The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

1. One would think that worldliness is a disease that carrieth with it a cure for it self; and that the rational nature should be loth to love at so dear a rate, and to labour for so poor a recompense. It is pity that Gehezi's leprosy, and Judas's death, should no more prevent a succession of Gehezi's and Judas's in all generations. Our Lord went before us most eminently in a contempt of earth: His Kingdom was not of this world. No men are more unlike him than the worldlings. I know necessity is the pretence: But it is the dropsy of Covetousness that causeth the thirst which they call Necessity: And therefore the cure is non addere opi•us, sed imminuere cupiditatem: The disease must not be fed but healed. Sa•s est divitiarum non amplius velle. It hath lately been a controversy, whether this be not the golden age? that it is aetas ferrea we have felt; our demonstrations are undeniable: that it is aetas aurata, we have sufficient proof: and while gold is the god that rules the most, we will not deny it to be aetas aurea, in the Poets sense, Aurea nunc vere sunt secula: plurimus auro Vaenit honos: auro conciliatur amor.

1. One would think that worldliness is a disease that carryeth with it a cure for it self; and that the rational nature should be loth to love at so dear a rate, and to labour for so poor a recompence. It is pitty that Gehezi's leprosie, and Judas's death, should no more prevent a succession of Gehezi's and Judas's in all generations. Our Lord went before us most eminently in a contempt of earth: His Kingdom was not of this world. No men are more unlike him than the worldlings. I know necessity is the pretence: But it is the dropsie of Covetousness that causeth the thirst which they call N•c•ssity: And therefore the cure is non addere opi•us, sed imminuere cupiditatem: The disease must not be fed but healed. Sa•s est divitiarum non amplius velle. It hath lately been a controversie, whether this be not the golden age? that it is aetas ferrea we have felt; our demonstrations are undeniable: that it is aetas aurata, we have sufficient proof: and while gold is the god that rules the most, we will not deny it to be aetas aurea, in the Poets sense, Aurea nunc vere sunt secula: plurimus auro Vaenit honos: auro conciliatur amor.