A practical exposition of the X. Commandements with a resolution of several momentous questions and cases of conscience.
Durham, James, 1622-1658.
Page  [unnumbered]

TO THE Christian READER.

THE subject matter of this Treatise must wit •••t all controversie be passing excellent, it being not only a portion of Divinely-inspired Scripture, but such a portion of it as is the Moral Law; the most straight, ••fallible, perf ct, and perpetually-binding rule of life and manners, that short summary and abridgment of all calle -for duties and forbidden sins (whatever Socinians (with whom Anabaptists and Arminian-Remonstrants on the matter joyn hands (on a wo ful design to transform the Gospel into a new Law or Covenant of Works, that thereby in place of the righteousness of Faith, a righteousness of Works may be established, by their alledged Supplements and Amendments of, and Additaments to it, to be made in the New Testament; and Papists by their v inly boasted∣of Works of Super-erogation and Counsels of Perfection, whereby they would have the Law out-done by doing more than it re∣quireth, audaciou ly averr to the contrary); even these Ten∣words (afterward contracted by the Lord Christ into two Words or Commandments) immediatly pronounced by God himself, and twice written with his own singer on Tables of stone, comprising a great many various matters and purposes; so that it may without any the least hesitation or Hyperbole be asserted, There was never so much matter and marrow, with so much admirably-holy, cunning, compended, couched, and conveyed in so few words, by the most La∣conick concise, sententious and singularly significant spok sman in the World: And no wonder, since it is He that gave men tongues, and taught them to speak, that speaketh here, who hath infinitly beyond the most expert of them, (being all but Battologists and Bablers, Page  [unnumbered] beside Him) the art of speaking much, marvellously much in few words; and would even in this ave us according to our measure humbly to imitate him: And no doubt it is one of the many moe, and more grosse evidences of the d cl nsion of this Generation from the ancient, lovely, and laudable simplicity, that many men forget∣ting that God •• first appointed words to be the external signs of the ••••rnal concep ••••s of their minds, and foolishly fancing that be∣cause they love and admire to hear themselves talk, others do or are ob ••ged to do so; affect to multiply words, if not without knowl dg, yet without necessity, and with vast disproportion to the matter; And whereas a few of their words rightly disposed, might sufficien ly serve to bring us to the very outmost border and boundary of their conceptions, and also to make suitable impressions of them (all the end of words) yet ere we can come that length, we must needs wear away our time, and weary our s lves in wandring through the wast Wilderness of the unn c ssary and superfluous remainder of them: And this doth usher in, or rather is ushered in, by an other piece of neighbour - vanity, whereby men wearing of wonted and long∣worn words, though sufficiently significant, grow fond upon novel, new-coyn'd and never before heard of ones, stretching their wit (if superfluity of words, though both new and neat, be worthy to be pla∣ced amongst the productions of wit; for thereby we are made never a whit the wiser, nor more knowing) and putting their invention on the Tenters to find out (no new matter but) new words, whereby often old, plain and obvious matters are intricated and obscured, at least to more ordinary Readers and Hearers, a notable perversion of the end of words, for which the institut r of them will call to an account; neither are they satisfied with such curiosity in coarser and more comm n matters; but this Alien and Forraign, yea even Ro∣mantick and wanton stile of language is introduced into, and male-partly obtruded upon Theologicks and most sublimely spiritual pur∣poses, whether discou sed by vive voyce, or committed to writing; (which ought I grant to be spoke as becometh the Oracles of God, with a grave appositness of phrase, keeping some proportion with the Majesty of the matter, that they may not be exposed to contempt by any unbecoming incongruity or baseness) by which it cometh to pass to the inspeakable prejudice and obstruction of Edification, that ma∣ny in their niceness, nauseating the form of simple and sound words, Page  [unnumbered] are ready to hiss and how off the Theater of the Church the most precious and profitable points of Truth, though abundantly beautiful, Majestick and powerful in their own native spiritual simplicity, as un it to act their part, and as being but dull and blunt things, if not altogether unworthy to be owned and received as truths; if they ap∣pear not, whether in the Pulpit or Press, cloathed with this strange and g udic attire, with this Comaedians Coat dressed up with the Feathers of Arrogant humane Eloque ce, and be-aa b d with this Rethorick and affectedly-belaboured Elegancy of speech (which our truly, manly, and magnanimous Christian▪ Author did under∣valew: And no great wonder, since even the Heathen moral Philoso∣pher Seneca did look at it as scarce worthy of a man; for writing to his Lucillius, he willeth him in stead of being busied about words, to cause himself have a feeling of the substance▪ thereof in his heart; and to think those whom he seeth to have an affected and laboured kind of speech to have their spirits occupied about vain things; comparing such to diverse young me w ll trimmed and frizled, who seem as they were newly com ••••t of a box; from which kind of men nothing firm nor generous is to be expected. And further affirmeth that a vertu ••• man speaketh more remisly, ut more securely, and whatever he sa t hath more con idence in it th n curiosity; that speech being the Image of the mind, if a man disguise and polish it too curiously, it is a token that the speaker is an Hypo∣crit and little worth: And that it is no manly Ornament to speak affectedly) nay, this hath of late with other extravagancies risen to such a prodigious hight amongst the wisdom of words, or word-wis∣dom Monopolizing men of this age, that if the great Apostle Paul who spoke wisdom (though not of this sort, nor of this world) a∣mongst them that were perfect, and did upon design, not from any defect, decline all wisdom of words, all in icing words of mens wis∣dom and excellency of speech, that the cross of Christ might not be made of none effect, and that the faith of his hearers might not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God, and who loved to spea in the Demonstration of the Spirit and of power, wherein the Kingdom of God consisteth and not in words: if that great Apostle were now Preaching, he would probably be looked at by such wordy and wise heads▪ as but a we k man, and of rude and con∣temp ible speech, (as he was by the big-talking Doctors of the Church of Corinth ) if not a mere Babler, as he was by the Philosophers and Page  [unnumbered] Orators at Athens. The subject matter I say of this Treatise must needs be ost excellent, being the Spiritual, Holy, Just and good Law; the Royal Law, binding us to the Obedience of God our King; the Law which Jesus Christ came not to destroy but to ful il, whereof he is the end for Righteousness to every one that believeth; which doth as a School-master lead to Him (by discovering the holy nature and will of God, and mens duty to walk conformly to it, by convincing of the most sinful pollution of our nature, heart, and life, of universal disconformity to it, and innumerable transgressions of it, of the obligation to the wrath and curse of God because of the s me, of utter inability to keep it and to help our selves out of this sinful and wrathful estate; by humbling under the conviction and sense of both, by putting-on to the Renunciation of self-righteous∣ness or righteousness according to this Law; And finally by convin∣cing of the absolute and indispensable necessity of an other righte∣ousness, and so of this imputed righteousness); the law that is so very necessary to all men in common, and to every Regenerate and unregenerate man in particular; from which, ere one jote or title can pass unfulfilled, Heaven and Earth must pass; and which the Prince of Pastors, infinitely skilful to pitch pertinent subjects of Preaching, amongst many others made choice of, to be a main sub∣ject of that solemn Sermon of his on the Mount; wherein he did not, as many would have expected, soar alost in abstruse contemplati∣ons, but graciously stooped and condescended to our capacity for catch∣ing of us, by a plain familiar and practical exposition of the Com∣mands (as indeed Religion lyeth not in high-flown notions and curi∣ous speculations, nor in great swellings of words, but in the single and sedulous practise of these things that are generally looked on as more low and common, as the great art of Preaching lyeth in the powerful pressing thereof) insinuating of how much moment the right understanding of them is, and how much Religion lyeth in the serious study of suitable obedience thereto, not in order to justificati∣on, but for glorifying God, who justifieth freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus; without which Obedience or holi∣ness no man shall see the Lord. And if the Treatise bear but any tolerable proportion to such a Text and Theam, it cannot but have its own excellency; and, that thou maist be induced to think it doth, I shall need only to tell thee that it is (though, alass, poschumous and for any thing I know never by him inten ed for the Press▪ otherwise Page  [unnumbered] it had been much more full, for he is much shorter on the commands of the second Table, then on these of the first, touching only on some chief heads, not judging it sit belike at that time and in that exer∣cise, to wit, Sabbath-day-morning-Lectures before Sermon, to dwell long on that subject (which a particular prosecution would have necessitated him to) especially since he was at that same time to the same auditory Preaching abbath-afternoo 〈◊〉 the third chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, a subject much of the 〈◊〉 na ure, but what he saith is material and excellent) great Mr. L ••hams; who had some excellency peculiar to himself in 〈◊〉 s ••k or writ; as appeareth by his singular and some way-S r ph k 〈◊〉 on the Revelation, wherein with Aquiline-sharp-s gh ••d ••s f om the ••p of the high mountain of fellowship with God, h ath d ••ply p y d into, and struck up a great light in several myster •••〈◊〉uch hid e∣ven from many wise and sagacious men before; And by his most sweet and savoury, yet most solid exposition of the Song of Solo∣mon, smelling strong of more than ordinary acquaintance with, and experience of those several influxes of the love of Jesus Christ upon the Soul, and effluxes of its love (the fruit and eff ct of His) to∣wards Him, wherewith that delightful discourse is richly as it were imbroydered; The greatest realities (though indeed sublime spiritu∣alities) most plainly asserted by God, and most powerfully experien∣ced by the Godly (whose Souls are more livelily affected with them, than their very external senses are by the rarest and most remarkable objects; and no wonder since every thing the more spiritual it is, hath in it the greater reality, and worketh the more strongly and effica i∣ously) however of late, by an unparallelledly-bold black-mouthed blasphemous Scribler n fariously nick-named, Fine Romances of the secret Amours betwixt the Lord Christ and the believing Soul, told by the Non-conformists-preachers. What? are these and the like, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than Wine; Thy name is as an Oyntment pour d forth, there∣fore the Virgins love thee; We will remember thy love more than Wine, the upright love thee; Behold thou art fair my beloved, yea pleasant, also our bed is green. A bundle of myr h is my beloved unto me, he shall lye all night betwixt my breasts.— I sat down un∣der his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sw ••t to my taste; He brought me to the Banqueting-house, and his B ••••r over me was love: Stay me with Flagons, comfort me with 〈◊〉, for Page  [unnumbered] I am sick of love; His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth imbrace me; My beloved is mine, and I am his; I am my beloveds, and his desire is towards me; I found him whom my Soul loved, I held him and would not let him go; Set me as a seal upon thy heart, and as a seal on thine arm; Love is strong as death— many waters cannot quench love, neither can the ••oods drown it; I charge you O Daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, I am sick of love. Come my beloved, let us go up early to the Vine-yards, let us see if the Vines flourish — there will I g ve the my loves; make hast my beloved, and be thou like to a Roe, or to a young Heart on the Mountains of Spices. How fair and how plea∣sant art thou, O love for delights! O my Dove—let me see thy coun∣tenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy counte∣nance is comely, thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck; turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me.— He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and manifest my self to him. If any man love me he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him: As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you, con∣tinue ye in my love: If ye keep my Commandements, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Fathers Commandements and abide in his love. The love of Christ constraineth us: we love him because he first loved us; the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us: whom having not seen ye love, and whom though now ye see him not, yet believing ye rejoyce with joy un∣spakable and full of glory.—That ye may with all Saints be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and heighth, a d to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. Are these, I say, Romances? are these fancies, fictions, and forgeries? are these fables cunningly devised and told by the Non-Conformists-Prea∣chers? Did the Apostle thunder the great Anathema Maranatha, against men for their not having a meer Romantick and fancied love to the Lord Jesus? (the execution of which dreadful doom will be a solid proof of its reality, and a sad reproof for denying it to be so). Dare the most proud, petulant, perverse, and prodigiously-profane prater, pretending but to the name of a Christian, say it? If these most real love Communications and intercourses betwixt the Lord Christ and the believing Soul, be but Romances; then the whole Page  [unnumbered] Bible (whereof these make so considerable and so comfortable a part) may be reckoned a Romance (which be like this Romantick Divine will not so much demurr making small account thereof, a da∣cious y alleadging the English Bible to be a Book in some places erroneous, in some scarce sense and of dangerous consequences; loath would he be to deal so by Grand Cyrus, Cleapatra, and his o∣ther darling Romances;) if there be no real but romantick and fained love betwixt Christ and the Christian, then no real Christia∣nity, no real Christ (whom this new Doctor dreadfully debas th un∣der the poorly palliated pretext of exalting him, affirming, that his unparalleled civility, and the obligingness of his deportment, seems to be almost as high an evidence of the Truth and Divinity of his Doctrine, as his unparalleled miracles were, otherwise he would be a base and prof igat Impostor; what would this young Divine (for old Divines, and even great Calvin by name, amongst the rest, he despiseth as a company of silly Systematicks) have said and thought of the Divinity of the person and Doctrine of blessed Jesus, if when on earth he had more frequently (as he might and probably would have done under the same circumstances) spoke and dealt so roughly and roundly as he did when he called Herod a Fox, and scourged the uyers and sellers out of the Temple, and had seem∣ed to be as uncivil and of as little obliging a Deportment as his harbinger, John Baptist; he would be like have doubted of his Di∣vinity, and deemed him but a base Impostor, if not peremptorily pro∣nounced that he had a Devil;) No real Redemption, no real Re∣deemer; no real misery, no real mercy; no real Heaven, no real Hell (but ah! the real acting of its story will easily and quickly refute this Romantick conception of it). And in fine, no real God: All is but one intire fine Romance fable and sigment; The Lord against whom this mouth is opened thus wickedly-wide, and is by an other Rabshakeh ra ••ed on at such a rate of rage; rebuke the Spirit which prompteth to the venting this damnable and Diabolick, nay Hyper∣diabolick-Doctrine (for Devils believe that there is one God, and tremble, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, whom even in his state of humiliation they acknowledged to be so, and, from the dread of him, deprecated his tormenting them before the time; but this Desperado would on the matter drive us into a disbelief of both, and yet droll us out of all dread of being tormented on that or any other account either before the time or at it,) because of which its Tea∣cher Page  [unnumbered] (of 〈◊〉 better taught (if he would humble himself to re∣ceive Instruct on), by Famous Doctor Owen, by Acu e Master Marvel, and by the Grave Author of The Fulfilling of the Scrip∣tures, in his Second Part) deeply deserves not only to be cast out of the Protestant Churches, but to be hissed and chased out of the Chri∣stian World. And as appears finally, by that Divinely Politick and Profoundly Wise Treatise of Scandal, in General, and of scanda∣lous Divisions, in Particular: which both Preachers and Profes∣sors of the Gospel, should read, and read again, in these sad Times; wherein (Alas !) there is so much Offence given, and so great a readiness to take Offence. Of none of which Treatises, nor of any o∣ther so brief a Treatise on the Commands, this piece will, I humbly sup∣pos be found to fall much if any thing at all, short; wherein the Light of the Glory of the Lord, in the Face of Jesus Christ, that shined in upon the heart of his Servant, hath so brightly and radiantly darted forth it's Beams, that he hath clearly shewed us the 7. Abomina∣tions of our Hearts; and by digging, hath discovered Great Abo∣minations, and Greater, and yet, Greater than these. He that searcheth Jersualem with Candles, hath by putting the Candle of the True Meaning, of the Law of the Lord into his Hand, made him go down and search into the very Inward Parts of the Belly, and Bowels, of the Corruption of our Nature, and to Ransack the most Retired Corners of the Closse Cabinet of the Deep Deceitfulness, and Desperate Wickedness, that is lodged and locked up in our Hearts: He hath given to him as it were, the end of the Clew of Search, whereby he hath followed and found us out, in those many Turnings, and Traversings, Windings and Wandrings, of the La∣byrinth of this great Mystery of Iniquity, that worketh in us. He hath therein also, marvellously helped him with Exquisite Skill, as it were Anatomically to dissect, even to some of the very smallest Ca∣pillar Veins; a great part of the Vast Body, of the many and vari∣ous Duties succinctly summed up in these Ten Words, of this Holy Law: A Transumpt and Dowble whereof, was as Vively Written, and deeply ingraven upon the fleshly tables of the Author's heart, and on the whole of his Visible Deportment, as readily hath been on many of the Sinful Sons of Adam. Not to detain thee long; Let me for provoking, and perswading, to consider what the Blest Author, be∣ing now dead, yet speaketh in this Choyse Treatise (and more espe∣cially to the Inhabitants of Glasgow, now the Second time) only Page  [unnumbered] say, that amongst many other distempers of this declined and dege¦nered Generation, there is a great itching after some new and more notional, and a loathing of old and more solid and substantial things in Religion; whereof this is a Demonstration, that though there be very few subjects more necessary and useful than what is treated of here, yet there is almost none more generally slighted, as being a very common and ordinary subject, and but the Ten Commands sitter to be read and gote by roat by Children, or at best to be studied by rude and ignorant beginners, by Apprentices and Christians of the lowest form in Christ's School, then by Professors of greater knowledge and longer standing, who suppose themselves, and are it may be sup∣posed by others, to have passed their Apprentiship, to be grown Dea∣cons in the Trade of Religion, and to have commenced masters of A t therein; who someway disdain and account it below them to stay a while and talk with Moses at the foot of Mount-Sinai, as if they could per saltum, or by one Falcon-slight come at the top of Mount-Sion, and there converse with and make use of Jesus Christ; whence it cometh to pass that not a f w are lamentably ignorant of the very letter of the Law, and many more but little insighted in the spiritual meaning thereof; which ignorance is waited with many un peakable great prejudices (that are to be considered with respect to the various states of men, as regenerate or unregenerate, and o the several de∣grees of their ignorance) 1. It very much incapacitateth for self-searching and xamination, a considerable piece, yean sort of spring of the exercise of Godliness; How I pray, can a person to any pur∣pose search and try his heart and ways, being alto ether or in n great measure ignorant of the rule according to which the search ought to be accomplished? 2. It keepeth men much inacquainted with, and great strangers to the knowledge of themselves, of their state, frame and walk, so that they can seldome or never be in case to make a knowing distinct and feeling repres ntation of the posture of their spiritual affairs to God. 3. It is the Mother and Nurse not of any true Devotion (as Papists ignorantly or impiously aver ) but of much carnal security an false peace; the uninformed or ill-inform∣ed conscience of the si ner being misconced from and sadly secured against the most just and best grounded challenges; being often igno∣rant when sin is committed, and when duty is omitted or unduly per∣formed; every sin being a transgression of this Law, and every du∣ty a piece of conformity to it; How can a man ignorant altogether, Page  [unnumbered] or in a great part, of the just extent and spiritual meaning thereof, be as he ought, challenged and ac used by his own conscience either for the Commission of the one, or for the Ommission or mis-perfor∣mance of the other? 4. It notably obstructeth the exercise of hu∣miliation, repentance and self loathing; for how can the breaches of this Law in Ommissions and Commissions, be distinctly and particu∣larly repented of and mourned for, when they are not so much as known to be breaches of the Law in general, let be of what particu∣lar command thereof? and though they were some way confusedly known to be breaches of it in general, if there be not a distinct know∣ledge of the command that is broken, the conviction will not readily be so quick, nor the sorrow so pricking; we have need for our humb∣ling to be bound with the convincing and undeniable evidence of our being guilty of the breach of such and such a Command in parti∣cular, that we may not get it shifted nor shaken off. 5. It manifest∣ly standeth in the way of serious and effectual indeavours in the strength of grace to amend what is a ••ss, and speedily without de∣lay to turn our feet unto his Commandements; there being no ground to expect that men will in good earn st think of righting wrongs, whereof they are ignorant, or not so throughly perswaded. 6. It hath a mighty tendency to the cherishing of spiritual pride, and that good opinion and conceit of mens own righteousness, which is as natural to us, at it is for sparks of fire to flye upwards; And when men know not often when they sin, nor how much they sin, they will be the more easily induced to think they are not so great sinners, nor have so much reason as is talked of, to be so very far and altogether out of conceit with themselves; and what may here be the death-ill of a natural unrenewed man, may be the dangerous distemper of a child of God 7. (which as the grand prejudice doth natively and ne∣cessarily result from all the six preceeding prejudices thereof, and maketh it appear to be exceedingly and out of measure prejudicial) it keepeth much from the through conviction and kindly sense of the absolute and indispensable necessity, great us fulness and steadable∣ness and matchless-worth of precious Jesus Christ the Saviour, and of his imputed righteousness; from having daily recourse to him, and making use of him as made of God unto his people both righte∣ousness and sanctification; from lying constantly a bleaching as it were, at the fountain opened to the house of David, and to the In∣habitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness; from Soul Page  [unnumbered] edifying-refreshing and someway transporting admiration at the absolute perfection of his righteousness, that can cover and make as if they had never been, so very many and various violations of the holy Law of God; from new and fresh convictions on all occasions of the unspeakable obligation the people of God lye under, to him who hath perfectly fulfilled this Law, and in their stead taken on him our blessed self the curse thereof; from excitem ts and provocations to thank fulness, and from expressing the same in a greater care and sol∣licitude to conform thereto as the rule of Obedience; and finally from suitable longings and pantings of Soul to be according to his gracious undertaking in the covenant of Redemption, put in case to do his will perfectly in our own persons and never any more to transgress this his Law, and to be brought under the full accomplishment of these exceeding great and precious promises, he shall redeem Israel from all his Iniquities; and his Servants shall serve him. O! that we could by what is said perswade all to a more diligent and acurate study of the Law of God, and to the reading and ruminating upon this solid and Soul-searching Tractate; and prevail with several persons (which in reason and conscie ce might be presumed would not be so very hard a business to bring to pass, with men and women pro∣fessing themselves to be Christians, nay to have immortal Souls that are to be eternally and una terably either happy or miserable) to take but as much time to the reading, perusing and pondering of it and other such pieces, as is taken to the reading of amorous Books and Romances; To idle visits, and to vain and empty complements; to over-costly, curious, vain, and conceaty dressing, and decking, of the body, and setting of the hair now after one mode, now after ano∣ther (wherein (as in other vanities) many men somwhat unmanning themselves, do now contend with Women, parily by their unnaturally nourished Long H ir, and Horrid Bushes f Vanity, (as Ma∣ster Bolton calls them) and partly by their Variously, and strangly Metamorphosing modes and colours of Periwicks) which made Tertullian in the 7th. Chapter of his Book De cultu mul. to expostulat with the Women of his time after this manner; What doth this cumbersome dressing of the head contribute to your health? why will ye not suffer your hair to be at rest and lye quiet? which is somtimes tyed up, somtimes relaxed and m de to hang down, somtimes frizled and curled, somtimes ty'd close and prest down; somtimes put under a strict restraint (of Page  [unnumbered] plaits, knots, and otherways); and somtimes suffered to escape and slide out from that restraint, and to flitter and fly at random: And ye assix moreover to your heads I know not what enormi∣ties of hair sewed and woven now this way, now that way; if you be not ashamed of the enormities, be ashamed at le ••t of the defilement, least ye be found to adorn and cloath a holy and Christian head with the spoil and pill ge of the hair of an others head that is a filthy person, or it may be of a notorious offender and condemned to Hell. What would he have said of some Wo∣men among us, who being displeased not only with their own, but with all colours of hair that God hath made to grow on the heads of rea∣sonable Creatures abominably aff ct to affix to their fore-heads the hair of Beasts. (High extravagancies of this age almost in all ranks of persons, and never at a greater hight then since God began to contend with us, and to call us to lay aside our ornaments, that He might know what to do unto us; many alass take more time in these days to busk and dress, and to look in a glass for that end in one week than they do in a year, yea it may be in many years, to look into this glass of the Law of the Lord to discover the many spots and ble∣mishes wherewith their Souls are pitifully deformed, or into such Treatises as this, whereby the dust of misapprehensions of the mean∣ing of the Law is wiped off, and it made easily and at first view to give a just representation of what manner of persons we are); To drinking, drunk, and healthing, or drinking and pledging healths, prohibited and much condemned in the Ancient Church particularly by Basil, and Augustine, on this very ground, that they were the in∣vention of the Devil, and the observations or reliques of Infi∣dels and Pagans; To ripling and four-hoursing, a consciense-wast∣ing and Soul-weakning practise, though with too many (and with not a few from whom better things might be expected) but little stuck at; To Carding and Dyeing, which Dice-playing hath been con∣demned by many Fathers by several Councils, by some Imperial sta∣tutes, by almost all Protestant and by many Popish Divines, yea some Councils have appointed dice-players to be excommunicated; To singing and playing of light and wanton Songs and to lascivious Dancing, much also cry d out against and condemned by Councils, Fathers and many Divines, and at great length most vehomently by the Waldenses and Albigences, who account it no great singe of a Page  [unnumbered] Womans honesty that she is a skilful and great Dancer: the remark likewise that the writer of Magica de spectris lib. 1. hist 287. pag. 285. hath of this prophane promiscuous dancing which the wantons of this age so much practise, praise and pride themselves in, is very remarkable, that there was hardly any meeting betwixt the Devil and Witches, wherein there was not Dancing; such complacency hath that unclean Spirit in this Exercise; And to bring Spectators of prophane Interludes and Stage-Plays, which (as the eminenly learned and Pious Doctor Usher late Archbishop of Armagh affirmeth) offend against many branches of the 7th. Command together, in the abuse of Apparel, Tongue, Eyes, Countenance, Gestures, and almost all parts of the Body; there∣fore (saith the great man) they that go to see such sights and hear such words (what would he have said of the Penners or Composers of such Plays and of Actors in them? whom the ancient Church appointed to be excommunicated, and on several of both which re∣markable judgments have lighted (whereof one may speak for many, affirmed by Ludovicus vives in his notes one Augustine de civit dei lib. 12 cap. 25. from persons of good credit, that a certain man who having in a Stage-Play in one of the Cities of Brabant acted the Devils part, and going home dancing to his house, and in that Habit accompaning with his Wife, and saying he would beget a Devil on her, had a Child brought forth to him that Danced so soon as ever it was born, being shaped as men use to paint the Devil,) of builders and doters of houses for them, called by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the Devils Temples, Chappels, Shops and Schools; as the Plays are called by them, the Devils Specta∣cles, Lectures, Sacrifices, Recreations, &c. and the Players, the Devils chiefest Factors; of such as have them in their own dwel∣ling-houses (as some now have) which they give away in a manner to be Synagogues to the Devil to keep his Conventicles in; and of such as contribute whither to the Actors for their incouragement to follow that leud way of living, or for liberty to look on? which Au∣gustine Vincentius and others call a hainous sin and an offering or Sacrificing to the Devil, the first inventer of them) shew their neglect of Christian duty and carelesness in sinning, whereas they willingly commit themselves to the snare of the Devil: which hath been often sadly exemplified, particularly in these two Page  [unnumbered] Christian women spoken of by Tertullian in his Book de specta∣culis cap. 26. to the truth of which, he saith God is wit¦ness.

The one whereof, was at her returning Home from a Stage-Play, immediately possessed with a Devil; who being by Ex∣ercism Expostulaed with, How he durst thus Assult, and enter into a Believing Woman? Answered boldly, That he had done it most justly: For, said he, in meo eam inveni, I found her in my own Temple, or in my own Ground, or in my own Dominion, or Jurisdiction; and as if he had said, About my own Work and Business. The other who the same Night, after hearing a Tragaedian, had a Linning-Sheet presented to her, in her Sleep; The Actor in the Play be∣ing also named, with a sharp obraiding of her, for 'this deed of hers; and lived not above five days after. And in Alipius, a dear Friend, and Convert of Augustines; who (as that Father Narrats, in the 6. Book of His Confession, cap. 8.) being im∣portuned one day by some of his Friends, and Fellow - Students, meet him on the way, to go along with them to see a Sword-Play, earnestly at first withstood them; and being at last drawn a long with them, he resolved to be absent, while he was pre∣sent, and to shut his Eyes all the while he was there: and ac∣cordingly did, when he took his place: But when a great Shout was made, occasioned by some Accident in the Play▪ he opened his Eyes; Yet with a Resolution to contemn the sight, what∣ever it should be: but forth-with he was smitten with a grie∣vous VVound in his Soul, and was not now the same man, that he came thither: But a true Companion of them, that brought him; he beheld, he shouted, he grew out-ragious, and brought away Madness with him; whereby he was excited to return thither again, drawing others along with him, and even out-stripping these, by whom he was first drawn away: Yet after this length of Profannity, he was mercifully recovered, but not till along time after. (Persons that are once mislead by Stage-Plays, though Civil or Religious, being seldom speedily re∣claimed from them.) This was also Examplified, in that late Eng∣lish Gentle-Woman of good-rank▪ Who spending much of her pre∣tious Time, in Attendance on Stage-Plays; and falling at last into Page  [unnumbered] a Dangerous Sickness, whereof she dyed, Anno 1631. Friends i her Extremity, sent for a Minister to prepare her for Death; who beginning to Instruct and Exhort her to repent and call on God for Mercy, she made him no Reply at all; but cryed out Hieronimo, Hieronimo; O let me see Hieronimo Acted! And so calling for a Play, instead of calling on God for Mercy, closed her Dying Eyes, and had a Fearful End, answerable to her Mi∣serable Life. And in these sevearl Persons, who were distracted with th Visible Apparition of the Devil on the Stage, at the Bell-Savage-Play-House, in Queen Elizabeth's Dayes, while they were there beholdidg the History of Faustus, prophanly Acted: To which might be added many other Lamentable Examples and Warnings, of such, who by little and little, have made Desection from the Faith, being allured hereto by the Dangerous custome, of behol∣ding such Plays, wherein (Tertullian saith) They Communi∣cate with the Devil. Will any Man or Woman, dare to appear be∣fore the Dreadful Tribunal of God, to maintain and make out the warrantableness of allowing more t me to these and such other Pra∣ctises, (several of which, are excellently discoursed by the Author, in the following Tractat; and most of them with their Respective Authorities, by Master Prinn, in his Histrio - Mastrix,) then to reading of this and other such Treatises? If any will, they must an∣swer it: I mind not through Grace, to take part with them, i so bold and desperate an Adventure.

Now Christian Reader, without further Prefacing, to bring thee in upon the Treasure of the Treatise it self: If thou wilt read it se∣riously, and consider it suitably; I think I may humbly in the Name of the Lord, bid thee a Defyance, to come away from it, with∣out a Bosom-full of Convictions, of much guilt; and without crying out with the Lepper, under the Law, Unclean, Unclean: With Job, Behold I am vile: With David, looking stedfastly on the Glasse of this Law, brightly shined on, by Gods Light, and re∣f ecting a most clear Discovery, of Innumerable Transgressions of it, as so many Attoms, in a clear Sun-shine: Who can understand his Errours? Cleanse thou me from secret faults: With the Prophet Isaiah, VVe are all as one Unclean thing, (as uncleanness it self, in the Abstract, most Vnclean,) and all our Righteousness are as Filthy Raggs: With the Apostle James, In many things we of∣fend Page  [unnumbered] all: And finally with the Apostle Paul. VVe know that the Law is Spiritual, but I am Carnal, and sold under Sin — O VVretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death? That thou mayst also with the same Apostle, bein ase, to say and sing, to the Commendation of his Grace, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, is the Cordial desire of

Thy Servant in the Gospel for Christs sake.