©J|0 i. 1. ItU «jtbrarg 
 
 SJiirtb (Earnltna S>tatp (EoUtai? 
 
 p8 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA STATF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
 of\ri-7Q-7aA~7 <t 
 
149027 
 
 This book may be kept out TWO WEEKS 
 ONLY, and is subject to a fine of FIVE 
 CENTS a day thereafter. It is due on the 
 day indicated below: 
 
 M 3V 1 
 
 
 50M— May-54 — Form 3 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2009 witii funding from 
 
 NCSU Libraries 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/spirituallioneyfrOOpurc 
 
/ 
 
 SPIRITUAL HONEY 
 
 FROM 
 
 NATURAL HIVES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 iilrtitationg anil ©bserbationsi 
 
 ON THE 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS OF BEES. 
 
 FIRST INTRODUCED TO PUBLIC NOTICE IN 1657, 
 
 DISCARDED 
 
 By SAMUEL PURCHAS, A.M. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAMUEL BAGSTER, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROw; OR, VERE STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE 
 
 AND 
 
 WILLIAM PICKERING, chancery lane. 
 
London ; Printed by S. Bagster, Jun., 14, Bartholomew Close. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 1^9-027 
 
 Most thinos affora a Tund from which an in- 
 quisitive mind, when rightly directed, may gahi 
 something. But the Christian's affections will 
 naturally be led, in the contemplation of created 
 objects, to the adoration of the Almighty 
 Creator, which is a work to be commenced 
 in time, and perfected in eternity ; and while 
 the striking injunction of Solomon, " Go to 
 the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways, and 
 be wise," remains unblotted from the Sacred 
 Scriptures, it is unquestionably a duty to make 
 the perishable creatures around us contribute 
 to our moral elevation. To do this with the 
 greatest profit requires that we should pay 
 attention to their peculiar instincts ; and the 
 more deeply the student digs into the exhaust- 
 
 a2 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 less mine of the works of God, the more amply 
 will he be repaid by a high tone of reverential 
 feeling, and an enjoyment both of spiritual and 
 natural acquirements. 
 
 In the course of my reading, I purchased 
 many works on the habits and economy of the 
 Bee, in one of which I found the collection of 
 Theological Meditations and Observations, which 
 is now presented to the lovers of natural wonders. 
 The title of the work runs thus : — "A Theatre of 
 political 1 flying insects, wherein especially the 
 nature, the w^orth, the work, the wonder, and 
 the manner of right-ordering of the Bee, is 
 discovered and described. Together with dis- 
 courses historical, and observations physical, 
 concerning them. And in a second part are 
 annexed meditations and observations theolo- 
 gical and moral, in three centuries, upon that 
 subject." By Samuel Purchas, M. A., and 
 Pastor at Sutton, in Essex. 1657. 
 
 These centuries, in the common acceptation 
 of the term, may, at first sight, be supposed to 
 be the periods when the meditations were 
 originally written ; such, however, is not the 
 fact ; the word century applies here to the 
 number of the meditations. In the original 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 there were three hundred, but those principally 
 struck my attention which, by the simplicity 
 of their similes and their quaint style, caused 
 scripture sweets to drop on the mind : I deter- 
 mined, therefore, to reject all those which merely 
 alluded to politics, for the reasons I gave in the 
 preface to my work on Bees. The remainder 
 are pure as Mr. Purchas published them, only 
 that a text of Scripture has been added to each 
 as a motto. 
 
 Another improvement has been adopted to 
 remove the stiff appearance of lengthened quo- 
 tations : in the original the names of most of 
 the authors were subjoined, but in this edition 
 they have been struck out, their retention not 
 being deemed necessary. 
 
 The selection of these meditations was evi- 
 dently the result of a long course of laborious 
 reading; I therefore draw the conclusion that 
 they were collected by the Rev. Samuel Purchas, 
 who published a most elaborate work between 
 the years 1613 and 1625, and who, very pro- 
 bably being straitened in his means, left these 
 papers to his son, who followed in his father's 
 footsteps, by devoting himself ardently to litera- 
 ture and parochial duties. To allow my readers 
 
Tl PREFACE. 
 
 to judge for themselvewS, I subjoin the life of the 
 father. 
 
 Such, my readers, are the causes which 
 brought this interesting work before your notice : 
 pardon me if I extract from my other preface 
 the reasons which induced me to appear before 
 the world at all ; and if I should prove a help 
 to the mere naturalist to lead him to his God — 
 or a guide to the Christian to point him to a 
 new source whence he may draw materials for 
 contemplation, my volumes will not be waste 
 paper, nor my aim prove to have been wrongly 
 directed. 
 
 " From general study, the mind gradually 
 concentrates its energies to one object; and I 
 found myself most interested in Bees. During 
 my researches into the modes of management 
 suggested and worked by different individuals, 
 I was struck with the disregard shown to the 
 habits and instincts of these insects, and the 
 causes of failure, which might be attributed 
 rather to inefficient sources of instruction than 
 any thing else ; when my attention was drawn 
 to Mr. Nutt's hives, and his new mode of 
 ventilation. 
 
 " I read the chief of the old authors, and 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 having heard many of then- systems made the 
 subject of conversation, the idea struck me 
 that a small volume, comprising a succinct ac- 
 count of each real or fancied improvement, with 
 a few practical remarks, deduced from the 
 natural history and propensities of the bee, 
 might prevent many persons from commencing 
 bee-keeping by imperfect methods, and thus 
 avoid much disappointment. A clear exposi- 
 tion of errors generally leads to improved 
 practice. 
 
 " The translator of Huber, when he wrote his 
 preface to the work of that indefatigable naturalist 
 on bees, felt as I do ; for he says, ^ The cultiva- 
 tion of bees forms a branch of rural economy 
 which may be carried to a very great extent. 
 It is greatly to be regretted, that there is no 
 general treatise embodying all the facts already 
 ascertained from undoubted observations. This 
 would form a guide to those who would enter 
 upon it as an object of importance, because the 
 real utility to which all animals may ultimately 
 be converted, depends solely on an intimate 
 acquaintance with their nature.' 
 
 " Where possible, an apiarian's own description 
 of his hive has been preferred, rather than run 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 the risk of inadvertently misrepresenting his 
 system. I have paid little regard to dates in 
 my vi^ork ; but have endeavoured to present 
 hives and practice in the order in which I con- 
 ceive they demanded attention. Having already 
 avowed my intention in writing this preface, 
 I need not cloak the fact, that, by describing 
 my Ladies' Safety Hive last, I consider it to be 
 that which claims notice for the ease with which 
 the foUowino' desiderata in bee-management 
 may be embraced, viz. — cool store-room — pre- 
 vention of swarming — easy method of taking 
 honey — promotion of swarming when wished — 
 perfect inspection of the whole hive — protection 
 from wet in the open air — and a method of 
 feeding in the severest weather without exposure 
 to cold." 
 
 Samuel Bagster, Jun. 
 14, Bartholometu Close, Lofidon. 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 ORIGINAL DEDICATORY EPISTLE 
 
 To ihe Right Honourable, truly noble, and religious 
 Lord, Robert, Earl of Warwick, Baron of 
 Leez, Sfc. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE, 
 
 The creatures are the book of nature, 
 as said Anthony the hermit, who being 
 demanded by a philosopher, how he could 
 possibly spend his time in the wilderness, 
 seeing he was destitute of books ; an- 
 swered, My book, O philosopher, is the 
 nature of all things created by God, 
 which, when I please, I can peruse and 
 read. The world is God's library, God 
 manifested and drawn out ; and all the 
 
DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 creatures are as glasses, in which we may 
 see, and as scaffolds and ladders, by 
 which we may ascend and draw nearer 
 to him : for God is a light too strong for 
 our sense, therefore we must (with him 
 in the story) look for the sun in the west, 
 not in the east ; behold the Lord as he is 
 reflected and refracted, first in the glass 
 of his creatures and his works ; and then, 
 secondly, in the face of his dearest Son. 
 God, in the school of nature, useth a 
 method so suitable and correspondent to 
 our dulness, that our meditations should 
 not want in the creatures volumes (I 
 may say) wherein to read most excellent 
 admonitions and instructions : in every 
 creature are they engraven in ordinary 
 characters, and in a lesser print ; as in 
 the Scriptures, they be written in capital 
 letters once, the creatures are as a bright 
 glass, wherein we may behold our God ; 
 for as God is a glass in heaven, wherein 
 all his creatures are seen, so are the crea- 
 
DEDICATORY EPISTLE. Xl 
 
 tures a glass upon earth, wherein we may 
 behold and know our God. They are 
 trumpets of his honour — witnesses of his 
 worth — bellows of our love — spurs to our 
 dulness — and judges of our unthankful- 
 ness. 
 
 There is some good in all creatures, — 
 the meanest hath a beam of God's ma- 
 jesty ; yet some have more than others, 
 the bees more than (almost) any. That 
 a little neglected creature should be so 
 curious in architecture, and in the fabric 
 of her hexangle combs should observe as 
 just proportions as the best geometrician, 
 we should suspect for an untruth, if we 
 saw it not daily practised by them. 
 
 Nicostratus in ^lian, finding a curious 
 piece of wood, and being wondered at by 
 one, and asked what pleasure he could 
 take to stand as he did still gazing on the 
 picture ? answered, Hadst thou mine 
 eyes, my friend, thou wouldst not won- 
 der, but rather be ravished as I am at the 
 
XU DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 inimitable art of this rare and admirable 
 piece. I am sure no picture can express 
 so much wonder and excellency as the 
 smallest insect : but we want Nicostratus 
 his eyes to behold them. 
 
 And the praise of God's wisdom and 
 power lies asleep and dead in every crea- 
 ture, until man actuate and enliven it. I 
 cannot, therefore, altogether conceive it 
 unworthy of the greatest mortals to con- 
 template the miracles of nature, and that 
 as they are more visible in the smallest 
 and almost contemptible creatures, for 
 there most lively do they express the in- 
 finite power and wisdom of the great 
 Creator, and erect and draw the minds 
 of the most intelligent to the first and 
 prime Cause of all things, teaching them 
 as the power, so the presence of the Deity 
 in the smallest insects. 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR'S FATHER. 
 
 Samuel Purchas, a learned English divine, 
 and compiler of a valuable collection of voyages, 
 was born at Thaxted in Essex in 1577, and 
 educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 where he took his master's degree in 1600, and 
 afterwards that of bachelor of divinity. In 
 1604 he was instituted to the vicarage of East- 
 wood in Essex ; but leaving the cure of it to his 
 brother, went and lived in London, the better to 
 carry on the great work he had undertaken. 
 
 He published the first volume in 1613, and 
 the fifth in 1625, under this title, " Purchas 
 his Pilgrimas^e, or Relations of the World, and 
 
XIV LIFE OF THE AUTHOR S FATHER. 
 
 the Relip-ions observed in all Aoes and Places 
 discovered from the Creation linto this present." 
 In 1615 he w^as incorporated at Oxford, as he 
 stood at Cambridge, bachelor of divinity ; and 
 a little before, had been collated to the rectory 
 of St. Martin's, Ludgate, in London. He vi^as 
 chaplain to Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and had also the promise of a deanery from 
 Charles I., which he did not live to enjoy. 
 
 It has been said that by the publishing of his 
 books he brought himself into debt, and that 
 he died in prison. This last is certainly un- 
 true, as he died in his own house in 1628. It is 
 not improbable that he might be a sufferer by 
 the expenses of printing his books, but his 
 debts are to be referred to a more honourable 
 cause, — the kindness of his disposition. In 
 1618 his brother-in-law, William Pridmore, 
 died, and left to him the care of the widow and 
 her family ; and in the same year his brother, 
 Daniel Purchas, died, who likewise left four 
 orphan and helpless children, and the arrange- 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR S FATHER. XV 
 
 ment of his affairs, to our author, who says, in 
 his quaint way, that this brother's " intangled 
 booke-estate perplexed me in a new kind of 
 bookishness, with heterogean toil of body, and 
 unacquainted vexations of mind, to pay mani- 
 fold debts," (fee. These circumstances may 
 account for the embarrassment of this good and 
 pious man (for such he was); and in addition 
 to his other afflictions, he mentions the death 
 of his mother and of a beloved daughter, in 
 1619. 
 
 His pilgrimages, and the learned Hackluyt's 
 Voyages, led the way to all other collections of 
 that kind, and have been justly valued and 
 esteemed. Boissard, a learned foreigner, has 
 given a great character of Purchas : he styles 
 him " a man exquisitely skilled in languages, 
 and all arts divine and human ; a very great 
 philosopher, historian, and divine ; a faithful 
 presbyter of the church of England; very fa- 
 mous for many excellent writings, and espe- 
 cially for his vast volumes of the East and 
 
XVI LIFE OF THE AUTHOR S FATHER. 
 
 West Indies, written in his native tongue." 
 His other works are, " Purchas his Pilgrim, or 
 Microcosmos, or The Historic of Man," 1627, 
 8vo., a series of meditations upon man at all 
 ages and in all stations, founded on Psalm 
 xxxix. 5. In the address to the reader are a 
 few particulars of himself and family, which we 
 have extracted. He published also " The 
 King's Tower and Triumphal Arch of London," 
 1623, 8vo. ; and a Funeral Sermon on Psalm 
 XXX. 5," is attributed to him, if it be not mis- 
 taken for the Microcosmos. His son Samuel 
 published *' A Theatre of Political Flying In- 
 sects," 1657, 4to. His Voyages now sell at a 
 vast price. 
 
SPIRITUAL HONEY 
 
 FROM 
 
 NATURAL HIVES. 
 
 " THE WHOLE EARTH IS FULL OF HIS GLORY. 
 
 IsA. vi. 3. 
 
 There is no creature but may teach a good soul 
 one step towards his Creator. We ought therefore 
 to make .a spiritual use of things natural, and the 
 things of this present life, by them raising up our 
 mfnds to heavenly meditations, and in an holy 
 alchemy (as one saith) draw gold out of lead, heaven 
 out of earth, grace out of nature. The world is a 
 glass, wherein we may contemplate the eternal power 
 and majesty of God ; for the invisible things of Him 
 from the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
 being understood by the things that are made, even 
 his eternal power and Godhead. (Rom. i. 20.) It 
 is that great book of so large a character, that a 
 man may run and read it ; yea, even the simplest 
 man that cannot read, may yet spell out of this 
 
 B 
 
 D. H. HILL LIBRARY 
 North Carolina State College 
 
book that there is a God. Every shepherd hath 
 this calendar and every ploughman this A, B, C. 
 What the French poet divinely sung, is thus as 
 sweetly Englished, 
 
 The world's a school, where, in a general story, 
 God always reads dumb lectures of his glory. 
 
 A shame, therefore, for us to have earthly hearts 
 void of spiritual meditation, when every creature 
 every where yields us matter enough. All of us 
 can use the creatures carnally, and so can beasts ; 
 the spiritual use is rare. 
 
 " THAT WHICH I SEE NOT, TEACH THOU ME." 
 
 Job xxxiv. 32. 
 
 God humbles us with ignorance in many things, 
 not only divine, but natural and in common use ; 
 as in the loadstone's drawing of iron. In the 
 nature of bees how blind are we, notwithstanding 
 all our observation and labour ! — in the production 
 and continuance of the queen bee, in the genera- 
 tion of other bees, and generally in the forms of all 
 things — a just punishment of our pride, in affecting 
 and aspiring to knowledge too high for us. And 
 if there be in nature such secrets, what then in 
 grace ? Let us not be too curious in prying into 
 God's ark, lest we smart like the fly fluttering 
 about the candle; for God is a consuming fire to 
 those that will be sporting themselves in the quirks 
 of their wit about his sacred mysteries. Let us wait 
 
till the life to come, and the vail shall be taken from 
 our eyes ; in the mean time, humble ignorance is 
 better than proud curiosity. 
 
 " YE ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS." GaL. iii.28. 
 
 Many have troubled themselves and others to dis- 
 cover the several kinds of working bees ; whereas 
 of working bees, in these parts of the world, there 
 is but one sort. And all bees agree, if not in a 
 just magnitude, colour, and proportion, yet certainly 
 in their operations, natural dispositions, and incli- 
 nations ; so that our bees, and bees in Spain and 
 other parts, make all their combs with hexangle-like 
 cells, and are all industrious to gather honey, al- 
 though, in some parts, according to the climate, 
 they are more retarded from working than in others. 
 
 And all the saints that are dispersed throughout 
 the whole world have the same nature in them, 
 although there be external differences ; they have 
 the same spirit in them, though they be never so 
 remote one from another, and never saw one an- 
 other's face, yet may they know one another's mind, 
 for one mind dwells in them ; and when one mind 
 dwells in diverse, they be of the same disposition ; 
 one nature is common to them all. 
 
 '' FOR THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD ARE WISER 
 IN THEIR GENERATION THAN THE CHILDREN 
 
 OF LIGHT."— Luke xvi. 18. 
 
 Wasps labour not as the bees to furnish them- 
 B 2 
 
selves with provision for the future, but for the 
 most part live on spoil and rapine ; and about this 
 are as indefatigably diligent and earnest, early and 
 late, as the careful bees in their profitable labours. 
 So it is with many in the state, who in unlawful 
 callings, and in the maintenance of their unlawful 
 trades, do take as much pains, nay more, than some 
 in lawful. Demetrius his example shews it Acts xix. ; 
 and the proverb is, " The belly hath no ears." 
 
 '' THE LORD IS FAR FROM THE WICKED." 
 
 Prov. XV. 29. 
 
 Many creatures have retiring places ; the bees 
 when winter, night, or storms approach, they have 
 their hives or dwellings in trees ; they have their 
 hiding places. But a wicked, careless man, that 
 hath not acquainted himself with God, when troubles 
 come he hath no hiding place, nor any abiding 
 place, but lies open to the storm of God's displea- 
 sure ; therefore he is surprised with fears and cares, 
 and pulled in pieces with distractions : he is a me- 
 teor that hangs in the clouds, he cannot tell which 
 way he shall fall. 
 
 " THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL HOLD ON HIS WAY." 
 
 Job xvii. 9. 
 
 Bees are laborious and industrious in their youth, 
 and yet dispense not with themselves to be idle in 
 their age ; but as their skill is increased by daily 
 practice, so do they with incessant diligence follow 
 
their business, and that in the most difficult and 
 laborious tasks, being more early at their work 
 than the younger; and in chilling airs, when they 
 dare not venture forth, will they be abroad : nay, 
 when they are weak, and have overspent bodies and 
 ragged wings, yet will they be abroad, although 
 they miscarry in their labours. How different is 
 the practice of the men of the world, where a new 
 broom sweeps clean ! Their first beginnings are 
 goodly and glorious, but the end is not answerable. 
 Many are hot professors, and zealous in their 
 younger years, but grow key-cold in their elder 
 years : therefore Eccles. vii., " The end is better 
 than the beginning." This deceitfulness of men is 
 also in their special callings : many good magistrates 
 at the first, as Saul, and ministers, as Judas ; but 
 they are best at first, like Nebuchadnezzar's image, 
 a golden head, and iron and clayey feet. 
 
 " THEY ARE GONE FAR FROM ME, AND HAVE WALKED 
 AFTER VANITY, AND ARE BECOME VAIN." 
 
 Jer. ii. 5. 
 
 If a man did find an all-sufficiency in God, he 
 would never turn from him nor seek to the crea- 
 ture ; even as the bee, if it did find honey enough 
 in one flower would not hasten to another ; but be- 
 cause it doth not, it goes from flower to flower. 
 And so is the nature of man as Solomon expresseth 
 it, saying, " that he hastened to outward things ;" 
 that is, when he fell upon one he found not enough 
 
in it, he made haste to another and to another. 
 So the nature of man, if it did find sweetness and 
 comfort and contentment enough in God, it would 
 not turn from him to the creature ; but because in 
 his sense the object is too narrow, there is some- 
 what he would have more — he looks over the palings, 
 as it were, he seeth something he desireth, and that 
 causeth him to step out. 
 
 '' YE THAT LOVE THE LORD, HATE EVIL." 
 
 Ps. xcvii. 10. 
 
 Bees will endure wasps abroad or in other hives, 
 but never willingly in their own, for antipathy is a 
 perpetual enmity. If the force of antipathy pre- 
 vail so far to make an irreconcilable hatred, as great 
 should be our hatred against sinners and God's dis- 
 honour. It is fearful when we can easily comport 
 with the wicked and digest their company and 
 conversation. 
 
 " A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST." 2 TlM.ii.3. 
 
 Bees, when they are weary of the drones, having 
 no further use of them, and fearing prejudice and 
 future want by their gormandizing, at first show 
 their dislike by molesting and troubling of them ; 
 but when this will not cause them to depart nor yet 
 give over their wonted courses, then with courage 
 and confidence do they set upon them, confront, 
 kill, and slay them; — teaching Christians accord- 
 ing to their places, that it is not enough to dislike 
 
the doings and practices of the wicked, but they 
 must, having reproved them, confront and oppose 
 them, nay strive, contend, and v^^ar M^ith them. 
 Many faintly and coldly shoMr their dislike against 
 wicked men ; as Eli against his wicked sons. But 
 this is (to use Sophocles his comparison) as if in a 
 festered wound or sore, the chirurgeon should only 
 blow upon it with his mouth ; whereas, there must 
 be cutting, lancing, searching, burning, and the 
 greatest violence that can be. Asa was herein 
 famous for not enduring his own mother in her 
 idolatry. 2 Cor. xv. xvi. 
 
 " THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS." 
 
 Phillip, iii. 10. 
 
 If the queen bee in a swarm, following after the 
 company, (but because of the weakness of her wings 
 or tenderness of her constitution, having been never 
 abroad before, and so not able to endure the cooler 
 air), fall down, they that be her present attendants 
 and saw her fall, stoop with her, encircle her, and 
 if she rise not and return to the hive, or go to the 
 main body of the swarm, (settled perhaps a little 
 distance with longing and trembling expectation 
 of her presence) stay with her, and starve with 
 her, rather than forsake her, contenting themselves 
 with the condition of their leader. And shall af- 
 flictions be the way that the Master enters into 
 glory and the members find fault with him ? shall 
 the head be crowned with thorns and the members 
 
8 
 
 wrapped in softness ? This is an unhandsome in- 
 decency, and a disunion too near an antipathy. 
 Whoever would be Christ's disciple must take up 
 his cross, deny himself his own fonder appetites, 
 and trace his Master's footsteps, though marked out 
 with blood that he shed for our redemption ; for he 
 that will save his life shall lose it, and he that will 
 lose it shall save it to eternity. 
 
 " LOVE NOT THE WORLD." 1 JOHN ii. 15. 
 
 Bees for the most part feed on honey, which 
 over-liberally eaten turns to choler ; no wonder 
 then if they be fiery, furious, and choleric creatures. 
 There is a power in meats to assimilate those that 
 eat them ; what we feed on we are oft like unto. 
 Feed on gross meats, your spirits will be more gross 
 and dull — feed on light meats, your spirits will be 
 more quick and agile : so if a man feeds on the 
 world he can relish nothing but the world ; his 
 spirit is made carnal, and stupid, and worldly, and 
 can rise no higher : therefore, when Solomon gave 
 himself to seek pleasures to try what was in them, 
 though he did not neglect wisdom, as Eccles. i. 8, 
 yet he found by experience, deal as wisely as he 
 could, in the end they did so stupify him, that he 
 was led away by them to idolatry. Then is a man 
 become stupid when he is serious about trifles, and 
 trifling about serious things. By pursuit of these, 
 his judgment was quick in earthly matters, but in 
 matters of religion he began to grow very weak and 
 
ignoranf; how much more, then, they that wholly 
 give themselves to the lusts and pleasures of the 
 world ! 
 
 " KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD, THROUGH FAITH 
 UNTO SALVATION." 1 PeTER i. 5. 
 
 Bees, in violent frosts, are torpid and stir not, 
 especially in the northern regions ; where they are 
 almost all winter, if not in a dead, yet a very deep 
 sleep ; but the mighty power of God, in the return 
 of the spring, revives and quickens them. And it is 
 not a less almighty power that keeps the life of 
 grace in the greatest falls and temptations of the 
 saints, that keeps life in David and Peter that it 
 should quicken and revive again, when the sun of 
 righteousness, with comforting beams, refresheth 
 and warmeth them. 
 
 " ALL THINGS ARE LAWFUL UNTO ME, BUT ALL 
 THINGS ARE NOT EXPEDIENT." 1 CoR. vi. 12. 
 
 Bees are patient and harmless creatures, and 
 seldom, unprovoked, prove injurious ; but he that 
 shall often stand before the hives in the heat of the 
 day when they return home with their labours, may 
 too late repent his temerity and fool-hardiness. 
 Lawful liberty used to the full, is exceedingly dan- 
 gerous : he that will take all the liberty he may, will 
 sometimes take that he may not. It is not safe at 
 all times to go into the high-priest's hall. We are 
 often mistaken in our judgments concerning the 
 
10 
 
 lawfulness or unlawfulness of actions : he that will 
 do all that he thinks he may lawfully do, if he in- 
 crease in giving himself liberty, will quickly arrive 
 at doing things unlawful. He that, because a man 
 may be innocently angry, will never refrain his 
 passion, in a little time will be intemperate in his 
 anger, and mistake both his object and the degree. 
 Thus facetiousness and urbanity entertained with 
 an open hand, will turn into jestings that are un- 
 comely. If you will be secure, remove your tent, 
 dwell further off — God hath given us much liberty 
 safely to use it, unless we watch unto prayer. 
 
 " THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE FLJISH, DO MIND THE 
 THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE 
 AFTER THE SPIRIT, THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT." 
 
 — Rom. viii. 5. 
 
 Let bees be kept close and imprisoned in their 
 hives, though they have ease and air in abundance, 
 yet they will not be contented, but still complain 
 and murmur ; gnawing and eating away the stop- 
 ping and impediments, that they may apply them- 
 selves to their natural and delightful labours : so 
 a river, let it be dammed and stopped up, yet as 
 the course of it is naturally to go downwards, at 
 length it will overbear the dam and run over. 
 Let water that is sweet be made brackish by the 
 overflowing of salt water, yet, because naturally it 
 is sweet, it will in time work out the saltness. 
 Here we have a picture of every man's nature — 
 
11 
 
 look at the constant stream of his disposition, 
 ■ that which is natural to him ; though he may be 
 pent up and hindered from the practice of it for a 
 time, yet will he break through all impediments 
 that he may be at it, though some temptations may 
 forcibly break in and bar and stop up for a time 
 his walking heaven-ward, yet will he never be at 
 rest until they are removed, and he has got into his 
 former course again ; whereas, if a wicked man 
 step into a good course by some trial or good edu- 
 cation, &c., yet long he will not hold in it ; he will 
 break through the impediment, because his natural 
 disposition, the stream of his heart, runs another way. 
 
 '' MINE EYES ARE UNTO THEE, O GOD THE LORD ; 
 IN THEE IS MY TRUST." Ps. Cxli. 8. 
 
 Bees will not be without a leader, for in all they 
 act they receive directions from the queen bee. As 
 the governor of a ship he hath his hand sometimes 
 to the steerage and his eye to the pole star, to be 
 directed by that, so is the life of a Christian; he 
 must always be doing that which God prescribes 
 him, and he must have his eye to the star to be 
 guided in his course by God's direction : he that 
 doth not this, knows not what it is to trust in God. 
 
 '' FELIX TREMBLED." ACTS Xxiv. 25. 
 
 As the bear does hardly intermeddle with his de- 
 sired honey, for fear of the stinging of the bees, so 
 some men dare not commit sin, for fear either of the 
 
12 
 
 laws of men, or in slavish fear of hell, or the prologue 
 to it, terror of conscience ; yet hugs it in his heart, 
 embraceth it in the arms of his affection, suffers it 
 to reign in his heart, and to take up his thoughts as 
 by a commission, continually contemplating thereon. 
 
 *■ THE WAGES OF SIN is DEATH." RoM. vi. 23. 
 
 The drones labour not, but altogether intend 
 their pastime and recreation, and then return into 
 the hive and fill themselves with the purest honey, 
 whereby they quickly grow foggy, and either can- 
 not when they go forth return into the hive, and 
 so perish abroad, or after a w^hile are ejected or 
 slain by the bees. And such sporting drones the 
 world is full of, who plunge themselves over head 
 and ears in courses of pleasure, wherein they un- 
 worthily waste the fat and marrow of dear and pre- 
 cious time, the flower of their age, the strength of 
 their bodies, emasculate and melt the vigour of 
 their spirits into effeminate sensuality and lust, 
 drown the fair and goodly hopes of their education, 
 the improvement of their parts in froth and folly, as 
 though they were placed upon earth, as leviathan 
 in the sea, only to take their sport and pastime 
 therein. Lovers they are of pleasure, and having 
 their fool's paradise here, must, therefore, in the 
 equity of a just and holy proportion with the rich 
 man, look for their payment and torment hereafter. 
 
13 
 
 *' THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS 
 SHOULDEPv." ISA. ix. 6. 
 
 Bees will not continue well nor long without a 
 leader, nor will they endure divers or more than 
 one. Therefore in the union of swarms, and in 
 castlings, where sometimes many go forth, yet will 
 the bees dethrone and destroy all but one ; and 
 until it be effected are in a discontented tumult and 
 hurly burly, yea often in a civil war ; and if it fall 
 out the parts to be somewhat equal, thereby is oc- 
 casioned (sometimes) a total ruin and destruction. 
 For look how far any thing goes from unity, so 
 near it comes to perishing — and any the more peace 
 and unity the more safety and security. And if, in 
 the little compass of a hive, there is such need of a 
 governor and unity, much more in the great hive of 
 the world. And this governor must needs be God ; 
 for by men or angels it cannot be governed. The 
 preservation of every thing is in the unity of it ; 
 and therefore you see any thing that is divided, that 
 division is the dissolution of it, as when the soul is 
 divided from the body, and when the body is di- 
 vided from itself, so likewise in a family or com- 
 monwealth, much more in the world. If there were 
 not a fountain there would be different streams, 
 and if there were diverse principles of things there 
 would be a swerving and division in the nature and 
 order of things ; and so not an unity, and so by 
 consequence it would be the destruction of the 
 
14 
 
 whole. Of necessity, therefore, there must be a 
 governor, and this governor must be one, and that 
 one is God, who guides every creature under the 
 sun, even the smallest of the creatures ; and orders 
 and directs them to their several ends and businesses 
 to which he hath appointed. 
 
 " UNITE MY HEART TO FEAR THY NAME." 
 
 Ps. Ixxxvi. 11. 
 
 Bees, being little and light creatures, are much 
 agitated and disturbed with tempestuous and stormy 
 winds, which, because they cannot altogether pre- 
 vent, they, by a natural sagacity and providence, do 
 arm and enable themselves against them. The bees 
 of Candia (as it is reported) poise themselves with 
 small pebbles which they carry in their feet ; but 
 our bees, to help themselves, fly very low near to 
 the surface of the earth, and for the most part under 
 the lee-side of a hedge, whereby the violence of 
 the wind is much checked and broken. For as a 
 ship that is well furnished with tackle and sails, 
 that may give the motion and advance the swiftness 
 of it, yet if it hath not ballast in it, or weight in 
 it to make it go steady, or a lee-shore, where (by 
 the height of the banks) the violence of the wind is 
 somewhat broken, it is up and down tossed always, 
 and the more sails the more danger and hazard. 
 So Christians, in their voyage to the new Jerusalem, 
 must not only have the wings of love, but the bal- 
 last of fear descending in a low flight to make them 
 
15 
 
 go steady. We must not have love only, but fear 
 (whereby we fly low), lest otherwise we move but 
 wantonly ; skipping and dancing by fits and by 
 spurts in good ways, and keep not any constant 
 course in our holy voyage. The eminency and ex- 
 cellency, the security and safety of a Christian con- 
 versation, ariseth from a mixture of fear and love ; 
 for as the purest white and fairest red mixed to- 
 gether make the beauty of the face in the body, so 
 the mixture of fear and love make the beauty of the 
 affection in the soul — fear mixed with love, for it 
 must not go alone. Fear, though it be apt to make 
 us careful and cautious — careful how to please God ; 
 and cautious — fearful to oflend him ; yet if it be 
 alone will precipitate us into despair, or into the 
 forlorn hope. It must be tempered, therefore, with 
 love, that we look not only upon the greatness, but 
 on the goodness and sweetness of God ; that as we 
 are affected with the prospect of the one, viz., his 
 greatness, with an affection of holy, humble fear, and 
 lowly awe and reverence of him, so that that may 
 not beat us down and overthrow us by despair, we 
 must keep up (advanced by the wings of love) look- 
 ing upon his sweetness and his goodness. If we 
 think on nothing but love — fix our eyes on nothing 
 but goodness and sweetness in God, we shall be 
 ready to charge our sins on his back in our pre- 
 sumption of his goodness, building on his mercy 
 inordinately, and so presume to do any thing. I 
 say, love alone would be too wanton except it were 
 
16 
 
 poised and balanced with a holy fear, and awe, and 
 reverence of God. 
 
 " I PRESS TOWARD THE MARK FOR THE PRIZE OF 
 THE HIGH CALLING OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS." 
 
 — Phillip, iii 14. 
 
 If a swarm be checked and stunted with bad 
 weather presently after it is hived, or if it be small, 
 or very late in the year, the bees will be carelessly 
 desperate and gather nothing to purpose, for they 
 are out of hope to get enough for their winter's pro- 
 vision and maintenance, and as good never a whit 
 as never the better. God is the loadstone of all 
 endeavours : a man will not labour for nothing, 
 therefore despair kills a man's labours, and plucks 
 up the root of all his endeavours ; if there be any 
 good present, hope makes us labour to increase it ; 
 if there be any good to come, hope labours to attain 
 it ; but good there must be, at least in hope and 
 expectation, or else all endeavours will flag and 
 wither away to nothing. 
 
 *' FERVENT in SPIRIT, SERVING THE LORD." 
 
 Rom. xii. 1 1. 
 
 The field wherein bees feed is not a whit barer for 
 their biting : when they have taken their full repast 
 of flowers or grass, the ox may feed or the sheep fat on 
 their reversions. The reason is, because those little 
 chemists distil only the refined part of the flower, 
 leaving the grosser substance thereof. So ejacula- 
 
17 
 
 tions bind not men to any bodily observance, only 
 busy the spiritual half, which maketh consistent 
 with the prosecution of any other employment. 
 
 u 
 
 WHEN THOU DOEST ALMS, LET ISTOT THY RIGHT 
 HAND KNOW WHAT THY LEFT HAND DOETH." 
 
 Matt. vi. 3. 
 
 Many, observing the bees flying into their hive, 
 suppose them best furnished that they see go home 
 laden on their thighs, and think the other idle that 
 they see carry nothing ; whereas though the former 
 be well busied, yet oftentimes the other are better 
 who are more deeply, mo^e richly laden, being full 
 freighted w^ith honey. God's servants, in this life, 
 are more in substance than in shew : when they fast 
 they disfigure not their faces ; and when thev give 
 alms they let not their right hand know what their 
 left hand doth. Good actions are not always re- 
 warded here, and therefore in vain do men muster 
 and set them out upon beadrolls in this life. Labour 
 to get the approbation of God, and so do good that 
 thy conscience may be well stored in God's sight; 
 who " seeing thee in secret may reward thee openly, 
 and make thy light shine clear as the perfect day." 
 The wise virgins have their oil in their vessels, that 
 is, have their holiness and beauty hidden, and their 
 actions only to be taken notice of by God. 
 
 " TAKE HEED THAT NO MAN DECEIVE YOU." 
 
 Matt. xxiv. 4. 
 
 Bees, if they be not disturbed or provoked, are 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 seldom troublesome or offensive, especially in a 
 remote distance from their hives ; but, molest or dis- 
 quiet them at home, then they will furiously invade 
 you, and admit of no terms of peace, but die or 
 prevail in the ruin of that man or creature that 
 offends them. There are many men in the world 
 that seem of excellent natures, quiet spirits, while 
 they are not stirred or moved ; but if they be once 
 provoked, the latent embers be uncovered, then they 
 are implacably mischievous. 
 
 " O LORD GOD OF HOSTS, CAUSE THY FACE TO 
 SHINE, AND WE SHALL BE SAVED." Ps. IxXX. 19. 
 
 Bees, if they fall into the water and be drowned, 
 
 or be chilled and dead with cold (if it be less than 
 
 the space of a day), if you lay them in the warm 
 
 sun, or bring them near a fire, they will recover life, 
 
 and revive again, and do well. The affections of 
 
 God's children are apt to grow dull and languish, if 
 
 not to be chilled, by earthly objects; for our heart 
 
 is ponderous, " Multum trahit de terra, de came 
 
 multum,'" — it weighs downward as the weights of a 
 
 clock move downward continually ; and if they be 
 
 once at the ground the clock is silent : they nmst 
 
 be pulled up again every twelve hours, or in such a 
 
 certain compass they must be wound up. And so 
 
 in this case, there must be courses of winding up 
 
 holy affections ; if the fire be gone, the fire be out, 
 
 revive it, kindle it again from heaven, reinforce, 
 
 chafe, and warm yourselves by the fire of prayer 
 
 and other holy duties. When the fire on the altar 
 
19 
 
 was extinguished, it was unlawful to have it kindled 
 save only by that from heaven. It must be the 
 fire of heaven, not any other fire, that must revive 
 us. We must oft be renewing of our holy affections 
 to keep them vigorous and lively. We must fre- 
 quently excite and stir up ourselves ; when we begin 
 to faint we must rub and chafe our affections, and 
 especially spread our chilled spirits before the Sun 
 of Righteousness, that he may, with the heat and 
 healing of his wings, revive and quicken us. 
 
 •' IT IS SOWN A NATURAL BODY ; IT IS RAISED A 
 SPIRITUAL BODY." 1 CoR. XV. 44. 
 
 The little worm, after a short life of a few weeks, 
 stirs no more, feeds no more, but lies apparently 
 dead and entombed in the cell wherein it was bred ; 
 but wait with patience a score of days and you shall 
 see it revive, and appear a far more noble creature 
 than it was before. What is this but an emblem of 
 the resurrection ? Aaron's rod, which was a dry 
 and withered stick, in one night buds and blossoms 
 and brings forth ripe almonds. To every thing 
 there is a season, and a time to every purpose under 
 heaven — a time to die and a time to rise again. 
 
 •' IT IS GOD WHICH WORKETH IN YOU BOTH TO WILL 
 AND TO DO OF HIS GOOD PLEASURE." 
 
 Phil. ii. 13. 
 
 Bees can with ease and facility dart in their 
 stings ; but they have no power to extract or draw 
 
 c2 
 
20 
 
 them out again ; hurt they can — help or ease they 
 cannot. We are all naturally wise to do evil, but 
 to do good we have no understanding. We are all 
 as spring-locks, shut we can of ourselves but not 
 open, for our natural powers (as the schools speak) 
 are become naturales impotenticB . And howsoever 
 the sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon may 
 go together, yet the hand of Gideon, or the sword in 
 his hand, or the edge on his sword, is not able to 
 pierce, unless God give power ; " Non enim tarn 
 agimus quam a Deo agimur^^ saith Zanchy : for 
 man is not so properly said to do good, as to be 
 led to do it by the good Spirit of God. 
 
 '' FOR THE PEOPLE TURNETH NOT TO HIM THAT 
 SMITETH THEM, NEITHER DO THEY SEEK THE 
 LORD OF HOSTS." ISA. ix. 13. 
 
 Plundering bees will desperately adventure to 
 spoil and rob their neighbours ; but if they find sen- 
 tinels before the ports to question them, and a 
 strong guard at the gates to oppose them, and when 
 they have with danger and difficulty passed through 
 these, numerous forces within stoutly charging the 
 first assailants with their ruin and destruction, — the 
 survivors will be weary and wary, doubtful and fear- 
 ful further to prosecute their treacherous designs. 
 For even naturally all brute creatures avoid that 
 place where they are sensible by a token that their 
 fellows have miscarried. But how great the neglect 
 of God's judgments among men ! perhaps on the first 
 
21 
 
 impression they are deeply affected with them ; but 
 yet as a pang it is quickly overpast — and as news it 
 soon grows out of date. Pharaoh was no sooner 
 quitted from one plague, but presently his heart 
 was hardened to draw on another. The Israelites 
 that were so affected, flighted, and frighted at the 
 horrible end of Corah and his accomplices, even 
 on the morrow fall on Moses and Aaron and 
 upbraid them for the loss of the people of God. 
 Many look on others' judgments as if themselves 
 were furnished with a supersedeas from all arrests, 
 and argue from their punishment how they have 
 deserved, without the least reflex upon their own 
 mutable condition. 
 
 ** THY WORD HAVE I HID IN MY HEART." 
 
 Ps. cxix. 11. 
 
 As bees are industrious to gather, so what they 
 diligently get they do not carelessly and at random 
 disperse about the hive; but discreetly and orderly, 
 beginning at the top and so downwards, dispose it in 
 their waxen cabinets, and as soon as they be full of 
 honey close them fast with a waxen covering, both 
 to prevent robbers, and also to necessitate them- 
 selves to further labour as long as the season of 
 gathering continues. Many hear, but the word 
 heard profits them not, because they are careless to 
 treasure up the truths delivered, — they quickly for- 
 get ; such are like unto a man who beholds his 
 natural face in a glass, and goeth his way, and for- 
 
22 
 
 getteth what manner of man he was. But would 
 we thrive under the means, we must, when we have 
 heard, and marked, and understood the truth of 
 duties delivered, lay them up, lock them closely and 
 safely in our hearts, as in a safe repository ; we 
 must commit good instructions to memory. Had 
 we rich treasures we would not lay them up negli- 
 gently, but keep them under locks and keys, bars 
 and bolts; why then should we let holy instruc- 
 tions slip out of our memories y whereby all former 
 labours, as of the speaker, so of the hearer, is utterly 
 frustrate ? 
 
 " INCLINE YOUR EAR AND COME UNTO ME : HEAR, 
 AND YOUR SOUL SHALL LIVE." ISA. Iv. 3. 
 
 If the bee lights upon a flower where there is no 
 
 honey (being wasted or gathered before), she quickly 
 
 gets off and flies away to another that will furnish 
 
 her. Let us not lose ourselves and forget our 
 
 errand ; our father Adam lost our happiness, and 
 
 we are sent to seek it : seek it where it is, and go 
 
 handsomely to work ; say, I am not made for riches, 
 
 they are made for me; I am not made for creatures, 
 
 they are made for me, and I am their master; 
 
 therefore these cannot make me happy : I am made 
 
 for eternity, for everlasting life and happiness. 
 
 Therefore let me study that — mind that — see that 
 
 end beyond inferior ends. Why do men seek 
 
 wealth, but to be happy? Why pleasures, why 
 
 honours^ but because they would be happy ? If these 
 
23 
 
 cannot bless and enhappy me, why should I burn 
 day-light ? why should I not off them, as the bee 
 gets off the plants that yield her no honey, and 
 once at last see where my business lies, in pursuing 
 happiness, and where my happiness lies, in God's 
 ways ; the first step whereof is poverty of spirit. 
 
 " YIELD YOURSELVES UNTO GOD." ROM. vi. 13. 
 
 When the wax is mollified and wrought warm then 
 set the seal on it, for it will receive the impression. 
 And when God hath any ways mollified our hearts, 
 and made them in a mourning case, close with him; 
 when we find ourselves any whit softened — take the 
 hint— improve that opportunity. 
 
 " FOLLOW AFTER MEEKNESS. FIGHT THE GOOD 
 FIGHT OF FAITH." 1 TiM. vi. 11, 12. 
 
 Bees are naturally harmless and patient creatures ; 
 each, in and for her own particular, will ordinarily 
 receive any prejudice, hurt, or molestation, and 
 when they suffer are wondrous calm ; but near the 
 hive, where the cause seems to be public, and their 
 commonwealth to be endangered, then they are mar- 
 vellous hot and furious ; and, notwithstanding the 
 fiercest opposition, will resolutely charge all that 
 stand in their way in the defence of the public, al- 
 though they die in the conflict. But how far short 
 are many Christians in their practices ! In any 
 public cause where the glory of God is concerned, 
 or the common good interested, you shall have them 
 
24 
 
 bear all quietly. Oh, saith one, you must have 
 patience, and bear with small matters ; but in a 
 cause that toucheth his own particular (say himself be 
 concerned in his penny — in his peace — in his repu- 
 tation — or the like) then none are so fiery, none so 
 furious ; he is all upon a flame ; then no penalty is 
 thought too great, no disgrace too heavy for such a 
 person that hath done him displeasure. Whereas a 
 meek Christian in his own cause will be meek and 
 silent, but in God's cause zealous and earnest. 
 See it in Moses when he was censured, disparaged, 
 reviled, he bears it qiiietly, pockets it up without 
 distemper ; but at another time, when the cause 
 was public, when it concerned the glory of God and 
 the good of the church, then none so zealous, none 
 so fiery as Moses : he cannot brook nor bear. 
 
 " THE LORD LOVETH THE GATES OF ZION MORE 
 THAN ALL THE DWELLINGS OF JACOB." 
 
 Ps. Ixxxvii. 2. 
 
 Bees in July extract honey out of many and vari- 
 ous flowers, but yet by little and little, and in a small 
 proportion ; but if a honey-dew falls then, in a 
 short space are they largely replenished, and have a 
 triplication of their sweets, and a full refection with 
 their nectar. Holy prayers, meditations, and inter- 
 course with God, private readings, soul-soliloquies, 
 and spiritual discourses, are entertainers and satis- 
 fiers of the saints' necessities, but in public solemni- 
 ties God opens his treasures, pours out his graces 
 
25 
 
 more abundantly. Private devotions and secret 
 offices of religion are like refreshings of a garden 
 with the distilling and petty drops of a watering-pot ; 
 but addresses to the temple, and serving God in the 
 public communion of saints, is like rain from heaven : 
 there the offices are described by a public spirit, 
 heightened by the greater portion of assistance, and 
 receive advantages by the symbols of charity, and 
 increase by their distinct title to promises, appro- 
 priate even to their assembling ; and mutual sup- 
 port by the piety of example, by the communication 
 of counsels, by the awfulness of public observation, 
 and the engagements of holy customs. 
 
 '* EVERY GOOD TREE BRINGETH FORTH GOOD 
 FRUIT ; BlJT A CORRUPT TREE BRINGETH FORTH 
 
 EVIL FRUIT." — Matt. vii. 16. 
 
 Drones, to the eye, are goodly creatures, fairer 
 and larger than the working bees; they make a great 
 noise and loud buzzing, fly often forth in the heat 
 of the day, as if they were busy to advance the 
 public good; but they are all empty and vain- 
 glorious shews, for they contribute nothing to the 
 public store ; but when, after a few wanton vagaries, 
 they have whetted their appetites, they return to the 
 hive and liberally feed on the bees' labours. So 
 one writes of young Marius, that by reason of the 
 stoutness of his talk and gesture he was called the 
 son of Mars ; but when he came to the proof he 
 was branded with a new name, and was called the 
 
26 
 
 son of Venus. Thus many in their words appear 
 gracious, but by their actions are basely effeminate 
 and fickle, wanton and idle. 
 
 " HE IS LIKE A refiner's FIRE, AND LIKE 
 
 fuller's soap. — Mal. iii. 2. 
 
 Some hives will lie out two or three years together 
 and not swarm, or if they do, very late, and then 
 ten to one but they miscarry and die, both the old 
 stock and the swarm too. Now the best way to 
 preserve such a stock is timely to drive it into an 
 empty hive, and the bees being many, will provide 
 themselves sufficiently against winter, and swarm 
 seasonably another year ; so that, in some cases, 
 driving is not an undoing and destruction, but a 
 preservation of the stock. Thus the gardener cuts 
 off a graft or scion to plant it into a new stock, not 
 to burn it. So the Lord sometimes cuts off a sin- 
 ner from his abominations, but he will not cast him 
 into hell : and the Lord melts the heart of a poor 
 sinner, but consumes him not; but as the goldsmith 
 melts his gold, not to consume it all away, but to 
 make it a better vessel ; so the Lord melts a poor 
 sinner, to make him a vessel of glory. The Lord 
 will fire this proud heart of yours, and clip ofF those 
 knotty lusts ; but if you belong to him he will leave 
 a little remainder of hope, that you shall be formed 
 and fashioned anew, not consumed. 
 
27 
 
 '' WALK AS CHILDREN OF LIGHT." EPH. V. 8. 
 
 The queen bee is a very amiable creature and of a 
 brighter colour and more transparent hue than other 
 bees ; she is somewhat yellow about the belly, and 
 on her legs inclining to a golden colour, and this 
 colour intimates her princely nature, her royal blood, 
 and sovereign dignity. Some heralds tell us, that 
 none ought to bear gold-yellow colour in arms but 
 emperors and kings, and such as be of the blood 
 royal. Oh that none would bear the glittering shew 
 of profession and holiness, but those that are of the 
 race of Jesus Christ, the King of kings ! Then should 
 we not be as the priests, princes, and people of 
 Israel, a snare in Mizpah to the simple, and a net 
 spread on mount Tabor to catch them that know us 
 not : with an opinion of good men and good women, 
 faithful Christians and true believers, when we are 
 nothing less than hypocrites. 
 
 " FILLED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS WILL IN 
 ALL WISDOM AND SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING." 
 
 Col. i. 9. 
 
 The humble-bees' combs are but rude lumps, a 
 little hollowed for their own end and use ; the wasps 
 and hornets' combs for substance are unprofitable 
 dross, although they be hexangle cells, and some- 
 what orderly framed downwards, yet upwards have 
 no beauty, are nothing so polite and accurate. But 
 the bees' work is admirable, orderly, and geometri- 
 cally proportionable, all full of wonder. To these 
 
28 
 
 three sorts may we compare the obedience of most 
 men professing religion : — there is the obedience of 
 the common Protestant, perhaps somewhat more 
 than a Pagan performs, yet a rude and undigested 
 devotion, heaped up together by law and custom. 
 Then there is the sham obedience of the hypocrite, 
 in many things resembling true devotion ; superfine 
 carriages, but yet on one side only ; to man-ward 
 somewhat exact and formal, but to God-ward rudely 
 indiiFerent, careless, and negligent. Whatsoever is 
 done is not done with respect to God, and con- 
 science of his commandments. Lastly, there is the 
 obedience of the true believer, arising from a 
 grounded knowledge of the will of God and faith, 
 and from a holy fear and love of God, conscienti- 
 ously and respectively to approve himself to God in 
 the discharge of his duties, and it is exactly modelized 
 and squared according to the rule of God's word. 
 
 " THY WORD IS A LAMP UNTO MY FEET, AND A 
 LIGHT UNTO MY PATH." Ps. Cxix. 105. 
 
 It is an observation that a man cannot draw (even 
 in natural things) • a long straight line perfectly 
 exact, except he draw it by some rule ; it is not the 
 steadiest hand that can do it exactly, but there will 
 be some crooks. And therefore men use to take a 
 rule to draw a line by. Certainly it must be so 
 in spiritual obedience ; — a man must have an eye to 
 the word of God, and make that his card and com- 
 pass to sail by, make that the rule and warrant of 
 
29 
 
 his actions, or else though he hit (as it were) hab 
 nab at some circumstances, it is not formal obedi- 
 ence. Now, though a man may (hand over head, as 
 they say) make some hasty and tumultuous doings, 
 patch up a great deal of mud together to make a 
 wall, not caring for a square to make it perpendicu- 
 lar (as the humble bees rudely compose their combs 
 hand over head without any great care or art) yet if 
 a man would build a temple or stately palace he 
 must do it perpendicular, — it must be evenly and 
 orderly built according to an exact line both within 
 and without also (and thus geometrically and regu- 
 larly build the bees, as it were by square and 
 plummet), or else one part will over-top another, 
 and all tumble down. It is so in this cause — what- 
 soever is not squared by the rule of God's word, 
 whatever materiality it may have, it hath little or 
 no formality of obedience. 
 
 ** HAVING OUR HEARTS SPRINKLED FROM AN EVIL 
 
 CONSCIENCE." HeB. X. 22. 
 
 ** IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD ? IS THERE NO 
 PHYSICIAN THERE ?" JeR. viii. 22. 
 
 How many small things annoy the greatest ! Even 
 a mouse troubles an elephant, a gnat a lion, a very 
 flea may disquiet a giant. What weapon can be 
 nearer to nothing than the sting of a bee, yet what 
 a painful wound hath it given ! That scarce visible 
 point, how it envenoms and rankles and swells up 
 the flesh ! the tenderness of the part adds much to 
 
30 
 
 the grief. And if I be thus vexed with the touch 
 of an angry fly, Lord, how shall I be able to endure 
 the sting of a tormenting conscience ? As that part 
 is both most active and most sensible, so that 
 wound which it receives from itself is most intole- 
 rably grievous. There were more ease in a nest of 
 hornets than under this one torture ; O God ! how- 
 soever I speed abroad, give me peace at home, and 
 whatever my flesh suffers, keep my soul free. And 
 thus pained, (as natural honey quickly applied to a 
 sting is said to allay pain,) wherein do I find ease, 
 but in laying honey to the part affected? That 
 medicine only abates the anguish. How near hath 
 nature placed the remedy to the offence ! When- 
 soever my heart is stung with the remorse of sin, 
 only thy sweet and precious merits, O blessed 
 Saviour ! can mitigate and heal the wound : they 
 have virtue to cure me ; give me grace to apply 
 them — that sovereign receipt shall make my pain 
 happy. I shall thus applaud my grief ; it is good 
 for me that I was thus afflicted. 
 
 " THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD." 
 1 CoR. i. 21. 
 
 Bees, as many other creatures, have wit enough 
 to find out remedies for the cure of their maladies, 
 to preserve them strong and vigorous, and to re- 
 cover themselves, being weak. They, if they be 
 near the sea, delightfully gather of flowers that 
 grow on the salt marshes, as thrift, hog's scurvy- 
 
31 
 
 grass, &c. and where they are remote from it, they 
 drink water in sinks and saw-pits, and extract a 
 nitrous saltness therefrom. But man only being 
 wounded by sin, hath not, by the light of nature, 
 any wit to seek for remedy ; yea, man is care- 
 less of his eternal salvation. Every one is wise 
 enough to do evil, but to do well they have no un- 
 derstanding. And no marvel ; for as the clearest eye 
 beholdeth not the brightest object, except the sun- 
 beams do come between to enlighten it, so the 
 sharpest wits are not able to conceive the heavenly 
 mysteries of our redemption, regeneration, and 
 eternal salvation, without the bright beams of God's 
 Spirit shining into them to enlighten them. 
 
 *' LET YOUR MODERATION BE KNOWN UNTO ALL 
 
 MEN." — Phil. iv. 5. 
 
 As a man may eat too much honey, so pleasure 
 itself grows loathsome and distasteful by immode- 
 rate use. Nempe voluptatem commendat rarior 
 usus, Moderation is the mother of duration. It is 
 like the steady burning of a taper, or the fire upon 
 the altar, which never went out ; whereas head- 
 strong violence, like a squib or flash of lightning, 
 dazzles the eyes for a moment, but is instantly 
 extinct. 
 
 " THE POWER OF SATAN." ACTS XXVl. 18. 
 
 It is not good to provoke wasps and hornets, but 
 it is much worse to provoke devils. Some rude 
 
32 
 
 people will dare the devil, and challenge and bid 
 the wicked fiend to come if he dare, and to do his 
 worst, &c. Silly wretches ! the devil laughs at 
 them to see how fool-hardy they are against him 
 that hath them in his clutches already. 
 
 " KEEP THY HEART WITH ALL DILIGENCE ; FOR 
 OUT OF IT ARE THE ISSUES OF LIFE." Pr. iv. 23. 
 
 Bees, from their unwearied and restless nature, 
 are incessantly active for their future preservation ; 
 and therefore, when they cannot work, (harvest 
 being warm but dry, and not affording many 
 flowers,) they will steal and plunder ; and for 
 that purpose send forth sundry emissaries, which 
 search and examine every hive in their walk. At 
 first, these wary spies make faint essays ; but finding 
 little opposition or contradiction, they then, yet 
 doubtful, enter, and finding the access easy, fetch 
 a new supply of labourers to recruit their forces, 
 so that after a little while it will be difficult, if not 
 impossible, to withstand them ; whereas, a guard 
 before the door, a stout resistance or peremptory 
 repulse at the first, would have not only weakened 
 but frustrated all their designs. Wouldst thou 
 get the mastery over thy sin, (whatsoever it be,) 
 give it altogether peremptory denials ; suffer it not 
 to delight thee in the least tickling conceit and 
 pleasing speculation. It will be easy to abstain 
 from it when the denial is absolute and peremp- 
 tory ; bar up the doors, give lust no audience, get 
 
33 
 
 as much strength to resist as the lust hath power to 
 attempt. If we cannot put out a spark, how shall 
 we put out a flame ? If we get not the mastery 
 over the first motion to sin, much less shall we be 
 able to overcome when it is brought to maturity in 
 action. Sin is like the water — give it the least way 
 and we cannot stay it ; run it will in despite of us. 
 And a stream riseth by little and little ; one shower 
 increasing it, and another making it somewhat 
 bigger ; so sin riseth by degrees. 
 
 " FOR THE FLESH LUSTETH AGAINST THE SPIRIT, 
 AND THE SPIRIT AGAINST THE FLESH." GaL. V. 17. 
 
 Bees, when they are pleased and contented, make 
 an uniform and delightful hum with their wings ; but 
 acting illegally as in robbery, or discontented in 
 the loss or absence of their leader, they are dis- 
 tracted, as it were, in their flights, (nay frights) 
 and uncertain motions, and displeasing and harsh 
 in their buzzing clamours ; for as when the string 
 of an instrument is out of tune, then the music doth 
 jar; so when discontents predominate, all is in a 
 confused medley and disorder. Discontents pro- 
 duce not greater mischief in the hive of the bees 
 or of the commonwealth, than evil concupiscence 
 doth in the soul of a man ; it mars all his good 
 actions. To mingle water with wine it makes the 
 wine the worse ; to mingle dross with silver it 
 makes the silver the more impure : so evil concu- 
 piscence being in the soul of a man, doth stain, 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 disorder, and blemish his good actions, in that he 
 performs them either with vain glory or self-respect. 
 
 " DISCERN BETWEEN THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE 
 wicked; BETWEEN HIM THAT SERVETH GOD, AND 
 HIM THAT SERVETH HIM NOT." MaL. iii. 18. 
 
 Many hate not sin, neither fly it, because it is 
 sin ; but as children do bees, not because they are 
 bees, but because they have a sting ; so do they flee 
 from sin because it is hurtful. 
 
 " HOW MUCH LESS MAN, THAT IS A WORM, AND THE 
 SON OF MAN, WHICH IS A WORM ?" JoB XXV. 6. 
 
 When bees are most angry in their swarming or 
 fighting, cast but a little sand or water upon them 
 and they are presently quiet, and give over their 
 humming noise and contention. So, though 
 nothing else can assuage the tumour of the proud, 
 or quench the burning desire of honour in the am- 
 bitious, of wealth in the covetous, of pleasure in the 
 voluptuous, yet the consideration of the grave can. 
 He that seriously thinketh with himself, These 
 goodly robes of mine clothe nothing but dung — 
 all my dainty fare feeds but worms — I , who per- 
 haps have power over other mens' lives, have 
 no power over my own life, no, not for a moment. 
 Even whilst I sit upon prisoners, and condemn 
 guilty persons, I am arraigned in my conscience 
 before God. He that keeps down his heart with 
 these thoughts can no more be overthrown with 
 
35 
 
 pride, than a ship which is well ballasted be blown 
 away with a storm. 
 
 " WHOSOEVER WILL SAVE HIS LIFE, SHALL LOSE IT*, 
 BUT WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE FOR MY 
 SAKE, THE SAME SHALL SAVE IT." LuKE Ix. 24. 
 
 There are no strains in music so delightful as 
 those in which discords are artificially bound in 
 with concords ; nor dishes so dainty as those in 
 which sweet things are seasonably mingled with 
 sour ; nor pictures so beautiful as those in which 
 bright colours with dark shadows are curiously 
 tempered. Nor would the sweetness of honey be 
 so much commended, if there were not difficulty 
 and danger in the compassing of it. Did we not 
 fear the sting in the bees' tail we would not so much 
 value the honey in her mouth ; but what with 
 peril, if not pain, is procured, is better prized, more 
 praised. 
 
 '^ QUENCH NOT THE SPIRIT." 1 ThESS. V. 19- 
 
 Bees, as they are always laboriously painful, so 
 especially when they have been long shut up and 
 confined by unseasonable weather, then upon the 
 first approach of a calm, sun-shiny day, do they 
 rouse themselves up from their (now loathed) rest, 
 or on the fall of a honey dew in a warm and mild 
 season do they eagerly pursue their delightful la- 
 bours. Shall irrational creatures take the hints 
 of opportunity, and shall we trifle them away ? Let 
 
 D 2 
 
a6 
 
 us be jealous and cautious of these creepings and 
 turnings, these serpentine tricks of the flesh, and 
 the world that would slay us. Lay hold when thou 
 hast an opportunity to hear, to read, to pray. Post est 
 occasio calvu ; Make use, take the occasion, when 
 God hath led thee to privacy ; thou art there where 
 thou mayst freely have communion with thy God : 
 slight it not negligently, let it not slip ; it is God's 
 call. Doth the Spirit of God whisper us, saying. 
 This is a duty thou must do, and thy conscience 
 doth witness with thy spirit that it is so, and thy 
 own affections (if thou hast any heaven-ward, duty- 
 ward) do stir thee also? Let not this wind blow in 
 vain over thee, extinguish not the Spirit by neglect: 
 when God offereth thee a hint by his Spirit, take it ; 
 take that hint, I say : a man may do more in an 
 Jiour of prayer when he hath the motions and power 
 of the Spirit, when the forerunner of it is some sweet 
 motion cast into the heart of a man — some sweet 
 touch of meditation puts him upon duty — oh! then 
 if a man would make use of the sails of that hint, 
 by that wind he might dispatch a great voyage of 
 prayer, and return richly laden. 
 
 " TO DIE IS GAIN." PhIL. i. 2L 
 
 The first life of a bee is scarce worthy to be 
 called a life, Vita est, non vitalis. She is included 
 in a little narrow cell, without any locomotive 
 power ; she hath neither eye to see nor organ to 
 hear; is not sensible of danger, much less able to 
 
37 
 
 prevent it ; is orxly capable of that meat which is 
 put into the mouth, whereby it grows but unprofit- 
 ably like a plant rather than a brute, for it can 
 neither help nor hurt ; but after it is transmuted bv 
 death it appears in a more excellent and glorious 
 condition : it is agile and industrious, beneficial to 
 itself, to others. In a word, the first life is but a 
 spark raked up in ashes, the other is a spark blown 
 up into a flame ; the first is the sap in the root, the 
 latter like the sap that fills the branches with leaves 
 and mature fruit. Wherefore is it that the saints 
 desire death ? — not that they might be deprived of 
 the comforts of life ; they would not put off their 
 clothes but to be better apparelled. They desire 
 death to attain a life that might swallow up the 
 weaknesses, sicknesses, troubles of this ; not as a 
 gulf swallows up that which is cast into it, or as 
 the fire swallows up the wood by consuming it, but 
 as perfection swallows up imperfection, or as man- 
 hood swallows up childhood, not extinguishing it, 
 but drowning it, that it is not seen. 
 
 " TO HIM THAT KNOWETH TO DO GOOD, AND DOETH 
 IT NOT, TO HIM IT IS SIN." Ja. iv. 17. 
 
 By nature, bees expel the drones because they 
 affect only ease, and content themselves to do 
 nothing, caring only to avoid labour, which attends 
 upon active and industrious employment. And 
 why was Meroz cursed ? Because they came not out 
 to the help of the Lord against the mighty ; and 
 
38 
 
 idle and slothful spending of a man's life is every 
 where in Scripture condemned. Wilful defects and 
 omissions of doing good, bring damnation : he that 
 wanted his wedding garment was thrust out of 
 doors and cast into utter darkness. 
 
 " THE TESTIMONY OF THE LORD IS SURE, MAKING 
 WISE THE SIMPLE." Ps. xix. 7. 
 
 Soft wax admits any stamp ; and simple persons 
 are easily corrupted by themselves, or deceived by 
 others. 
 
 " IN THE WORLD YE SHALL HAVE TRIBULATION." 
 
 John xvi. 33. 
 
 The world is troublesome ; its gall is more than 
 its honey — it is not only vanity but vexation : have 
 all, it is but vanity — want but a little, 'tis vexation, 
 Ahab is sick because he hath not poor Naboth's 
 vineyard ; Haman wants but a knee from Mordecai, 
 and this embitters all. 
 
 " AT THE LAST IT BITETH LIKE A SERPENT." 
 
 Prov. xxiii. 32. 
 
 All the ways of worldly pleasure are strewed with 
 needles and nettles, which ever and anon prick and 
 sting her darlings as they pluck her fading flowers : 
 so that at best they are but like bears robbing a 
 bee-hive, who ravenously rifle the combs, and with 
 much ado suck out a little honey, but iii the mean 
 
39 
 
 time are soundly stung and swollen about their 
 heads for their painful pleasure. 
 
 " HAVE ALWAYS A CONSCIENCE VOID OF OFFENCE 
 TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD MEN." — Ac. Xxiv. 16. 
 
 Honey, over-liberally eaten, causeth vomiting — 
 the stomach cannot hold it : such are ill-gotten 
 goods to the heart, as the Canaanites were to the 
 good land : the land groaned till it had spewed them 
 out ; the conscience travails till it be delivered of 
 these. They are to the soul as Jonah to the whale ; 
 the whale had devoured him but could not rest till 
 he was restored ; so it is with the conscience — if 
 men play the whales and make fish of all that 
 comes to net, the conscience will be as weary of 
 such a burden, as the whale of the prophet's bones. 
 
 " SET YOUR AFFECTION ON THINGS ABOVE." 
 
 Col. iii. 2. 
 
 Many lay the whole strength of their affections 
 upon the things they fancy, (or as the cripple lays 
 his full weight upon his crutches;) and therefore, 
 when they are taken from them (as Pharaoh's cha- 
 riot wheels) they are drawn upon all four, and stick 
 in the mud : yea, they set on their affections as the 
 bee her sting, with all their might and strength ; 
 they convey into others their very bowels and hearts, 
 and therefore when they are gone they are heartless. 
 
40 
 
 *' BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THOU 
 SHALT BE SAVED." AcTS Xvi. 31. 
 
 He that is pained with the bees' stinging, must 
 for cure, speedily pluck out the sting, and then apply 
 juice of mallows mixed with oil or honey to the 
 wound. And the best remedy for a wounded con- 
 science is, by faith in Christ, first to pluck forth the 
 sting of sin, and then to wash in his blood, and 
 for the future keep the heart above all keepings ; 
 for as the eye is subject to infinite distempers, so 
 
 the conscience. 
 
 " FORSAKE NOT THE ASSEMBLING OF YOURSELVES 
 TOGETHER." HeB. X. 25. 
 
 Bees, solitary and alone, (especially in the night 
 or winter season) are quickly benumbed with cold 
 and die ; but many united together are agile and 
 lively ; nay, one chilled with cold put to the many, 
 recovers, and hath a new return of life. So that I 
 do not improperly speak if I say, they live as much 
 by heat as by meat ; and therefore, if there be many 
 in a hive, though there be but a tolerable supply of 
 food, they will do well ; but if they have never so 
 much meat, and be not many and numerous, they 
 will miscarry and come to nothing. The commu- 
 nion of saints puts life into those that have it not, 
 and increaseth in those in whom it is. The health 
 of the body doth not communicate itself to others; 
 it is otherwise in the life of the soul — the life of it 
 makes others to live more ; as iron sharpens iron, 
 
41 
 
 so one holy man doth another : when two lie to- 
 gether they keep one another warm — there is 
 action and re-action ; this is a powerful means to 
 get and increase this life. 
 
 " UNTO YOU THAT FEAR MY NAME SHALL THE SUN 
 OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ARISE." MaL. iv. 2. 
 
 Bees in the spring, when the weather is fair, will 
 work cheerfully; but if the sun withdraw his beams, 
 the wind blow hollow, the chilling showers descend, 
 then they are presently dull and liveless, scarce 
 appear, if at all not far from the hive ; it is an un- 
 comfortable time — the spirits of the bees lower, are 
 heavy and sad : we see it also in the body, that the 
 animal spirits in the brain, which are the causes of 
 motion and sense, if they be obstructed, there fol- 
 low an apoplexy and death. So it is between 
 Christ and the soul ; he is the Sun of Righteousness, 
 by whose beams we are all comforted and cheered ; 
 but when they are withheld, then our spirits decay 
 and are discouraged. Summer and winter arise 
 from the presence and absence of the sun ; the pre- 
 sence of the sun when it comes near causeth the 
 earth to be clothed with a rich embroidery of fruits 
 and flowers. And what makes the summer and 
 winter in the soul, but the absence or presence of 
 Christ ? what makes some so vigorous beyond others, 
 but the presence of the Spirit ? As it is in nature 
 so it is here ; the presence of Christ is the cause of 
 
42 
 
 all spiritual life and vigour, but if he withdraws his 
 presence a little, the soul fails. 
 
 " SATAN HATH DESIRED TO HAVE YOU, THAT HE 
 MAY SIFT YOU AS WHEAT." Lu. xxii. 31. 
 
 Bees, when they assault a man, strike fiercely 
 at the face — the beauty of man, and principally in 
 the face aim at the eye — the beauty of the face. 
 Thus Satan, though he be malicious against all man- 
 kind, yet chiefly against those who by Christ are 
 conquered out of his hand ; and having their gar- 
 ments washed in the blood of the Lamb, are most 
 beautiful. For as the panther raging on the picture 
 of a man bewrays the hatred he bears unto him, so 
 the devil, to testify how much he hates God him- 
 self, spends the greatest of his fury on them that 
 bear the image of God. Thus do Satan's instru- 
 ments, incarnate devils, though they care not 
 usually whom they wrong, oppress, injure, hate, 
 yet most of all the holy ones in earth are the object of 
 their hatred ; they are the drunkards' songs, and a 
 sport to the foolish. What muttering, what whis- 
 pering, what censuring, what sinister construction 
 is set upon every action of theirs ! what discovering, 
 what blazing of infirmities ! what so high but they 
 will reach it, what so deep but they will be sounding 
 the bottom of it ; but a day will come when they 
 will cry out with Cicero, me nunquam sapientem, 
 et aliquando id quod non eram falso existimatum, 
 Ah me ! that indeed was never wise, but falsely 
 
 I 
 
43 
 
 thought to be what I was not. And with those in 
 the Book of Wisdom, We fools thought his life 
 madness, and his end without honour ; how is he 
 accounted among the children of God, and his por- 
 tion among the saints ! But the innocent heart 
 shall then lift up a cheerful countenance, as know- 
 ing that though here it were despised, yet there it 
 shall be justified and rewarded with a crown of glory. 
 
 " THEY ARE WANDERING STARS, TO WHOM IS 
 RESERVED THE BLACKNESS OF DARKNESS FOR 
 EVER." JUDE 13. 
 
 Wasps gather not as bees, yet some seeing them 
 running on the tops of flowers, and sucking in the 
 cells, are notably deluded, supposing that they 
 gather as well as the bees ; whereas, they only suck 
 to satisfy a wanton fancy, but carry away nothing 
 for a future supply of themselves. Hypocrites in 
 many outside duties may comply with believers, 
 and have their conversation in such actions that 
 they are usually practical in, and so deceive many 
 who are easily beguiled with similitudes. All de- 
 ceit is from similitude. False wares having the 
 same die that the true have, deceive the buyers ; 
 so falling stars are like other stars. When we see 
 men that profess religion false-hearted, many are 
 apt to think that all are so ; wherefore the apostles 
 pray that they might abound in all knowledge and 
 judgment to discern of things that differ : this 
 proximity makes many deceived. 
 
44 
 
 " FOR BECAUSE OF THESE THINGS COMETH THE 
 WRATPI OF GOD UPON THE CHILDREN OF DIS- 
 OBEDIENCE." — Eph. V. 6. 
 
 A lamp or candle by the brightness of it enticeth 
 the bee (as many other flies) to embrace it, but by 
 that means she is either drowned in the oil, or 
 burned in the flame. So the shows of sin and the 
 pleasures of the world entice the minds of men, that 
 their hearts are drowned in many fears and sorrows ; 
 and when they suppose that they have catcht all, 
 they themselves are caught. Finally, corruption 
 and destruction (the natural ends of all things 
 under heaven) layeth hold upon them qui lachri- 
 marum causas tripudiantes peragimt, et ridentes 
 mortis negotiumexequunter; Who go dancing through 
 the causes of their own mourning, and with laugh- 
 ter act the tragedy of their own death. 
 
 " PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD, THAT YE 
 MAY BE ABLE TO STAND AGAINST THE WILES OF 
 
 THE DEVIL." — Eph. vi. 11. 
 
 The titmouse is said to be a great destroyer of 
 bees ; and, more easily and certainly to obtain his 
 prey, will, in the winter, watch at the doors of 
 their hives, (their castles of security,) and as soon as 
 any come forth seizeth upon them, and eateth 
 them ; if none appear he knocks with his bill, and 
 they feeling the motion come forth to know the 
 cause, and are presently devoured by him. In the 
 spring-time he resorts to the willow-trees, (whither 
 
45 
 
 the bees come to gather,) and there invades them, 
 so that they are no where secure. And thus, and 
 more active, is the great Apollyon, the devil, to 
 destroy men's bodies and souls, sometimes fitting 
 temptations to men's tempers and constitutions, 
 (for he cannot by force, without our own consent, 
 prevail over us.) As a bait of promotion for Ab- 
 salom, because he is ambitious ; of pleasure for 
 Sampson, for he is voluptuous : every man will not 
 be drawn to sin by every object ; an earth-worm 
 esteemeth not pleasure, and a man by temper vo- 
 luptuous, esteemeth not profit much, nor an ambi- 
 tious man either; and therefore the devil, who is wise 
 (as Isidore saith), hath his fiedoUias, Ephes. vi. 11. 
 and his padri, Rev. 2. 24, his artificial ways and 
 deep reaches, and presenteth men with suitable ob- 
 jects, for the love of which he thinks they will be 
 content to strain their consciences, and break God's 
 laws ; and presenteth them at fit times and places, 
 for every time is not a season ; all places are not 
 opportunities. There is the hour and power of dark- 
 ness ; and there is the time of pleasure and pros- 
 perity, when men are apt to be regardless of them- 
 selves ; and the high priest's hall to work upon Peter 
 — the times of our weakness when we are wholly 
 deprived of such a friend or governor, as might by 
 their watchful observation of our courses restrain us 
 from sin, or by their counsel uphold us, by their 
 rebukes and corrections recover us if we fall. 
 
46 
 
 " GRIEVE NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT." EpH. iv. 30. 
 
 If the queen bee miscarry in the hive, or flying 
 out of it for recreation, (for otherwise ordi- 
 narily she stirreth not forth,) come to some mis- 
 chance, all her subjects are presently in a sad 
 mourning posture; now there is nothing but con- 
 fused discursions, a woful complaining, a cessa- 
 tion . from work, and quickly a miscarriage and 
 death of all. And if Christians sad and grieve 
 the Holy Spirit of God, and cause him by 
 their sins to go away from them, they cannot (if 
 they be sensible of their condition) but be in a sad 
 and mournful estate ; for as the air is dark and 
 chill, the earth cold and wet, and the face of the 
 sublunary world uncomfortable, when the sun, 
 which is the light and life of it, hath withdrawn his 
 light, so must the face and state of the soul needs 
 be very gloomy, when the Spirit, who is the Com- 
 forter, hath withdrawn his presence. 
 
 " UNDERSTANDEST THOU AVHAT THOU READEST ?" 
 
 Acts viii. 30. 
 
 When a man crops a flower from the earth, he 
 can get nothing out of it but the sweetness of the 
 smell or the delightfulness of the colour ; but when 
 the diligent bee comes, she will make more of it, 
 she will extract that which is (as it were) the very 
 spittle of the stars. So when simple carnal-minded 
 men read the poets and the philosophers, they 
 
47 
 
 gather nothing but delight and pleasure ; but when 
 the diligent bee comeSy a wise man, a serious, con- 
 siderate man, he draws honey out of them. 
 
 '' THE FULL SOUL LOATHETH AN HONEY-COMB." 
 
 Pr. xxvii. 7. 
 
 Bees, when they have filled themselves with 
 water, they cannot gather honey until they have 
 vomited it up. And he that will thrive by the food 
 of the word must empty and unburden the stomach 
 of his soul of all things that will hinder the purity 
 and power of it from taking possession of his heart: 
 he must bring a heart and a head like two empty 
 buckets, to draw with greedinessand joy the waters 
 of life out of the wells of salvation : even the honey- 
 comb, the sweetest thing in the world, is loathsome 
 to a full stomach. 
 
 '' THE LORD WILL NOT SUFFER THE DESTROYER TO 
 COME IN TO SMITE YOU." Ex. xii. 23. 
 
 Many creatures (in particular bees) by antipathy 
 and instinct of nature, shun that which is contrary 
 or obnoxious to their safety ; and men by their in- 
 tellectual parts do foresee and discern what is hurt- 
 ful and dangerous to them or their lives, and de- 
 cline and oppose things that have a tendency 
 thereunto. 
 
48 
 
 " WOE UNTO YOU, SCRIBES AND PHARISEES." 
 
 Matt, xxiii. 27. 
 
 As Sampson met the lion as an enemy when he 
 was alive, but after he was slain he went unto him 
 as unto a table ; there was only terror while he 
 lived, but honey when he was dead ; — so doubtless, 
 many men to whom the bodily presence of Christ, 
 and the mighty power and penetration of his 
 heavenly preaching, whereby he smote sinners unto 
 the ground and spake with such authority as never 
 man spake, would have been unsufFerably irksome 
 and full of terror, (as it was unto the Scribes and 
 Pharisees,) can yet now that he is out of their sight, 
 and doth not in person, but only by those who are 
 his witnesses, torment the inhabitants of the earth, 
 pretend much admiration and thankful remembrance 
 of that death of his which was so full of honey for 
 all that come unto him. 
 
 *' HAVING FOOD AND RAIMENT, LET US BE THERE- 
 WITH CONTENT." — 1 Tim. vi. 8. 
 
 Bees are diligent and painful in their work, but 
 frugal and temperate in their feeding. Their food 
 consists of two kinds, or rather one diversified, — wet 
 and dry, honey and bee bread ; so that you may 
 draw a bill of their fare and a catalogue of their 
 provision in setting down bread and water : and 
 having these they have enough, for they want 
 nothing. But many men lay out on a meal a 
 
49 
 
 year's allowance, and waste as much provision in 
 a few hours as were sufficient to relieve the famine 
 of an army. Quickly do many men devour all 
 that all other members (the caterers and purveyors) 
 can bring in, yea, whatsoever art can devise, 
 luxury and all the obsequious servant of the idol 
 belly invent ; so that Judas his purchase, Aceldama, 
 is no way comparable ; — that, indeed, a greedy grave 
 employed to funeral uses, able in eight and forty 
 hours, as it is reported, to consume the flesh of any 
 carcase therein buried, but this, in four and twenty 
 hours, consumes many carcases of fishes and fowls, 
 and generally twice a day all the flesh therein 
 interred. 
 
 "for the word of god is quick and 
 POWERFUL." — Heb. iv. 12, 
 
 What is a bee to a bear, or a mouse to an ele- 
 phant ? and yet if a bee fasten his sting in the nose 
 of a bear, or a mouse creep up and gnaw the trunk 
 of an elephant, how easily do so little creatures, 
 upon such an advantage, torment the greatest ! 
 Certainly the proudest of men may have some ten- 
 der part into which a sting may enter : the consci- 
 ence is as sensible of God's displeasure, as obnoxious 
 10 his wrath, as subject to his word, in a prince as 
 in a beggar. If the word, like David's stone, find 
 that open and get into it, it is able to smite the 
 <?reatest Goliath. 
 
50 
 
 ''behold, now is the accepted time, behold, 
 
 now is the day of salvation." 2c0r.vi.2. 
 
 The drones are a lazy and careless generation, 
 delighting themselves in sportful recreations and de- 
 licious dainties ; never providing nor forecasting for 
 themselves how it shall be with them afterwards, 
 but think to fare to-morrow as they have done 
 to-day, and so succeeding days as they have days ; 
 but the provident, prudent bee, finding a likely 
 decay of the gathering season, and observing that 
 the drones are only spenders and riotous wasters, 
 do at last violently expel them their hives, which 
 they are unwilling to leave, having provided nothing 
 for themselves, and therefore readily return again ; 
 but because they will take no warning, they then slay 
 them without pity or compassion. And as danger- 
 ously do many men pretending for wisdom play the 
 fools, delaying the practice of repentance, pro- 
 crastinating to take the offer of grace, and thus 
 deceiving themselves. They think to do it perhaps 
 to-morrow or afterwards, and so oft cozening them- 
 selves, the time they prefixed sliding away, and. 
 then another is determined which likewise goeth 
 away, but nothing is done, and so another, till at 
 last time be no more. Take heed you be not de- 
 ceived in this, I will do it now and now, but modo 
 et modo non habet modum. The chariot wheels 
 when they run, the second runs near the first all 
 the day long, but never overtakes it. As in a 
 clock, the second minute follows the first, but it 
 
 I 
 
51 
 
 never overtakes it, so it is with us ; this doing of it 
 now and now, and to-morrow and to-morrow, these 
 little distances, deceive us and delude us. We 
 think to do it in a short time, and by reason of 
 the nearness and vicinity of the time, we think we 
 shall do it easily, but we are deceived with it. As 
 grasshoppers deceive children when they think to 
 lay their hand upon them, they hop a little further 
 and a little further, that in the conclusion they take 
 them not at all, so it is with us ; we cozen ourselves 
 in that manner, we lose our life, we lose our oppor- 
 tunity of taking grace, because we think it to be so 
 near ; we think we can take it the next week or the 
 next month, and out of this we are confident it is 
 in our power, and so our time flies away and we 
 have never part in it. 
 
 *' RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH." 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 15. 
 
 The bees labour diligently to get fogd for the 
 supply of their young ; they bring it home to the 
 hive, and lay it up in the combs, but, alas ! they 
 are yet never the better for it, for they are fixed in 
 their cells ; they cannot stir forth to take it, there- 
 fore they do more, — they bring them food and put 
 it into their mouths, as oft as they need. The reason 
 why men's hearts are not wrought upon in the 
 ministry of the word, is because many ministers 
 labour not the right way to show men their sins, 
 and to convince their consciences : they insist only 
 
 e2 
 
52 
 
 in generals, whereas a particular application brings 
 every man his part and portion, and not only sets 
 the dish before him, but cuts him meat and carves 
 it for him. 
 
 "the love of CHRIST CONSTRAINETH US." 
 
 2 Cor. v. 14. 
 
 If any shall demand why bees, of all creatures, 
 are so indefatigably diligent and with unwearied 
 pains follow their sweet labours, flying sometimes 
 abroad in stormy seasons, whereby (oft prevented 
 of a return) they miscarry in the field ; nay, when 
 they are old and grey, feeble and faint, they will 
 venture forth, though they lose themselves, for most 
 of them die at their work — vitam sub fasce repo- 
 nunt ; — may I not answer, first, because they hope 
 in winter delightfully in rest and quiet, to enjoy 
 their plenty ? Secondly, some say for fear of punish- 
 ment — those that are idle being enforced, but a 
 fear of starving (the worst of punishments) prompts 
 them forth ; for if they be not timely furnished with 
 a competent provision, they must inevitably perish. 
 Thirdly, because it is incompatible to their nature 
 to be idle. They have a natural propensity and 
 inclination to their honey-gathering labours. Tantus 
 amor Jiorum et generandi gloria mellis ; and this 
 delight, as a watch wound up, carries them sweetly 
 on through all difficulties and dangers. — Three goodly 
 threads, which, twisted all together, have strength 
 enough to draw the most sleepy sluggard out of his 
 
53 
 
 bed of sloth and idleness. And if it should be 
 questioned why the people of God are so constant, 
 so faithful in such fruitless services, (as the world 
 accounts them,) and not dashed out of countenance 
 nor daunted by afflictions, but hold on their practice 
 and diligence in a course of obedience, maugre the 
 malice and mischiefs, the oppositions and contra- 
 dictions of men and devils; — first, from the hope 
 of a blessed reward, which makes them, with Moses, 
 choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of 
 God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a 
 season ; secondly, from the fear of a just punish- 
 ment, and a curse if they should decline and 
 baulk the service of God ; for we must all appear 
 before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every 
 one may receive according to that he hath done. 
 And though there were weight enough (as a late 
 learned divine observes) to set the most rusty wheels 
 going, yet because these two may work in base 
 minds, and are in themselves but sinister ends, 
 which many that seem to go straight may look a 
 squint upon, — fear in the fore-ward, and hope and re- 
 ward in the rear-ward, marshall all their forces, and 
 love in the main battle, or rather, tota in toto et tota 
 in qualihet parte animates every one to valour and 
 victory ; punishment is servile, and hope of reward 
 is mercenary. There is a third motive which is the 
 peculiar character of a Christian mind, and that is 
 love ; and this winds up a Christian's affections to 
 that intention of zeal and fervency. Reward hath 
 
54 
 
 an attractive, and punishment an impulsive, but 
 love hath a compulsive, faculty ; reward draws him, 
 punishment drives him, but love hales him forward 
 to the discharge of his duty : hope, like a tender 
 mother, enticeth him with a reward ; fear, like a 
 severe master, incites him with a punishment ; but 
 love, like a sovereign lord, commands him. Hope 
 hales before him, and fear blows behind him, and 
 both on each side row him, but love within, like 
 the very soul of obedience, teacheth him a natural 
 motion. 
 
 " HE WILL THOROUGHLY PURGE HIS FLOOR, AND 
 GATHER HIS WHEAT INTO THE GARNER." MaTT. 
 
 iii. 12. 
 
 Bees are neat and cleanly creatures, and careful 
 to carry forth all dross, soil, and filth, lest their 
 hives should be defiled ; yet sometimes, because of 
 long, violent colds, many enemies, weaknesses, be- 
 cause of some distempers, it is requisite for the bee- 
 master to help in the purging of them. The church 
 of God, after a long time of peace, is apt to gather 
 and contract corruption, as water doth by standing, 
 as the air itself will, if it have not the wind to purge 
 it, and as it is in the bodies of men if they be not 
 curiously looked unto : (after a certain time) they 
 will gather such a burden of humours as will rise 
 to a distemper, so that they must be let blood or 
 purged, &c. Such is the infirmity of men's nature 
 aud the malice of Satan, that enemy to mankind, 
 
55 
 
 that the best of God's people will quickly gather 
 some distemper or other and stand in need of 
 purging. And we are as much beholden to God's 
 corrections as to his comforts in this world, with- 
 out which we should quickly settle upon our dregs. 
 
 *' WHOSOEVER HE BE THAT FORSAKETH NOT ALL 
 THAT HE HATH, HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE." 
 
 Luke xiv. 33. 
 
 Bees in the honey season bestir themselves ; the 
 winter is long and their enemies many, and there- 
 fore much pains must be taken before-hand, or else 
 they will miscarry. And if they be late swarms, 
 notwithstanding all their diligence, except there be 
 an additional supply by timely feeding, want can- 
 not be prevented. Were the winter short, robbers 
 few or none, ill weather bui a few weeks, as in 
 Sicilia, Ethiopia, and some southern climates, small 
 preparation might serve the turn ; but in our colder 
 regions the greatest pains are seldom too much — 
 sometimes not enough. Whosoever enters upon 
 the profession of religion with vain hopes of ease 
 and pleasure, doth but delude his own soul ; fore- 
 cast, therefore, what will fall, and get provision of 
 grace before-hand, to sustain. As if a man were to 
 go a dangerous journey, he provides himself of 
 weapons and cordials, and all the encouragements 
 he can, lest he should faint in the way. Whereas, 
 he that walks for his pleasure provides nothing, and 
 cares not for his weapons or his cloak, because, if 
 
56 
 
 a storm comes, he can quickly run under shelter. 
 He that makes religion a recreation, can walk a 
 turn or two for his pleasure, and when any difficulty 
 ariseth, can retire and draw in his horns again ; but 
 a true Christian, that makes it the main act of his 
 life to please God, arms himself for the worst that 
 can befal him : he is resolved not to retire for any 
 trouble or persecution whatsoever, that stands be- 
 tween him and happiness. 
 
 ^' TIIEY ARE ALL GONE OUT OF THE WAY ; THERE 
 IS NONE THAT DOETH GOOD, NO, NOT ONE.'' 
 
 — Rom. iii. 12. 
 
 Man swerving from the end for which he was 
 created and serving the devil, the world, and his 
 fleshly lusts, degenerates from his nature, and be- 
 comes worse than the very beasts, for they stand 
 firm in their places enjoined them by God in their 
 creation. The bee is careful to do God's work, 
 having no tutor nor remembrancer, but man is 
 senseless and careless to obey his Maker, 
 
 " THE THOUGHTS OF THE DILIGENT TEND ONLY 
 TO PLENTEOUSNESS." PrOV. Xxi. 5. 
 
 As the bee sucks honey out of every flower, and 
 a good stomach sucks out some sweet and whole- 
 some nourishment out of what it takes unto itself, 
 so doth a holy heart, so far as sanctified, convert 
 and digest all into spiritual and useful thoughts. 
 
57 
 
 " mine eyes are ever toward the lord, for 
 he shall pluck my feet out of the net." 
 — Psalm xxv. 15. 
 
 There is no vice in a man whereof there is not 
 some analogy in the brute creatures. As among 
 us men, there are thieves by land and pirates by 
 sea, that live by spoil and blood, so is there in every 
 kind among them variety of natural sharkers ; the 
 hawk in the air, the pike in the river, the whale in 
 the sea, the lion and tiger in the desert, the wasp 
 in the hive, the spider before the hive, sometimes 
 among the flowers in the bees' walk. And see how 
 cunningly this little Arabian spreads out his tent 
 for a prey, how heedfully he watcheth for a pas- 
 senger ! so soon as ever he hears the noise of a bee 
 or a fly afar ofl", how he hastens to his den ! And if 
 that silly, heedless traveller do but touch upon the 
 verge of that unsuspected walk, how suddenly doth 
 he seize upon that miserable booty, and after some 
 strife, binding him fast with those subtle cords, 
 drags the helpless captive after him into his cave ! 
 What is this but an emblem of those spiritual free- 
 booters that lie in wait for our souls ? They are 
 tlie spiders, we the bees ; they have spread their 
 nets of sin ; if we be once caught they bind us fast, 
 and hale us into hell. O Lord ! deliver thou my 
 soul from their crafty ambushes ; their poison is 
 greater, their webs both more strong and more in- 
 sensibly woven. Either teach me to avoid temp- 
 
58 
 
 tation, or make me to break through it by repent- 
 ance ; oh let me not be a prey to those fiends that 
 lie in wait for my destruction ! 
 
 " GIVE ME NEITHER POVERTY NOR RICHES." 
 PrOV. XXX. 8. 
 
 The bee gives honey, but sometimes she stings : 
 prosperity hath its sweetness, and also its sting. 
 Sunshine is pleasant, but sometimes it scorcheth. 
 
 *' FEAR THOU NOT, FOR I AM WITH THEE ; BE NOT 
 DISMAYED, FOR I AM THY GOD. ISA. xH. 10. 
 
 Bees love their queen, and therefore will fight 
 courageously in her defence. Is she present with 
 them and excites them with her voice, (like a 
 trumpet ?) they will, even to the last gasp, venture 
 their lives ; they are in the eye of their leader, and 
 that makes them bold and daring. And shall a 
 Christian pretend love to his God, and not be 
 courageous in the presence of his great Lord and 
 Master, who is ever present with him, about 
 him, and in him ? Undoubtedly ; he that hath 
 seen God once in the face of Christ, dares look the 
 grimmest creature in the face, yea, death itself 
 under any shape. The fear of all things flies be- 
 fore such a soul : only a Christian is not ashamed of 
 his confidence. Why then should he not be as 
 bold for his God, as others are for the base gods 
 they make for themselves ? 
 
59 
 
 " THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH AND SONG, AND IS 
 BECOME MY SALVATION." PsALM CXviii. 14. 
 
 Bees, long shut up in their hives in winter with ex- 
 tremity of cold, upon a fair, calm day, when the sun 
 hath warmed and cheered them with his quickening 
 beams, will show their thankfulness (as it were) in 
 a pleasing murmur, and dance about in many 
 circumgiring motions and circling vagaries in 
 the air, and then, returning into their hive, 
 will make there a loud congratulatory humming ; 
 whereas, before, they were in a dull and silent 
 posture. And it is as natural for the new creature, 
 when it feels the Sun of Righteousness warming the 
 soul, when it tastes of God in Christ, to show forth 
 itself in thankfulness and praise; and it can no 
 more be kept from it, than fire can keep from burn- 
 ing, or water from cooling. It is the nature of the 
 new creature so to do. 
 
 " AN AFFLICTED AND POOR PEOPLE, AND THEY 
 SHALL TRUST IN THE NAME OF THE LORD." - 
 
 Zeph. iii. 12. 
 
 Bees, when they go forth in a swarm, will some- 
 times be provided of a habitation before-hand ; 
 some hollow tree or hive not fax remote, where the 
 bees died in the preceding winter. But when they 
 come to it, if not before, they will prepare and 
 purge it of all dead bees, stinking substances, 
 rotten combs ; and where the outsides of the combs 
 
60 
 
 are dry and crisp, they will eat and pare ofF the 
 rotten wax, as masons in building pare off the 
 crumbling outsides of the weather-beaten stones, 
 and then make a new front, that they may not after 
 build upon a rotten, naughty, or weak foundation. 
 Their art is not to pull down edifices, but to build 
 them up, but they do that which belongs not to 
 them properly, that they may do that which belongs 
 to them, for they will not build upon an unsound 
 and crumbling foundation. God, to make his 
 children trust in him, casts them out of themselves : 
 he will not build on a rotten foundation ; he will 
 not build on carnal trust, pride, and covetousness, 
 but he will demolish that rotten foundation with 
 afflictions and crosses. He will use such means 
 that we shall have small joy to trust in sin ; he will 
 force us by crosses and afflictions to go from our 
 sins; he will demolish that rotten foundation, that 
 he may raise up an excellent edifice and frame 
 of the new creature, that shall endure to everlasting. 
 The work of a physician is to cure nature, not to 
 weaken it ; but if the body be distempered, it must 
 be weakened before it be strengthened : to make 
 that sound, he must give them strong purgations, 
 that shall afflict them and affect them as much as 
 the disease for a while, but all is to make them 
 strong afterwards. So God afflicts us to drive us 
 out of ourselves, that we may come at last to trust 
 in him, in whom is all our good and happiness. 
 
61 
 
 *' BE SOBER, BE VIGILANT." 1 PeTER V. 8. 
 
 Bees live like soldiers in a camp, and therefore, 
 as besieged cities or armies that fear an approaching 
 enemy, never dare give themselves wholly over to 
 security, but always night and day have their 
 scouts, centinels, corps du garde, to keep watch 
 and ward, lest some of their many enemies should, 
 by a sudden camisado, surprise or beat up their 
 quarters. We have a hellish enemy, the devil, a 
 roaring lion, who waiteth for a time of drowsy se- 
 curity, wherein he may suddenly seize on us and 
 tear us in pieces. Therefore, when there seems to 
 be most security and cessation of spiritual arms, let 
 us conceive the most danger to be at hand, and 
 prepare and arm ourselves against the day of battle. 
 For Jerome saith truly. Tunc maxime expugnaris, 
 cum te expugnari nescis ; Thou art most assaulted 
 when thou feelest no assault. When our adversary 
 seems to sleep, he watcheth but an opportunity to 
 run upon us and destroy us. If we were assured 
 that some fearful enemy was upon his march and 
 approaching towards us with fire and sword ; the 
 trumpets sounding, the drums thundering, the 
 horses neighing, and the cannons roaring, what 
 watch and ward should we keep I how would every 
 one bestir him ! and who would not thrust himself 
 into the danger, and be ready to stand in the gap 
 to save his country, his life, his friends, his liberty, 
 his goods ? But Satan, our arch-enemy, who seeketh 
 
62 
 
 to destroy that which is far more precious unto us 
 than all these things, yea, than all the world, (For 
 what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole 
 world, and lose his own soul ?) is not only approach- 
 ing, but also encamped against us with all his 
 forces ; and shall we now sleep in sin, and be 
 senseless in gross security ? 
 
 "a good conscience." — 1 Tim. i. 5. 
 
 Bee-masters tell us, that they are the best hives 
 of bees which make the greatest noise ; so that is 
 the best conscience which makes the greatest noise 
 with daily reasonings, before its own bar. If we 
 never go to bed before we have parleyed it out 
 thoroughly with our hearts, then we shall find of 
 ourselves as Alexander said of Antipater, that he 
 did wear white garments without, and was purple 
 within ; so we will give no rest till we find some 
 comfortable testimony of our amendment. 
 
 " PUT OFF, CONCERNING THE FORMER CONVERSA- 
 TION, THE OLD MAN." Ep. iv. 22. 
 
 It is observable that the creatures nearest the 
 earth, are most greedy to accumulate. What crea- 
 ture stores up so much provision as the bee ? But 
 the birds of the air that fly next heaven, neither 
 sow, nor reap, nor carry into the barn, saith our 
 Saviour. We are next to heaven in profession, let 
 us hate to be furthest off in conversation. 
 
63 
 
 " O LORD, HOW MANIFOLD ARE THY WORKS ! IN 
 
 WISDOM HAST THOU MADE THEM ALL." PsALM 
 
 civ. 24. 
 
 Bees are small creatures, but have great and 
 daring spirits and almost deadly poison. Though 
 industry and diligence can work much to tame 
 other creatures, yet little on this. By a continued 
 converse and frequent presence, their rage and fury 
 may be palliated ; but once provoked near the hive, 
 they acknowledge no respect to any. For the 
 most part, those beasts have least immanity, that 
 have most strength ; oxen, horses, and elephants, 
 are tame and serviceable, but bees and wasps have 
 stings : so wisely hath the Creator disposed, that 
 there might not be a conjunction et potenticB et 
 malevolenticB , that malice and might may not meet ; 
 so they are suffered to have will to hurt and not 
 power, or power and not will. 
 
 *' MANY WALK THAT ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE 
 
 CROSS OF CHRIST." — Philip. iii. 18. 
 
 Religion is the greatest enemy to religion ; the 
 false to the true. Favos etiam vespce faciunt, 
 Wasps also make combs, though instead of honey 
 we find the refuse of their young. 
 
 ^' GOD, WHO COMMANDED THE LIGHT TO SHINE 
 OUT OF DARKNESS, HATH SHINED INTO OUR 
 
 HEARTS." — 2 Cor. iv. 6. 
 
 The grub or worm in its first state or life is a rude 
 
64 
 
 creature, not much delighting in itself, less de- 
 lighting others ; but when it is shut up to be trans- 
 muted, then it is for a time a formless lump, with- 
 out any beauty or comeliness : but wait a few days 
 and the parts will appear, life will move in these 
 yet imperfect members, which are at length perfectly 
 formed, and then it comes forth an agile, useful 
 creature. And as God doth not make the whole 
 fabric of the world at once, though it was not im- 
 possible to him, being a God Almighty, but in the 
 space of six days ; so doth God deal with his chil- 
 dren. When God creates in his children a new 
 heart, he suffers first their hearts to be as a rude 
 and massy lump, full of darkness, and then sends 
 his Holy Spirit into their hearts, which illuminates 
 them and drives away those black clouds of dark- 
 ness and ignorance, and then he breathes into them 
 the sweet air of his Spirit : and thus out of Tohu 
 and Bohu is the new creature formed. 
 
 " MEDITATE UPON THESE THINGS.'' 1 TiM. iv. 15. 
 
 We should do as the bee when she hath sucked 
 sweetness from the flower — she better concocts and 
 refines it in her own body, and so it becomes pure 
 honey. Thus when we have sucked any precious 
 truth, we should, by holy meditation, concoct it in 
 our hearts, and then it would become pure and 
 profitable honey. 
 
65 
 
 a ^jjY PEOPLE SHALL BE WILLING IN THE DAY 
 
 or THY POWER." — Psalm ex. 3. 
 
 The young bees, as soon as they have passed their 
 second birth and transmuted their shape and 
 qualities, and are winged and strengthened to fly 
 abroad, presently fall to their work and imitate the 
 elder bees. And so doth the believing soul, as 
 soon as it is born again, strengthened and winged 
 with grace from God, make after him in works of 
 obedience, holiness, and praises, imitate the ex- 
 amples of the prophets and apostles, as they have 
 followed Christ. Let disadvantages be what will 
 be, you cannot keep young bees in the hive when 
 once transmuted and winged : no more can you keep 
 the regenerate soul from working the works of God, 
 and with holy praises ascending to heaven, when 
 they are once under the line of Christ's everlasting 
 love, and feel it shine mighty hot in them with full 
 face, with perpendicular rays, but with a present 
 rapture make holiness their work, and hallelujahs 
 all their language. 
 
 ^' THE OIL OF JOY FOR MOURNING." ISA. Ixi. 3. 
 
 Honey is gathered with much art from great 
 variety of trees and flowers ; and joy is a honey, a 
 fragrancy made from above, with much picking, 
 choosing, and composing. 
 
66 
 
 " TRULY OUR FELLOWSHIP IS AVITH THE FATHER, 
 AND WITH HIS SON JESUS CHRIST." 1 JoHN i. 3. 
 
 Bees are neat, sweet, and cleanly creatures, 
 naturally abhorring stinking places, and strong 
 scenting herbs. It is true they gather of the flow- 
 ers of some weeds which are bitter and offensive, 
 but yet the flowers are not, (as broom, henbane, 
 may-weed,) as your taste and smell may inform 
 you. But where the flowers participate of the ill- 
 scent of the herbs, they meddle not at all, (as gal- 
 lopsia, cheese-runnet.) And Christ puts no toads 
 in his bosom, (saith one,) nor believers wicked men 
 into the intimacy of their affections : purity will 
 bosom purity, corruption cannot delight in incor- 
 ruption : heterogeneals will not incorporate, light 
 and darkness are inconsistent, gracious and ungodly 
 men cannot live and link together. A good heart 
 cannot with more pleasure rest itself than in God's 
 resting-place, in Christ's society, in the way of the 
 Spirit, in the ministry of angels, and fellowship of 
 the saints. 
 
 " OCCUPY TILL I COME." LuKE xix. 13. 
 
 In the commonwealth of bees, all are employed, 
 none are idle ; the commander directs and orders, 
 the drones by their heat are very instrumental for 
 the hatching of the young cure ; every one con- 
 tributes somewhat to the public good. And in the 
 bee-hive of the church, there is no pretence for any 
 
67 
 
 man to be idle in the profession of religion. Thou 
 hast not riches, thou canst not give ; thou hast not 
 place, thou canst not show countenance to others ; 
 but if thou beest a child of God, thou hast the 
 spirit of prayer, the spirit of adoption, the spirit 
 of a son in thee, which enables thee to pray for 
 thyself and others : there is no Christian so poor 
 but he may do this. 
 
 "looking unto JESUS." — Heb. xii. 2 
 
 Bees, though they freely act in all their under- 
 takings, yet do they all with reference to the public, 
 and in subordination to the queen, whom they not 
 only love but after a sort live in, for without her 
 they will live no longer in their old habitation, not 
 at all, except they get under the regiment of another. 
 And this, their queen, they delightfully serve and 
 observe ; her silent directions do they readily com- 
 ply withal ; once their carriage in and out of the 
 hive is regulated and squared by a love of and awe 
 unto this their commandress. And it should be 
 with believers after this manner ; wheresoever we are 
 or whatsoever we do in this world, our conversation 
 here must be directed by a higher aspect. The 
 ship, while it is tossed in the sea, is ruled by the 
 pole star ; that must guide it : so in our conversa- 
 tion in the world, the staff of our conversation may 
 be the business we have in the world, but the rule, 
 the regiment of all, must be from heaven, with an 
 eye to God. 
 
68 
 
 " THEY THAT ARE CHOKED WITH THE CARES, 
 RICHES, AND PLEASURES OF THIS LIFE, BRING 
 FORTH NO FRUIT TO PERFECTION." LuKE ix. 14. 
 
 A little honey is sweet, much fulsome : — such 
 is pleasure, whose insinuations are so cunning, that 
 you shall not perceive your excess, till you be sick 
 of a surfeit. 
 
 ** DEARLY BELOVED, AVENGE NOT YOURSELVES." 
 
 Romans xii. 19. 
 
 Revenge commonly hurts both the offerer and 
 sufferer, as we see in the foolish bee, (though in all 
 other things commendable, yet herein the pattern 
 of fond spitefulness,) which in her anger envenometh 
 the fleshy and loseth her sting, and so lives not long 
 after. I account it the only valour to remit a wrong, 
 and will applaud it to myself as right noble and 
 Christian, that I might hurt and will not. 
 
 " WITHDRAW THY FOOT FROM THY NEIGHBOUR'S 
 HOUSE, LEST HE BE WEARY OF THEE, AND SO 
 HATE THEE." PrOV. XXV. 17. 
 
 Hast thou found honey, that is, hast thou found 
 the sweetness of a man's familiarity or conversa- 
 tion ? eat that which is sufficient for thee ; that is, 
 use his friendship or familiarity to sobriety, not 
 altogether withdrawing thyself, lest he forget thee, nor 
 yet too frequently visiting, lest he loathe thee ; for 
 it is better by seldom coming to make thy presence 
 
69 
 
 desirable, than by frequent visits to make him 
 weary of thee. 
 
 *'they compassed me about like bees, they 
 
 ARE quenched AS THE FIRE OF THORNS, FOR 
 IN THE NAME OF THE LORD I WILL DESTROY 
 
 THEM." — Psalm cxviii. 12. 
 
 Although bees have small strength, yet have 
 they great anger and insatiable wrath, and when 
 they violently pursue any, do not a little terrify and 
 affright them. Such is the pertinacious and im- 
 placable rage of the enemies of God's people, that 
 if God did not wonderfully stand by, interpose, 
 and support them, they would unavoidably perish : 
 but they are quenched as the fire of thorns, which, 
 although it makes a great crackling noise in the 
 beginning, and a greater flame than solid wood, yet 
 is suddenly extinct and consumed ; so that, in a 
 word, though wicked men tumultuously set upon 
 God's people, their violence in a moment shall come 
 to nothing. 
 
 " I MEDITATE ON ALL THY WORKS, I MUSE ON 
 THE WORK OF THY HANDS, I STRETCH FORTH 
 MY HANDS UNTO THEE." PsALM CxliH. 5, 6. 
 
 Temporal occasions open the mines to dig out 
 spiritual instruction ; for Christians may climb by 
 the stairs of these inferior creatures, to contem- 
 plate the glorious power of the Creator. A good 
 Christian, like the bee, works honey from every 
 
70 
 
 flower ; suffers no action, demonstration, event, to 
 step by him without a question. All objects to a 
 meditating Solomon, are like wings to rear and 
 mount up his thoughts to heaven. As the old 
 Romans, when they saw the blue stones, thought 
 of Olympus, so let every object, though low in 
 itself, elevate our minds to Mount Sion. A mean 
 scaffold may serve to raise up a goodly building. 
 It was once said, Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere 
 causas ; now better, Felix qui potuit rerum cog- 
 noscere casus, It is good to know the casual be- 
 ginnings of things, it is better to know their casual 
 ends. It is good to be a natural philosopher, but 
 better to be a supernatural, a Christian philoso- 
 pher, that while we intentively observe the creature, 
 we may attentively serve the Creator. 
 
 " A WISE man's heart IS AT HIS RIGHT HAND." 
 ECCLES. X. 2. 
 
 Some use flowers only for the beauty or the smell, 
 the physicians for health, but the bees for honey. 
 So do wise and prudent persons apply their studies 
 for the enriching and feeding of their minds." 
 
 ^' A WISE MAN WILL HEAR, AND WILL INCREASE 
 IN LEARNING." PrOV. i. 5. 
 
 As a spider's web is not therefore better because 
 it is woven out of her bowels, so neither is the 
 labour of the learned more contemptible, because, 
 as bees, they gather much from others. 
 
71 
 
 " WITHOUT ME, YE CAN DO NOTHING." JoHN XV. 5. 
 
 Consider a bee out of a hive as a solitary insect, 
 and it is the most helpless and shiftless creature 
 that is. If she works alone, she cannot frame reposito- 
 ries to lay up food ; would she breed ? she cannot both 
 hatch the young and gather meat ; is she assaulted 
 with enemies? alone she hath no defence nor power. 
 Finally, she cannot secure herself from any, much 
 less from the many evils and enemies whereto she 
 is obnoxious. And what is a man out of Christ ? — 
 as a man in a storm that hath no clothes to hide 
 his nakedness, to cover him from the violence of 
 the tempest — as a man in a hurricane that is out of 
 a house to shelter him — as a stone out of the foun- 
 dation that is scattered here and there as neglected 
 — as a branch out of the vine without sap and in- 
 fluence, ready to be cast into the fire. A man out 
 of Christ that is not clothed with him, that is not 
 built on him, that is not grafted into him, is a 
 destitute, forlorn, and neglected wretch. 
 
 " MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE." 
 
 2 CoR. xii. 9. 
 
 The weakest creatures have the strongest shelters. 
 Bees have hives and hollow trees to secure them ; 
 thus weakness occasionally is a help, for conscience 
 of weakness makes all creatures seek for supply 
 out of themselves. So the conies (as Agur saith) 
 hide themselves in the rock ; they fly to their 
 burrows, and the bees to their hives. Man is a 
 
72 
 
 ^eak creature in himself, weak in judgment, weak 
 in affection ; but the consciousness of our weakness 
 should make us seek for strength out of ourselves, 
 go to God in Christ, and then he is a kind of al- 
 mighty man. / can do all things (saith the Apostle) 
 in Christ that strengthens me. A Christian is 
 omnipotent if he depend upon the promise and 
 commit his ways to God, but he is impotent and 
 weak in himself; it is God therefore that must 
 establish us. 
 
 " NOT SLANDERERS, SOBER, FAITHFUL IN ALL 
 
 THINGS." — 1 Tim. iii. 11. 
 
 Gnats in numerous multitudes (like clouds) do 
 nothing but play up and down in the warm sun and 
 sing, and when they have done, sting the next hand 
 or face they can seize upon. See here a perfect 
 emblem of idleness and detraction ! how many do 
 thus miserably spend their good hours, who, after 
 they have wasted the succeeding days in vain and 
 merely unprofitable pastime, sit down and backbite 
 their neighbours ! The bee sings too sometimes, 
 but she works also — and her work is not more 
 admirable than useful; but those foolish flies do 
 nothing but play and sing to no purpose : even the 
 busiest and most active spirits must recreate, but 
 to make a trade of sport is for none but lazy wan- 
 tons. The bee stings too, but when she is pro- 
 voked ; these draw blood unofTended, and sting for 
 
73 
 
 their own pleasure. I would be glad of some re- 
 creation, but to enable and sweeten my work. 
 I would not but sting sometimes, where is just 
 cause of offence ; but God bless me from those men 
 who will ever be doing nothing or ill. 
 
 "the spirit of god dwelleth in you." 
 
 1 CoR. iii. 16. 
 
 The commandress of the bees is a queen, a royal 
 creature, and therefore she works not— it is beneath 
 her dignity to drudge and toil as the meaner subject ; 
 she flies seldom abroad, communicates little with 
 the world; state procures respect and honour to 
 eminent persons. Though she hath a sting, yet 
 rather as an ensign of power, than an instrument 
 of revenge, for she never useth it. It is the pro- 
 perty of a base and dunghilly spirit to be vindictive. 
 If I be a Christian, I am a king; shall I debase 
 myself in sinful practices— shall I cast my crown in 
 the dirt ? God hath raised me and made me an 
 heir of heaven ; shall I abase myself to sin and to base 
 lusts, (the devil's drudgery,) so that I cannot rule 
 my own members, and yet profess myself to be a 
 king ? When we are tempted to sin and to base 
 courses, let us say as good Nehemiah when he was 
 moved to fly, What, shall such a man as I fly ? 
 So should we say to any temptation to base courses 
 of life. What ! shall such a man as I do this ? For 
 a Christian, that is a king, that hath a guard of 
 angels about him, that is the most excellent 
 
74 
 
 creature in the world, for him to abase himself to 
 the world ? He that is bred from heaven, for him 
 to have no higher thoughts than the things below, 
 to have an earthly mind or revengeful thoughts, is 
 a shrewd presumption that he is only a titular 
 Christian, and hath not received the inward and 
 spiritual anointing. 
 
 '' GOD SAW EVERY THING THAT HE HAD MADE, 
 AND BEHOLD, IT WAS VERY GOOD." GEN.i. 31. 
 
 All is one to God to make an angel or a bee, to 
 create the brightest cherub or the most contempt- 
 ible fly ; for in every creation no less than an om- 
 nipotency must be the efficient, and no more than 
 nothing is ever the object. 
 
 *' YIELD YOURSELVES UNTO GOD, AS THOSE THAT 
 ARE ALIVE FROM THE DEAD." RoM. vi. 13. 
 
 If the queen bee be slain or any ways miscarry, 
 the whole hive is overthrown ; but if she be safe, 
 though they have weakenings, meet with injuries, 
 suffer from enemies, yet they will recover them- 
 selves and outgrow other dangers. A man's darling 
 sin is Satan's strongest hold, whither, when by the 
 power of the word he is dislodged out of other 
 parts of the soul, he retires as to his most impreg- 
 nable castle ; but if in this he be overpowered by 
 the blessing of God on the word of his gospel, then 
 is his dominion shaken, and the man driven to a 
 deep detestation of himself, thrown down to the 
 lowest step of a penitent dejection ; he is ineagered 
 
75 
 
 with thirsty greediness for pardon and grace, and 
 at length forced out of his natural estate. 
 
 " HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME." 
 
 Matt. xii. 30. 
 
 Bees in their private quarrels are patient and re- 
 gardless, they neglect and slight personal injuries ; 
 but if their hives be assaulted, their commonwealth 
 beleaguered or endangered with wasps, robbing 
 bees or other enemies, they lustily bestir themselves, 
 fight it out to the death ; whereas, the drones, as 
 they watch against no danger, so they resist none, 
 but love to sleep in a whole skin, letting all go at 
 six and seven, (as they say;) like lazy passengers m 
 a dangerous leak, will not lay hands to the pump, 
 and yet must miscarry with the ship's destruction. 
 And are not most men in the world drones, not 
 bees ? affected, perhaps, with their own troubles or 
 reproaches, but silent and slothful in God's cause 
 and truth; — then they are loath to stir, fearing 
 hatred, trouble, obloquy among men ? If their own 
 reputation be called in question, it will not a little 
 startle them ; but if God's name be blasphemed, his 
 word traduced, his ordinances violated, the course 
 of the gospel be stopped, in the freedom and liberty 
 whereof is the church's happiness and glory, and 
 the failing of it, the destruction of a people ; yet 
 they are little affected, it goeth not to their hearts, 
 they keep silence, as if this, of all other things, did 
 least concern them. When Jehu approached near 
 
76 
 
 unto Jezebel, and espied her in her window after 
 the fashion of harlots ; he cries out to them with 
 her, Who is on my side, who ? and the eunuchs 
 threw her down. The Lord seems sometimes thus 
 to say to us in the extremities of the church's af- 
 fliction, and he seems to cry to us, Who is on my 
 side ? If then thou be silent, that which our 
 Saviour hath said, will be here applied ; who is not 
 for him is sure against him, and so shall be accepted 
 in the day of accounts. 
 
 '^ SHALL NOT THE JUDGE OF ALL THE EARTH DO 
 
 RIGHT ?" — Ge. xviii. 25. 
 
 Wasps and hornets are very noisome creatures, 
 and therefore we seek their destruction ; nay, burn 
 up nests and young, and that before they have in- 
 jured us or ours, only because we know what they 
 would do if they be suffered to live and fly abroad. 
 And shall poor mortals think it much if God, who 
 knows our thoughts afar ofl", and the principles 
 within us, and what men would do if occasion be 
 offered, which for the present they know not of 
 themselves, as Hazael's answer to Elisha imports, 
 Thinkest thou, &c. No wonder if the Lord cuts 
 off many in their youth and infancy, because he 
 knows their nature, that they would do this and 
 this. Such passages of his providence there may 
 be, as to cut ofl" children and young men out of the 
 foresight of the evil that they would do to his 
 church, because he knows their thoughts afar off. 
 
77 
 
 ** THE RICH MAN SHALL FADE AWAY IN HIS WAYS. 
 BLESSED IS THE MAN THAT ENDURETH TEMP- 
 TATION." — James i. 11, 12. 
 The drones are always idle: observe them as 
 often as you will, and you shall never find them 
 carefully endeavouring their present or future good. 
 Bees, though laborious creatures, yet if you come to 
 the hive in winter, especially in extreme frosts and 
 colds, are shut up, none appear ; or if in a warm 
 day they fly a little abroad, yet they bring nothing 
 home, contribute nothing to the public treasury ; 
 they then seem to be as careless and as thriftless 
 as the drones. But the drones are constantly idle, 
 and therefore at all times you find them alike care- 
 less : come this day and you see them to gather 
 nothing, and come another time and you find them 
 gathering nothing. But the bees, though they be 
 sometimes hindered for want of the external favour 
 of the heavens tliat they cannot gather, as in the 
 winter time; yet, when the sun returns in the 
 spring, and the plants and trees begin to put on 
 their summer robes, and the heavens are clear and 
 smile upon them, then they diligently follow their 
 delightful labours. Vigorous and spiritful actions 
 are not always infallible characters of life. A man 
 may be a living man and yet in a swoon, no action 
 left in him : a man may be a living Christian, and 
 yet be in some deficiency of spirit, and in some 
 swoon, his spirits bound up, and not in case for 
 sction always in any kind ; so that actions are not 
 
78 
 
 sure characters of being in the right way to true 
 happiness. For a godly man may be like a tree 
 which may have life in it, when it hath neither fruit 
 nor leaves upon it, as in the winter time ; but in 
 another season they are more or less fruitful, for 
 the bias of their soul is set to God-ward, and to 
 heaven-ward ; and though it may by a rub be put 
 out of its course, yet because the qualifications of 
 their souls are heavenly, their affections are changed 
 and turned, they will be exercising themselves in 
 spiritual duties ; whereas, wicked men, in whom is 
 no change of heart, are never heaven-bound ; they 
 may pretend it sometimes and make fair shows and 
 promises, as the drones in a fair day fly abroad with 
 many a circling motion, and a great humming 
 noise ; but observe them, it is not to add to the 
 public store, but that they may with better stomachs 
 devour the bees' labours. Thus the Pharisees per- 
 formed many duties, made long prayers, but to 
 devour widows' houses. 
 
 '' AN INHERITANCE INCORRUPTIBLE AND UN- 
 DEFILED." — 1 Peter i. 4. 
 
 Every drop of honey is honey, and has the nature 
 and definition of the whole — it is throughout like to 
 itself. So our felicity above is homogeneal — heaven 
 is all heaven — every corner of heaven is a heaven — 
 every thing that is tasted a heaven — every thing that 
 is heard a heaven — every thing that is looked upon 
 or meddled with a heaven, a full felicity to the soul. 
 
79 
 
 " WHO, BEING PAST FEELING, WORK ALL UNCLEAN- 
 NESS WITH GREEDINESS." EPH. iv. 19. 
 
 Bees are temperate feeders, but when they are 
 violently robbed of their honey, or forced from their 
 hives, they will then eagerly and glutton-like fill 
 themselves, and scarce give over without smoking 
 or much disturbance. Now they are like to lose 
 all which they had painfully laboured for, and 
 charily shut up with waxen covers, as under lock 
 and key, till a time of scarcity, and they resolve 
 therefore to have a share before all be gone. And 
 thus many wicked men, having had by legal terrors 
 a foretaste of hell-fire before their time, after their 
 deliverance ^ grow a great deal worse, and knowing 
 their time to be but short, fall on earthly delights 
 more furiously, and grasp the pleasures of the 
 world with more greediness and insatiable impor- 
 tunity. 
 
 " THE STING OF DEATH IS SIN." 1 COR. XV. 56. 
 
 A bee's sting easily enters in, and when the bee 
 is flown away, yet the sting remains and works 
 itself with more violence deeper, diffusing thereby 
 the venom more strongly, and causing greater pain ; 
 and the longer it continues, with more diflBculty is 
 it at last extracted ; so that no man that knows the 
 danger, except he have the perfection of a mad 
 man, would run the hazard of the anguish, by de- 
 laying to pull it out. And such is sin ; it easily 
 pierceth th soul, and when the tempter is gone, 
 
80 
 
 yet once entertained, it easily winds itself further 
 in, and having the plea of continuance and custom, 
 will not be easily shaken off. Shall a blackamoor 
 change his skin, or a leopard his spots, in three or 
 four days, which they have contracted in twenty or 
 thirty years ? Oh no ! but as a late learned and 
 holy divine observeth. The longer thou puts it off 
 and deferrest, the more unfit thou shalt be to repent: 
 thy custom in sinning will exercise more tyranny 
 over thee, the curse of God for going on still in thy 
 trespasses will be more heavy on thee, the corrup- 
 tion that lurked in thy own bosom will be more strong 
 against thee, thy understanding will be more dark- 
 ened with hellish mists of ignorance, thy judgment 
 more perverted, thy will more stubborn, thy memory 
 more stuffed with sensual emotions, thy affections 
 more rebellious, thy thoughts more earthly, thy 
 heart more hardened, thy conscience more seared, 
 and thyself more sold to sin ; and every day thou 
 continuest in this estate of darkness, thou art much 
 more the child of Satan than thou wast before. 
 
 *' SEE THAT YE WALK CIRCUMSPECTLY, NOT AS 
 TOOLS BUT AS WISE." EpiJ. V. 15. 
 
 Bees have many enemies, — the mouse, the wasp, 
 the spider, besides robbing bees, their worst enemies. 
 It is no wonder then if they keep a continual guard, 
 lest they should be surprised, and examine every 
 one that goes in and out, and are presently in 
 alarms upon the least motion or disturbance ; their 
 
81 
 
 safety and well-being lie at stake. A believer's 
 condition is obnoxious to dangers, very liable to 
 temptations ; and shall we not walk circumspectly 
 and stand always upon our defence ? We are na- 
 turally subject to so many batteries and breaches, 
 by the assaults of original sin and other implacable 
 enemies to our souls, that there is extreme need 
 of perpetual watch and ward, of repenting and 
 repairing daily, lest the new man be too much 
 oppressed, and be often surprised with many and 
 cunning encounters of the old Adam. The consi- 
 deration of this should prevail much with us, to set 
 a daily guard about our souls. David was very 
 watchful, yet he was surprised unawares by the 
 sudden rebellion of his heart. We should there- 
 fore observe our hearts, as governors do rebels and 
 mutinous persons. We see to what an excess sin 
 grows in those that deny themselves nothing, nor 
 will be denied in any thing, who if they may do 
 what they will, turn all liberty into license, and 
 make all their abilities contributaries to the com- 
 mands of overruling and overruly lusts. 
 
 "'from whence come wars and fightings among 
 ^ YOU?" — James iv. 1. 
 
 What a pity it is to see these profitable, industri- 
 ous creatures fall so furiously upon each other, and 
 thus stinging and biting, kill each other in the very 
 mouth of the hive ! I could like well to see the 
 bees do this execution upon wasps, enemies to their 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 common stock. This savours but of justice ; but 
 to see them fall foul upon those of their own wing, 
 it cannot but trouble their owner, who must needs 
 be an equal loser by the victory of either. There 
 is no more perfect resemblance of a commonwealth, 
 whether civil or sacred, than in a hive : the bees are 
 painful and honest compatriots, labouring to bring 
 wax and honey to the maintenance of the public 
 state; the wasps are unprofitable and harmful 
 hang-bys, which live upon the spoil of others* 
 labour: whether as common barrators, or strong 
 thieves, or bold parasites, they do nothing but rob 
 their neighbours. It is an happy sight when these 
 feel the dint of justice, and are cut off from doing 
 further mischief ; but to see well-afFected and bene- 
 ficial subjects undo themselves with duels, whether 
 of law or sword, to see good Christians of the same 
 profession shedding each others' blood upon quar- 
 rels of religion, is no other than a sad and hateful 
 spectacle, and so much the more, by how much 
 we have more means of reason and grace to com- 
 pose our differences and correct our offensive con- 
 tentiousness. O God ! who art at once the Lord 
 of hosts and Prince of peace, give us war with 
 spiritual wickednesses, and peace with our brethren. 
 
 " MY BELOVED SPAKE AND SAID UNTO ME, RISE UP, 
 MY LOVE, MY FAIR ONE, AND COME AWAY." 
 
 Cant. ii. 10. 
 
 Creatures have their instincts — there is a natural 
 
83 
 
 instinct in every creature to that which feeds it. 
 Bees go naturally to the flowers by an instinct ; 
 so the spiritual soul that hath the life of Christ, 
 runs to whatsoever may feed and maintain that 
 life. All the creatures, as soon as they are born, 
 run they know whither to go to suck, because 
 that is ordained by nature for their preservation ; 
 so there is an instinct in the soul to carry it to that 
 which feeds and maintains it. 
 
 *' HIS MOUTH IS MOST SWEET; YEA, HE IS ALTO- 
 GETHER LOVELY. THIS IS MY BELOVED, AND 
 THIS IS MY FRIEND, O DAUGHTERS OF JERU- 
 SALEM." — Cant. v. 16. 
 
 Let a swarm be hived ever so orderly, and the 
 hive before-hand rubbed and prepared carefully, 
 let it be covered and shadowed from the sun, and 
 in a word, in the best manner accommodated, yet 
 if the queen bee be wanting, there is nothing but 
 discontent, confusion, and hurly-burly, and after 
 a hopeless search, a final departure ; whereas, a 
 mean habitation with her presence will give full 
 content and satisfaction. Had we a magazine of 
 comforts, were we possessed of heaven itself, with 
 all its glory, without Christ, yet heaven without him 
 would not be heaven. It is better, therefore, to be 
 in any place with Christ, than to be in heaven itself 
 without him ; all delicacies without Christ are but 
 as a funeral banquet ; when the master of the feast 
 is away, there is nothing but solemnness. What is 
 
 • g2 
 
84 
 
 all without Christ ? — I say the joys of heaven are 
 not the joys of heaven without Christ ; he is the 
 very heaven of heaven. 
 
 '' now HARD IT IS FOR THEM THAT TRUST IN 
 
 riches, to enter into the kingdom of god !" 
 —Mark x. 24. 
 
 Bees, by a natural sagacity, can foretel a storm, 
 yet sometimes they are overtaken with unseasonable 
 and rainy weather ; but then do they hie themselves 
 apace homeward, getting under the lee side of a 
 hedge, and at last secure themselves in their hives ; 
 but as soon as the tempest is over, and the sun 
 breaks out, they are abroad again, forgetting their 
 former danger. Many men in their outward crosses 
 and afflictions, while the storm and tempest of 
 God's wrath beats sore upon them, run to God as 
 their rock, and enquire early after him ; but when 
 once a hot gleam of former health and prosperity 
 shines upon them again, they hie as fast out of 
 God's blessing into the warm sun, (as they say,) 
 from sorrow to sin, to delight in sensuality, from 
 seeking God to security in their old ways. 
 
 " WHEN shall I awake ? I WILL SEEK IT YET 
 
 AGAIN." — Pr. xxiii. 35. 
 
 He that goes about to cure the wound of his 
 conscience for sin with sensual delight, doth as one 
 that is stung with a wasp, and rubs with a nettle 
 the smarting place. 
 
85 
 
 " BE SURE VOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT. 
 
 Num. xxxii. 23. 
 
 As Jonathan's honey was sweet in the mouth but 
 bitter in the soul, (for behold, his honey was turned 
 into gall. And if the eyes of his body were en- 
 lightened, the light of God's countenance was 
 clouded by the act,) so it is with every sin, — for 
 though stolen waters be sweet, yet he knoweth not 
 that the dead are there. 
 
 '' EVERY ONE THAT IS PROUD IN HEART, IS AN 
 ABOMINATION UNTO THE LORD." Pr. Xvi. 5. 
 
 It is observable in the old law, that God hated 
 the very resemblance of the sin of pride ; he would 
 have no honey mingled in their offerings : Ye shall 
 burn no leaven, 7ior any honey in any offering of 
 the Lord, made by fire. Indeed, leaven is sour, 
 but what is there in honey that should offend — 
 why no honey ? Because honey, when it is mingled 
 with meal or flower, maketh it to rise and swell ; 
 therefore the people of Israel must mingle no honey 
 in their offerings : this was to let us see how God 
 hateth the resemblance of the sin of pride. 
 
 " I PUT ON RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND IT CLOTHED ME : 
 MY JUDGMENT WAS AS A ROBE AND A DIADEM." 
 
 — Job xxix. 14. 
 
 Some bee-masters will be over-diligent to kill the 
 drones, because sometimes when they are super- 
 
86 
 
 numerary, they will not only pester, but prejudice 
 the hive, and at other times deceive the expecta- 
 tion of so large a tribute as they look for from 
 them ; and yet in the mean time are negligent, or 
 not sufficiently careful to prevent the devouring 
 wasps, or robbing bees, which in a few days will 
 consume more than the drones in a whole summer. 
 Bee-masters ought to be careful about the former, 
 but most of all of these, because of that ruin and 
 desolation that are quickly occasioned by them. As 
 a shepherd should watch his lambs from flies, but 
 most of all from wolves and foxes ; sure he is but a 
 sorry shepherd, to kill the maggots in his sheep and 
 let the former worry at pleasure. And surely (saith 
 one) he is a sorry magistrate that stocketh, and 
 whippeth, and hangeth poor snakes when they 
 oiFend (though that is to be done too), but letteth 
 the greater thieves do what they list, and dareth 
 not or careth not to meddle with them. Like Saul, 
 who, when commanded to destroy all the Amale- 
 kites, both man and beast, slew indeed the rascality 
 of both, but spared the greatest of the men and 
 fattest of the cattle, and slew them not. 
 
 " HAVE FAITH IN GOD." — MaRK xi. 22. 
 
 Bees, though chilled and dead with cold, or 
 drowned in water, if in a convenient season they 
 be laid near the fire or in a hot sunshine, will re- 
 vive after a while, and recover, as if they had never 
 miscarried. For there is some hidden though un- 
 
d7 
 
 discerned life, and by the aid of that little remainder 
 of vivifying power, (which was more strong origin- 
 ally, and is not yet totally extinct,) now further 
 called forth and wrought upon by adventitious 
 heat, there is a new quickening and life. So by 
 the awaking of the north wind and coming of the 
 south, I mean the blessed Spirit's breathing upon 
 a regenerate heart, stifled dangerously with some 
 pestilent lust, by stirring up and refreshing the re- 
 tired and radical power of grace, that immortal seed 
 of God never to be lost, will sweetly and graciously 
 bring it again to its former spiritual, comfortable 
 temper and constitution. The Lord's chosen may 
 fall from their outward prerogatives and from the 
 fruits, but that divine nature still abideth in them ; 
 and it is only with their grace, as it is with the 
 mind in distempers of melancholy and frenzy, 
 with the sun in eclipses, with the tree when leaves 
 and fruit fail it, with the natural life when it 
 moveth not, nor yet breatheth sensibly, which in 
 diseases of the mother is often discerned. 
 
 " THE SNARE IS BROKEN, AND WE ARE ESCAPED." 
 
 Psalm cxxiv. 7. 
 
 Bees, when they have been a while shut up and 
 imprisoned by unseasonable weather, follow their 
 work more eagerly on the first opportunity, (as a 
 stream stopped for a little while will break out 
 with greater violence after.) They will now lose no 
 time, but be at their labours both more early and 
 
88 
 
 late, than when they were not kept in ; nay, in such 
 weather when (had they not been restrained before) 
 they would have lain still asleep in the bed of ease 
 in their hives. Sometimes the Lord may, for a 
 time, retire the light of his countenance and sense 
 of his graces from his children, for trial, quickening, 
 and exercise of spiritual graces, that they may put 
 forth themselves with more power, improvement, 
 and illustriousness ; the cold comfort of a desertion 
 in this case, being unto them as water cast upon 
 the smith's forge, to make some of them especially 
 to burn inwardly as it were in the mean time with 
 new intention and heat, to break out and flame 
 more gloriously. There are many gracious dispo- 
 sitions and endowments in the Christian's heart 
 which would never see the light, at least with 
 such eminency, were it not for this darkness. The 
 brightness of lamps languish in the light, but 
 they burn clear in the dark ; the splendour and 
 beauty of the saints would never appear, were 
 there no night. 
 
 " EXHORT ONE ANOTHER DAILY, LEST ANY OF YOU 
 BE HARDENED THROUGH THE DECEITFULNESS 
 
 OF SIN." — Heb. iii. 13. 
 
 Bees troubled awhile at the hive will be very 
 angry, and by and by very numerous, and so un- 
 resistable, for their fury and their numbers in- 
 crease together. Perhaps but a few at first assault 
 you, but being much opposed they call out many 
 
partakers, and in a little time a few will prove a 
 multitude : as rivers grow greater and greater, the 
 further they are off from their springs, the more 
 they enlarge their channels until they empty them- 
 selves into the ocean. Storms, we know, arise out 
 of little gusts. The first risings of sin are to be 
 looked unto, because there is most danger in them, 
 and we have least care over them : corruption, till 
 it be overpowered by grace, swelleth bigger and 
 bigger, so that like rust it will, by little and little, 
 eat out all the grace of the soul. There is no 
 staying when we are once down the hill, until we 
 come to the bottom. When the heart begins once 
 to be kindled, it is easy to smother the smoke of 
 passion, which otherwise will fume up into the head 
 and gather into so thick a cloud, as we shall lose 
 the sight of ourselves, and what is best to be done. 
 Crush, therefore, the first insurrections before they 
 come to break into open rebellions : little risings 
 neglected cover the soul before we are aware, stifle 
 them in their birth, stop the beginning, and so soon 
 as they begin to rise, let us begin to examine who 
 raised them, and whither they are about to carry us. 
 
 " SEE THAT NONE RENDER EVIL EOR EVIL TO ANY 
 MAN." 1 ThESS. V. 15. 
 
 The bee never stings but pays the price of it with 
 her life. By this God instructs us that we should 
 not wrong our neighbours, for we ourselves shall, if 
 not first yet worst suffer, and they, perhaps, receive 
 
90 
 
 little or no prejudice, but we shall be as sure as 
 the bees to die for it. And yet the son of Sirach 
 praiseth that creature, saying. The bee is small 
 among fowls J and her fruit hath the beginning of 
 sweetness. But this gives her no security to escape 
 death : if she stings she must perish, and if her many 
 excellencies will not exempt or free her from de- 
 struction if she doth ill, much less shall we. We 
 are most savage beasts — ^we first wrong our neigh- 
 bours who never injured us ; nay, we are far worse 
 in this respect than bees, for if you suffer them to 
 live in their hives, and by molesting and vexing of 
 them put them not upon a necessity of defence, 
 they will never hurt, never injure, never sting, but 
 go their ways and follow their business. But thou, 
 who art a reasonable man, dignified with so much 
 honour and glory, imitates the beasts, and that 
 towards those that are of the same rank with thee, 
 wrongest, hurtest, and devourest thy brother. What 
 saith Paul, Why do ye not rather take wrong, 
 why do ye not suffer yourselves to be defrauded ? 
 nay, you do wrong and defraud, and that your 
 brethren. You see, then, you wrong yourselves, 
 when you wrong others, and that you receive a 
 courtesy when you are injured. 
 
 ^' KNOW YE NOT THAT YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF 
 
 GOD?"— 1 Cor. iii. 16. 
 
 Bees will not continue in a stinking or impure 
 hive ; and therefore, they that delight in them pre- 
 
91 
 
 pare the stools where they set them with perfumes, 
 sweet-smelling boughs, and fragrant flowers, and 
 other delightful things, whereon the bees when they 
 go forth out of the hive may light, lest ill savours 
 should force them to forsake their stations. And 
 thus deals the Holy Spirit : our soul is the hive, 
 accommodated and furnished with sweet spiritual 
 gifts and graces ; but if there be bitterness, and 
 anger^ and wrath, he will forsake such hives. 
 And therefore, the blessed and wise husbandman 
 (namely, St. Paul) doth endeavour to trim and pre- 
 pare our hives, (our souls,) and that without knife 
 or any other iron instrument, and calls us a spiritual 
 bee-fold, which yet he first purgeth with prayers, 
 with labours, and all things necessary hereunto. 
 
 " RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH." 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 15. 
 
 Bees with their swift and nimble wings, fly 
 from flower to flower, and draw out the latent 
 native sweetness, with a harmless, unprejudicial 
 robbery, that therewith at length they may provide 
 and afford sweet honey for the sons of men. So 
 the ministers of the gospel are solicitously careful 
 with the light wings of meditation, to light on 
 the pleasant and delightful gardens of the Scrip- 
 tures, that they may pleasingly instil and drop 
 in the sweet honey of faith into the hearts of 
 their hearers. 
 
92 
 
 " GO TO THE ANT, THOU SLUGGARD." PrQV. vi. 6. 
 
 Bees prepare their food in summer — they borrow 
 not, they beg not, but exercising their natural en- 
 dowments, are dihgent in labour, and that without 
 force or compulsion, and never give over while the 
 weather and season serveth. And although they 
 be weak and small creatures, yet with their nimble 
 wingsfly through the valleys, and over the mountains, 
 the woods, and forests, though some miles remote 
 and distant from their habitations, gathering of 
 every profitable tree and flower, and not only the 
 elder but the younger also ; and are images 
 herein of and patterns to thrifty householders, who 
 diligently labour themselves, and excite and en- 
 courage all theirs from their youth to provide for 
 future. Secondly, their great prudence appears in 
 understanding the seasons for their gathering, pro- 
 viding in the summer against winter ; for if weather 
 would give leave, they should in vain seek for 
 honey in the winter. Thirdly, so great is their 
 sedulity and diligence, that they are not altogether 
 idle in the night, but then trim their hives by biting 
 off the staring and offensive straws, eating down 
 their rotten combs where there be any, pulling forth 
 their dead spet, which they carry forth in the day, 
 hatching their young, and probably feeding of them. 
 Fourthly, their justice ; they rob not those that are 
 laden, but each gathers for herself and all the rest, 
 for they are political. Fifthly, their astrology in 
 
93 
 
 foreseeino* chano:e of weather, when thev will not 
 venture far from their hives. Sixthly, this is also 
 praiseworthy and imitable, that they carry forth 
 their dead from the hive. 
 
 " I HATE VAIN THOUGHTS." PSALM Cxix. 113. 
 
 Wasps are bold and saucy : whatsoever fruits, 
 flesh, plums, sweetmeats you have, they will impu- 
 dently intrude, and if ihey be not prevented, carry 
 away a portion. And such are troublesome and 
 vain thoughts, crowding into our best and most 
 religious services. Abraham must drive away the 
 birds from the sacrifices, and we must continually 
 watch against vain and evil thoughts, which will 
 always come before they be sent for ; but let them 
 find entertainment accordingly. 
 
 '' OUR LIGHT AFFLICTION WORKETH FOR US A FAR 
 MORE EXCEEDING AND ETERNAL WEIGHT OF 
 GLORY." 2 CoR. iv. 17. 
 
 If nature teach bees not only to gather honey 
 out of sweet flowers, but out of supposed bitter, 
 shall not grace teach us to draw even out of the 
 bitterest condition Something to better our souls ? 
 
 " LORD, ALL MY DESIRE IS BEFORE THEE." 
 
 PsALM xxxviii. 9. 
 
 Bees are affected with a deep degree of love to 
 their leader, with whom (having nothing) they 
 esteem themselves happy ; but without her (in the 
 
94 
 
 greatest plenty and fulness) are full of perplexity 
 and trouble. If slie goeth forth of the hive, they 
 (leaving house, children, goods,) follow after, and 
 stay where she abides ; if she, being weary and 
 faint, fall by the way, they will encompass her, stay 
 with her, and, returning no more to their forsaken, 
 full-stored hives, starve with her, rather than leave 
 and desert her. This ardent love and affection, 
 planted in them by nature, eats up and devours all 
 other desires and over-eager delights in any con- 
 tentments, as worthless and empty. So that the 
 sun-flower doth not more naturally turn towards 
 the sun, and the iron to the loadstone, and the 
 loadstone to the pole star, then the domestic honey 
 bees embrace and affect the queen bee. And a 
 believing soul is as much, nay, more deeply and 
 dearly enamoured of her beloved, advancing Jesus 
 Christ highest in his thoughts, and prizing him far 
 above the pleasures and profits and glories of the 
 whole world. He so sets his eye and longing upon 
 him, as to hold himself for ever lost without his 
 love, and for the gaining of it, if need were, would 
 he pass through a piece of hell. Thus are the 
 current of his best affections and all the powers of 
 his humbled soul, bent and directed towards him. 
 He vows and gives up the flower and prime of all 
 his abilities, loves, joys, endeavours, performances 
 in any kind, to his highest majesty. He consecrates 
 all the powers and possibilities of body and soul, 
 to do him the best and utmost service he can any 
 
95 
 
 ways devise, and still grieves and walks more humbly 
 because he can do no better service. 
 
 " THEY ALL LOOK TO THEIR OWN WAY, EVERY ONE 
 FOR HIS GAIN FROM HIS QUARTER." IsA. Ivi. 11. 
 
 Bees work all in common, feed in common, breed 
 up their young in common : each provides for his 
 fellow as for herself, — every one is affected and sym- 
 pathizeth in a common danger, as if it were her own 
 alone. In a word, each doth fight with undaunted 
 resolution in the defence and preservation of her 
 fellow, as if it were her own particular injury. 
 How many bastard Christians are there that sym- 
 pathize not with their brethren, whose hearts are 
 neither enlarged with lightsomeness, nor yet eclipsed 
 with grief, as they hear of the prosperity or oppression 
 of God's people. Pitiless and hard-hearted can- 
 nibals, who all this while so many noble limbs 
 of that blessed body of the reformed churches have 
 lain in tears and blood, did never take to heart, to 
 any purpose, or trouble themselves at all with their 
 grievous troubles, but have sottishly and securely 
 lain at ease in Sion, not helping the people of God 
 so much as with a hearty fellow-feeling, wrestling 
 with God in prayer, set days to seek the return of 
 God's face and favour : men they are of the world, 
 which have their portion in this life, who feel nothing 
 but worldly losses, know nothing but earthly sor- 
 rows, relish nothing but things of sense. If they be 
 stung with a dear year, they howl and take on 
 
96 
 
 immoderately ; but let Joseph be afflicted, God's 
 people in disgrace, the daughter of Sion weep 
 bitterly and have none to comfort her, these merci- 
 less men are no whit moved — they have not a tear, 
 a groan, or sigh, to spend in such a woeful case. 
 
 '' O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM ! WHO SHALL 
 DELIVER ME?" ROM. vii. 24. 
 
 Wasps are very dangerous enemies to bees, being 
 bold and strong. They will first prey on dead bees, 
 which they divide and carry by halves to their nests, 
 but they quickly proceed further, and venture into 
 the hives and rob the combs, and will after come 
 with such numbers that they will destroy the whole 
 stock unless they be timely prevented, which must 
 be done not so much by observing and killing 
 them near the hives, but finding out their nests, 
 and destroying them altogether. For the subduing 
 of ourselves it is good to follow sin to the first-hold 
 and castle, which is corrupt nature. The streams 
 will lead us to the spring head ; indeed, the most 
 apparent discovery of sin is in the outward carriage : 
 we shall see it in the fruit before in the root, as we 
 see grace in the expression before in the affection, 
 but yet we shall never hate nor subdue sin 
 thoroughly, till we consider and fight against it in 
 the poisoned root from whence it ariseth. It is a 
 good way upon any particular breach of our out- 
 ward peace, presently to have recourse to that which 
 breeds and foments all our disquiet. Lord, what do 
 
97 
 
 I complain of this my unruly passion, I carry a 
 nature about me, subject to break out continually on 
 any occasion. Lord ! strike at the root, and dry 
 up the fountain in me, for otherwise, though the 
 streams were stopped, and the branches cut off, and 
 the sparkles quenched, yet there would be a per- 
 petual supply, as long as the poisonful root remains. 
 
 " HOW LONG SHALL THY VAIN THOUGHTS LODGE 
 WITHIN THEE ?" JeR. iv. 14. 
 
 Many bees, especially when the gathering season 
 is over, and the state of flowers decayed, about 
 August will be curiously prying into their fellows' 
 hives ; at first a few give the onset, and if they be 
 let alone, unresisted, or weakly opposed, then they 
 double and treble their forces, fetching at their re- 
 turn more of their company, and violently make a 
 prey of all. But if these scouts and ringleaders 
 as they press in be beaten out, roughly entertained, 
 and stoutly opposed and fought withal, they will 
 then by degrees desist, and at last quite give over. 
 Vain and wicked thoughts, if men give way unto 
 them without checking the motions of them, will 
 press (as busily as flies in summer) into the heart, 
 but a good heart will not own them, nor allow him- 
 self in them, but stands at stave's end with them, 
 casts them off as hot water doth the scum, or as 
 the stomach does that which is noisome unto it. 
 They find not in it that entertainment which they 
 have in carnal hearts, where the scum seethes in, 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 which are stews of unclean thoughts, shambles of 
 cruel and bloody thoughts, exchanges and shops of 
 vain thoughts, a very forge and mint of false politic 
 and undermining thoughts, yea, often a little hell 
 of confused and black imaginations. 
 
 " LAY NOT UP FOR YOURSELVES TREASURES UPON 
 
 EARTH." — Matt. vi. 19. 
 
 See you that narrow-mouthed glass which is set 
 near to the hive ? Mark how busily the wasps and 
 flies resort to it, being drawn thither by the smell 
 of that sweet liquor wherewith it is baited ; see how 
 eagerly they creep into the mouth of it, and fall down 
 suddenly from that slippery steepiness into that 
 watery trap from which they never rise ; there, after 
 some labour and weariness, they drown and die : 
 you do not see many of the labouring bees look 
 that way — they pass directly to their hives, without 
 any great notice taken of such a pleasing bait. 
 Idle and ill-disposed persons are drawn away with 
 every temptation ; they have both leisure and will 
 to entertain every sweet allurement to sin, and 
 wantonly prosecute their own wicked lusts, till they 
 fall into irrecoverable damnation : whereas, the 
 diligent and laborious Christian, that follows hard 
 and conscionably the works of an honest calling, 
 is free from the danger of these deadly enticements, 
 and lays up honey of comfort against the winter of 
 evil. Happy is that man who can see and enjoy 
 the success of his labour ! but however, this we are 
 
99 
 
 sure, if our labour cannot purchase the good we 
 would, it shall prevent the evil we would avoid. 
 
 '*0 DEATH ! WHERE IS THY STING ?" 1 CoR. XV. 55. 
 
 A bee stinging a dead body takes no hurt, but 
 stinging a live body loseth both sting and life 
 together. In like manner, death, so long as it stung 
 mortal men only, which were dead in sin, was never 
 a whit the worse, but when it stung Christ once, 
 who is life itself, by and by it lost both sting 
 and strength. Therefore, as the brazen serpent was 
 so far from hurting the Israelites, that contrariwise 
 it healed them : after the same sort death is so far 
 from hurting any true Israelite, that on the other 
 side, if affliction, as a fiery serpent, sting us, or any 
 thing else hurt us, it is helped and redressed by 
 death. 
 
 "■ EVERY CREATURE OF GOD IS GOOD, AND NOTHING 
 TO BE REFUSED." 1 TiM. iv. 4. 
 
 That honey is sweet, it is not a conceit only, but 
 the natural quality of it is so : yet out of a taste of 
 the sweetness, to think we cannot take too much of 
 it, is a misconceit paid home with loathsome bitter- 
 ness ; though our fancy be ready to conceive a 
 greater blessing in outward good things than indeed 
 there is, yet we must not deny them to be blessings. 
 
 " I CRIED BY REASON OF MY AFFLICTION UNTO 
 
 THE LORD." — Jon. ii. 2. 
 Bees, when they are abroad at their work, if the 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 clouds overcast, the air grow dark, there be any 
 prelude to a storm, which they are very sensible 
 and apprehensive of, speedily and in haste, thick 
 and threefold, repair to their hives for shelter and 
 security. And believers never pray so heartily, 
 deny themselves so throughly, cling so fast to 
 God, as when a storm is towards, or when they 
 are overtaken by a tempest of persecution. 
 
 " YE HAVE IX HEAVEN A BETTER, AND AN EN- 
 DURING SUBSTANCE." HeB. X. 34. 
 
 Bees are not querulous, complainmg, or discon- 
 tented creatures, for when they have with many a 
 sore day's labour and heavy burden filled their 
 hive, and thereby furnished themselves against a 
 winter's want, yet if they be driven and robbed of 
 all, have left neither meat nor materials to put in 
 any, yet will, if the weather serve, speedily and 
 cheerfully renew their labours, and with double 
 diligence seek out for a future supply. And shall 
 believers think much to suffer the spoiling of their 
 goods, all that they have travelled and sweat for, 
 and when they have by many a dear day's labour 
 got a little somewhat together, then to be spoiled of 
 all in a moment, seeing they know they have in 
 heaven a better and more enduring substance ? 
 
 " OUR OLD MAN IS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM." 
 
 Rom. vi. 6. 
 When the worm dies, which is a more imperfect 
 creature, then it revives again, but is quite another 
 
101 
 
 from what it was before in every part and member : 
 before, it was unable to act for its own preservation 
 or the good of others, could not move out of its 
 place; in a word, do nothing but eat what was 
 brought into it; but after a transformation and 
 renovation, it is agile and active, laborious and 
 profitable. And in the new birth, si licet parvis 
 componere magna, there must be a mortification of 
 the old man, and then, an universal change and 
 alteration in the whole man. For a new spirit is 
 universal — it goes through the whole man, leavens 
 the whole lump ; the new nature is common to all 
 the powers, not like a little spring, that takes be- 
 ginning in some piece of ground and ends in the 
 same, but like the great ocean, that encompasseth 
 the whole world. And as it is universal, so it is 
 alterative too ; it amends not the outside only, but 
 the inward man also. It gives a man a new temper, 
 It makes him that was fearful and timorous become 
 bold and courageous, him that was peevish and 
 passionate to be of a meek and quiet spirit, him 
 that was dull and cold to be zealous and fervent ; 
 it makes him, with Onesimus, profitable to himself 
 and others. 
 
 " DRAW ME, WE WILL RUN AFTER THEE." 
 
 Cant. i. 4. 
 
 Bees have a natural and inbred love to their 
 queen, which makes them in their absence long 
 
102 
 
 after her, nay, unweariedly seek for her without 
 any other content or satisfaction but her presence 
 and company ; and finding her, they will not be 
 severed nor sundered ; pull them away as oft as you 
 will from her, yet still they will draw near and 
 cling to her. Carry her whither you will, if they 
 be sensible of it, you have their company, also. 
 How doth this condemn the want of love and 
 affection of many subjects to their governors, of 
 many people to their God, whom a little pleasure 
 or profit shall easily divide ! But though it be thus 
 with the most, yet there is a disposition in the saints 
 to long after the Lord, and it is not an empty 
 choice that consists only in affection or in the naked 
 resolution of the mind, but it is such a choice as 
 hath strong affections running together with it, a 
 strong inclination carrying the soul to him, so that 
 though he be hindered many times, and often in his 
 life unruly lusts come and make a separation 
 between the Lord and him, yet he cannot abide to 
 be long from him. It is the Lord that he loves ; 
 he cannot for his heart choose another master, but 
 it is he with whom he will dwell, live, and die. 
 And if some have quite lost their natural affections 
 to their God, no wonder then if they are weak in 
 their affections to their governors, and bandy them 
 as tennis balls of state, and smite them into every 
 hazard. 
 
 I 
 
103 
 
 " ALL IS VANITY." ECCLES. i. 2. 
 
 No worldly pleasure hath any absolute delight 
 in it, but as a bee, having honey in the mouth, hath 
 a sting in the tail. Why am I so foolish to rest 
 my heart upon any of them, and not rather labour 
 to aspire to that absolute God, in whom is nothing 
 savouring of grief, nothing wanting to perfect 
 happiness ? 
 
 *' THE SECRET OF THE LORD IS WITH THEM THAT 
 FEAR HIM." Ps. XXV. 14. 
 
 It is not good to eat much honey, because it is 
 flatuous and windy ; so he who is a searcher of 
 human majesty shall be oppressed with glory; for 
 as too much light dulls and dazzles the sight, so 
 too great inquiry into the secrets of God blinds the 
 understanding ; therefore saith Paul, Let no man 
 more highly think than he ought to think, but to 
 think soberly, and seek not out the things that are 
 too hard for thee, neither search the things that 
 are above thy strength. And as honey is sweet 
 while it is tasted, but if it be taken too much it 
 swells and kills, so the inquisition of the Divine 
 Majesty and of heavenly secrets is delightful, but 
 if it be too much, it kills with error or swells with 
 pride. 
 
 ** THE ETERNAL GOD IS THY REFUGE." 
 
 Deut. xxxiii. 27. 
 Bees are molested with many evils and enemies : 
 
104 
 
 some endanger them at or near their hives, others 
 assault and often surDrise them in the fields, as 
 the hornet, titmouse, spider, but many more mis- 
 carry by frosts and snows in winter, by cold storms^ 
 chilling and tempestuous winds in the spring, so 
 that they are never secure (though they help 
 themselves in their troubles by the lee side of a 
 hedge encompassing a hill, and especially with the 
 nimbleness of their wings) but in their hive, nor 
 always there except their keeper be more careful. 
 How many are the miseries of the sons of men ! 
 Ben Adam, Ben Enosh, if the son' of Adam, 
 presently the subject of sorrow. A wicked man 
 sometimes in lesser distresses may find shelter in 
 earthly comforts, but if the storm grow black and 
 raging, these will prove an Egyptian reed, which 
 not only deceives but wounds us with the splinters : 
 a deceitful brook then fails the thirsty passenger, 
 when there is most need of refreshing ; Job's mise- 
 rable comforters. And he will be beaten out of 
 all help from them, and be as a naked man in a 
 storm, as an unarmed man in the field, or as a ship 
 tossed on the sea without an anchor, which presently 
 dasheth upon rocks, or falleth upon quicksands. 
 But a believer, when he is driven out of all comforts 
 below, nay, when God seems to be angry with 
 him, can appeal from God angry to God appeased ; 
 he can wrestle and strive with God by God's own 
 strength, plead with God by his own arguments. 
 Finally, when he is beaten out of all comfort, he 
 
105 
 
 hath (a hive) a God to run to, and therefore can 
 with David in his greatest exigencies comfort and 
 encourage himself in the Lord his God. In this 
 he takes sanctuary, that he is in covenant with 
 him who sits at the stern and rules all, and hath 
 committed the government of all things to his Son, 
 our brother, our Joseph, the Second Person in 
 heaven. We may be sure no hurt shall befal us 
 that he can hinder, and what cannot he hinder that 
 hath the keys of hell and of death ? — ^unto whom 
 we are so near that he carries our names in his 
 breast and on his shoulder, as the high priests did 
 those of the twelve tribes. Though his church 
 seem a widow neglected, yet he will make the 
 world know that she hath a husband will right her 
 in his good time, for when men know us least, God 
 will know us most ; he knows our souls in adversity, 
 and knows them so as to support and comfort 
 them, and that from the spring-head of comfort, 
 whereby the sweetest comforts are fetched. 
 
 " BEWARE OF MEN." MaTT. X. 17. 
 
 There is nothing more dangerous than honey 
 mixed with poison, and there is no man more 
 perilous than a flattering, fair-tongued man, that 
 speaketh out of a hollow heart. 
 
 " PRAY WITHOUT CEASING." 1 ThESS. V. 17. 
 
 We must be diligent in our calling, not like the 
 sluggard or the drone in the hive, but like the 
 
106 
 
 labouring bee, taking the time while time is, whilst 
 the sun shineth making hay, which condemneth 
 such, that though they will not be altogether with- 
 out a calling, nay, more than that, will sanctify it 
 by the word and prayer evening and morning, yet 
 will be negligent in it, either too late at it, lying in 
 their beds, turning them with the sluggard (like the 
 door on the hinges), folding their hands, and crying, 
 Yet a little more sleep, or else tattlers in their 
 business (omitting many days) with a show of 
 walking in their calling, but in truth nothing less. 
 
 *' QUICKEN us, AND WE WILL CALL UPON THY 
 NAME." — PsALM IxXX. 18. 
 
 Drones have larger bodies than bees, seem fairer 
 creatures, fly oft in and out of the hives with a 
 great noise and humming sound, but yet nil dignum 
 tanto sonitu, they labour not, gather nothing, are 
 all in appearance, nothing in work or worth. And 
 many hypocrites by common gifts planted in their 
 wills and affections, by excellent moral virtues of 
 justice, temperance, and patience, may many times 
 exceed the godly in outward appearance, as dead 
 bodies are greater and longer than living bodies, 
 than the same bodies living, but yet want a soul to 
 actuate and quicken them. 
 
 " WALK CIRCUMSPECTLY, NOT AS FOOLS BUT AS 
 WISE, REDEEMING THE TIME." EPH. V. 15, 16. 
 
 Bees, when they are new driven or go forth in a 
 
107 
 
 swarm, if they be not desperately few, or the season 
 quite gone, labour more diligently and improve 
 their time more carefully, than other hives that are 
 well provided for, and therefore will be more early 
 and late at their work than others, so by diligence 
 redeeming the time. Thus do these unreasonable 
 creatures teach reasonable men, by their continued 
 care and providence, and laborious pains-taking 
 to increase their little ; for if the iron be blunt, then 
 he must put to the more strength, saith the preacher, 
 and maximum mediocris ingenii subsidium dili- 
 gentia, — it is most incredible what industry, and 
 diligence, and exercise, and holy emulation, are 
 able to effect, for the bettering and increasing of 
 our spiritual gifts. There is no usury so lawful 
 as of spiritual talents, nor do I know any so profit- 
 able usury, or that multiplieth so fast as this doth ; 
 your use upon use, that doubleth the principal 
 (almost) in seven years, is nothing to it. Oh then ! 
 cast in thy talents into the bank, make thy returns 
 as speedy and as many as thou canst, lose not &. 
 market or a tide if it be possible, be instant in 
 season and out of season, omit no opportunity to 
 take in and put off all thou canst ; so, though thy 
 beginnings be but small, thy latter end shall 
 wonderfully increase : by this means thou shalt not 
 only profit thyself in the increase of thy gifts unto 
 thyself, but (which no other usury doth beside) thou 
 shalt also profit others, by communicating of thy 
 
108 
 
 gifts unto them, which is the proper end for which 
 they were bestowed. 
 
 ** AS WE HAVE OPPORTUNITY, LET US DO GOOD UNTO 
 
 ALL MEN." — Gal. vi. 10. 
 
 If the ant must be praised and imitated for her 
 industry and diligence, in that she carefully pro- 
 vides her food in summer and her meat in harvest, 
 when as yet neither man nor beast (as far as I 
 know) is any whit the better, the fuller, the richer 
 for all her labours ; how much more worthy of 
 praise and imitation is the industrious bee, which 
 in diligence is more abundant, in pains-taking more 
 earnest, in profit above measure ? Let as many, 
 then, as desire true praise and imitation cast gifts 
 into the common treasury of the church, employ 
 their good parts and spiritual graces, so as they be 
 some way or other profitable and serviceable to 
 their brethren and fellow-servants in church. 
 
 " TO-DAY IF YE WILL HEAR HIS VOICE, HARDEN 
 NOT YOUR HEARTS." HeB. iv. 7. 
 
 Delays in any thing that is good are ill, and in 
 the best things worst. Wax when it is chafed will 
 take an impression, but if the seal be not speedily 
 put to it, it returns to its former hardness, and the 
 best affections of the best men, if they be not taken 
 in the heat, abate, and lessen, and die. 
 
109 
 
 ** honour thy father and thy mother." 
 Exodus xx. 12. 
 
 The wasps, after their aged mother is unable to 
 fly abroad, (having her wings worn with former 
 labours,) provide for her and bring her food as long 
 as they themselves subsist, really performing what 
 is reported of the stork. But how many worse 
 than brutes are to be found in this last age without 
 natural affection ? if at all relieving their parents, 
 yet after such a niggardly and sparing manner, 
 that a man shall never come where their parents 
 are, but hear them cry out like Rebecca, that they 
 are weary of their lives, or, like Jonah, it is better 
 for them to die than to live. Nay, the world 
 swarms with some men, (or monsters rather,) such 
 as Ezekiel speaks of and reproves, as set light by 
 father and mother, such as as soon condescend to 
 relieve a vagrant by the highway-side, as their own 
 father or mother. 
 
 " BLESS THE LORD, O MY SOUL, AND FORGET NOT 
 ALL HIS BENEFITS." PSALM ciii. 2. 
 
 Samson had not found his honey, if he had not 
 turned aside to see his lion ; and we shall lose the 
 comforts of God's benefits, if we do not renew our 
 sight of him by meditation. The mercies of God 
 are ill bestowed upon us, if we cannot step aside 
 to view the monuments of his deliverance : dangers 
 may be at once passed and forgotten. 
 
110 
 
 '* HE COMMANDED YOU THAT, IF ANY WOULD NOT 
 WORK, NEITHER SHOULD HE EAT." 2 Th. iu. 10. 
 
 As the bee-master on occasion of want will feed, 
 his bees, but never the drones, so true charity re- 
 lieves those poor men that will labour, but not at all, 
 or rarely, those lazy beggars that will take no pains. 
 
 " ASK NO QUESTIONS FOR CONSCIENCE* SAKE." 
 
 1 Cor. X. 25. 
 
 As Samson ate the honey-comb out of a dead 
 beast, and disdained not those sweets because he 
 finds them uncleanly laid, so good may not be 
 refused because the means are accidentally evil : 
 honey is honey still, though in a dead lion. Those 
 are less wise and more scrupulous than Samson, 
 which abhor the graces of God, because they find 
 them in ill-favoured vessels. One cares not for 
 the preacher's true doctrine, because his mode of 
 preaching that doctrine is peculiar. Another will 
 not take a good receipt from the hand of a physician, 
 because he is given to unlawful studies. A third 
 will not receive deserved contribution from the 
 hands of an usurer. It is a weak neglect not to 
 take the honey because we hate the lion. God's 
 children have right to, and ought to take, their 
 Father's blessings wheresoever they find them. 
 
 ''THE SPIRIT THAT DWELLETH IN US LUSTETH TO 
 
 ENVY." — James iv. 5. 
 Jonathan out of the honey drew the danger of death, 
 
Ill 
 
 and we draw evil out of good, and turn the grace 
 of God into wantonness : our wealth and honours 
 make us proud, our favours with great men to dis- 
 dain our betters, and our powers to oppress the in- 
 nocent ; from the length of days we draw forth a 
 multitude of sins ; from beauty lust, and from the 
 abundance of God's mercy, presumptuous perse- 
 verance in sin. But as the bee sucks honey out of 
 the henbane, and Samson out of the eater drew 
 forth meat, and out of the strong drew forth sweet- 
 ness, so God, who commanded the light to shine 
 out of darkness, did from the death of Christ bring 
 eternal life to as many as believe in him, for he 
 gave his Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
 not perish, but have everlasting life. 
 
 " BE PATIENT, BRETHREN, UNTO THE COMING OF 
 
 THE LORD." — James v. 7. 
 
 Bees are the most harmless and laborious, the 
 most orderly and profitable creatures that the 
 world affords, and yet have more adversaries and 
 enemies than almost any other creature, and 
 herein are they emblems of believers, who, though 
 they hurt none profit all, yet are opposed and 
 persecuted by many. Satan (first) like a roaring 
 lion seeking whom he may devour, and his 
 emissaries, are still compassing sea and land, 
 endeavouring their destruction. If Israel will needs 
 go out of Egypt to serve his God, Pharaoh will be 
 presently up in arms and pursue after him. This 
 
112 
 
 serpent hath a brood of his own bowels, that like 
 the mole, can creep under the earth, and transform 
 themselves into angels of light to perform deeds of 
 darkness, which made Isaiah cry out that he 
 was undone, David, Woe is me. And why ? for they 
 dwelt among a people of polluted lives, and that 
 abhorred peace : their throats were an open sepulchre, 
 their tongues like razors, hot as the coals of juniper, 
 the poison of asps under their lips, and their mouth 
 full of cursing and bitterness. And beside these 
 foreign foes, that seem the further from us, there.be 
 home-bred and domestical, and therefore more 
 dangerous adversaries : — first, corruption, the old 
 man, that daily sends forth whole swarms of lusts 
 to destroy the new ; and secondly, death, the last 
 enemy that is to be destroyed. 
 
 ^' DEM AS HATH FORSAKEN ME, HAVING LOVED THIS 
 PRESENT WORLD." 2 TtM. iV- 10. 
 
 It is a common but fabulous conceit, that bees, 
 once losing their stings, lose their natural diligence 
 and industry, and so become idle and lazy drones. 
 But it is really true of too many men, who some- 
 times with their faces to Sion-ward make profession 
 of holiness and religion, but fear of the loss of fame, 
 estate, honour, or life, makes them, with Demas 
 and Hymeneus, embrace the world, and make ship- 
 wreck of faith and a good conscience. 
 
113 
 
 *• THE SAME DAY, PILATE AND HEROD WERE MADE 
 FRIENDS TOGETHER." LuKE Xxiii. 12. 
 
 The robbing bee and the wasp, though there be 
 between them if not an antipathy, yet certainly a 
 desperate hatred and enmity, will, without strife or 
 difference, concur together to rob a hive of bees 
 deserving ill of neither, but only through paucity 
 and weakness, obnoxious to their insolence and 
 rapine. Do you wonder, then, if men wickedly dis- 
 posed (though ill-affected each to other) to compass 
 their particular designs, with formalities of concord 
 comply and agree together, as Herod and Pilate 
 were made friends to crucify Christ, to compass the 
 destruction of another, by whose ruin they may 
 greaten and enrich themselves ? 
 
 *' RENEWED IN THE SPIRIT OF YOUR MIND." 
 
 Eph. iv. 22. 
 
 Bees in extremity of winter lie still in a deep 
 (but not dead) sleep, stir not from their places, eat 
 not, make no noise ; but on the alteration of the 
 weather, when the sun shineth cheerily on them, 
 then these sleepers awake and revive. Many men 
 finding some change in themselves, because such 
 lusts as have been formerly vigorous and lively are 
 now dull and torpid, they thereupon comfort them- 
 selves as if they were dead, whereas they are but 
 covered and laid asleep for a time, and will awake 
 and rise again. As Samson, when he was tied 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 with cords rose again, and was as strong as ever he 
 was when the opportunity came, and it was told him, 
 "The Philistines are upon thee, Samson ;" so lusts 
 are oft laid asleep till the opportunity comes, 
 when all the threads of good purposes break, and 
 they rise again in their strength ; therefore, if 
 there be not a new creature brought within thy 
 soul, thy lusts are but asleep, they will rise again. 
 
 " THE FIRST MAN IS OF THE EARTH, EARTHY." 
 
 1 CoR. XV. 47. 
 
 'Tis not the wax, but the impression of the 
 seal, that fortifies a conveyance and makes the 
 deed. And temptation, however in itself it be 
 less than the fact, yet, considered in the author 
 that invites sin by these opportunities, doth far 
 outgo it. The infirmity of a sinner may some- 
 times find excuse or pity, but what shadow of 
 excuse can shelter his malice, that drew him to 
 the act ? Man is a thing easily persuaded to 
 error; Cereus in vitiumflecti, — like wax wrought 
 to a softness, that will receive the figure of any 
 vice. And yet we blame not his softness, but 
 lament him whose credulity and easy temper be- 
 trays him to every temptation. If we lay the 
 occasion of man's fault aright, we must lay it 
 on the tempter. At his allurements did Adam's 
 obedience relent ; his persuasions heated him with 
 the inordinate desire of knowledge : he chafed 
 this wax, mollifying it with such art that it received 
 
115 
 
 his authentical seal of damnation, by which sin 
 was made current in the world. 
 
 " my prayer returned to my own bosom." 
 Psalm xxxv. 13. 
 
 A man finds God in his word as he seeks him by 
 prayer, and no otherwise : wax receives impression 
 as it is prepared. 
 
 "the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity." 
 James iii. 6. 
 
 If bees be once provoked they are fiery and 
 furious, violent and virulent, though to their own 
 ruin and destruction implacable and unappeasable 
 with opposition and resistance. And such is the 
 impatient man ; he hath his spirit set on fire of hell, 
 he hath a short possession, he is a madman for so 
 many years, that will not stick at any thing that 
 the devil and depraved nature bids him do ; he will 
 fly in the face of servants, children, wife, magis- 
 trate, or even his God ; his heart brings forth sin 
 by troops. 
 
 *' BE ye holy, for I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD." 
 
 Lev. XX. 7. 
 
 Bees will not admit of strangers into their society, 
 except they come with submission and resolution to 
 live under their leader, and assimilate themselves to 
 their manners, without any after-commerce or 
 fellowship with the hives from whence they de- 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 parted. And God receives none under the tuition 
 of his love and favour, but such as are wholly 
 emancipated from the world, and with full purpose 
 of heart give up themselves to be guided by him, 
 without having any further fellowship with their 
 former works and companions of darkness. Heaven 
 is bestowed upon none but upon such who are thus 
 both willing and capable : holiness makes capacity 
 of happiness. 
 
 \ " EVERY MAN THAT STRIVETH FOR THE MASTERY IS 
 TEMPERATE IN ALL THINGS." 1 CoR. ix. 25. 
 
 Bees are contented with a simple food procured 
 by their own industry, of which they feed sparingly 
 but work laboriously and diligently; whereas the 
 drones work not at all, but liberally fill themselves, 
 and that daily, with the purest honey, and to 
 sharpen their stomachs take many a vagary in the 
 heat of the day with a loud buzzing, as if they 
 were acting somewhat to purpose ; but it is only to 
 empty their bodies and quicken their appetite, 
 whereby they often grow unwieldy, and after a 
 while (though the bees let them alone) cannot 
 return back again into the hive. And are not many 
 reasonable men defective in their imitation of the 
 unreasonable bees, who frequently eat to surfeiting 
 and drink to drunkenness, and exceed the limits 
 of temperance in the use of the creatures, denying 
 themselves no pleasing nor desirable thing, that so 
 they might prevent such evils, as admitting these 
 
117 
 
 exorbitances will bring inevitable mischief upon 
 them, but drone-like live idly and intemperately, 
 not considering the apostle's exhortation, " Be sober, 
 be vigilant, for your adversary the devil, as a 
 roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may 
 devour?" As if he should have said, You are all in 
 a warfaring condition in the field, with an adversary, 
 and he no simple one, but a lion, a roaring lion, 
 a diligent adversary, who is always going about 
 seeking whom he may devour, drawing into sin, for 
 he hath no way to devour men by but that. There- 
 fore do you as soldiers in the field with an enemy 
 would do ; they ply not their bellies, but use their 
 meat and drink and sleep very sparingly, because 
 though this be not enough to prevent the mischief 
 that is intended them by their enemies, yet it is 
 one very good means of their safety, for it preventeth 
 a sudden surprisal, and enableth them to make re- 
 sistance ; and so would a moderate use of meat, 
 drink, pleasure, &c., keep you waking, and give 
 you liberty to prepare for all encounters with the 
 devil. 
 
 •* THE SHIELD OF FAITH, WHEREBY YE SHALL BE 
 ABLE TO QUENCH ALL THE FIERY DARTS OF THE 
 WICKED ONE." EpH. vi. 16. 
 
 As the humming bee having lost her sting in 
 another, doth still notwithstanding make a fearful 
 and grievous noise by her often buzzing about us, 
 but is nothing able to hurt us, so sin and death 
 
118 
 
 having lost their sting in Christ Jesus, do not cease 
 at all, even in the height of the parching heat of 
 our consciences, to make a murmuring, and with 
 furious storms of temptations to terrify us and our 
 consciences : albeit they can never sting us. 
 
 '^ O TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD." 
 
 Psalm xxxiv. 8. 
 
 A man by discourse can never possibly persuade 
 another of the sweetness of honey so fully as if he 
 himself did taste it. And it cannot be told how 
 sweet a thing grace is : — do but try and you shall 
 soon perceive a difference between it and all out- 
 ward comforts ; therefore come and taste, saith the 
 prophet, how good the Lord is. 
 
 "be CONTENT with SUCH THINGS AS YE HAVE." 
 
 Heb. xiii. 5. 
 
 Bees, though many times they have sufficiently 
 stored and replenished their hives, yea sometimes 
 to a superabundant redundancy, hindering for want 
 of empty cells the future generation, and so suffer 
 because of their plenty, yet will they not give over 
 working ; nay, some not leave robbing, and that 
 from the weaker and wanting hives. Have we not 
 here a fair picture of a covetous man, who is never 
 at rest, never satisfied and contented ? 
 
 " I HAVE CHOSEN THEE IN THE FURNACE OF 
 AFFLICTION." ISA. xlviii. 10. 
 
 The bee, a nice and dainty creature, builds her 
 
119 
 
 cells sometimes in an unsavoury carcase, and the 
 carcase that promiseth nothing but stench and 
 annoyance, now offers comfort and refreshing, and 
 in a sort, pays Samson for the wrong offered. 
 O the wonderful goodness of our God, that can 
 change terrors into pleasures, and can make the 
 greatest evils^ beneficial ! Is any man under his 
 humiliation, under the hand of God, grown more 
 faithful and conscionable, there is honey out of the 
 lion. Is any man by his temptation or fall become 
 more circumspect, there is honey also out of the 
 lion : there is no Samson to whom every lion doth 
 not yield honey. Every Christian is the better for 
 his evils, yea, Satan himself in his exercising of 
 God's children advantageth them. 
 
 ** MY SIN IS EVER BEFORE ME." PSALM li. 3. 
 
 If robbing bees charge a neighbour hive and find 
 a resolute opposition, with the slaughter and de- 
 struction of the prime leaders and forward invaders- 
 the scattered residue will be timorous and fearful 
 to re-attempt, or if at all but faintly, and quickly 
 sound a final retreat. And he that hath felt the 
 sting of sin in his conscience, and been formerly 
 confounded with the shame thereof, dreadeth and 
 fleeth, and seeketh by all means to shun those 
 sins which have left so sad a remembrance behind 
 them ; for the smart of the wound of conscience for 
 sin past is a special means, through grace, to keep 
 us from sin to come. For, as Lactantius writeth, 
 
120 
 
 The ashes of a burnt viper are a present remedy 
 against the sting of the viper ; so the remains of sin 
 in the conscience, viz. remorse and shame, are at 
 present a remedy against sin, as we may see in 
 David : " I know mine own iniquity, and my sin is 
 ever before me." 
 
 *' PRAY ONE FOR ANOTHER, THAT YE MAY BE 
 
 HEALED." — James v. 16. 
 
 Bees are very little creatures and their sting is 
 very small, not visible except it be very near, and 
 yet this sting affects with grievous smarting pain. 
 And if the sting of a bee swell and rankle and 
 smart so much, what will the teeth of the adder, 
 or the tail of the scorpion ? If those little sins 
 that are so small that we can scarce discern them 
 to be sins, put the conscience to so much pain 
 and anguish, what will great sins do ? If who- 
 soever is angry with his brother without a cause 
 shall be in danger of the judgment ; and whoso- 
 ever shall say unto his brother, Raca, shall be in 
 danger of the council ; and whosoever shall say. 
 Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire, what 
 punishment is he like to endure, who beareth 
 malice in his heart against his brother, envieth 
 his prosperity, undermineth his estate, woundeth 
 his good name, nay, spilleth his blood ? This is a 
 crimson sin, and mortal in a double sense ; not 
 only because it slayeth the soul, but also because it 
 killeth the body. 
 
121 
 
 "as many as I LOVE I REBUKE AND CHASTEN. 
 
 Rev. iii. 19. 
 
 Plutarch writeth, that though thyme be a most 
 dry and bitter herb, yet that not only the apothe- 
 caries draw an wholesome oil out of it, but also 
 that the bees extract from thence sweet honey. 
 Affliction is this dry and bitter herb to the taste of 
 most men, yet out of it men may draw both a 
 wholesome oil to cure a wounded conscience, and 
 honey also to delight the spiritual taste — oil out 
 of the nature of afflictions, which are chastenings, 
 and honey out of the cause, God's love. 
 
 .'* THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE A MERCHANT- 
 MAN, SEEKING GOODLY PEARLS." MaT. xiii. 45. 
 
 If you do but take any piece of God's word, and 
 do but stay upon it as the bee doth on the flower, 
 and will not off till you have got somewhat out of 
 it — if you be still digging in this mine, this will make 
 you rich in knowledge, and if you be rich in know- 
 ledge it will make you rich in grace. 
 
 ** IS THERE INIQUITY IN MY TONGUE ? CANNOT 
 
 MY TASTE DISCERN PERVERSE THINGS ?" JOB 
 
 vi. 30. 
 
 The word of God, saith the prophet, is good, yea, 
 and pleasant too, to every one that walketh up- 
 rightly, as sweet as honey, yea, sweeter than the 
 
122 
 
 purest honey to such, as David professeth of himself. 
 But even honey itself, though of itself good and 
 pleasant, and wholesome and medicinal, yet causeth 
 pain and smart to an exulcerate part. And children, 
 therefore, that at other times much desire and cry 
 for it, yet will not endure to have it come near 
 their lips when they have sore mouths. It is man's 
 love of his own corruption and impatience of cure, 
 that maketh the word of God harsh and unpleasant 
 unto any. 
 
 " SUBMIT YOURSELl" TO EVERY ORDINANCE OF MAN 
 FOR THE lord's SAKE." 1 PeTER ii. 13. 
 
 Look upon the silly bees, the best emblems of 
 obedient creatures ; painful in their labour, dutiful 
 in their life : their queen being safe they are at 
 unity ; so long as their queen is well, they follow 
 their work, but being dead, they leave and loathe 
 their honey-combs. Behold how nature hath 
 stamped obedience by instinct to bees, to be subject 
 to a superior in their kind ; how much more should 
 nature, reason, and grace, stamp obedience in the 
 hearts of Christians, knowing that without a govern- 
 ment kingdoms and states are thraldoms ? Remota 
 justitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrociniay 
 Take away justice, and what are kingdoms but 
 dens of thieves ? Take away obedience to govern- 
 ment, and that were miscere terris tartara, make 
 earth and hell all one, except only in name. 
 
123 
 
 ** HE THAT ENDURETH TO THE END SHALL BE 
 
 SAVED."— Mat. x. 22. 
 
 Bees will not be forced to communion with 
 others, except they voluntarily forsake their own 
 hives in a swarm ; for take them at other times, as 
 when they lie out and sweep them into another 
 hive, yet they will (at furthest) the day following 
 all return back to their own and proper hive. It 
 is with them as with a stream that hath made itself 
 a channel wherein to run : — it may indeed by a strong 
 hand be turned out of its course, but yet it will be 
 still bending towards its own way, and never leave 
 working and winding till it be where it was before ; 
 so, howsoever the upright person may be unsettled 
 for a time and put beside his course, yet he strives and 
 labours to be where he should be, and never finds 
 himself well till he be in his first path. Like the 
 needle in the compass, though it be jogged aside 
 for a season, yet it makes towards the north again, 
 and is in a perpetual trepidation till it be where it 
 should ; so the children of God, though they be 
 subject to manifold declensions, manifold desertions^ 
 manifold stops and stays in their course to heaven, 
 yet still set their faces thitherward ; though the 
 wind may sometimes violently carry them beside 
 the way, yet it doth not dismay them, nor do they 
 find any rest or content in their souls till they be in 
 their right course again. 
 
124 
 
 " LOVE AS BRETHREN, BE PITIFUL, BE COURTEOUS." 
 
 1 Peter iii. 8. 
 Bees, of all politic creatures, most unanimously 
 comply and combine together, live and love to- 
 gether, mutually protect and provide for one an- 
 other, always agree among themselves, and act and 
 work all for the public good and welfare of the 
 whole body ; they (as it were) throw down all 
 enclosures, lay all in common, not selfish, look not 
 to their own things but on the things of others, 
 tendering their well-doing as their own, neither 
 are they apt to give offence carelessly, nor to 
 take it causelessly. And shall men, shall Chris- 
 tians, be so unnatural as to inveigh one against 
 another, to entrap one another, to defame, disgrace, 
 and devour one another, tantcene animis ccelesti- 
 bus tree ? As he said in another cause, This is all 
 one as for one eye to pull out another, one hand 
 to cut off another : know we not that perfection 
 and safety depend in union, as on the other side 
 danger and destruction inevitably follow on dis- 
 traction ? Union, like the wise woman, Solomon 
 speaks, buildeth up the house, but division, as the 
 foolish woman, puUeth it down with her hands. 
 
 '' A LITTLE that A RIGHTEOUS MAN HATH IS BETTER 
 THAN THE RICHES OF MANY WICKED." PsALM 
 
 xxxvii. 16. 
 
 The Israelites coming into a wood where they 
 saw the honey dropping, and found the meat as 
 ready as their appetite, yet dare not touch the 
 
125 
 
 sustenance, and will rather endure famine and 
 fainting than an indiscreet curse. So the truly 
 righteous, though great temporal advantages pre- 
 sent themselves with the breach of God's law, 
 yet rather choose a contented poverty, than riches 
 with the appurtenances of everlasting sorrow. 
 
 " AS THE SMALL RAIN UPON THE TENDER HERB." 
 
 Deut. xxxii. 2. 
 
 " Thy lips, my spouse, drop as the honey-comb ; 
 honey and milk are under thy tongue." He com- 
 mends the spouse for her lips and her tongue. 
 Now her lips are the preachers and doctors, and 
 other teachers of the church, who ought to be a 
 honey-comb to their people with the sweetness of 
 love, and distilling with gentleness and affability. 
 The law of Moses had bitterness, for it required 
 eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Again, though the 
 lips of Moses were a honey-comb, yet not dropping, 
 but dry, and stony, and mysterious ; that is, in stony 
 tables, where in truth the secret of the divine law 
 was hidden, so that he made him to suck honey 
 out of the rock. But now the lips of the church 
 drop as a honey-comb ; a honey-comb is honey in 
 the wax, that is, the divinity in the humanity. Or, 
 by honey-comb is understood the secret of divine 
 wisdom, which is melted from the lips of the church; 
 whence it follows, Honey and milk are under thy 
 tongue. By tongue is to be understood the same 
 with the lips ; by honey is signified the instruction 
 
126 
 
 of the perfect ; but by milk teaching of the simple. 
 The apostle had honey under his tongue when he 
 said, As unto babes in Christ, I have fed you with 
 milk. A honey-comb dropping,not'dilated and spread 
 abroad ; for the words of doctors or preachers ought 
 to drop according to the capacity of the hearer, and 
 not to be poured out all at once, so that the hearers 
 cannot lap it up. 
 
 " POOLS HATE KNOWLEDGE." — PrOV. i. 22. 
 
 A wise soul in his thought- work is as a bee-hive ; 
 all the powers are in labour, and continually going 
 out and returning ; no power idle, and none return 
 empty, and all their observations as honey laid up 
 for use : it gathereth and digesteth in itself a sub- 
 stance and mass of purified knowledge, and that 
 for affection and action, and all of them for the 
 obedience of God and union with him. 
 
 *' so RUN THAT YE MAY OBTAIN." 1 COR. ix. 24. 
 
 Bees are not only laborious when they are in 
 want, and their provision small, but when they are 
 largely supplied they are as earnestly bent on their 
 gathering as if they had nothing. Believers are 
 not to stint their endeavours when they have at- 
 tained to a competency of knowledge, but to go on 
 still forward and grow, for though they have enough 
 to make them thankful, yet never enough to make 
 remiss and negligent ; they must still press forwards 
 like runners in a race, and look not how much they 
 have run but how much remains. Let it always dis- 
 
127 
 
 please thee to continue as thou art, if thou meanest 
 to arrive where thou art not. 
 
 '* ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM." 
 
 Eph. iv. 5. 
 
 Bees have a common house, a common care of 
 posterity, common labour, common food, common 
 generation, a common use and fruition of all things, 
 and therefore entirely and cordially love one 
 another. If one be wronged they will all, though 
 with the loss of their own lives, vindicate the injury 
 and vanquish the adversary. And shall not pro- 
 fessors of the same religion, who are in so near a 
 relation one to another, be tenderly affected one 
 to another, and love one another ? They have the 
 same God for their father, the same church for 
 their mother, Christ their elder brother, are be- 
 gotten of the same immortal seed, nourished with 
 the same milk of the word, eat the same bread of 
 the sacraments, and look for the same blessed in- 
 heritance, and therefore must needs, by the teaching 
 and work of the Spirit, love one another heartily 
 and mutually. 
 
 '* HE THAT FORMED THE EYE, SHALL HE NOT SEE?" 
 
 PsALM xciv. 9. 
 
 There is something of God in every creature : 
 this makes the meditation of the creature to be 
 useful. There is none, even the meanest (much 
 more the bee), but it hath a being, and thereby in a 
 
128 
 
 sort sets out the goodness of God. God likens 
 himself to many, to show that there is something 
 of him in these, and therefore to teach us to rise 
 from them to him, in whom all the excellencies that 
 are scattered in them are united. In innocency 
 we knew God, and in him we had knowledge of 
 the creature, but now we are fain to help ourselves 
 from the knowledge of the creature, to rise to the 
 knowledge of God. 
 
 *' A SOFT ANSWER TURNETH AWAY WRATH." 
 PrOV. XV. 1. 
 
 Bees provoked near the hive will be very 
 troublesome, and according to their power, danger- 
 ous ; striving, striking, or contending, further ex- 
 asperates, but yielding or giving place pacifies 
 them. And if we aim at peace with men in case of 
 controversy with another, let us apply ourselves to 
 a cool language, speak softly, speak wisely, speak 
 silently, and in secret ; this will cool the great heat 
 of another, and disarm him of his excessive indigna- 
 tion. Hard to hard will never yield, but lay hard 
 to soft and you may break even a flint upon a bed 
 or cushion, which cannot be done by laying one 
 flint upon another. So let a man's heart be never so 
 hard and obdurate, if we use soft words to him, give 
 him mild speeches, he cannot but be mollified and 
 melted towards us: in so doing you shall heap 
 coals of fire on his head, which shall melt and 
 soften him. 
 
129 
 
 ^' THEY HAVE A ZEAL OF GOD, BUT NOT ACCORD- 
 ING TO KNOWLEDGE." ROM. X. 2. 
 
 Bees, though they be engaged in a hot and 
 mortal skirmish with other insects, yet ordinarily 
 use not their stings, but wreak their spite with 
 biting and breaking off their enemies' legs; but when 
 they are transported with rage and blinded with 
 passion, then they sting; but always with their own 
 certain ruin and destruction. And not less preju- 
 dicial is the fire or passion of zeal to professors and 
 the church of God, where it wants knowledge to 
 direct it. What Isocrates spake sometimes of 
 valour or strength, is as true of zeal, viz., that zeal 
 and resolution with wisdom doth much good, but 
 without it, it doth much mischief to ourselves and 
 other ; like grenadoes and other fire-works, which, 
 if they be not well looked to and ordered, they 
 break and do more hurt to them that cast them, 
 than to the enemy. No man can be ignorant of 
 the direful effects of blind zeal : when an unskilful 
 Phaeton takes upon him to drive the chariot of the 
 sun, he sets the whole world in a combustion. 
 What a mettled horse is without a bridle, or a hot- 
 spurred rider without an eye, or a ship in a high 
 wind and swelling sail without a rudder, — that is 
 zeal without knowledge, which is like the eye in 
 the rider to choose the way, or like the bridle in 
 the hand to moderate the pace, or like the rudder 
 in the ship to steer safely the course thereof. St. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 Bernard hits full on this point : Discretion without 
 zeal is slow-paced, and zeal without discretion is 
 heady; let therefore zeal spur on discretion, and 
 discretion rein in zeal. 
 
 " LET BROTHERLY LOVE CONTINUE." HeB. xiii. I. 
 
 Bees of the same hive live together with the 
 greatest love and agreement that can be conceived, 
 never contending, never quarrelling : whereas 
 sheep of the same fold when they are wanton will 
 dash one against another, and almost break one 
 another's heads ; yea, men that live in the same 
 house, of the same family, will jar and jangle, yea, 
 children that tumbled in the same belly for very 
 trifles sometimes will fall out and fight one with 
 another. Nay, true Christians (with shame and 
 grief be it published) though they will not persecute 
 the cause of religion, yet will molest and disquiet 
 their fellows, through passion, pride, self-lov^, 
 and other corruptions drawing them thereunto. 
 
 " PRAY WITHOUT CEASING." 1 ThESS. V. 17. 
 
 Wax must be chafed and tempered between your 
 fingers if you mean to set an impression upon it, 
 and if you continue not to temper it, it will be hard 
 again nevertheless. And so it is with our hearts ; 
 therefore use the means of grace constantly, do it 
 day by day, estrange not yourselves from God by 
 intermission of holy duties. 
 
131 
 
 " I WILL CAUSE BREATH TO ENTER INTO YOU, AND 
 YE SHALL LIVE." EzEK. XXXvii. 5. 
 
 Hardness is not intrinsical to wax ; with warmth 
 there is a natural tendency to softness. Let it be 
 hardened through cold, yet bring it to the fire, 
 or let the sun smile awhile upon it with its beams 
 and warmth, and it will relent, and, if the heat be 
 strong, return to its liquid nature. But now it is 
 far otherwise with a stone, for let the sun shine 
 never so hot upon it, lay it by the fire, it melts not, 
 it yields not ; nay, it is rather made the harder. 
 The wicked man hath the hardness of a stone : let 
 him enjoy never so many mercies, he is not a whit 
 moved the more to amend his life ; let God speak 
 to him, let him smile upon him, all is one to him ; 
 nay, he grows every day under the best means more 
 hard and impenitent. Contrarily, the faithful 
 Christian, however by sin he may for a time con- 
 tract hardness, yet bring him to the word and 
 ordinances awhile, let God shine upon him with 
 the light of his countenance, and he will resolve 
 presently and recover his former tenderness. 
 
 **IWILL TAKE HEED TO MY WAYS."— ^PsAL. XXxix. 1. 
 
 Bees are frequently endangered by spiders who 
 weave their cobwebs near the flowers where they 
 use to gather, and also just over their passage out 
 of their hives, and so at their going forth, but 
 especially at their return home laden and weary p 
 
 k2 
 
132 
 
 make a prey of them. And earthly things prove 
 snares to many, because of their daily presence. 
 " In the way wherein I walked, have they privily 
 laid a snare for me," saith the Psalmist ; and in the 
 way and places wherein we are daily walking and 
 travelling do these baits lie ; they are the things 
 which we continually look upon, hear of, handle, 
 taste, feel ; and therefore, as those snares which are 
 laid for the bird in the place where it is frequently 
 hopping up and down do much endanger it, so 
 those necessary evils which therefore we live among, 
 and make continual use of, because they are 
 necessary, do the more strongly allure us unto 
 danger, because they are always before us. 
 
 ^' HE THAT SOWETH INIQUITY SHALL REAP VANITY." 
 
 Prov. xxii. 8. 
 Lusts ever bring inconstancy with them, and 
 make the soul like weary and distempered bodies, 
 never well in any posture or condition. Wicked men 
 fly like bees from one flower to another, from one 
 vanity to another, and can never find enough to 
 satiate the endless intemperancy of unnatural 
 desires ; only the gospel, being spiritually appre- 
 hended, hath treasures enough for the soul to rest 
 on, and to seek no further. 
 
 " ALL THEIR THOUGHTS ARE FOR EVIL." 
 PsALM Ivi. 5. 
 
 A bee, when she hath once stung, can sting no 
 more, yet will testify an angry disposition by loud 
 
133 
 
 buzzings and frequent strikings at the face of the 
 party (stung before), sometimes to his trouble and 
 perhaps to his fear, also being already sensible of his 
 present smart, and suspecting further danger. So 
 many froward men when they have to their utmost 
 injured others, and intended more, but when their 
 causes are tried and prove desperate in right, they 
 will yet still create perverse matters to molest their 
 neighbours, and the more they sink in the main 
 of their intendment, the more impetuously will they 
 seek to perplex and trouble them. 
 
 " WITH LOVING-KINDNESS HAVE I DRAWN THEE." 
 
 Jer. xxxi. 3. 
 
 There is a magnetical, attractive force in the 
 queen bee ; so that what the loadstone is to the 
 iron, is she to the rest of the bees, and therefore, 
 wheresoever she is, will they be also. And no less 
 attractive] and powerful is Christ's love in us : our 
 hearts are heavy and downwards of themselves, but 
 his love draws us upwards and makes us heavenly- 
 minded ; it makes us desire further and further 
 communion with him : still there is a magnetical, 
 attractive force in Christ's love ; wheresoever it is, 
 it draws the heart and affections after it. 
 
 ** FEED ME WITH FOOD CONVENIENT FOR ME." 
 PrOV. XXX. 8. 
 
 Wasps and hornets feed on flesh, carrion, dead 
 bees, flies, almost any thing ; but the bee is a neat 
 
134 
 
 and curious feeder; she sucks and extracts the 
 quintessence of flowers, which she chemically dis- 
 tils in the alembic of her belly ; and thus prepared 
 lays it up for future food. So the Christian soul 
 in this respect is a bee, that will not feed on 
 worldly carrion or sinful pleasure, but on Christ 
 and spiritual things. The soul of a carnal and 
 natural man useth to feed upon dust, carrion, earth, 
 and earthly things, when the soul of a true Chris- 
 tian, that hath the taste of grace, feeds neatly, it 
 will not feed on that which is base and earthy, but 
 upon heaven and spiritual things. The perpetual 
 everlasting intercourse between Christ and a Chris- 
 tian is his main happiness here, and his eternal 
 happiness in heaven. 
 
 '^ THE GOD OF PEACE SHALL BRUISE SATAN UNDER 
 YOUR FEET." ROM. Xvi. 20. 
 
 Temptations to sin come about us like bees, 
 buzzing into our minds evil thoughts, and pre- 
 paring to sting by drawing us into consent ; but it 
 is in the name and by the power of the Lord that 
 we do destroy them. If Satan be trodden down, it 
 is God that doth it for us. 
 
 "eschew evil, and do good." — 1 Pet. iii. 11. 
 
 Whosoever dallies or plays with the bees at the 
 hive's mouth, doth it with his own peril ; for al- 
 though at first he be perhaps neglected or assaulted 
 but with one or two, yet if he persists in his folly or 
 
135 
 
 fool-hardiness, he shall quickly find more fists 
 about his ears than his own, and not escape scot- 
 free. Would we not be overcome and foiled by 
 temptations, conjure them not up, dally not with 
 them ; but if they be risen, quickly lay them, stifle 
 them in their birth, and they will expose us to no 
 further trouble or danger. Though flax, saith one, 
 be never so catching, a spark of fire may fall in and 
 yet not inflame, if it be espied and taken out 
 suddenly, ere it have time to insinuate its force 
 into the combustible matter ; and so evil motions, 
 if quenched at the first kindling, seldom break out 
 into a flame of rebellion. But if we neglect them, 
 bid them welcome, parley with them, or please our- 
 selves in them (though with no intent to commit 
 sm), lust will incalescere, wax hot, and conceive ; 
 and then the next thing we are like to hear of^ will 
 be the birth of some foul sin or other. 
 
 ^* let your light so shine before men, that 
 they may see your good works, and glo- 
 rify your father which is in heaven." 
 
 Mat. v. 16. 
 
 There is a kind of life in the worm (the first 
 but imperfect birth of a bee), but yet neither seeing 
 nor hearing, nor locomotive faculty : though it stirs 
 in its cell and receives the food that is brought to 
 it, yet can it do nothing for its benefit or defence, 
 or others' pleasure or profit. And as life is thus 
 shut up in this imperfect creature, till by a further 
 
136 
 
 birth and transmutation it receives a new and 
 better life ; so is the light in a natural man shut 
 up before regeneration — all the light they have 
 doth but glow in their breast, showing itself there 
 (as a late reverend divine), and making it evident 
 that they have such knowledge, but it is not a 
 candle that enlightens all the room, that enlightens 
 all the corners of the soul. Take the light of a 
 star in a dark night and compare it with the light 
 of the sun, though never so little; look in what 
 measure it appears — it scatters the darkness from 
 east to west. So there is a light in the minds of 
 carnal men, which is but as a star in a dark night, 
 which doth not take away the darkness; but in the 
 regenerate it is a sanctified light, like the light of 
 the sun, not shut within a narrow compass, but 
 spreading itself unto all the parts of the soul ; 
 or as if a candle be brought into a dark room, it 
 lightens all the house, but if it be a spark of fire it 
 shows itself, and glows and doth no more : it doth 
 not enlighten the house. 
 
 *' WHO HATH KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD?'* 
 
 RoM. xi. 34. 
 
 Many things in the nature of bees, when we have 
 most studiously enquired after them, can we not 
 find out and certainly resolve and determine of; as 
 concerning their manner of generation, the duration 
 and continuance of the queen bee, with their 
 methods and orders in sending their first swarm : 
 
137 
 
 yet do we, where we are unable to find out certain 
 grounds conclude all to be done discreetly and 
 orderly, wisely and wonderfully. And shall we 
 not suspect and check our shallow conceit and 
 judgment, when it carries us to question and reason 
 about God's providence, about divers things below, 
 and not scruple our wisdom, when we cannot see 
 the causes of things and God's course in disposing 
 of them, when he deals diversely, and not as we 
 would think in our reason, yea, and ceasing 
 from our wisdom to search into things more than 
 we can comprehend. If in finite and small crea- 
 tures we poor mortals are often nonplussed and at 
 a stand, let us not be too busy to know the reason 
 of his counsels and doings, but ascribe all to his 
 infinite wisdom. 
 
 ** I WENT DOWN TO THE BOTTOMS OF THE MOUN- 
 TAINS ; THE EARTH WITH HER BARS WAS ABOUT 
 ME POR EVER : YET HAST THOU BROUGHT UP 
 MY LIFE FROM CORRUPTION, O LORD MY 
 
 GOD." — Jonah ii. 6. 
 
 God exhibits evident tokens of his goodness 
 to all men, even then when they are aflflicted 
 with divers and sundry calamities, that when others 
 like drones do gather honey but from the hive, a 
 true believer should gather it even from thistles ; 
 and when weaker vessels bear sail only in a calm, 
 a true vessel of Christ should sail best to his wished 
 port in a storm. 
 
138 
 
 ^' WHETHER IT BE GOOD OR EVIL, WE WILL OBEY 
 THE VOICE OF THE LORD." — JeR. xlii. 6. 
 
 God never sufferetli evil but for some great and 
 secret good; as Moses saith, " He caused him to 
 suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the 
 hardest stone." Oh the infinite wisdom and power 
 of God ! Out of the dry and ragged rock of our 
 sins he draweth the sweet sap of humility from us, 
 and of mercy from himself, to the sweet safety and 
 felicity of our souls. 
 
 " RICHES CERTAINLY MAKE THEMSELVES WINGS." 
 
 Prov. xxiii. 5. 
 
 Riches cannot make men happy by their own 
 nature ; not only because they are unsatisfactory, 
 deceitful, and inconstant, but because in the indis- 
 position in ourselves ; they are like the eating of 
 honey to assuage the boiling of a choleric stomach, 
 a little pleasing to the taste, but much increasing 
 both the pain and danger of the disease. 
 
 " IT BECAME HIM, FOR WHOM ARE ALL THINGS, 
 AND BY WHOM ARE ALL THINGS, IN BRINGING 
 MANY SONS UNTO GLORY, TO MAKE THE CAP- 
 TAIN OF THEIR SALVATION PERFECT THROUGH 
 SUFFERING." HeB. ii. 10. 
 
 When a bee has once lost her sting, she may 
 trouble awhile with her buzzing and violent striking, 
 but can do no further hurt ; so afflictions and 
 
139 
 
 •troubles whose sting is pulled out in the things that 
 Christ suffered in being conqueror for the elect ; 
 I say the sting of harm is taken out of the crosses 
 that God sendeth for the humbling of his children 
 or church. And they are sent to fear them, not to 
 destroy them, as the destructions that come on the 
 ungodly with their sting in them. 
 
 " OUR CONVERSATION IS IN HEAVEN." 
 
 Phil. iii. 20. 
 
 Set your mind and thoughts on heavenly things, 
 which are able to satisfy you ; else like the bee you 
 will fly from place to place, because earthly things 
 do not satisfy you. 
 
 " DEMAS HATH FORSAKEN ME, HAVING LOVED 
 THIS PRESENT WORLD." 2 TiM. iv. 10. 
 
 Most men will commend the bee when they feed 
 of her honey, and perhaps with some cost and 
 trouble seek her preservation ; but if she once cause 
 a little smart with her sting, then they are quickly 
 out of patience, and exclaim as much against her, 
 and will be at no further pains and cost for her 
 safety. So many men will be content to serve 
 God, as long as they may withal advantage them- 
 selves : but to serve him and deny themselves is a 
 work which they have not learned. Ephraim loveth to 
 tread out the corn, saith the prophet : you know 
 the mouth of the ox was not to be muzzled that 
 
140 
 
 trod out the corn : he had his work and reward 
 together. 
 
 " SIMON, SATAN HATH DESIRED TO HAVE YOU." 
 
 Luke xxii. 31. 
 
 When honey is expressed from the combs, if 
 there be any corruption or dross in it, that will 
 quickly, being lightest, ascend uppermost, but the 
 purest honey will sink unseen to the bottom. So 
 when Satan disquiets the heart, that which is purest 
 and should most comfort will sink and be out of 
 sight, but our sins and corruptions will ever be 
 before our faces. 
 
 '^ BY HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED." 
 
 IsA. liii. 5. 
 
 The industrious bee is diligent to gather honey, 
 and when she hath filled her hive, is chased out of 
 it and her life ofttimes by fire and smoke, that the 
 profit may be ours ; so that the pains and 
 labour are only hers, but the advantage and profit 
 are ours. And the pains of Christ's wound were his, 
 but the benefit ours ; the holes in his hands and 
 side were his, but the honey which issued out was 
 ours ; in one word, the price which he paid was 
 his, but the inheritance which he purchased was 
 ours ; he alone without any demerit of his suffered 
 our punishment, that we without merit of ours 
 might obtain his grace. 
 
141 
 
 " WHATSOEVER THY HAND FINDETH TO DO, DO 
 IT WITH THY MIGHT ; FOR THERE IS NO 
 WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR 
 WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU 
 GOEST." ECCLES. ix. 10. 
 
 Bees diligently apply themselves to their work 
 early and late, neglecting no occasion ; they are 
 exceeding intent upon it, much taken with it, and 
 almost overwhelmed in their eager and delightful 
 pains, and that all the time the season continueth ; 
 for storms and rainy weather may come, and then 
 they will be necessitated to lie still, or winter will 
 come, and then there is nothing to be gotten, and 
 if they have not sufficiently before-hand provided 
 and furnished themselves, they must needs starve 
 and die. And shall not men do good and get 
 good, while they have liberty and opportunity, 
 even give themselves up unto it, and that with all 
 their might ? Many a Christian is kept from doing 
 good by restraint, by sickness, by worldliness, by 
 business, by an unwilling and hard heart ; howso- 
 ever, by death, when the winter, when night comes, 
 there is no more working. How doleful will the 
 prison, sickness, and death be, when conscience shall 
 pinch us for our liberty, health, and life abused ! 
 We may therefore j ustly use the wise man's argu- 
 ment, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
 with all speed, because there is no knowledge, 
 wisdom, nor invention in the grave whither thou 
 
142 
 
 goest." But here is that which addeth weight unto 
 it — before we come unto the grave we may come 
 into this or that strait, that shall disable us almost 
 as much as our grave. And therefore, while we 
 have any ability or opportunity in any kind to 
 glorify God, let us not be negligent, but say with 
 the Psalmist, " As long as I have any breath I will 
 praise the Lord." And with that valiant captain 
 that defended his ship with his left hand when his 
 right hand was cut off, and with his teeth when his 
 left hand was gone ; if we are disabled one way 
 for doing good, let us try what we can do another, 
 if by our tongues, our pens, our hands, our gestures. 
 
 ** IF I PERISH, I PERISH." EsTHER iv. 16. 
 
 A young queen-bee, in the departure of the last 
 colony, sometimes steals forth with her that is de- 
 signed leader, because in her present state (by 
 staying behind) she is sure to perish. In her going 
 forth there is room for hope, and possibility of life 
 if she can attain the throne. Believers that have 
 been formerly reduced unto extremities and im- 
 possibilities within themselves, looking upon God 
 as omnipotent, and so able to save ; as merciful, 
 and in Christ reconcilable, and so likely to save 
 ■ if he be sought unto : resolve as the lepers in the 
 famine of Samaria, not to continue in the state 
 they are in, nor yet to return to the city to their 
 wonted haunts and ways, where they shall be sure 
 to perish, and in the latter is a possibility not to 
 
M3 
 
 perish. Therefore take up a conclusive purpose to 
 trust Christ, and if I must perish yet he shall reject 
 me : I will not reject myself; I will go unto him. 
 
 tc 
 
 and they that are christ s have crucified 
 the flesh with the affections and lusts." 
 Gal. v. 24. 
 
 If our lips drop honey by the preaching of God's 
 word, and the sweetness of his doctrine, it is good 
 and commendable ; but if our hands drop myrrh by 
 the crucifying of sin, and the mortification of our 
 earthly members to the obedience of Christ, and 
 the perfect imitation of Christian holiness, it is most 
 comfortable and heavenly. 
 
 " LET THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH, AND THE ME- 
 DITATION OF MY HEART, BE ACCEPTABLE IN 
 THY SIGHT, O LORD." PsALM xix. 14. 
 
 As the witty bees when they go about to fill their 
 combs with sweet honey, suck first upon the sweet- 
 est flowers of the fields and gardens, and then 
 carry the sweet juice into their hives, so ought be- 
 lievers, before they enter on their prayers, to fix 
 their cogitations upon the two sweet flowers of 
 power and love which they find in the name of the 
 Father, and then carry the pure juice of them 
 into the inward hives of their souls and consciences, 
 and so shall they make a most precious honeycomb 
 of all spiritual devotion. 
 
144 
 
 " HE HATH GIVEN US THE MINISTRY OF RECON- 
 CILIATION." — 2 Cor. v. 18. 
 
 '' I eat my honey-comb with my honey." Hereby 
 is understood that peace which our Saviour hath 
 made betwixt our Saviour and us. The sin of Adam 
 and Eve in paradise made the breach between 
 God and mankind ; the death of Christ made the 
 atonement and reconciliation. *' When we were 
 enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death 
 of his Son." As then Samson in his riddle said 
 unto his companions, *' Out of the eater came meat, 
 and out of the strong one came sweetness ;" which 
 was meant of a dead lion, in whose belly bees had 
 hived and made honey; — so I may say of Christ, for 
 he was the lion of the tribe of Judah, and from him, 
 being crucified for our sins and slain for our re- 
 demption, we receive our honey and our honey- 
 comb ; that is to say, peace with God the Father. 
 But for the honey-comb, why should Christ eat it ? 
 Wolves are very hungry that will not leave the 
 bones till the morrow : and so is Christ ; though he 
 be not a wolf, yet he is a lamb that is both hungry 
 and thirsty till he have taken away the sins of the 
 world ; and therefore he eats his honey-comb with 
 his honey, so greedy is he to cancel the hand- 
 writing which was against us, so desirous of our 
 peace and reconciliation. 
 
145 
 
 " THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE ! FOR THEN 
 WOULD I FLY AWAY AND BE AT REST." 
 
 Psalm Iv, 6. 
 
 Believers must not fly low and close to the 
 ground, like bees against a storm, but raise their 
 flight to a high pitch, even as high as the Most 
 High, as did Moses when he saw Him who is in- 
 visible ; for mens J quavis ave levior, cum Deus pen- 
 nas aptarit, prcetervolat montesy saith Chrysostom. 
 The soul, when God hath furnished her with wings, 
 flies higher than any bird over the highest moun- 
 tains ; and so (as the same father saith elsewhere) 
 as God is said to be in heaven, and yet is also here 
 on earth, so we that are here on earth are yet also 
 in heaven. 
 
 " DEATH IS swallowed UP IN VICTORY." 
 
 1 Cor. XV. 54. 
 
 As honey is not truly honey when it hath lost 
 its sweetness, no more is the death of the righteous 
 truly death, having lost its bitterness, and fearful- 
 ness, and terrors in the godly. 
 
 ** BE COURTEOUS." — 1 Peter iii. 8. 
 
 The bee for her honey pleaseth many, but for the 
 sting displeaseth not a few : so mildness hath bent, 
 where severity could not break. 
 
146 
 
 THE NATURAL MAN RECEIVETH NOT THE THINGS 
 OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD." 1 COR. ii. 14. 
 
 As one will know more of the sweetness of honey 
 by one taste of it than by a hundred disputations 
 and discourses of it, so to speak of spiritual joys 
 to such as have not felt them is ridiculous, because 
 they are known by apprehension, not by discourse ; 
 and to them who have felt them it is needless to 
 discourse of them, for this doctrine is better known 
 by one experience than by a hundred rules. 
 
 "it is sown a natural body ; it is raised A 
 
 SPIRITUAL BODY." 1 CoR. XV. 44. 
 
 Mors is morsus, death is but a biting, not a con- 
 suming and utter devouring. As he that biteth 
 taketh some and leaveth some, so death getteth a 
 morsel of flesh as the kite taketh garbage from the 
 dunghill, and the dogs ofFal from the shambles, but 
 the soul it meddleth not with. I cannot therefore 
 better compare the grave than to the honey-comb, 
 where is both honey and wax. The honey of the 
 soul is taken out, the wax of the flesh remaineth 
 behind till the resurrection of just men. 
 
 " MY SON, GIVE ME THINE HEART." 
 
 Prov. xxiii. 26. 
 God's law, saith David, " is sweeter than honey 
 and the honey-comb ;" the meaning whereof is, we 
 must not be mercenary in his service, but the plea- 
 sure we take in it must be the cause why we enter- 
 
147 
 
 tain it ; therefore it is not without a cause that God 
 requires the heart, yet he will have it seasoned with 
 love. '* Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart :" and " love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 " THE TESTIMONY OF OUR CONSCIENCE." 
 
 2 Cor. i. 12. 
 
 He that will have a good conscience, that shall 
 give in good evidence for him and pronounce a 
 comfortable sentence on him, must believe well and 
 live well ; faith doth purify the heart, and a good 
 life beareth the fruit that aboundeth to our reckon- 
 ing, when we judge our own souls. But a man 
 must not look to have this blessing of a good con- 
 science suddenly : Vade ad formicam, piger ; some 
 read it, Vade ad apem. Go to the bee, O sluggard : 
 she gathereth her food in summer, whereof she 
 maketh use in winter. God's bee, that is, a man 
 that will have such a good conscience, riseth early, 
 hasteth to the church, hears often, prays often, 
 meditates often, and so doth acquire this absolving 
 conscience. Colligentem in cestate videre potes, 
 comedentem in hieme videre non potes ; the outward 
 means which he useth are visible, but the inward, 
 which when time serveth he reapeth, are invisible. 
 
 " DRUNKARDS SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KING- 
 DOM OF GOD." 1 CoR. Vi. 10. 
 
 Bees sometimes sting, but ordinarily without any 
 great or long prejudice. The danger is nothing in 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 comparison of the biting of an adder, which is even 
 unto death — death speedy, death painful and 
 woeful, and that as naturally and as inevitably as 
 opium procureth sleep, or hellebore purgeth, or any 
 poison killeth. So, though every sin (unrepented) 
 hath wrath and judgment following of it hard at 
 the heels, yet some sins are more pernicious. Woe 
 and alas, sorrow and strife, shame, poverty, and 
 diseases are enough, as Solomon notes, to make 
 drunkenness odious ; but because (as he observed) 
 drunkards are men past shame and grace, senseless 
 of blows, and therefore much more of reasons and 
 words, being bewitched and besotted with the love 
 of wine, will easily oversee and overleap these 
 petty woes ; therefore Solomon sets before their 
 eyes the direful end and fruit, the black and poison- 
 ful tangle of this sin ; " In the end it stingeth like 
 a serpent, it biteth like an adder ;" if once a custom, 
 ever a necessity. Wine takes away the heart and 
 spoils the brain, overthrows the faculties and organs 
 of repentance and resolution. And it is just with 
 God, that he that will put out his natural light 
 should have his spiritual extinguished — he that will 
 deprive himself of reason, should lose also the 
 guide and pilot of reason, God's Spirit and grace. 
 
 " TRIBULATION WORKETH PATIENCE." Ro. V. 3. 
 
 Bees, howsoever some conceit to the contrary, 
 are much advanced and advantaged by the winter. 
 There is thereby not only a preparing of the earth 
 
149 
 
 for a vigorous production of flowers, but a lo'tig 
 rest and sleep doth strongly dispose and fit them 
 both for breeding and also honey-gathering. 
 Whereas we may observe, especially in dry seasons, 
 though the weather be very fair and there be some 
 flowers, yet are they not very beneficial. And it is 
 needful for Christians to find the presence of Christ 
 in the way of humiliation and debasement, causing 
 us to afflict our own souls, as to feel his presence 
 joy and comfort. In this life we cannot be with- 
 out this gracious dispensation. We may therefore 
 comfort ourselves, that howsoever Christ leaves us, 
 yet he will always leave somewhat behind him : as 
 he left myrrh after him upon the handle of the 
 door, some myrrh is left always behind upon the 
 soul, which keeps it in a frame and state of grace 
 and sweetness. Myrrh was, and is, one of the in 
 gredients in the holy oil ; and so this leaving of myrrh 
 behind him, signifies the oil of grace left upon the 
 soul, that enabled the church to do all those things 
 which are spoken of in Cant. v. 6. 
 
 *' THE LORD IS SLOW TO ANGER AND PLENTEOUS 
 
 IN MERCY." — Psalm ciii. 8. 
 
 Mercy comes naturally from God like honey 
 from the bee ; but justice like the sting, only when 
 she is provoked. 
 
 ^* BEING DEAD INDEED UNTO SIN, BUT ALIVE UNTO 
 GOD, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST." ROM. vi. 11. 
 
 Bees in their first being (while worms) are in- 
 
150 
 
 capable of any excellency, of any ability to profit 
 themselves or others ; yet they must for a time 
 abide in it, and then they must die that they may 
 be changed, and so become agile, able, useful 
 creatures. As they which dye cloth do not imme- 
 diately change one contrary into another, but first 
 turn a white into an azure, and that into a grain 
 colour ; and as those that work in wax cannot 
 frame any new impression in it till the old be de- 
 faced, so the image of the prince of this world — 
 the devil, must first be defaced, before the image 
 of Christ can be formed in us : we must die before 
 we can live. 
 
 " THE END THEREOF ARE THE WAYS OF DEATH. '^ 
 
 Prov. xiv. 12. 
 
 Honey is very sweet and pleasant to the taste, 
 but eaten overmuch is bitter in the stomach ; and 
 the maker of it, the bee, hath a sting in her tail. 
 Such are the delights and pleasures of the world ; 
 therefore, saith Martial, an ancient bishop, Quid 
 ad nos delectatio mundi, What have we to do with 
 the delights of the world ? You may call it as 
 you will, pleasure, pastime, mirth, joy, but in God's 
 dictionary it hath no such name, but is there called 
 Adam's goodly apple, which being eaten deprived 
 them of Paradise — Esau's red pottage, which being 
 supped up bereaved him of his birth-right — Jona- 
 than's sweet honey, which being but tasted was 
 like to cost him his life. It may delight thee for 
 
151 
 
 a while, but it shall torment thee for ever. As any 
 solid body, though it have never so fair a colour, as 
 crimson, purple, azure, yet always the shadow is 
 black ; so any earthly thing, though it have never 
 so fair a show, yet always the shadow of it is black ; 
 and the delight thou takest in it shall prove to be 
 grievous in the end : there is bitterness in this sweet- 
 ness, a sting in this bee. And therefore Philo 
 calls the world " A sweet bitter thing." Let us then 
 account worldly delights not Naomi, but Mara, 
 because it is nothing so much Naomi, sweet and 
 pleasant at the first, as it is Mara and Amara, 
 bitter and loathsome at the last. 
 
 *•' BE YE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF 
 
 YouPw MIND." — RoM. xii. 2. 
 
 An heavenly mind turns earth into heaven, like 
 a bee that sucks honey out of supposed bitter 
 herbs, and like unto fire that turns into fire that 
 which is cast into it ; as the good stomach doth 
 turn even grosser meats into good nourishment, 
 whereas an ill stomach would turn the finest meats 
 into bad juice. 
 
 " MEN LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT, BE- 
 CAUSE THEIR DEEDS WERE EVIL." JoHN iii. 19. 
 
 Let a swarm remain at the place where it was 
 hived a day or two, and then be removed to 
 another standing, yet for two or three days after 
 will they either sullenly keep in (except the weather 
 
152 
 
 be very fair), or if they fly abroad and gather, re- 
 pair with their labours to the first place, hankering 
 and flying about it most part of the day, some not 
 at all returning back to the hive, but desperately 
 dying there, and the rest for many days lingering 
 about their first mansion. And are there not many 
 in the world, who, having stood in the way of sin- 
 ners and sat in the chair of the scornful, cannot be 
 moved or persuaded to alter their choice, but will 
 do well (to be angry) to be evil ? And if fear of 
 hazard or hell or love of benefit allures and with- 
 draws them from the public practice, yet shall they 
 not from the inward liking and approbation, so 
 that when he alters his standing gives over the 
 practice of his sins, seems to be divorced from 
 them, because he hath a station, an abiding else- 
 where ; in his open carriage somewhat altered, yet 
 he flies about his former standing, his thoughts and 
 imaginations feed all day long upon his lusts, he 
 relisheth speculative wickednesses, so that when he 
 hath withdrawn himself from his sin and given it 
 over, he may have a month's mind after it, he may 
 do with it still as the husband of Michal did when 
 by a strong power she was taken from him, it 
 would have hazarded his life to have refused, yet, 
 saith the text, " He came weeping after her afar 
 oflP;" he longed after her still, and loved her still. 
 So a man may part with his sin in such a manner 
 that still he goes weeping after it ; he would have it 
 again, he would fain enjoy it if it were not for 
 
153 
 
 some greater danger or some greater trouble that 
 he exposeth himself unto ; as you see in Phaltiel, it 
 was not for want of love to his wife that he parted with 
 her, but it was out of a desire he had to save himself, 
 to escape the danger of the king's wrath, imprison- 
 ment, and death, that would have followed upon it. 
 
 " THIS PEOPLE HONOURETH ME WITH THEIR LIPS, 
 BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME." MaRK vii. 6. 
 
 Bees are creatures fitted with natural instruments 
 for the getting of honey : they have long tongues 
 to draw it out of the sockets of the flowers, 
 and they have nimble wings to carry them from 
 place to place, that so what is not in one field 
 may be found in another ; and they have quick 
 sights to discern, but most active is their smell. 
 And they have a little bottle within them to con- 
 tain the honey when they have extracted it, and 
 (which is more than all) delightful willingness to 
 employ all these abilities for the compassing of 
 this end, and the thriving in their labours by all 
 the means and opportunities they have. But the 
 fool hath a precious price in his hand, but knows 
 not how to use it; he lets slip many golden 
 opportunities, letting them run like water besides 
 the mill, driving no trade of knowledge with 
 them, making no use of them for that purpose, 
 and so soon loseth all the benefit of these means 
 he hath. It is admirable to think how under the 
 droppings of the pipe a man should be dry, how tha 
 
154 
 
 under the continued means of grace a man may 
 continue in deep ignorance ; it is terrible, I say, 
 to think this, while delicious manna, heavenly 
 nectar, falls daily about our tents as it were, chat 
 if a man would vouchsafe to step out of his door 
 and carry his omer in his hand, he might fill it 
 every day. But if men will not vouchsafe the 
 gathering of it, never make use of the means of 
 grace that God ofFereth, but will be as childish and 
 as foolish as those that go to the market ; they go 
 there for some business, but when the come there, 
 (like fools) they go see this gay thing and the 
 other gaudy thing, and so forget utterly their 
 errand, and go home again without it ; they come 
 to God's house to see and to be seen, to prate 
 with this party and gape on another, and so let us 
 fall besides them, without minding what they hear 
 or to know and remember it. They may have ex- 
 cellent means and yet thrive not, make no advan- 
 tage of them ; but he that will thrive and increase 
 in knowledge must make precious account of the 
 means, laying up something out of every oppor- 
 tunity that he hath. 
 
 " MURDERERS SHALL HAVE THEIR PART IN THE 
 LAKE WHICH BURNETH WITH FIRE AND BRIM- 
 STONE."' — Rev. xxi. 8. 
 
 There can be no habit of some sins, as in parri- 
 cide, and in the wilful murder of ourselves. All 
 their malignity is spent in one act, and the event is 
 
155 
 
 best declared by one of them. The man dies in 
 his sin, in that sin which excludes him from heaven. 
 Every act of these sins is like the stinging of bees : 
 
 Animamque in vulnere ponit. 
 
 He cannot strike again, he can sin that sin over 
 no more, and therefore it is a single act that damns 
 in that cause, unless he repent truly and effectually. 
 
 " I KNOW THAT IN ME, (tHAT IS IN MY FLESH,) 
 DWELLETH NO GOOD THING ; FOR TO WILL IS 
 PRESENT WITH ME, BUT HOW TO PERFORM 
 THAT WHICH IS GOOD I FIND NOT." ROM. vii. 18. 
 
 Bees sting seldom when they conflict with in- 
 sects, but when they contend with men or beasts 
 they sting readily ; their rage is as high as their 
 supposed enemies' power, so that it is evident (by 
 an instinct of nature) they are not ignorant of their 
 own danger, and yet to satisfy their spite, out of a 
 bad custom, though natural, will undo themselves. 
 Such is the violence of custom in sin, which is the 
 law of sin, that by it a man is overruled against his 
 will ; he cannot leave sin if he would. For as an 
 old disease hath not only afflicted the part of its 
 proper residence, and by its abode made continual 
 diminution of his strength, but made a path also, 
 and a channel for the humours to run thither, 
 which by continual defluxion have digged an open 
 passage, and prevailed beyond all the natural 
 powers of resistance ; — so is an habitual vice — it 
 
156 
 
 hath debauched the understanding, and made it to 
 believe foolish things ; it hath abused the will and 
 made it like a diseased appetite, in love with 
 filthy things. It is like an evil stomach, that makes 
 a man eat unwholesome meat against his reason. 
 That's a sad calamity when a man sees what is 
 good and yet cannot follow it, nay that he should 
 desire it, and yet cannot lay hold upon it, for his 
 faculties are bound in fetters, the habit hath taken 
 away all those strengths of reason and religion by 
 which it was hindered, and all the objections by 
 which it was disturbed, and all that tenderness by 
 which it was uneasy; and now the sin is chosen, 
 and believed, and loved, it is pleasant and easy, 
 usual and necessary. Scibam ut esse me deceret, 
 facere non quibam miser : I knew well enough 
 how I should comport myself, but I was so wretched 
 that I could not do it. 
 
 " THERE IS NO FAITHFULNESS IN THEIR MOUTH ; 
 THEIR INWARD PART IS VERY WICKEDNESS; THEIR 
 THROAT IS AN OPEN SEPULCHRE ; THEY FLAT- 
 TER WITH THEIR TONGUE." PsALM V. 9. 
 
 Bees and wasps, though they sting not in the ex- 
 tremity of winter, nor when they are benumbed 
 with cold, yet are full of poison, so that it is not 
 want of desire to do mischief, nor yet want of 
 malice, but only want of abilities. And there be 
 sons of Belial that will fawn and humble themselves 
 with a pretence of much affection, Joab-like, Art 
 
157 
 
 in health, my brother? yet believe him not, for 
 there are seven abominations in his heart : he waits 
 but an opportunity or ability, and his sword shall 
 be in thy fifth rib. They were not void of malice 
 before, but only wanted power. 
 
 AS SORROWFUL, YET ALWAY REJGICIIS^G." 
 
 2CoR. vi. 10. 
 
 The bees' combs are perpendicular from the top 
 of the hive to the bottom, and so they are very 
 long, but yet they have a breadth likewise, the 
 depth of the cells on either side, which yet holds 
 no proportion with the length. The repletion of 
 the cells with various fillings, some with bee-bread, 
 some with honey, some with brood, some half full, 
 others are empty, notes the variety of comforts and 
 blessings which in this life men enjoy, but some more 
 and some less. There are vicissitudes and changes 
 in the life of a Christian, a diversity of dispositions 
 and dispensations to which they are subject in this 
 life. Sometimes, with the disciples on Mount 
 Tabor, ravished with joy, and by and by, when the 
 cloud overshadows them, they are afraid. When 
 the Lord lets us feel his mercies we are alive, but 
 if he hides his face and sets our sins in order before 
 us, we are sore troubled ; but ordinarily we dwell 
 more in the valley of Baca than of Beracha ; our 
 mourning exceeds our mirth. The life therefore of 
 a Christian may be compared to a web, so marvel- 
 lously mixed and woven of comforts and troubles 
 
158 
 
 by the hand of God, that the long threads thereof 
 reaching from the day of our birth to the day of our 
 death, are all of trouble, but the weft interjected 
 with manifold comforts. 
 
 '' I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT WITHIN YOU." 
 
 EzEK. xxxvi. 26. 
 
 Wax left to itself grows hard ; how much more 
 the stony heart of man? God not ruling and 
 working in his heart it grows hard. 
 
 " HER END IS BITTER AS WORMWOOD." 
 
 Prov. iv. 4. 
 
 Amnon had a strong lust to his sister Taraar, but 
 when he had fulfilled it he hated her more than he 
 loved her. So when we have fulfilled a lust we- 
 are not satisfied with it, but say to it. Arise, be- 
 gone. As a bee having sucked something from one 
 flower goes to another, and then to a third ; so we 
 are soon weary of lusts — there is an emptiness in 
 the creature — it is no way able to satisfy the desires 
 of man's heart, but they are soon weary, and there- 
 fore desire variety. 
 
 " PRIDE GOETH BEFORE DESTRUCTION, AND A 
 HAUGHTY SPIRIT BEFORE A FALL." PrOV. Xvi. 18. 
 
 As humility, like the bee, gathers honey out of 
 rank weeds, our very sins moving to repentance, so 
 pride, like the spider, sucks poison out of the 
 
159 
 
 fairest flowers, the best graces, and is corrupted 
 with insolence. 
 
 '' AN IDLE SOUL SHALL SUFFER HUNGER." 
 
 Prov. xix. 15. 
 
 Bees are pains-taking creatures, but they enjoy 
 not all their labours, but readily contribute out of 
 their plenty, a portion to their keepers, — Sic vos 
 non vobiSf — still supplying their owners' necessity out 
 of their fruitful and useful store. And shall a 
 man of more singular graces and faculties be idle, 
 a burden to the world and himself? If happiness 
 consisted in doing nothing, God, that meant Adam 
 so happy, would never have set him about business, 
 but as paradise was his storehouse, so also his 
 workhouse ; his pleasure was his task. There is no 
 state of man that can privilege a folded hand — our 
 life is vita pulveris , non pulvinaris . Hands, means, 
 and moneys, men make the protection of idleness, 
 when as Adam commanded the whole earth, yet 
 work expected him. 
 
 " THE WICKED PLOTTETH AGAINST THE JUST." 
 
 PsALM xxxvii. 12. 
 
 Robbing bees of divers hives will join hands, and 
 league together without jarring or discord, though 
 at another time their hostility is continual, their 
 feud implacable, their difference is irreconcilable. 
 Nay, wasps also, though there be a natural anti- 
 pathy between them, yet to do a mischief to a 
 
160 
 
 neighbour hive will comply and unite together 
 with them. There is a combination of the ungodly 
 even so far as to the very participation of their 
 estates ; '* Cast in thy lot with us, we will all have 
 one purse." They are entangled in mutual amity : 
 like beds of eels, nothing but thunder can break 
 their knots. ''Is it much,'' saith Christ, '' that 
 you love them that love you ?'* Robbing bees and 
 wasps do it ; even publicans do the same. 
 
 *' A man's poes are they of his own house- 
 hold."— Mat. X. 36. 
 
 Bees are often suffocated and drowned in their 
 own honey, that which with industry and labour 
 they had gathered, the combs being melted with 
 the heat of the sun, or casually broken. And the 
 sins of many, which they had wearied themselves to 
 act, often prove their ruin and destruction. Sodom 
 might have stood for all the five kings that bade 
 her battle, if the unnatural fire of lust had not 
 drawn down upon her unnatural fire — I mean the 
 fire of hell, as Salvian speaketh; from heaven it 
 was not. It was not Titus' siege without, but the 
 zealots' sedition within the walls that dispeopled 
 Jerusalem, strewing her streets with dead carcases, 
 and dyeing her common sewers with blood. It was 
 not the Assyrian horse and chariots, but Jeroboam's 
 golden calves, together with their sorceries, witch- 
 crafts, and other sins unrepented of, which destroyed 
 Israel. The enemies of a man, saith our Saviour, 
 
161 
 
 *' are those of his own house." Plaucus Plautius, 
 hiding himself in the time of the proscription, was 
 found out only by the smell of his sweet oils, where- 
 with he used luxuriously to anoint himself. 
 
 ** THE LORD SHALL BRING FORTH THY JUDGMENT 
 AS THE NOONDAY." PsALM XXXvii. 6. 
 
 Bees, as almost all other insects, are in their 
 first estate and condition very rude and imperfect 
 creatures ; they have none of the senses except 
 feeling and tasting, they only eat to live, and live 
 to eat, and again after a time they neither eat nor 
 live, but die to live ; but as soon as they have 
 transmuted their shape they come forth goodly and 
 beautiful creatures. In the valley of tears it is not 
 perfect day, no, not with the best Christian under 
 heaven, but it grows by degrees till it be perfect 
 day with them, which is at the day of their dissolu- 
 tion. Like to the earthen pitchers of Gideon's men, 
 when they brake their pitchers the lamps gloriously 
 shone forth and dazzled their eyes, — thus it is with 
 a Christian ; when these earthen pitchers and 
 carcases are broken, his light will shine forth 
 gloriously : in the mean time we have light, we have 
 lamps, but they are pitchers shining very dimly. 
 
 ** IT IS SOWN IN DISHONOUR ; IT IS RAISED IN 
 
 GLORY." — 1 Cor. xvi. 43. 
 
 The first death or transmutation of the bees is 
 their profit and advantages, their excellency and 
 
162 
 
 glory; they die, but yet to live more nobly. 
 And death to the godly is not the death of the man, 
 but the death of sin in the man : Mors est sepultura 
 vitiorum. As the worm which is bred in the tree, 
 saith Chrysostom, doth at last consume it, so death, 
 which is brought out by sin, doth at length consume 
 and destroy sin in the children of God. 
 
 " PERFECTING HOLINESS IN THE FEAR OF GOD.' 
 
 2 Cor. vii. 1. 
 
 The mother wasps and hornets, after they have 
 wrought awhile and procreated their kind, give our 
 labouring, and are maintained by the industry and 
 piety of their offspring. But bees never sue out a 
 quietus est when they are old, to discharge them 
 from their labours ; but as they are best acquainted 
 by experience what flowers are most advantageous 
 and profitable, so are they more willing and able 
 by practice to undergo the honey-gathering labour : 
 thus doth exercise increase strength and diligence. 
 Hypocrites with Jehu may drive on awhile furiously, 
 with Joash may hold out a great while, but at last 
 they will give in and be weary : but let a believer 
 exercise himself in grace, and he will grow up in 
 the Lord, and increase in spiritual strength. A 
 tree, the more holdfast it hath with its root in the 
 earth, the more fruit it brings forth. They that 
 walk daily in a Christian course increase strength, 
 they walk from strength to strength, till they meet 
 their God in Sion. 
 
163 
 
 ** GOD SAID TO JONAH, DOEST THOU WELL TO BE 
 ANGRY FOR THE GOURD ?'' JoNAH iv. 9. 
 
 The honey in Samson's lion is very fitly likened 
 to the profit of afflictions. The assaults of affliction 
 may be terrible, like Samson's lion, but they yield 
 much sweetness to those that dare encounter and 
 overcome them, who know how to overlive the 
 witherings of their gourds without discontent or 
 peevishness, while they may yet converse with God. 
 
 *' EVERY MOVING THING THAT LIVETH, SHALL 
 BE MEAT FOR YOU." GeN. ix. 3. 
 
 Nothing is created for itself, but so placed by 
 the most wise providence, that it may confer some- 
 what to the public good. The poorest creature 
 yields some good wherein it doth imitate the good- 
 ness of the Maker ; every thing is enabled with some 
 gift for the universal benefit. Kine give us their 
 milk, sheep their wool, bees their honey and wax ; 
 every one pays a tribute to man, their usufructuary 
 lord. 
 
 *' GOD MADE every THING THAT CREEPETH UPON 
 THE EARTH AFTER HIS KIND *. AND GOD SAW 
 THAT IT WAS GOOD." GeN. i. 25. 
 
 God's power was no less in creating a little bee 
 than a great lion. As the clock-maker's skill is 
 seen in a little watch as in a great clock, so God's 
 goodness is in the smallest and most ordinary 
 matters, as in the greatest and most extraordinary^ 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 ^' LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT." HeB. xii. 1. 
 
 Bees smelling a field of coleseed, though a mile 
 remote from their hives, will directly fly thither, 
 tempted with no other blossoms by the way, though 
 much nearer ; see them perhaps they may as they 
 fly, but will not be diverted or withdrawn by them. 
 And so many things are to be observed in our 
 course in this world with our eye, which are not to 
 be entertained into our delights and affections. 
 
 " YE HAVE NOT YET RESISTED UNTO BLOOD, 
 STRIVING AGAINST SIN." HeB. xii. 4. 
 
 Bees, while they are numerous and full, endure 
 without regret or discontent the royal issue, but 
 when by the emission of two or three colonies they 
 find their numbers greatly impaired, their strength 
 much weakened, then without delay they do either 
 destroy or chase them out of their hives. Believers, 
 while they are in a natural estate, easily admitted 
 the fellowship of any lust, were not much troubled 
 nor vexed with Satan's wiles. But as soon as their 
 enlightened eyes begin to see and discern their 
 misery and danger from them, they labour to kill 
 and mortify, to subdue and crucify every sinful 
 passion, and all the hellish brood of lust. 
 
 *' GREAT AND MARVELLOUS ARE THY WORKS, LORD 
 GOD ALMIGHTY." ReV. XV. 3. 
 
 Solomon, the wisest among the sons of men, saitb. 
 
165 
 
 " Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, 
 and be wise. So thou shalt learn providence, in a 
 fair day to provide a cloak for the tempest, in peace 
 to foresee war, and in youth to lay up somewhat 
 for old age. And mayest thou learn so much from 
 the ant ? And when thou walkest into thy garden 
 and beholdest the industrious bee, which with un- 
 wearied diligence fetcheth her food from afar, and 
 that (not as the ant) for her alone behoof and 
 supply, but for the necessities and superfluities 
 also of the sons of men ; nay, dost thou behold 
 their admirable government, chaste procreation, 
 motherly affections to their issue, stout defence of 
 their hives and houses, with many other occurring 
 passages from their birth to their death, — and canst 
 thou learn nothing? Surely if thou (whosoever 
 thou art) seriously meditates on the particulars 
 herein exhibited, thou canst not but acknowledge 
 that God is maximus in minimis. 
 
 "faithful are the wounds or a friend." 
 Prov. xxvii. 6. 
 
 As a true friend is the sweetest contentment in 
 the world, so in his qualities he well resembleth 
 honey, the sweetest of all liquors. Nothing is more 
 sweet to the taste, nothing more sharp and cleansing 
 when it meets with an exulcerate sore. For myself 
 I know I must have faults, and therefore I care not 
 for that friend that I shall never smart by. For 
 
166 
 
 my friends, I know they cannot be faultless, and 
 therefore as they shall find me sweet in their praises 
 and encouragements, so sharp also in their censure. 
 Either let them abide me no friend to their faults, 
 or no friend to themselves. 
 
 *' THE GOODNESS OF GOD LEADETH TO REPENT- 
 ANCE." — RoM. ii. 4. 
 
 An evil man is clay to God, wax to the devil. 
 God may stamp him into powder or temper him 
 anew, but none of his means can melt him. Con- 
 trariwise, a good man is God's wax, and Satan's 
 clay : he relents at every look of God, but is not 
 stirred at any temptation. I had rather bow than 
 break to God ; but for Satan or the world, I had 
 rather be broken in pieces by their violence, than 
 suffer myself to be bowed unto their obedience. 
 
 *' BE YE ALSO READY, FOR IN SUCH AN HOUR 
 AS YE THINK NOT, THE SON OF MAN COMETH." 
 
 Mat. xxiv. 49. 
 
 Bees observe a martial posture in all their car- 
 riages ; some keep guard at the gates, others like 
 scouts watch at a remoter distance, some within 
 the hive, as soldiers in garrison, observe who goes 
 in and out. So though that many follow their 
 labours at home and abroad, yet others are warlikely 
 employed, lest they should suffer from an unknown 
 or unsuspected adversary, for want of foresight and 
 preparation. Thus Iphicrates, an Athenian general. 
 
167 
 
 encamped in time of peace, and among his friends, 
 yet still intrenched his army, ordered his outworks, 
 set his watch, kept his corps-du-garde, laid out his 
 sentinels, and in a word, observed all martial dis- 
 cipline, as if he had been in the heat and height of 
 war ; and being asked by one of his familiars what 
 he feared, he answered. To be surprised : and lest 
 it should fall out that he should be constrained to 
 say, I thought not on ,it. Oh that believers were 
 thus wise to think of their latter end, and always to 
 mind when the appointed time of their change shall 
 come ! then would they be always prepared to enter- 
 tain death, either secretly or openly. Jesus Christ, 
 our grand Captain, who valiantly triumphed over 
 it, often inculcates this watchfulness upon his dis- 
 ciples and apostles, and in them on all believers. 
 " Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day 
 nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." And 
 elsewhere, " What I say unto you, I say unto all — 
 watch." The Sybarites, which were not enlightened 
 with such a sun, yet always observed this custom in 
 their banquets, — to have a death's head delivered 
 from hand to hand by all the guests at the table, to 
 the end to admonish them not to be transported 
 with intemperance, and to cause them to remember, 
 that as they were nourished of the flesh of dead 
 creatures, that they lived in dying, and died in 
 living. And the Egyptians, for the same reason, 
 carried in their processions a vessel of gold full of 
 earth, which was as if a herald should proclaim to 
 
168 
 
 all the assembly in the words of the prophet, 
 *' O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord!" 
 
 " THOU SHALT DASH THEM IN PIECES LIKE A 
 
 potter's vessel." — Psalm ii. 9. 
 
 The enemies of the church are compared to bees. 
 Fear not their multitude nor their rage ; they are 
 bees, not lions. They buzz, they make a noise, they 
 have stings, but they cannot do what they would : 
 their power is less than their spite and malice, and 
 they hurt not but with their own certain death and 
 destruction. Believe then God in the midst of their 
 machinations, and applaud thyself in their tumultu- 
 ous projects, that all shall be frustrate and abortive. 
 Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt. When 
 God pleaseth, he can but blow on self-conceited 
 Nimrods, mighty hunters, oppressing and tyran- 
 nical enemies, and easily overthrow them and crush 
 them to the earth, and break in pieces all their 
 counsels. If Pharaoh vex God's people, asking. 
 Who is the Lord ? flies, lice, and caterpillars shall 
 be his challengers and conquerors, and ask, Who 
 is Pharaoh ? 
 
 '' BEHOLD ! A VIRGIN SHALL CONCEIVE AND BEAR 
 A SON, AND SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL." 
 
 — IsA. vii. 14. 
 
 Honey was an usual food for little children among 
 the Jews ; wherefore Isaiah saith of Christ, " Butter 
 
169 
 
 and honey shall he eat." By honey, some say was 
 designed the divinity of his birth, and by butter, 
 his humanity ; but foolishly, and besides the mind 
 of the prophet, whose words are clear, and the sense 
 open. As if he had said, Immanuel shall not only 
 be a true God, but also a true man ; that is, he 
 shall feed of such meats as your children use to eat 
 of, so that his education shall be common and 
 ordinary, for fat and sweet meats are usually pro- 
 vided for infants, and especially honey among the 
 eastern people. So that by these words, synecdochi- 
 cally at least, is noted that his conception shall be 
 miraculous, but not his education. The prophet 
 siibjoins that there should be found in him pro- 
 gress or proficiency like unto other infants, till 
 he was grown to ripeness of years, for then he 
 should be endowed with an excellent judgment not 
 only to distinguish good and evil, but to choose the 
 good and refuse the evil. The complement of all 
 which is found, Luke ii. 52. Phil. ii. 7. To be 
 equal with God on one side and on the other, that 
 he humbled himself. All which the prophet would 
 here have noted, although in somewhat obscure 
 words, with respect to the times and prophetical 
 style. Whence it is also evident that they do 
 altogether wrest the words of the prophet that in- 
 sert to that, and take it finally, as if the child should 
 therefore eat honey and butter, that he might know 
 to refuse the evil and choose the good. In a word, 
 Christ is said to eat the butter and honey ; that is, 
 
170 
 
 to be frugally educated with such means as were 
 naturally aiforded, for there was nothing more 
 common among the Jews than butter, for most of 
 them kept cattle. And as plentiful was honey, 
 which their woods and forests did sufficiently furnish 
 them withal. 
 
 '' THE RICH MAN SHALL LIE DOWN, BUT HE 
 SHALL NOT BE GATHERED I HE OPENETH HIS 
 EYES, AND HE IS NOT." JOB XXvii. 19. 
 
 Figuratively, the sudden and unavoidable de- 
 struction of the wicked is often in Scripture ex- 
 pressed by the melting of wax. In some places it 
 is spoken of the mountains, to set forth God's 
 power and majesty. First, learn hence that God 
 doth arm himself as it were in the defence of his 
 people, but not as men are wont to do, because 
 he is furnished with so great power, that with a 
 nod he can confound his adversaries. Although 
 therefore, sometimes he seems to dissemble, or not 
 to take notice of their danger, yet will he in due 
 time appear in their behalf, nor needs he much 
 preparation for their overthrow, for the mountains 
 melt like wax before him, much more shall crawling 
 worms. Secondly, let us be humbled before the 
 powerful hand of God, and acknowledge our 
 frailty, for we are an evaporating smoke, a vanishing 
 shadow, a melting wax. And if we have any sta- 
 bility, let us acknowledge that we have it from God, 
 
171 
 
 who alone confirms, defends, and preserves us, who 
 otherwise would quickly come to nothing, who were 
 at first made of nothing, and have our present 
 support and subsistence in our God alone. 
 
 " HE THAT GATHERETH IN SUMMER IS A WISE 
 
 SON." — Prov. X. 5. 
 
 Bees are industrious in their season, for they well 
 know that the neglect of it is their irrecoverable 
 overthrow and destruction. And this life is the 
 summer and harvest wherein we must labour and 
 watch against temptations. The death-bed or dying 
 hour is a sharp combat, unless we have gathered 
 into the hives of our souls the graces of faith and 
 love, &c., whereby we may live after death, and ex- 
 pect a certain recompense. He which doth not 
 this shall experimentally find in his winter the dark- 
 ness of his mind, the clouds of fear, the wind and 
 frost of judgment. The bees draw out of the cells 
 the old and stinking bee-bread, so must we in our 
 lives mortify unprofitable and sinful lusts, whence 
 great sins may arise and be fomented. The bee 
 being weak with long shutting up in the winter, on 
 the first opportunity of a sun-shiny day, renews 
 her strength by coming forth, and flying abroad in 
 the heat thereof. And we must learn to raise up 
 our dull and drowsy spirits by the word of the Sun 
 of righteousness. Let us therefore diligently be- 
 stir ourselves in the summer and fair weather of the 
 means, whilst Christ, the Sun of grace, shineth. 
 
172 
 
 while God and his ministers call upon us, otherwise 
 another day many with Esau shall seek repentance 
 with tears, and shall not find it. 
 
 " BE NOT OVERCOME OF EVIL, BUT OVERCOME 
 EVIL WITH GOOD." RoM. xii. 2. 
 
 The queen commandant hath a sting, but useth 
 it not for revenge ; she rules not by written, but by 
 nature's laws, teaching that they must be slow to 
 punish who are exalted to the highest powers ; and 
 whatsoever bee follows not the queen's example, 
 presently repents of her temerity ; for she no sooner 
 stings but pays the price of it with her life. Let 
 Christians hear and learn, who have a command 
 " not to render evil for evil, but to overcome evil 
 with goodness." 
 
 " GREAT IS THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS." 
 
 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
 To find honey, is to taste the sweetness of a holy 
 understanding, which then is sufficiently eaten 
 when our understanding is kept under government 
 or moderation, according to the measure of our 
 sense ; for he is satiated with honey and vomits it, 
 who desires to dive into things he cannot conceive, 
 and so loseth that whereby he might be nourished, 
 and therefore weak understandings ought not to 
 search into mysteries above their capacity and 
 comprehension. 
 
173 
 
 " I HAVE LEARNED BY EXPERIENCE." GeN. XXX. 27 . 
 
 We may read the writings of poets and philoso- 
 phers, but yet wisely to cull out of them what- 
 soever is profitable, as also with a discerning judg- 
 ment to avoid whatsoever is hurtful, and so imitate 
 the witty bees, who, w^hatsoever flower they gather 
 of, following nature as their guide, with a singular 
 wisdom suck out only that which is profitable. 
 
 *' ALL THESE THINGS ARE DONE IN PARABLES." 
 
 Mark iv. 11. 
 
 The doctrine of wisdom is by Solomon compared 
 to honey and the honey-comb, because that as honey 
 sweetens meats, so the word all other learning ; but 
 yet there is this difference in the signification of both, 
 for honey, because it is already prepared to eat, 
 signifies the mere superficies of the letter, but the 
 honey-comb, where the honey is not expressed from 
 the wax, doth figuratively point forth the allegorical 
 signification, that, the veil of the letter being with- 
 drawn, the sweetness of the spiritual sense, but 
 w^ith some delay and labour, may be perceived. 
 
 " THOU canst not SEE MY FACE, FOR THERE 
 SHALL NO MAN SEE MY FACE AND LIVE." 
 
 ExoDus xxxiii. 20. 
 
 Honey too liberally eaten kills ; so the searching 
 after the knowledge of the divinity is sweet, but he 
 which desires to search further than the nature of 
 
174 
 
 man is capable, his glory will oppress and crush 
 him ; for as honey taken immoderately bursts the 
 eater, so this inquiry the understanding that can- 
 not comprehend it. Hast thou found honey ? eat 
 so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled 
 therewith and vomit it. Hast thou found the sweet- 
 ness of the understanding of heavenly things, which 
 is afforded and made known by the pains and labours 
 of the spiritual fathers? As prudent bees, take 
 heed thou desirest not to know more than thou 
 oughtest to know (be wise unto sobriety) lest whilst 
 thou seekest to understand the highest wisdom 
 beyond thy abilities, thou losest the knowledge of 
 that which thou didst thoroughly understand. 
 
 " EVERY WORD OF GOD IS PURE." PrOV. XXX. 5. 
 
 The wise bee gathers sweet and wholesome 
 nourishment from those places and flowers which a 
 vulgar judgment deems worthless and good for 
 nothing ; and a wise Christian from those passages 
 of the Scriptures where the word seems carnal, dis- 
 cerns spiritual excellencies. For as an unskilful 
 man coming into a field abounding with wholesome 
 herbs, passeth by all as of no more use than grass, — 
 but a skilful botanist doth otherwise ; — so doth a 
 spiritual reader find spiritual advantage from every 
 sentence. To the pure, all things are profitable and 
 pure, and if any place seems uncomely, it is only 
 to those that are such in themselves. 
 
175 
 
 "SATAN PROVOKED DAVID TO NUMBER ISRAEL.'' 
 
 1 Chron. xxi. 1. 
 
 Mice are very hurtful to bees, but not at all 
 times alike. In summer, when the hives are full, 
 and the bees lusty and keep a constant guard and 
 watch, they seldom meddle with them ; but in the 
 winter, when they are benumbed with cold, shut 
 into the hives, and almost bereaved of their lives, 
 then do they without fear or hazard rob and plunder 
 them. And Satan, our constant adversary, takes 
 advantage of professors : when they keep a con- 
 tinual watch and course in prayer, they do not so 
 oft miscarry, but in the night of their ignorance, 
 in the sleep of their peace and security, when 
 they can least espy him, doth he take advantage, 
 and by his wily, unseen stratagems, overthrow 
 many. 
 
 " THE FRUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS SOWN IN 
 
 PEACE OF THEM THAT MAKE PEACE." JaMES 
 
 iii. 18. 
 
 The seeds of discord were scattered in every 
 furrow of the creation, and came up in a number- 
 less variety of antipathies. Bees are a prey to the 
 titmouse, often a morsel to the spider. Their 
 habitations are digged through and plundered by 
 mice, and many other enemies have they whereby 
 they daily suffer ; yet no contest and hostility is so 
 destructive and dangerous, as that which exercised 
 
176 
 
 with bees, creatures of their own kind. What is 
 this but an image of that woeful hostility which is 
 exercised between us reasonable creatures, who are 
 conjoined in one common humanity, if not religion ? 
 We fight with, and destroy each other, more than 
 those creatures that want reason to temper their 
 passions. No beast is so cruel to man as himself: 
 where one man is slain by a beast, ten thousand are 
 slain by man. What is that war which we study 
 and practise but the art of killing ? Whatever Turks 
 and pagans may do, O Lord, how long shall this 
 brutish fury arm Christians against each other? 
 Whilst even devils are not at enmity with them- 
 selves, but accord in wickedness, why do we men 
 so mortally oppose each other ? O Thou that art 
 the God of peace, compose the unquiet hearts of 
 men to a happy and universal concord, and at 
 last refresh our souls with the multitude of peace ! 
 
 l^OW UNTO THE KING ETERNAL, IMMORTAL, INVISIBLE, 
 THE ONLY WISE GOD, BE HONOUR AND GLORY FOR 
 EVER AND EVER. Ameri. 
 
 {.oiulou: I'linted by S. Bagster, Jun., 14, Baitholomew Close. 
 
>f