A Christian Library, Title page – To the reader 1
A CHRISTIAN Library, OR, A Pleasant and Plentiful Paradise Of Practical Divinity, in 37. TREATISES Of sundry and select Subjects, purposely Composed to pluck Sinners out of Satans snares, and allure them into the glorious Liberty of the Gospel.
By R. YOUNGE of Roxwel in Essex, Florilegus.
LONDON, Printed by M. I. and are to be sold onelyonly by Iames Crumpe, in Little Bartholomews Well-yard, 1660.
To the worthy Author, and to the Ingenuous Reader.
SIR,
THe accurate Florist, who makes it his delight to study flowers, is not more taken with their dress, their marks, their varieties, rich above Solomon in his royalty; nor more pleased with every line in that his sweet Library, then your Reader will be in his perusal of this Christian Library, which here you put into his hand; not great in bulk, for so neither are precious stones or jewels, which are rich in substance, and of high esteem for their oriency. Few men are Masters of so excellent an Alembick, for extraction of quintessences & spirits, whereby you have given a Supersed…s or Writ of ease to your Reader, from searching & surveying the whole Garden where these flowers grow, by transplanting them into one kn…t, where they are presented as a sweet nosegay. I wish you such diligent Bees as may sit upon your flowers, & depopulate your garden; he that sucks Poyson from any Rose here, doth but shew himself to be a Spider by so doing.
READER,
These ten Treatises being like ten small Corn-fields now laid together (as it were) within one hedg, have thereby put off that name; wherewith while they went single, malevolent spirits, might be ready to asperse, by calling them Pamphlets; a name rather due to Books of trivial matter, than small stature, & in them, & every of them, the mower may fill his hand, and he that gathereth sheaves, his bosom with practical Divinity which hath the preheminence above Polemical and controversal as the planting and pruning of the trees of the Garden hath above the keeping of the Mound, or mending of the Hedge. I know a hungry appetite, is better content with Barley loaves and …oor fishes, then a disdainful Palate with Quails & Manna; but I need make no such apologie for this Book, where the meat is savoury, and the cookery artificial by a rare mixture of sweet and profitable; let thy walk therefore be in this Paradise, from the trees whereof thou maist gather fruit for meat, maintaining thy spiritual life in the whole duty of a …hristian; or for Medicine in the cure of thy Diseases, Drunkenness, Swearing, Unthankfulness, Deceitfulness of Heart, or for the arming of thy self with disswasives against Scoffing and Derision ▪ or from some of them twigs to whip the Mammonist out of his Idolatry [the love of money] or Apples of Gold from the tree of life; and under some of them thou shalt hear two Advocates pleading the cause of their two clyents, the Pasteur, and the Poor; the one for shutting of the mouth that sends forth unsavoury eructations; the other for opening the close hand that's almost dried up. And all the trees breathing forth sweet perfumes as the smell of a Field which the Lord ha…h blessed In short, If thou do but taste the fruit of one of these trees, thy appetite will be pr…voked thereby, towards another, and the pleasantness of the way wil make the forget the length of thy journey.
Thy servant in the service of Christ, Richard Vines. London, Lawrence, fury, Iune 16. 1655.