A00888:96
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.…
The devils banquet described in four sermons [brace], 1. The banquet propounded, begun, 2. The second service, 3. The breaking up of the feast, 4. The shot or reckoning, [and] The sinners passing-bell, together with Physic from heaven / published by Thomas Adams ...The deuills banket described in foure sermons [brace], 1. The banket propounded, begunne, 2. The second seruice, 3. The breaking vp of the feast, 4. The shot or reckoning, [and] The sinners passing-bell, together with Phisicke from heauen / published by Thomas Adams ...
London: printed by Thomas Snodham for Ralph Mab, 1614
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The manners of the Heathen might justify, and exemplarily make good that verse: Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata. We hunt for things unlawful with swift feet, As if forbidden joys were only sweet. But such a report among Christians is so strange, that (fictum, non factum esse videatur) it would seem rather a fable then a fact, a tale then a deed. Publish it •ot in Gath, 1nor tell it in the streets of Askelon, that any Israelite should the more desperately cleave to Baal, because Elijah hath cursed it. There are none such; neither is there Rain in the Clouds: Indeed Charity would not believe it: for it is even the order of Nature, that (tarda sole• magnis rebus adesse fides) slow faith is given to great reports: but alas, we are forced to see, (what we would not believe) such refractary Recusants to all Christianity, l•uing and speaking, [Greek or Hebrew], according to their own lusts, that would not be so ill, if they had not been taught to be better:2 quibus res divinae lusus sunt, ijs & voluptas pro vita, & libido pro ratione est. They that play with Divinity, and make Religion a mock, guide their Life by Pleasure, and their Reason by Lust. Time was, the Kingdom of Heaven suffered violence, 3and men took it by strong hand, now it offers violence, and men by strong hand repel it: before it was so precious, that every man pressed (and crowded) into it, 4now it presseth upon us, and we are glad to be rid of it, (as Covetousness of poverty at his door.) And as the fountains would not be so cold, if the Sun had not heated the air, and forced the contrary quality into such abstruse corners; many would have been less outrageous ⟨p. 45⟩in their filthiness, is the Gospel of Grace, had not so universally spread his beams: Their whole life is a continual prevarication; and it is the cordial Physic to fat their spleens, that they can be cross to God.