Mr. Bolton's last and learned work of the four last things death, judgement, hell,…Mr. Boltons last and learned worke of the foure last things death, iudgement, hell,…

First, there is a plant in the nurseries of literature of great expectation and hope: which being watered, and warmed at the well-heads of Academical learning, and with the fruitful heat of Polemical exercises and agitations in the Schools, wherein the true worth and excellency of a Scholar consists, grows ripe and becomes remarkable; so that he hears after him in the streets a secret murmuring: This is the man: Dignum est monstrarier & dicier Hic est: Now by this time he begins ⟨p. 182⟩to reflect with the eye of self-love, and many vain-glorious glances upon his personal worth and public applause: and then casts about what course to take. GODS principle and path is: It is better to be good, than great; religious, than rich: And therefore He would have him employ and improve all his natural and acquired endowments, all the powers and possibilities of body and soul upon His glory and service that gave them, and where they are more than infinitely due. And that when the good hand of divine providence shall bring him to any place for the exercise of his gifts and ministerial employment, he would there spend himself (like a shining and burning lamp) in the illumination and salvation of GODS people: and so hereafter shine as the brightness of the firmament in the highest heavens, and as the stars forever and ever. Nay, (says the Devil) that's a sour, strict, precise way: It is not meet, that such admired eminency of learned parts should be confined to such obscurity, that such rare gifts and depth of knowledge should be lost upon high shoes, and amongst a number of rude, ignorant, and uncapable clowns: and therefore he labours to raise his spirit to higher hopes: and would have him plunge presently into the current of the times, and become somebody in the world. Hereupon (his heart already ravished with the pleasing apprehension of worldly glory and humane greatness, represented by Satan in the most alluring forms to his ambitious imagination) he resolves fearfully against his own soul, to follow ⟨p. 183⟩the stream, to ply the present, and plot all means and ways of preferment: after which ordinarily every step towards an high room, or to be hastily rich, is a snare and curse unto him: and therefore at the height, he must needs be holden fast in the clutches of Satan.

First, there is a plant in the nurceries of literature of great expectation and hope: which being watered, and warmed at the well-heads of Academicall learning, and with the fruitfull heat of Polemicall exercises and agitations in the Schooles, wherein the true worth and excellency of a Scholler consists, growes ripe and becomes remarkable; so that he heares after him in the streets a secret murmuring: This is the man: Dignum est monstrarier & dicier Hic est: Now by this time he begins