The excellency of a gracious spirit Delivered in a treatise upon the 14. of…The excellency of a gracious spirit Deliuered in a treatise upon the 14. of…

excited to look about thee, if false. Art thou endued with such a spirit as here thou mayest find? nothing in the world, in hell, or in thy flesh, shall be able to conquer thee; as Christ himself, thou shalt endure such crosses and contradiction of sinners, as these times are big with; thou shalt despise the shame, and be able to resist to blood, if God should call thee to that honour. What excellency of spirit was in S. Paul, when ¹he took it ill that they dissuaded him from going up to Jerusalem, where he was to meet with sharp afflictions; What mean you to weep and break my heart, saith he, for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus. Moses refuses to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; though himself, or some of his posterity might happily have come to the Kingdom by it, and chooses afflictions rather with the people of God, &c. He would not become an Egyptian, though of ²the Royal Stem; but abide an Hebrew, who were abomination to the Egyptians: He knew, that the reproach of the Members did redound to the Head, and would be well recompensed by him; and therefore he will suffer afflictions, and esteem the reproaches of Christ above all the treasures of Egypt, a greater patrimony, saith Ambrose. So base are many spirits in this age, that they had rather censure than trace his practice. Scaliger tells of a Tree, to which when ³a man cometh, Ramos constringit; but when he ⟨image 7⟩departs, ramos p•dit: Too many are like this tree; when any Ministers or Christians, that have the reproach of Christ upon them, come near them, and have to deal with them; let relations, promises, engagements be what they will, they shrink up themselves, are troubled, sadded, and perplexed, thinking it disgrace unto them to have to do with such; but when they are gone, then their hearts dilate again, & their faces grow pleasant: such an adulterous generation there is, that are ashamed, of Christ in any of his poor, reproached, despised Members; & not only ashamed, but like that Plant called the Tartarean Lamb, which in shape and proportion answers the Lamb, but grazeth and eateth up the grass round about it, suffering no green thing to be near: and these men are Lambs in shape, but eating up every green thing that is near unto them.