Imatges de pàgina
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A mans pride fball bring him low..

He that loveth wine and oyle shall not be rich.. 6 They are alike in the last judgment; for The Lord will deftroy the house of the proud.

And the Apostle faith of drunkards, that none such shall inherit the Kingdome of God. You see how like they be both in culpa, in pena, fault and punishment,

Therefore humility is our leffon, and we shall find it an hard leflon to take out now in the over-grown pride of our times, wherein contrary examples do grow fo thick.

It is a great part of the study of many to out-fhine their neighbours in glorious buildings, gay apparel, rich furnitures of their houses: this kind of pride hath done much hurt, cípecially in the

ruine of

1. Charity,which had wont to cloath the naked, feed the hungry, refresh the thirsty, and minister to the neceffities of the poor brother.

2. The ruine of Justice which gives every one his own: I fear if many proud and gay perfons that flant it in bravery of rich hew, fhould do fo, their feathers reftored, they would be found naked.

3. The ruine of Temperance which prays, give me not poverty, give me not riches,give me things convenient for me, for they be fools in the judgment of the wife men, that die of profperity. 4. The ruine of Religion, for godlinefle is not it self without. contentedneffe.

You have heard how deceitful a vanity pride is.

The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee.

I haften to the second point, the disease: Infatiablenesse.

It is fet forth in two resemblances.

1. The proud man is resembled to hell.

2. He is refembled to death.

These are two things that cry Give, Give, and are never fazisfed.

Obferve whereinfoever any man or woman is proud, if they do know any bounds;

Itis pride in apparel; who was ever fine enough? do we not fee the richest stuffe laid and overlaid, almost hidden, with rich

adornas

Pro.19.23 Pro. 21.17. Pro.15.25 1 Cor.8.Jo

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adornment of triming; and when the stuffe may call the wearer proud, the trimme and fashion may resemble them to the grave and hell, and fhall teftifie against them that nothing can fatisfie them; and yet to this they adde often change.

I do not fay much change of rich apparel, but changing often in the wearing; I have heard of two or three fhifts in a day.

Thefe be they that entertain every forrain fashion, and natu [ralize out-landish formes amongst us: Chrift will one day tell fome body,I was stark naked,and you clothed not me.

The ambition, that all forts and degrees of men and women are fick of, is, a defire to exceed their own rank in fhew.

The Country (triveth with the City, as farre as their markets will bear it out, the City with the Court; thefe encroachments put pride to fhifts; for when Mechanicals come fo faft upon the ancient Gentry of the Land, ufurping both their fhew and title, almost afhamed of the name of their trades and occupations that have made them fo fine,

The Gentry are put to it to ftreine their tenant one note higher to enable them to the start; and their rifiing and growth must put on the Nobility, and make them mend their pace.

Thas unfatiablydo we ftrive to out-go our felves, that goodly inheritances are worne out, and vanity doth end in mifery in ma ny, in them it continueth with scorn and disdain.

And when you have made your felfe as fine as you can, you will come a great many degrees behind Solomon in his royalty; yet Solomon was not clothed ke one of the Lilies of the field.

Thus infatiable is the pride in buildings, a vanity which ladeth the earth here and there with fpecious, fpacious piles of brick and stone, wherof the owners have scarce the pleasure of beholding the fame with their eyes,being afraid of the hofpitality that fhould correfpond that great fhew of room.

The proud in beauty,declare themselves infatiable in striving to mend Gods work by art,

In pretio quondam ruga fenilis erat, the aged wrinkles were wont to be held in honour,

But if there be any help for it now, time fhall be spent in study how to hide and conceale the ruines of time.

The pride mentioned in my text is of power, which every one

defireth,

defireth, and few do know how to manage. The Chaldæans having obtained fome victories, are now ambitious to be lords of all the earth,

It is laid of Pyrrhus King of the Epirotes,he fits ftudying how he may get the next Kingdom to him,to make himself strong enough to bid the next King battel,and to get the conquest of him, that the fear of his power may make the next King yeeld himself.

And Alexander when he had conquered the world, fate down and wept, that there were no more worlds left for him to conquer.

The Bishop of Rome from a Diocefan Jurisdiction, hach swelled by degrees, partly by his own ambition, partly by the connivence of Princes,to an univerfal Hierarchy,and hisParasites make him the man to whom belongs

Omnia fubjecifti pedibus ejus, thou haft put all things under his feet.

His eldest fon hath fairly dilated his empire; we know that in 88, he had not enough, he would have faine been dividing of Shechem, and meating out the valley of Succoth.

In inferiour places, how are men transported with defire of power and command, and how unfatiable in that defire? witnesse the many offices, the various employments, which fome have defired and obtained to be congefted on them.

I fay no more of this unfatiable gulf of defire, then my text faith, it is like two things that they love not,Hell and Death. Death is not fatisfied but with all; it is named last in my text, as the greediest of the two; hell defires all the ungodly of the earth, it is a pit digged for the ungodly.

But death fwalloweth all; Statutum est omnibus femel mori, what man liveth and fhall not fee death? So infatiable is the defire of power.

This refemblance doth shake the ftrength of that defire much, if we think upon it well, I labour and ftrive to get many under my command, and death is labouring together with me to bring me to the grave; and if I do not ufe my power to the glory of God, and the good of my brethren, hell is as bufie and as greedy to devour me.

This is one of the crying fins of our Land, infatiable pride;

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this makes dear rents, and great fines, this takes away the whole cloathing of many poore; to adde one Lace more in the fuits of the rich; this shortens the labourers wages, and addes much to the burthen of his labour. This greedineffe makes the market of fpiritual and temporal offices and dignities, and puts well-deferving vertue out of countenance.

This corrupts Religion with opinions, juftice with bribes,charity with cruelty, it turns peace into schifme and contention, love into complement, friendship into treafon, and fets the mouth of hell yet more open, and gives it a new appetite for more fouls.1,

The ufe of all, is the doctrine of contentation, as we profeffe, that we have our being, not of our felves, but of God; In him we live, move, and have our being; He made us, and not we our felves; fo let us be content with his provifion for us.

It was Satans firft fuggeftion to Adam; for fo he had former. ly corrupted himself, and loft his firft eftate; to fuggeft pride he would fhew man a way how to be like God, and then all the fruits in the garden would not content him, he must taste also of the forbidden fruit,

Haman was as high as the favour of the King could advance him, and yet he confest,

All this doth me no good.

Pope Julius the third, was forbidden to eat Pork by his Phyfitian, and no other dish would please him, he commanded it to be fet before him in defpight of God.

Therefore hear the Apoftle

Is is good to have the heart stayed or established with grace, and not with meats which have not profited them &c.

The grace of contentment is like the ballaft of the ship, which gives herher trimme, and makes her strong and jocund upon the great waters.

Faith doth bring us to God, it stoopeth us to him,it faftneth us upon him.

Pride maketh us fhift for our felves, and divideth us from God: he offereth his wings to fuch, and they will not be gathered together.

Let us know that we are never paft the wings of Gods pro

tection here, and therefore let us refort humbly to them; for there is fafety, and reft, and iufficiency of all good things.

Let us remember we call him our Father, and therefore we may caft our care upon him,

Let us know and remember that nothing but God can fil us; we are like brokenveffels that can holdnothing without he fashion us behind and before:we are like fufty veffels that corrupt all things we receive, without he purify our hearts by Faith: we are leaking veffels that let go all things, without he calce us and make us teight.

We are bottomleffe bagges, wide-mouthed to take in, but unbottomed to retain any thing, except he do give us contentment to stay our ftomaks and to remove from us

r. An inordinate love of that which we have:

2. An inordinate defire of more:

3. An inordinate ufe of all.

The punishment will be terror domini,the terrour of the Lord.

Verf. 6. Shall not all these take up a Parable against him, and a taunting Proverb against him and say: Woe to him that increafeth that which is not his, how long? and to him that ladeth himSelf with thick clay. LA

7. Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee? and awake that shall vexe thee? and thou shalt be for booties unto them? 8. Because thou haft spoyled many nations, all the remnant of the people fhall fpoyl thee, because of mens blood, and for the violence, of the land, of the city, and all that dwell therein,

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2. The punishment of pride now followeth. Concerning the Words.

Hall not all thefe take up a Parable against them?

By all these be meaneth, all those whom the King of Babylon and his Chaldeans have troubled and perfecuted, and all lookers on alío.

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By taking up of a Parable, which word is rendered by Apophthegma, a grave and wife fpeech is here meant, declaring that'

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