Quàm malè conueniunt vas aureum, atrumque venenum! Oh! ingrate, in considerate man! to whom God hath given so good a vessel, and he fills it with so evil sap.1 In a great house there be vessels of honour, and vessels of dishonour; some for better, some for baser uses. The heart is a vessel of honour, sealed, consecrated for a receptacle, for an habitacle of the graces of GOD. Shall we take the member of Christ, 2and make it an harlots; the vessel of God, & make it Satan's? did God infuse into us so noble a part, & shall we infuse into it such ignoble stuff? was fraud, falsehood, malice, mischief, adultery, idolatry, variance, variableness ordained for the heart, or the heart for them? when the seat of holiness is become the seat of hollowness: the house of innocence, the house of impudence: the place of love, the place of lust: the vessel of piety, the vessel of pravity: the throne of God, the court of Satan; the heart is become rather a Jelly, then an heart. Wherein there is a tumultuous, promiscuous, turbulent throng, heaped and amazed together, like a wine-drawers stomach; full of Dutch, French, Spanish, Greek, and many country wines; envy, lust, treason, ambition, avarice, fraud, hypocrisy obsessing it, and by long tenure pleading prescription: that custom, being a second nature, the heart hath lost the name of heart, and is become the nature of that it holds, a lump of evil.
Quàm malè conueniunt vas aureum, atrumque venenum! Oh! ingrate, in considerate man! to whom God hath giuen so good a vessell, and hee filles it with so euill sappe.1 In a great house there be vessels of honour, and vessels of dishonour; some for better, some for baser vses. The heart is a vessell of honour, sealed, consecrated for a receptacle, for an habitacle of the graces of GOD. Shall wee take the member of Christ, 2and make it an harlots; the vessell of God, & make it Satans? did God infuse into vs so noble a part, & shal we infuse into it such ignoble stuffe? was fraud, falshood, malice, mischiefe, adultery, idolatry, variance, variablenes ordayned for the heart, or the heart for them? when the seat of holinesse is become the seate of hollownesse: the house of innocence, the house of impudence: the place of loue, the place of lust: the vessell of piety, the vessell of prauity: the throne of God, the court of Satan; the heart is become rather a Ielly, then an heart. Wherein there is a tumultuous, promiscuous, turbulent throng, heap'd and amaz'd together, like a wine-drawers stomacke; full of Dutch, French, Spanish, Greeke, and many country wines; enuy, lust, treason, ambition, auarice, fraud, hypocrisie obsessing it, and by long tenure pleading prescription: that custome, being a second nature, the heart hath lost the name of heart, and is become the nature of that it holds, a lumpe of euill.
- 12. Tim. 2. 20.
- 21. Cor. 6. 15.
