A20559:403
The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A…
The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A familiar and learned exposition on the ten commandments gathered from the mouth of a faithful pastor by a gracious young man, sometime scholar in Cambridge.The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A familiar and learned exposition on the ten commandements gathered from the mouth of a faithfull pastor by a gracious young man, sometime scholler in Cambridge.
London: printed by John Harison for Thomas Man, 1603London: printed by Iohn Harison for Thomas Man, 1603
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
for he that will relieve and retain such an one, that he knows is an enemy to God, must needs open his doors to the curse of ⟨p. 16⟩God. So that if one would not have the curse of God to rest upon his house, nor unfaithfulness in his servants, nor his house poisoned with that leprosy, which, only the blood of Christ can heal, let him take good advice in choosing his servants, and in planting his family.
for he that will relieue and retaine such an one, that he knowes is an enemie to God, must needs open his doores to the curse of ⟨p. 16⟩God. So that if one would not haue the curse of God to rest vpon his house, nor vnfaithfulnes in his seruants, nor his house poysoned with that leprosie, which, onely the blood of Christ can heale, let him take good aduice in chosing his seruants, and in planting his family.
And thus wisely men can deal for other matters, for he that purposeth to plant him a good orchard, will not run to every hedge and every grove, and all the bramble bushes he can see, and thence take him plants for his orchard; but if he hope for any benefit by his orchard, he will make provision for the best grafts and sciences he can get, and those will he set in his orchard, and so he hopes it may hereafter turn him to good profit. But if one would say, why I hope, and I look to have as fruitful and commodious an orchard as any man in the parish; but what doth he in the mean while, what course takes he in planting it, why hairs a brier & there is a crabtree, and there a thorn; these be all the plants he looks for, and hence he cuts all his sciences; why then it is plain he doth but dissemble, he is not in good earnest. So for those that be sheepemasters and hope for commodity that way, they will enquire and mark out of what ground, the sheep they purpose to buy come, where they were bred, & if they were bred in a rotten ground, especially if they have a rotten bleak too, he will not put them in his fold, nor let them come among the rest, least they should be all infected. Will one deal thus for his orchard, and for his sheep, and should he not consider likewise in planting his family? When he takes a servant into his fold, out of what pasture comes he? hath he been brought up in a rotten ground? In a place of disorder of riot, of swearing of breaking the Sabbath, and such like? and hath he a rotten bleak? will swear, will he lye, will he speak filthily, doth he look like a swaggerer, and like a ruffian? and will you venture on yet? then you are a foolish master, and love neither your self, nor your house, nor children, if you take such unto them, that will either infect them if they be not very good, or if they be, will vex and molest them.