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SPIRITUALIZED:

OR,

THE HEAVENLY USE OF EARTHLY THINGS:

Confifting of many pleafant obfervations, pertinent applications, and ferious reflections; and each chapter concluded with a divine and fuitable poem. Directing husbandmen to the moft excellent improvements of their common employments. Whereunto are added, by way of Appendix, feveral choice occafional meditations, upon birds, beafts, trees, flowers, rivers, and feveral other objects; fitted for the help of fuch as defire to walk with God in all their folitudes, and receffes from the world.

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

To the Worshipful ROBERT SAVERY, and WILLIAM SAVERY, of Slade, Efquires.

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Honoured Friends,

T hath been long fince obferved, that the world below is a glass to difcover the world above; Seculum eft fpeculum: and although I am not of their opinion, that fay, the Heathens may spell Chrift out of the fun, moon, and ftars; yet this I know, that the irrational and inanimate, as well as rational creatures, have a language; and though not by articulate fpeech, yet, in a metaphorical fenfe, they preach unto man the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, Rom. i. 20. "There is (faith the Pfalmift, Pfalm xix. 3.) no fpeech, nor language, where their voice is not heard." Or (as Junius renders it) there is no fpeech, nor words, yet without thefe, their voice is understood, and their line (i. e. faith Diodate) their writing in grofs and plain draughts, is gone out through all the earth.

As man is compounded of a fleshly and fpiritual fubftance, fo God hath endowed the creatures with a fpiritual, as well as fleshly usefulnefs; they have not only a natural ufe in alimental and phyfical refpects, but alfo a fpiritual ufe, as they bear the figures and fimilitudes of many fublime and heavenly myfteries. Believe me (faith contemplative Bernard) thou fhalt find more in the woods, than in a corner; ftones and trees will teach thee what thou shalt not hear from learned doctors. By a fkilful and induftrious improvement of the creaVOL. V. No. 38.

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tures (faith Mr Baxter excellently) we might have a fuller taste of Chrift and heaven, in every bit of bread that we eat, and in every draught of beer that we drink, than most men have in the use of the facrament.

And as the creatures teach divine and excellent things, to they teach them in a perfpicuous and taking manner: Duo illa nos maxime movent, fimilitudo et exemplum, faith the orator". Thefe two things, fimilitude and example, do efpecially move us. Notions are more eafily conveyed to the understanding, by being firft clothed in fome apt fimilitude, and fo reprefented to the fenfe. And therefore Jefus Chrift the great Prophet, delighted much in teaching by parables; and the prophets were much in this way alfo, Hof. xii. 10. "I have "ufed fimilitudes by the ministry of the prophets." Those that can retain little of a fermon, yet ordinarily retain an apt fimilitude.

I confefs it is an humbling confideration, That man, who at first was led by the knowledge of God to the knowledge of the creature, muft now by the creatures learn to know God. That the creatures, (as one faith) like Balaam's afs, fhould teach their master. But though this be the unhappiness of poor man in his collapsed ftate, yet it is now his wifdom to improve fuch helps; and whilft others, by the abuse of the creatures, are furthering their perdition, to be, by the fpiritual improvement of them, promoting his own falvation.

It is an excellent art to difcourfe with birds, beafts, and fishes, about fublime and spiritual fubjects, and make them answer to your questions; and this may be done, Job xii. 7, 8. "Afk now the "beafts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, and "they fhall tell thee; or fpeak to the earth, and it fhall teach thee, "and the fishes of the fea fhall declare unto thee." That is (faith neat and accurate + Caryl) the creatures teach us when we think of them: They teach us, though not formally, yet virtually; they anfwer and refolve the queftion put to them, though not explicitly to the ear, yet convincingly to the confcience. So then, we ask the • creatures, when we diligently confider them, when we search out the perfections and virtues that God hath put into, or ftampt up⚫ on them. To set our mind thus upon the creature, is to discourse with the creature; the questions which man asks of a beast, are only his own meditations. Again, the creatures teach us, when we in meditation make our collections, and draw down a demonftration of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God in making ⚫ them, or the frailty of man in needing them: fuch conclufions and ⚫ inferences are the teachings of the creatures.'

Common objects (faith ‡ another) may be improved two ways; viz. In an argumentative, and in a reprefentative way; by reasoning from them, and by viewing the resemblance that is betwixt them and spiritual matters.

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