me thinks I see the goodly monument of a bloody devotion. He sets a dossen beggars to pray for him, that God would forgive him the making of a thousand. And not seldom lewd persons are chosen into those places; whose prayers in the chapel cannot so much avail him, as their curses out of it make against him. In the law, God abhorred that offering, which was the price of a dog, or the hire of a harlot. He that thinks to be excused by giving part of his robberies, goes about to corrupt God with presents, and calls him in to take part of the spoil. But why doth Christ then say, make you friends of your unrighteous Mammon? I answer; He calls them not evil, because they were so much gotten by evil means, as were the baits of evil motions; otherwise, first wrongs should be satisfied, before friends be purchased. The Apostles rule is, first to Labor honestly for wealth, and then to give to him that needeth. Quamvis de parvo, tamen de justo, de proprio. It is true, that a pound does the poor more good than a penny; yet a well earned penny shall do the giver more good, than ill gotten thousands.

But there be some that hold it idle, to do but so well, with what they got so ill. He that hath nothing to do with his money; but build Churches, they count him one of God Almighty's fools. Or if the Bench of penny-fathers do not censure his wisdom, yet they will term him a vain-glorious fellow. Tut, Almhouses will make good Stables; and being let out in tenements, yield a round sum by the year. A strong closset, and a good iron hutch, is worth twenty of your Hospitals. These Chuffes will contribute something toward the building of a Iaile, to deter thieves; or of a gallhouse, to execute them: but for a Church or an Almshouse, they see no need of those. Thus do they teach God to deny themselves mercy: for he that demands mercy, and shows none, mines the bridge, over which himself is to pass. We read of a Lad that had five barley leaves in a Basket, which, Jesus took and distributed to the people. Much goods are too heavy for the covetous, as the loaves were for the Boy. Clausa onerab • nt, reclusa recreabunt: Let them open the Basket, and divide them among the poor. This is a special medicine, to breathe out the corrupt blood of covetousness.

Cursed children.] Filii maledictionis. Hebrais. which may be taken either actively, or passively. For they carry a curse about them, wheresoever they go: and they bring a curse along with them, whithersoever they come. Covetousnes is the Roote of all evils, not only criminal but penal. There be innumerable woes against it, and sooner or later they shall overtake it. I have smitten my hands at thy dishonest gain; there the covetous man is but threatened. For the iniquity of his covetousness, I was wrath, and smote him; there he is plagued. God doth not only smite his hands at him, but he smites at him with his hands. He is in Laodicea's case; Wretched in getting, poor in not using, blind in keeping, naked in leaving, miserable in accounting.

1 Cursed not seldom in his body; which restless calamity is but a whip of his own making. I might instance Achan's heap of stones, Balaam's sword in his bowels, Judas his halter about his neck; one piece more to his thirty; but look upon Gehazi for all. The Prophet and the Syrian are parted; only Gehazi could not so take his leave: his heart was mailed up in one of Naaman's Portmanques, and he must after to fetch it. He thinks his Master too kind, or too simple, in refusing so just a present: himself will be wiser, thriftier. Desire hastens his pace; he does not go, but run after his bootie. He hath it with advantage, two for one; and now pleaseth himself with the waking dreams, of what Land he might purchase, how well he was provided for, to live at ease. What says his Master to it? The leprosy of Naaman cleave unto thee, and to thy seed forever; the act overtakes the word; he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow. A woeful change hath Gehazi made with Naaman. Naaman came a leper, returned a Disciple: Gehazi came a Disciple, returned a leper. Naaman left behind him his disease and his money, Gehazi takes up both his money and his disease. The rest of his days he shall wear out in pain, and shame, and sorrow. He hath two changes of raiment for his body; but is not the body better than raiment? He wears Naaman's double livery, both of apparel and leprosy. He shall never look upon himself, but think on Naaman, and ô ye covetous, when you see yourselves, think upon Gehazi.

2 Cursed in his goods, which are his gods; first, he shall never have comfort in them: the curse of that unbelieving Prince shall fall upon him? he shall see his own abundance, never taste it. Like the Indians that are slaved to the Spanish mines, he is homo ad metalla damnatus. In the fullness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits. Dives in miseriis, miser in divitiis. Other sinners that have forfeited heaven, yet receive some pleasure on earth: but the covetous deprives himself of this world, and God will deprive him of the world to come; so he enjoys neither; is not this a curse? But suppose the fool thinks it none; therefore, secondly, he shall not long keep his wealth. He shall leave it in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. It is a hell to him to leave his riches at the end of his days; what is it then to lose them in the midst? The Sapies of Africa are buried with all their gold about them; and worldlings would either not die at all, or else be buried so. If he must be a beggar in the midst, what shall he be at the end of his days? A fool; he shall lose both his goods, and his wits. Thus Praedo minoris erit praeda majoris. There shall none of his meat be lest, therefore shall no man look after his goods.

3 Cursed in his Posterity. All his project and drift is to leave his children an Inheritance on earth, though he forfeit his own in heaven: loe, even this also God disappoints. As the father was a rich beggar, the children shall be poor Gentlemen. What got Gehazi's posterity by their fathers covetousness, but an hereditary leprosy. He covets an evil covetousness to his house. Indeed his desire is of good, but the event of that desire turns to evil; and he consults shame to his house, not as he supposed, honor. His children shall seek to please the poor; flatter the needy, and beg even of beggars: see now what his Gentlemen come to. God hath given him riches, saith Solomon, but not power to eat thereof. It may be so, but the more he spares, the more he leaves for his children; no, but a stranger shall eat it. Parents be good to your children; let not my breath seem strange to you, (to speak in Job's phrase) that entreat for the children of your own loins. Do not covet to leave them so much, that you disinherit them of all. There is no surer way to undo them, than by undoing others for them.

4 Cursed in his soul: he is in little better case on earth, than that rich miser was in hell, burning in desire of that drop of water, which never shall be granted him; Content. The Covetous hath no inheritance in the kingdom of God. No inheritance there? and none here, neither? In what country then lies this man's purchase? In a place, which is called, Without; the Territory of Hell. After all his comings in, he shall be sure of that to come into the bargain: this is that makes up his revenues.

Now he that is so well practiced in casting up parcels, Semper in rationibus, so much in his counting-house; let him look over these particulars, and sum up his gains. A curse upon his Body, upon his goods, a curse upon his children, upon his own soul; here is his profit: would not this gain make a man covetous? A man's soul in exchange for the whole world, were but a hard bargain. Thou fool, they shall fetch away thy soul from thee, and then whose shall these be? yea, whose shalt thou be? Lord, give us nothing in this world, that may prevent our happiness in the world to come; let us rather be beggars, than not Saints.

To take yet a fuller view of this curse, let me give you a short Character of the covetous man. He is cursed to be a servant of servants: the Saints drudge is his Saint. He shrines his god in his coffer, and there locks up his heart for a perpetual sacrifice to it. Whereas the true God keepeth his, he will keep his god: and gives to a piece of earth that veneration, which he denies to his Maker. Yet he dares not trust either any other God, or his own: but fears lest thieves should put him to Micah's complaint; Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more? O poor god, that cannot keep it self from stealing! He fears a thief worse than the devil; yea, he will be beholding to the devil for a spell to save him from the thief. In his unquiet sleep he dreams of Burglary; and is not sure that even now he barred the door. If his conscience ever go about to prejudice his profit, he condemns it for a common Barretor. He would often hang himself when he is crossed of his hopes, but that he is loath to be at the charges of a halter; which if he finds ready provided, he is ready to do it indeed: and if some charitable hand cut the cord, he cries out that he is undone; when if he had not been undone, he had perished. He laughs at poor men's curses; and before he dies, curseth himself to boot.

The Ancients have compared covetous men to Hogs: of all beasts, the ejected devils chose to enter into them: and still they affect those hoggish carles, that insatiately swill up the draff of the world. One wittily observes, that if the Jews had not been forbidden by the Law, yet Nature it self would have dissuaded them from eating swine's flesh; lest one hog should eat another. Worldlings are hogs, carrying their snowts downward, not looking up to the tree whence comes their mast, wallowing in mucke, digging up the earth, if they be not ring'd by the law for rooting; insatiable in devouring, hoinish and grunting, and grudging any neighbourhood. The unthrift with his riotous courses, doth but still feed hogs. It is not meet to give the children's bread to dogs; much less to hogs. By their unnatural dealing in the world, you would not think they came naturally into the world; but rather like those that were called Caesar's, quasi caesi ex utero matris. Their sin is so impatient of the delay of vengeance, as if they would pluck the stern of the world out of God's hand, till he had confounded them. Oppression is the price of blood: the Jews would not put it into their Treasury; these dare put it into their Patrimony. There is no religion in them, but the love of money: by fraud and perjury they had confiscated their souls long ago. Any doctrine is welcome to them, but that which beats upon good works. They stick not with the Sages, to fall down and worship Christ, but they cannot abide to present him with their gold. Not to meddle or make with a man, is a high favor, for which (they look) God and the world should be beholding to them. They think all charity to their neighbor consists in bidding him Good morrow. How grossly do they cozen themselves! The Prince requires not only that his Laws be not contradicted, but not violated. Go, ye cursed, because ye did not give: you do not hear them taxed for condemning charity in others, but for not performing it themselves.

All their devotion consists in a few abrupt graces; God be praised, Much good doit you. And if any man speak against unjust dealing, they stand not to maintain their Copy-hold; but, we are all naught, God amend us: and stop the Preachers mouth with, Sir I drink to you: but God's mouth will not be stopped so. Being asked at the day of Judgment, From whence come you? they must answer in the devils language, From compassing the earth; for heaven they have not compassed. All their good deeds be only good words, but God's Words are deeds: Go, ye cursed. He that spake the word, and made heaven and earth, shall but speak the word, and send them to hell. Nec volunt esse paupers, nec haberi divites. To avoid a subsidy, they complain of poverty: and when they complain of want, they most fear that which they complain to have. Thus do they live in anguish, to die upon the rack, and to finish their course in everlasting unhappiness. Now as you like this cursedness, you may go on in covetousness. It is pity but the world should love him, that will love the world upon these conditions. But for ourselves, let us impartially scourge this Manmon out of our Temples: Christ did not die to purchase this world for us: let us not lose that which he purchased, to purchase that which he contemned. No Lord, thou hast prepared Mansions for us, prepare us for those Mansions; that by being rich in Grace, we may come to be rich in Glory. Amen.