God's choice of eminent Persons to be exemplary to all others. [ LIV]
WHen God is disposed to hang up a Picture in his Church,* 1.1 to be well obser∣ved of all that shall come after,* 1.2 that the people which shall be born may praise the Lord, he doth it not by limming and painting, but by the art of cutting and embroyderie: For, the Painter deales but in colours, ordinary colours, which, according to the strength of his imagination, he tempers, and laies out to the view of the eye; but the Embroiderer, he deals in more costly matter, takes the cloth of gold and silver, which he mangles into a thousand pieces, bits, and frag∣ments, to frame and set out his curious Imagery. So Almighty God being to adorn his Church, not with blocks and stones, but with some rare pictures of Christian vertues, works not these in ordinary colours, men of low degree; but in gold and silver, men of eminency, Princes, and Nobles, and great Estates. Abraham,* 1.3 a great, rich, and mighty man, a Patriarck of his Country, was first tempted in his son,* 1.4 and then set up for an example of obedience. Moses, another Prince and Po∣tentate, was first afflicted in Egypt, and then erected in the Church for an image of meeknesse. David, a King, first persecuted by Saul, and then accounted a statue of uprightnesse. Iob, the greatest man in all the East, was, and many others since him, have been pull'd in pieces with a thousand miseries, but in the latter end shall be blessed up, as patterns of patience and princely resolution. These are such as God first mangles, and cuts into bits and pieces, with crosses, calamities, and deep temptations; but afterwards, when he finds them supplied and humbled with sorrow and repentance, he makes up again into most heavenly and angelicall forms and images, to be looked on by us, in the Church Militant, and to look upon Him in the Church Triumphant.