TO THE COURTEOUS READER.

I

JUSTLY presume thee too much Christian and gentleman to trample on him who prostrates himself. I confess myself subject to just censure, that I have not severally sorted these contemplations, setting such which are, 1. Of Scripture; 2. Historical; 3. Occasional; 4. Personal; distinctly by themselves, which now are confusedly heaped, or rather huddled, together.

This I confess was caused by my haste, the press hourly craving, with the daughter of the horseleech, Give, give.

However, such a confused medley may pass for the lively emblem of these times, the subject of this our book. And when these times shall be reduced into better order, my book, at the next impression, may be digested into better method. Meantime I remain

Thy Servant in Christ Jesus,

THOMAS FULLER.

MIXT CONTEMPLATIONS ON

THESE TIMES.

I. PLAY AN AFTER-GAME.

W

E read how at the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, Neh. iii. 12: Next unto 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 honorable actions.

II. MIRACULOUS CURE.

W who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen

E read, Luke xiii. 11, of a woman

years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise 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