The devils banquet described in four sermons [brace], 1. The banquet propounded, begun, 2.…The deuills banket described in foure sermons [brace], 1. The banket propounded, begunne, 2.…

1. The first box is mentioned. Ecclus. 38. ^aThe Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them. God hath not scanted earth of drugs and minerals, the simples of Physic for such as tread on it. And howsoever our vanity in health transport our thoughts, earth hath no more precious thing in it, then (as sustenance to preserve, so) medicine to restore us. You that have digged into the entrails of the dead earth, and not spared the bowels of the living earth, the poor, for riches: You that have set that at your heart, which was cast down at the ^bApostles feet, Money; as fit only for sanctified men to tread upon in contempt: You that have neglected heaven, which God hath made your more glorious feeling, and richly stuck it, like a bright Canopy, with burning lights; and doted on your pavement, made only for your feet to tread upon; fixing your eyes and thoughts on that, which God hath indisposed to be your object: for mans countenance is erect, lessoning his soul to a just and holy aspiration: You that have put so fair for the Philosophers stone, that you have endeavoured to sublimate it out of poor mens bones, ground to powder by ⟨p. 316⟩your oppressions: You that have buried your Gods, so soon as you had found them out, as Rachel did Labans in the Litter, and sit down with rest on them, saying to the Wedge, ^cThou ar• my confidence. When your heads ache, dissolve your gold, and •rinke it; wallow your crazy carcass in your silver; wrap it in perfumes and silks, and try what ease it will afford you. Will not a silly and contemptible weed, prepared by a skilful Physician give you more comfort? Doth not the common air, which you receive in, and breath out again, refresh you better? How eager are our desires of superfluities, how neglectful of necessaries? This box of treasures hath God given us, and endued some with knowledge to minister them; least our ignorance might not rather prejudice, the• succour our healths. No Physician then cures of himself; no more then the hand feeds the mouth. The meat doth the one, the medicine doth the other; though the Physician and the hand be unspared instruments to their several purposes. Thus God relieves our health rom the Box of Nature.