Mount Tabor. Or Private exercises of a penitent sinner Serving for a daily practice of the life of faith, reduced to speciall heads comprehending the chiefe comforts and refreshings of true Christians: also certain occasionall observations and meditations profitably applyed. Written in the time of a voluntary retrait from secular affaires. By R.W. Esquire. Published in the yeare of his age 75. Anno Dom. 1639. The contents of the booke are prefixed.

12. Ʋpon a pedegree seene in a Noble-mans house.

LVmley Castle in the Countie Palatine of Duresme, was built by that noble and worthy Lord, John Lord Lumley, after the man∣ner of some Castles hee had ob∣served in his travailes beyond the seas; with two faire passages in∣to it, up two paire of staires, large but short, both standing the one over against the other, at the lo∣wer end of the Hall; all the rest of the maine roomes being of the same floare equall with the Hall: the most eminent roome whereof at the upper end of the Hall, (be∣ing the great Chamber) was a∣dorned with the pictures of all the Barons of that family in their robes at full length, beginning with

the first, who was set forth knee∣ling before King Richard the se∣cond, and receiving his Writ or Patent of creation at his hands, and so from one to another, to that Noble-man himselfe that built the house; with the picture also of his Lordships sonne and heire ap∣parent, then a young man with a Hawke on his fist. In that faire chamber, at the upper end of it▪ in a Bay window, I observed a long Table hanging, fitting the one end of the window, contai∣ning a faire written or painted Pe∣degree, setting out not onely how the Barons of that house succee∣ded one another, but also how the first Baron was lineally descen∣ded from Adam himselfe. But hee that lived to build the house, and to adorne it with such Mo∣numents of Noble Ancestors, from so high a descent as the very Cre∣ation of the World, and having a sonne then living like to have succeeded him in the Barronie,

dyed himselfe childlesse in Queen Elizabeths time, and so the Barony dyed with him, and there was no Lord Lumley to entertaine King Iames there, at his first comming in∣to England upon her Majesties de∣cease, and so that pedegree which (I know not by what heraldry) brought that worthy nobleman by many ge∣nerations of Kings and Queenes and other famous ancestors, by a lineall descent from Adam himself, could not deduce it one descent fur∣ther, but it ends in him for whose honour it selfe was devised. And that noble Lord when he was at the highest of the pedegree, what could hee finde there of Nobility by it; when the meanest scullion o•• his kitchin, and the poorest cripple at his gates, were therby made their Lords Kinsmen, being all Adams children as well as himselfe! And what pitch of honour had he gotten from that common ancestor of al mankind, but (what we, all his posterity, by wo∣full experience finde to bee pitch in∣deed)

the guilt and infection of sin, and the fruit of it death? Objects proper for shame, sorrow and humi∣liation; no way for honour or vain∣glory: Adam himselfe being made but of red earth, and he and his po∣sterity to returne to earth againe.

O most blessed Lord God, blessed and magnified be thy most holy and glorious name, who after many ge∣nerations hast raised up a mighty sal∣vation for us in the Lord Iesus the second Adam, sonne of thy servant David according to the flesh as thou didest speake by the mouth of all thy holy Prophets which have beene since the world began, by whom we have redemption and deliverance from the guilt and punishment ••f the first Adams rebellion, and from all the power and malice of that old wily serpent, who overthrew him in the terrestriall paradise, and are by the blessed promised seed of the wo∣man, the Lord our righteousnesse, God manifested in the flesh for our redemption, restored to a better in∣heritance,

even the Paradise of God, his owne heavenly Kingdome. Let all the Monarchs and States of the world fall downe before thy glori∣ous foot-stoole (O most blessed Lord and Saviour) and worship and rejoyce in thee, the only God of our salvation, and let no man glory in the antiquitie of his no∣ble ancestors; for no man can goe higher then the Lord Lumleys Pe∣degree. But let every true Chri∣stian, (how meane soever or wretched here, and though by na∣ture in the first Adam a child of wrath and perdition) lift up his head with joy unspeakable and glorious; being in and by this second Adam our blessed Saviour and his holy Spirit by adoption and grace, made the child of the most High, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and thereby become truly noble indeed. And let all the Potentates of the earth aspire to this spirituall honour by re∣generation in CHRIST, then to all the pompe and glories of a

thousand worlds, with the good Emperour Theodosius, who thank∣ed GOD more for his being made a member of CHRIST, then the Emberour of the world, for the best and noblest nature amongst the chil∣dren of men, brings forth nothing but corruption; onely grace makes truly noble and everlastingly happy.