Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...

[ 1795] The Time and place of a Mans spiritual Calling, very uncertain to be known.

HE that is locked up in a dungeon,* 1.1 or otherwise immured within some dark∣some place, can and may easily discover the very moment of time, when either the least beam of the Sun, or glimmer of sky-light shall break in upon him; Whereas on the other side, He that is in the open ayr, is very sensible that the Day is broke, that the Sun is up, but cannot make out any certain ac∣compt of the springing of the one, or rising of the other. Thus it is in the mat∣ter of our spiritual Calling, It is possible that a Man may know the very time and moment, when the day-spring from on high did visite him, when it was the good pleasure of God to dart into his Soul the graces of his blessed Spirit, as in the case of S. Paul, the good Centurion, the Iaylor, the Iewish Converts, and some others;* 1.2 but this is not ordinary, The wind bloweth where it lifteth, (yea, and when it listeth too) even so the Spirit, both time and place uncertain; Some are called at the first hour, that is, in their Infancy or Childhood, as Samuel, Ieremy, and Iohn the Baptist; Some in the third hour, that is, in their youth, as Daniel the Prophet, and Iohn the Evangelist; Others at the sixth hour, in their middle age,* 1.3 as Peter and Andrew; Others at the eleventh hour, in their old age, as Ga∣maliel and Ioseph of Arimathea; And some again not onely in the last hour of the

day, but even in the last minute of that hour, as the Thief upon the Crosse. Again,* 1.4 our Calling is uncertain in respect of place; For God calls some from their Ships, some from their shops, and some from under the hedges,* 1.5 and other some from the Market; so that if a Man can but make out unto his Soul,* 1.6 that he is certainly called, it matters not much for the time when, nor the place where,* 1.7 both of them being so uncertain.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Aelredi Simi∣litud, selectae.
• * 1.2

  Act. 2. 37.
• * 1.3

  ••. Boys Postills.
• * 1.4

  Luke 23.
• * 1.5

  Matth. 4. 15. & 9. 9.
• * 1.6

  Luke 14. 23.
• * 1.7

  Matth. 20 3.