A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

;34 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGwherein ye trust, and whereof ye boast, but as Israel inEgypt, of a broken reed. Consider that like sins will havelike ends ; that God is to-day, and yesterday, and the samefor ever ; that the pride and cruelty, oppression and luxuryof these times, have no greater privilege than those of theformer. But when for a while you have domineered far andnear, had wha.t you would, and done what you pleased ;dispeOi,led parishes and plains for your orchards and walks ;pulled down many houses to set one up, from betweenwhose battlements and turrets at the top you can see no end ofyour meadows, your fields, and your lands, the measuringwhereof, as the poet speaks, would weary the very wings ofthe kite ; when the train of your dependents hath been toolong for the street, and your bare respect hath shook the hatfrom the head, and bent the knee afar off; when you haveclapped whole manors on your backs, or turned them downyour throats ; when you have scoured the plains with yourhorses, the fields and woods with your hounds, and the heavenwith your hawks; when with pheasants' tongues youhave furnished whole feasts, and with the queen of Egyptdrunk dissolved pearls, even fifty thousand pounds at adraught, and then laid your head in Dalilah's lap ; when, ifit were possible, you have spent your whole lives in all thatroyal pomp and pleasure which that most magnificent kingand queen did (Esther i) for a hundred and fourscore daysin a word, when you wallowed in all delights and stood inpleasures up to the chin; — then, even then, the pit isdigged, and death, of whom you dream not, stands at thedoor. Where are you now, or what is to be done? Comedown, saith Death, from your pleasant prospects; alightfrom your jades ; hoed your kites ; couple up your curs ; bidadieu to pleasure ; out of your beds of lust ; come nakedforth, and descend with me to the chambers of death.Make your beds in the dust, and lay down your cold carcassesamong the stones of the pit at the roots of the rocks.And you, great and delicate dames, who are so weariedwith pleasure that you cannot rise time enough to dressyour heads and do all your tricks against dinner ; to washyour bodies with musk, and daub your faces with vermilionand chalk ; to make ready your pleasant baits to poisonmen's eyes and their souls; you painted Jezebels, think younow you are fit company for men? Nay, come headlongdown to the dogs. If not suddenly so, yet dispatch, andput off your cauls, ear-rings, and round tires ;your chains,bra^-^elets, and mufflers ;your rings, wimples, and crispingpins ; your hoods, veils, and changeable suits ;your glasses,fine linen, with all your mundits muliebris (Isa, iii, 16) ; and