[S1E7] The Miserable Mill: Part One

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[S1E7] The Miserable Mill: Part One

From this glimpse of reason did those Philosophers the sonnes of Nature (how much more should we the Sons of the free women?) attribute libertie and a Kingdome to their Wise man. Saint Paul more fully, Iusto non est lex posita. Saint Ambrose laden with the spoiles of these Egyptians, therewith adornes the Christian Tabernacle. He is a free man saith he, which doth Epictetus. [...], &c. [...] may be said of a good man, and his affections as Virgil of Augustus, Victorque volentes, Per populos dat iura vtamque affectat Olympo. Ep [...]ct. [...], &c. Subducit se custodiae in qua tenetur & Coelo reficitur. Sen. Ioh. 14.23. Gal. 2.2.20. Ioh. 6. Cant. 1. Bern. in Cant. 21 Sat [...]s est vt me trahas vt vim qualiter comque mihi aut terrendo, &c. trahe quodammodo in vita [...] vt fa [...]ias voluntariam; trabe, torpentem vt reddas currentem, &c. Pro. 16 32. Suis ea cuique fing [...]ur moribus Ci [...]. par. 5. 1. Cor. 7.3 [...]. Ps. 62. Iob. 24. what he w [...]ll, 20 b and liues as he pleaseth, nor can be forced to any thing: now the wise man wils that which is good, hates the euill; not for feare but for loue, obeieth the commandement; seekes not to please the vncertaine vulgar, but his minde hangs euenly in the ballance poized with the sheckle of the sanctuary; not forced by Law, but he is la [...] to himselfe, and hath the same written not in tables of stone, but in fleshie tables of the heart,; not fearing the Law, because his debts are acquitted, and cannot therefore be arrested; not seruant to any, yet making himselfe the seruant of all, for their good; whose seruice to God doth not consume but consummate his libertie, for Gods seruice is perfect freedome; to whom when all things are lawfull, yet nothing is lawfull that is not expedient, that edifies not; who abides founded and grounded on Christ the rocke, and therefore feares not the swelling waues, nor raging windes, fluctuates not with euery blast of doctrine: is not puffed with prosperity, 30 deiected with aduersity, but like Ioseph (which bought those that bought him, euen all the land of Egypt besides, for Pharao, after himself had bin sold for a slaue) abides himself in whatsoeuer changes of fate and state. He hath subordinated his will to Gods will, and if hee will haue him doe or suffer any thing, possesse or loose either himselfe or ought he hath, it shall be his will also. This made Iob abide himselfe, when he was shaken, and as it were thunderstricken out of all at once: yea, by a sacred antiperistasis he ga [...]hered his spirits together and not onely not blasphemed, but blessed; then and therefore blessed God, who is no lesse good in taking then in giuing, who hath loued vs and giuen himselfe for vs, before he takes ought from vs, yea therefore takes this that he might giue that (both himselfe and our selfe) to vs. He that looseth his life findes it, and hee that denieth himselfe and his owne will, pu [...] off the chaines of his bondage, the slauery to innumerable 40 tyrants, impious lusts, and is thus a free man indeede, freed from the diuell, the world, himselfe, breathing the free ayre of heauen in the lowest and darkest dungeon, yea in the closest of prisons (his owne body) closely by contemplation conue [...]es himselfe forth to fetch often walkes in the Paradise of God. Once, he loues Christ, hee liues Christ, and therefore cannot be compelled by another, will not be compelled and mastered by Himselfe, longs to be more and more impelled by that Spirit (which sweetly forceth into the desired hauen) and to be drawne by the Father that he may be enabled to follow the Sonne, with whom he is vnable to hold pace; and fearing because he loues, thus desires helpe, that (be it by stripes, or threates, or other tentations) his feete may be made more sure, more swift. He feares God, and therefore feares nothing. And whereas hee that committeth sinne is the seruant of sinne, he is thus not onely set free by Christ, but more highly 50 dignified and made a King and Priest to God. He daily sacrificeth praiers, praises, good workes, his owne liuing body in reasonable seruice, not the bodies of dead and vnreasonable beasts; hath alway the doore of the heauenly pallace, the eare of the heauenly King open to his intercessions. He is also a King ouer himselfe (a little world, a great conquest) ouer Fortune the magnified Lady of the greater World (which he frames to his owne manners; and if he cannot bend it to h [...]s will, knowes how to bend his will to it) ouer the Diuell, the God of the World; ouer Death, which hee makes (as Sapores did the Roman tyrant Valerian, and Tamerlane the T [...]rkish Baiazeth) his footstoole, or stirrop to mount vp to a higher and better life, and like Dauid cuts off the head of this Gyant (which hath defied all the armie of Mankinde) with his owne sword: hee is (a King) ouer the world, which he neither loues (for his heart and treasure is in heauen) nor feares (for what can 60 it doe at the worst, but further his heauenly happinesse) nor fashions himselfe to it, but it to himselfe, vsing it as not vsing it, not setting his heart on it, for the fashion of this world passeth away, as a Scene, where he but acts a while his part; and a strange Country thorow which he trauelleth to his true home; where his King is gone before to prepare a place for him, and leauing the earnest of his spirit with vs, hath taken our earnest, our flesh, there to take possession, to make intercession [Page 12] in the presence of God for vs. Our Head is there already which cannot so farre degenerate as to neglect his body, the reall and liuing parts of Himselfe, the fulnesse of him that fils all in all things: Eph. 1. vlt. Pro. 14.17. Lips. Manuduct. li. 2. d. 1 [...]. [...] Laert. in Zen [...]reguum potestas nulli obnoxia. This Kingdome is not meate and drinke, pompe and splendor, and much lesse intruding into the secrets, obtruding on the scepters of their soueraignes, but righteousnesse, peace, and ioy in the holy Ghost, which the Philosophers knew not, and whatsoeuer they haue challenged (as à Ratione Reges) yet in comparison of true Christian [...] they were but as Kings in a Play (as Plutarch said of the Stoickes) which talked, stalked, walked on their Stage, and acted that part which in deede and in spirituall right is our reall part and inheritance. And if a Kingdome be a power subiect to none, then euery true Christian is a King (not in Anabaptisticall phrensie to cast off all yoakes of loyalty, to cast out all States and Royaltie, and like their Iohn of Leyden to make himselfe a licentious Monarch, pressed downe meane while with so many enuies, vices, miseries, but) in this, that pectore 10 magno, Spemque metumque domat, vicio sublimior omni, Exemptus fatis: in that he obeieth his soueraigne not so much of his slauish feare, as because he loues him, and loues that God which hath giuen him soueraignty, and therefore as to the liuing image of God yeeldes obedience to him, not grudgingly or of necessitie but cheerefully, and with a willing heart, making his superiours will to be his owne (because it is Gods) will. And if he commands that which he findes countermanded by the highest Law,Senec. he rebels not, reuiles not, Rex est qui posuit metus, Et diri mala pectoris, where he cannot be willing to doe, he will yet be willing to suffer the will of his soueraigne, Occurritque suo libens Fato, nec queritur mori. Thus is this man spiritually a King and Infra se videt omnia, beholds all things beneath him, by suffering, ouercomming; by obeying, ruling, himselfe if not others. In this sence Christ saith of the Church of Smyrna, I know thy pouerty, but thou art 20 rich: Apoc. 2. & 3. Act. 3. and of the Laodiceans which esteemed themselues rich, encreased with goods, and needing nothing, that they were wretched, and miserable, and poore, and blinde, and naked. Siluer and Gold haue I none, said that rich Apostle, whose pretended successours, out of a will to be rich, haue fallen into tentation, and a snare, and many foolish and noisome lusts: For the loue of money is the roote of all euill, which while these couet after, Tim. 6. they haue erred from the faith: and instead of Apostolical, haue proued Apostaticall, with Babylonicall mysteries confounding things spirituall and externall, enclosing all the commons of the Church and the Spirit, to the onely vse of the Vatican; and then with the spoile of all Christians This spirituall man must iudge all, and be iudged of none, vsurping the rights of, and right ouer Kings, not considering the diuersity of these tenures.30 041b061a72