Diary of John Manningham Part 38

Sixth head, similitudes, all evill; it is compared to the dropsy, a disquieting kinde of thirst; to leaches, which sucke till they burst.

[Sidenote: fo. 105^b.]

7. The end, he gathers he knowes not for whom; the reason, mans life consists not in the abundance of riches, 1. Because both when wee came into the world, though wee were naked, yet wee then lived, and before that too. 2. Wee shall carry nothing away with us when we dye, yet our soules shall live. 3. They cannot deliver us from death.

Riches are incertayne, and therefore Eschines compares them to Euripus, which ebbes and flowes oftentymes in a day. An other says they are winged, because the[y] pa.s.se away soe swiftly; and Fortune hir selfe is allways painted upon a wheeling stone, to note the inconstancy of riches; and certaine it is that, at last, yf they part not from us, wee must part from them.

The parable. A riche man, though he be riche, yet he must dye; for he is but a man. G.o.d would have some riche, some poore, for distinction sake, and the mutuall exercise of liberality and patience, whereby the opinion of the Anabaptists is easily confuted, whoe would have all things alike common; _admirabilis concatenatio_ in the order of things and states.

G.o.d made noe miraculous provision for his disciples, therefore there ought to be an ordinary provision for the ministery. As the people love the ministers for their spirituall blessings, soe the ministers love the people for their temporall commodities. The order of professions. 1.

Relligion. 2. Husbandry. 3. Merchandise. 4. Souldiery.

Abuse _in acquirendo, concupiscendo, consumendo_.

The covetous man reasons with himselfe in his bed: where wee should _bonum omissum, malum commissum, tempus amissum, deflere_. David sayth, "Lord, I remember the in my bed."

"I will pull doune;" surely he was a man of this age, pul downe colledges, churches, cyties, kingdomes; every one cryes "Downe with Jerusalem!" An easy matter to pull downe that which was in building forty yeares; he will build it agen, soe will not many an other doe.

[Sidenote: fo. 106.]

The foole when his owne belly is full thinkes all the worlde hath enoughe. "Eate soule! drinke soule!" a hog may say as much. I will pull downe, I will build; here is all "I," nothing but himselfe. Presumption that he shall enjoy all; whence he noted his infidelity, security, carnality, [Greek: eutrapelia].

Of the soule. The soule is the image of G.o.d, _Christi redempta sanguine, haeres c.u.m angelis, capax caelestis beat.i.tudinis, simplex, immortalis, incorporea_. It useth _organa_, instruments. G.o.d giveth, not man begge[tte]th it. 21 Exod. 22. _Creando infunditur, infundendo creatur._ G.o.d is the father of soules, and the soule returneth to G.o.d that gave it; Ecclesiastes. _Anima imago Dei, in just.i.tia et dominio._

Relligion of the Turk more towards their Alcoran then our[s] to the Scripture; speake but against that there it is death. He that dishonoureth his father, or disobeyeth the magistrat, every where punished, but for G.o.ds dishonour fewe take care or vengeance.

This thought he spake to himselfe, but G.o.d puls him by the sleeve, and calls him by his name, "Thou foole!"

The G.o.dly give up their soules, but the soules of the wicked are taken from them.

[Sidenote: fo. 106^b.

March 1602.]

Femme que dona s'abandona, Femme que prende se vende, Femme que regarde son honneur Non veult prendre ne donner. (_My cosen._)

My cosen told me that about some 24 yeares since the Prince of Aurange, being driven to some necessity, sent for reliefe to hir Majesty, with protestation that yf shee fayled to supply their wants he must turne pirate; and soe receyving but a cold aunswere, all they of Flus.h.i.+ng and other parts adjoining instantly of merchants became good men of warr, and tooke our merchants fleete and forced them to lend 50,000_l._, which was never repayd. Yet when they had served their turnes for that extremity, and after divers complaints made by our merchants to our Queen against their piracys, had receyved message from hir Majesty to desist from those courses, they presently retyred themselves on a sudden, every one to his former trade. Of soe apt a nature is that nation for any purpose.

There was a company of yong gallants sometyme in Amsterdame which called themselves the d.a.m.ned Crue.[169] They would meete togither on nights, and vowe amongst themselves to kill the next man they mett whosoever; soe divers murthers committed, but not one punished. Such impunity of murder is frequent in that country. (_My cosen narr._)

[Footnote 169: This a.s.sociation was not confined to Amsterdam. A club of profligates under the same name existed in London much about this time, under the captains.h.i.+p of Sir Edmund Baynham, a well-known young roysterer. On the death of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edmund was committed to prison by the Council for declaring openly that the King of Scotland was a schismatic, and that he would not acknowledge him as King. In 1605 the same gentleman was sent to Rome by the Gunpowder Conspirators that he might be there, as their agent, to communicate with the Pope, after the plot should have taken effect.

Garnet helped him on his way to Rome by a letter to the Pope's Nuncio in Flanders. (Jardine's Gunpowder Treason, 58, 318.)]

[Sidenote: fo. 107.

1 March, 1602.]

My cosen repeated _memoriter_ almost the first Booke of Virgils aeneids.

And this day he rehersed without booke verry neere the whole second Booke of the aeneids, viz. 630 verses, without missing one word. A singular memory in a man of his age, 62.

You shall never see a deares scutt cover his haunche, nor a fooles tongue his frendes secrett.

[Sidenote: fo. 107^b.]

Notes of a sermon upon the xv. ch. to the Corinth, verse 22.

"As in Adam all dye, soe in Christ shall all men be made alive." The judgement of the first disobedience was death. And in truth, G.o.d could doe noe lesse, unlesse he would be unjust, for as in wisdome he had ordayned that man should dye when he tasted the fruit of the forbidden tree, soe in justice he was to execute what in wisdom he had decreed.

Christ was like Adam in his preheminence, in being the cheife and having goverment over all creature[s]. But yet unlike in this that Adam was the cause of death, but Christ is the cause of lyfe unto all that beleeve in him. There is a tyme for all to dye: and this act of dying is done by us, and upon us. It is a sentence which comprehendeth all, though all apprehend not it. Adam was one before all, one ouer all, and all in one, by whose synn all taynted; soe Christ, by whom all saved. 1 Tim. ii. 4.

Man is the princ.i.p.all cause in the course of generacion, but woman was in the fall of Adam. 1 Tim. ii. 14. Those which are sicke of the wantonnes make many answereles, endles, needeles questions, about the fall of Adam.

There be synnes personall, and synnes naturall; these wee derive ofttymes from our parents, as a synne in us, and punishment of them. Soe adultery and drunkennes of father, is ofttymes punished in an adulterous and cupshott[170] childe.

[Footnote 170: Drunken. "They take it generallie as no small disgrace if they happen to be cupshotten." Harrison's Desc. of England, p. 283, ed. 1807.]

[Sidenote: fo. 108.]

Death. 3. Externall, internall, eternall. 1. Separacion of body and soule. 2. Of sowle from Christ, which is our lyfe, soe was that spatterlashe [_sic_] widdowe, 1 Tim. v. 6; dead while she lived. 3. Of body and soule in h.e.l.l fyre. It was an errour of Pelagius that man should have dyed though he had never synned.

[Sidenote: fo. 108^b.]

Notes of a Sermon upon Matthew v. 17.

"Thinke not that I am come to destroy the lawe, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy them, but to fullfill them." The best could not live free from slaunders, as Nehemias was charged to have rebelled, &c. and Christ himselfe could not escape the malitious censures of the wicked.

When he cured the sicke of the palsy saying, Thy synnes bee forgiven thee, these whispered in their hartes, and called that speache blasphemy. When he disposs[ess]ed the man that was vexed with a deuil, they said he cast out deuils by Beelzebub the prince of the deuils. When he suffered for us they sayd he was plagued for his owne offences. But Augustine sayth well of these men; "_Hoc facilius h.o.m.o suspicatur in altero, quod sent.i.t in seipso._"

[Sidenote: fo. 109.]

The lawe stretcht noe further then the outward action, but Christ layes it to the secret thought. Synnes in our thoughtes are like a snake in our bosome, which may kill us yf wee nurse it; it is like fyre to gunpowder. Wee must shake synn from our thoughts, as wee would a spark from our garments, lest yf wee be once sett on fyre with them all our teares shall not quenche them. The divel puts synn in our thoughtes, as a thiefe thrusts a boy in at a windowe, to open the dore for the great ones. Yf syn enter into the heart it becomes like a denn of thieves, and like a cage of uncleane birds.

Synn a sly thing; it will enter at the windowe, at the cas.e.m.e.nt, at a c.h.i.n.ke of our cogitations.

The more free wee are to syn, the more slaves are wee to Sathan.

Will a thiefe steale in the sight of the Judge, and shall a man presume to synn in the sight of G.o.d?

AT A SPITTLE SERMON.

Yf our synnes come out with a newe addicion, G.o.ds punishments will come out with a newe edition.

Ambrose sayd of Theodosius: "_Fides Theodosij vestra fuit victoria_:"