MIXT CONTEMPLATIONS ON

THESE TIMES.

I. PLAY AN AFTER-GAME.

Wore Jerusalem, Neh. ii. 12: Next unto

E read how at the rebuilding of the walls of

him repaired Shallum the son of Halohesh, he and his daughters. Was it woman's work to handle a trowel? Did it consist with the modesty of that sex to clamber scaffolds?

Surely those females did only repair by the proxy of their purses, in which sense Solomon is said to have built the temple.

Our weaker sex hath been overstrong in making and widening the breaches in our English Zion, both by their purses and persuasions. To redeem their credit, let them hereafter be as active in building as heretofore they were in breaking down.

Such wives, who not only lie in the bosoms, but lodge in the affections of loving husbands, who are empowered with places of command, joining IMPORTUNITY to their OPPORTUNITY, may be marvellously instrumental to the happiness of our nation.

We read of Ahab, 1 Kings, xxi. 25, that none was like him, who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. By the same proportion that person will prove peerless in piety, who hath a godly consort in his bosom, seasonably to incite him, who is so forward in himself to all honourable actions.

WE

II. MIRACULOUS CURE.

E read, Luke xiii. 11, of a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in nowise lift up herself. This woman may pass for the lively emblem of the English nation; from the year of our Lord 1642 (when our wars first began) unto this present 1660, are eighteen years in my arithmetic; all which time our land hath been bowed together, past possibility of standing upright.

Some will say that the weight of heavy taxes have caused this crookedness. But alas! this is the least and lightest of all things I reflect at in this allusion. It is chiefly the weight of our sins, Heb. xii. 1, which doth so easily beset us. Our mutual malice and animosities which have caused this incurvation.

A pitiful posture wherein the face is made to touch the feet, and the back is set above the head. God in due time set us right, and keep us right, that the head may be in its proper place. Next the neck of the nobility, then the breast of the gentry, the loins of the merchants and citizens,

the thighs of the yeomanry, the legs and feet of artificers and day-labourers. As for the clergy (here by me purposely omitted) what place soever shall be assigned them; if low, God grant patience; if high, give humility unto them.

When thus our land in God's leisure shall be restored to its former rectitude, and set upright again, then I hope she may leave off her steel bodies, which have galled her with wearing them so long, and return again to her peaceable condition.

IT

III. HAND ON MOUTH.

T is said, Gen. vi. 11, how before the flood the earth was filled with violence. Some will say, with Nicodemus, How can these things be; violence being relative, and requiring a counterpart. Though such tyrants were hammers, others must be patient anvils for them to smite upon. Such persons, purely passive in oppression, were to be pitied, not punished; to be delivered, not drowned in the flood.

But the answer is easy, seeing we read in the same chapter, ver. 5, that God saw that the imaginations of the thoughts of man was only evil continually. God plainly perceived that the sufferers of violence would have been offerers of it, if empowered with might equal to their malice. Their cursedness was as sharp, though their horns were not so long; and what they lacked in deed and actions, they made up in desires and endeavours. So that in sending a general deluge

over all, God was clearly just, and men justly miserable.

Let such Englishmen who have been of the depressed party during our civil wars, enter into a scrutiny and serious search of their own souls, whether or no (if armed with power) they would not have laid as great load on others as themselves underwent. Yea, let them out of a godly jealousy suspect more cruelty in themselves than they can conceive. Then will they find just cause to take the blame and shame on themselves, and give God the glory that he hath not drowned all in a general deluge of destruction.

A

IV. AT LAST.

LADY of quality, formerly forward to promote our civil wars, and whose well intending zeal had sent in all her plate to Guildhall, was earnestly discoursing with a divine concerning these times, a little before dinner; her face respecting the cupboard in the room, which was furnished with plenty of pure Venice glasses: "Now," said she, "I plainly perceive, that I and many of my judgment have been abused with the specious pretences of liberty and religion, till in the indiscreet pursuance thereof we are almost fallen into slavery and atheism."

To whom the other, betwixt jest and earnest, replied: 'Madam, it is no wonder that now your eyes are opened; for so long as this cupboard was full of thick and massy plate, you could