MEDITATIONS ON THE TIMES.

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I. NAME-GENERAL.

BER had a son born in the days when the earth was divided.* Conceive we it just after the confusion of tongues, when mankind was parcelled out into several colonies. Wherefore Eber, to perpetuate the memory of so famous an accident happening at the birth of his son, called him Peleg, which in the Hebrew tongue signifieth partition, or division.

We live in a land and age of dissension. Counties, cities, towns, villages, families, all divided in opinions, in affections. Each man almost divided from himself, with fears and distractions. Of all the children born in England within these last five years, and brought to the font (or, if that displease, to the bason) to be baptised, every male may be called Peleg, and female Palgah, in the sad memorial of the time of their nativity.

* Gen. x. 25.

B

II. WOFUL WEALTH.

ARBAROUS is the custom of some English people on the seaside to prey on the goods of poor shipwrecked merchants. But more devilish in their design, who make false fires to undirect seamen in a tempest, that thereby from the right road they may be misled into danger and destruction.

England hath been tossed with a hurricane of a civil war. Some men are said to have gotten great wealth thereby. But it is an ill leap when men grow rich per saltum, taking their rise from the miseries of a land, to which their own sins have contributed their share. Those are far worse (and may not such be found?) who, by cunning insinuations, and false glossings, have, in these dangerous days, trained and betrayed simple men into mischief.

every

Can their pelf prosper, not got by valour or industry, but deceit? surely it cannot be wholesome, when morsel of their meat is mummy (good physic but bad food), made of the corses of men's estates. Nor will it prove happy, it being to be feared, that such who have been enriched with other men's ruins will be ruined by their own riches. The child of ten years is old enough to remember the beginning of such men's wealth, and the man of threescore and ten is young enough to see the ending thereof.

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III. A NEW PLOT.

HEN Herod had beheaded John the Baptist some might expect that his disciples would have done some great matter in revenge of their master's death. But see how they behave themselves. And his disciples came and took up the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus. And was this all? and what was all this? poor men, it was some solace to their sorrowful souls that they might lament their loss to a fast friend, who, though for the present unable to help, was willing to pity them.

Alas,

Hast thou thy body unjustly imprisoned, or thy goods violently detained, or thy credit causelessly defamed? I have a design whereby thou shalt revenge thyself, even go and tell Jesus. Make to

him a plain and true report of the manner and measure of thy sufferings: especially there being a great difference betwixt Jesus then clouded in the flesh, and Jesus now shining in glory, having now as much pity and more power to redress thy grievances. I know it is counted but a cowardly trick for boys, when beaten but by their equals, to cry that they will tell their father. But, during the present necessity, it is both the best wisdom and valour, even to complain to thy Father in heaven, who will take thy case into his serious consideration.

IV. PROVIDENCE.

ARVELLOUS is God's goodness in pre

serving the young ostriches. For the old one leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, forgetting that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. * But divine providence so disposeth it, that the bare nest hatcheth the eggs, and the warmth of the sandy ground discloseth them.

Many parents, which otherwise would have been loving pelicans, are by these unnatural wars forced to be ostriches to their own children, leaving them to the narrow mercy of the wide world. I am confident that these orphans (so may I call them whilst their parents are alive) shall be comfortably provided for, when worthy master Samuel Hern, famous for his living, preaching, and writing, lay on his death-bed (rich only in goodness and children), his wife made much womanish lamentation, what should hereafter become of her little ones: Peace, sweet heart, said he, that God who feedeth the ravens will not starve the Herns. + A speech censured as light by some, observed by others as prophetical, as, indeed, it came to pass, that they were well disposed of. Despair not, therefore, O thou parent, of God's blessing, for having many of his blessings, a numerous offspring. But depend on his providence for their maintenance: find thou but faith to believe it, he will find means to effect it.

*Job xxxix. 14, 15.

+ Psalm cxlvii.

V. COALS FOR FAGOT.

N the days of king Edward the Sixth, when Bonner was kept in prison, reverend Ridley having his bishopric of London, would never go to dinner at Fulham without the company of Bonner's mother and sister;† the former always sitting in a chair at the upper end of the table; these guests were as constant as bread and salt at the board, no meal could be made without them.

O the meekness and mildness of such men as must make martyrs! Active charity always goes along with passive obedience.

How many ministers' wives and children nowadays are outed of house and home, ready to be starved! How few are invited to their tables who hold the sequestrations of their husbands' or fathers' benefices! Yea, many of them are so far from being bountiful, that they are not just, denying or detaining from those poor souls that pittance which the parliament hath allotted for their maintenance.

VI. FUGITIVES OVERTAKEN.

HE city of Geneva is seated in the marches

Tof several dominions, France, Savoy, Swit

zerland; now it is a fundamental law in that signiory, to give free access to all offenders, yet so as to punish their offence according to the

* Prov. xxv. 22. + Fox's Martyrol. vol. iii. p. 432.