done nothing to cut off the Favourers of that Church The reasons of their love and respect to the Church of Rome we wish but we do not command them to lay down their Lay-brethren have all means of instruction offered them Our Edicts and Statutes made for their restraint are such as serve onely to awaken them and cause them to consider the innocency of that cause for refusal of communion in which they endure as they suppose so great losses Those who are sent over by them either for the retaining of the already perverted or perverting others are either return'd by us back again to them who dispatch'd them to us without any wrong unto their persons or danger to their lives suffer an easie restraint which onely hinders them from dispersing the poison they brought And had they not been stickling in our state business and medling with our Princes Crown there had not a drop of their bloud fallen to the ground unto our Sermons in which the swarvings of that Church are necessarily to be taxt by us we do not bind their presence onely our desire is they would joyn with us in those Prayers and holy Ceremonies which are common to them and us And so accordingly by singular discretion was our Service-book compiled by our fore-fathers as containing nothing that might offend them as being almost meerly a Compendium of their own Breviary and Missal so that they shall see nothing in our Meetings but that they shall see done in their own though many things which are in theirs here I grant they shall not find And here indeed is the great and main difference betwixt us As it is in the controversie concerning the Canonical Books of Scripture whatsoever we hold for Scripture that even by that Church is maintained onely she takes upon her to add much which we cannot think safe to admit so fares it in other points of Faith and Ceremony whatsoever it is we hold for Faith she holds it as far forth as we our Ceremonies are taken from her onely she over and above urges some things for Faith which we take to be Errour or at the best opinion and for Ceremony which we think to be Superstition So that to participate with us is though not throughout yet in some good measure to participate with that Church and certainly were that spirit of charity stirring in them which ought to be they would love and honour us even for the resemblance of that Church the beauty of which themselves so much admire The glory of these our proceedings even our adversaries themselves do much envy So that from hence it is that in their writings they traduce our Judiciary proceedings against them for sanguinary and violent striving to perswade other Nations that such as have suffered by course of publick Justice for Religion onely and not for Treason have died and pretend we what we list our actions are as bloudy and cruel as their own wherefore if a perfect pattern of dealing with Erring Christians were to be sought there were not any like unto this of ours In qua nec saeviendi nec errandi pereundique licentia permittitur which as it takes not to it self liberty of cruelty so it leaves not unto any the liberty of destroying their own souls in the errour of their lives And now that we may at once conclude this point concerning Hereticks for prohibiting these men access to Religious Disputations it is now too late to dispute of that for from this that they have already unadvisedly entred into these battels are they become that which they are Let us leave them therefore as a sufficient example and instance of the danger of intempestive and immodest medling in Sacred Disputes I see it may be well expected that I should according to my promise adde instruction for the publick Magistrate and show how far this precept in receiving the weak concerns him I must confess I intended and promised so to do but I cannot conceive of it as a thing befitting me to step out of my Study and give Rules for Government to Common-wealths a thing befitting men of greater experience to do Wherefore I hope you will pardon me if I keep not that promise which I shall with less offence break then observe And this I rather do because I suppose this precept to concern us especially if not onely as private men and that in case of publick proceeding there is scarce room for it Private men may pass over offences at their pleasure and may be in not doing it they do worse but thus to do lies not in the power of the Magistrate who goes by Laws prescribing him what he is to do Princes and men in Authority do many times much abuse themselves by affecting a reputation of Clemency in pardoning wrongs done to other men and giving protection to sundry offenders against those who have just cause to proceed against them It is mercy to pardon wrong done against our selves but to deny the course of Justice to him that calls for it and to protect offenders may peradventure be some inconsiderare pity but mercy it cannot be All therefore that I will presume to advise the Magistrate is A general inclineableness to merciful proceedings And so I conclude wishing unto them who plentifully sowe mercy plentifully to reap it at the hand of God with an hundred fold encrease and that blessing from God the Father of mercies may be upon them all as on the sons of mercy as many as are the sands on the Sea-shore in multitude The same God grant that the words which we have this day c. A Sermon Preached on Easter day at Eaton Colledge Luke XVI 25. Son remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things I Have heard a Proverb to this sound He that hath a debt to pay at Easter thinks the Lent but short How short this Lent hath seemed to me who stand indebted to you for the remainder of my Meditations upon these words is no matter of consequence to you peradventure it may have seemed so long that what you lately heard at Shrovetide now at Easter you may with pardon have forgotten I will therefore recall into your memories so much of my former Meditations as may serve to open unto me a convenient way to pursue the rest of those Lessons which then when I last spake unto you the time and your patience would not permit me to finish But ere I do this I will take leave a little to fit my Text unto this time of Solemnity This time you know calls for a Discourse concerning the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ of this you hear no sound in the words which I have read and therefore you conclude it a Text unbefitting the day Indeed if you take the Resurrection for that glorious Act of his Omnipotency by which through the power of his eternal Spirit he redeems himself from the hand of the grave and triumphs over
audierint aliquid contradici The same temper must be found in every Reader of Scripture he must not be at a stand and require an answer to every objection that is made against them For as the Philosopher tells us that mad and fantastical men are very apprehensive of all outward accidents because their soul is inwardly empty and unfurnished of any thing of worth which might hold the inward attention of their minds so when we are so easily dor'd and amated with every Sophism it is a certain argument of great defect of inward furniture and worth which should as it were ballance the mind and keep it upright against all outward occurrents whatsoever And be it that many times the means to open such doubts be not at hand yet as St. Austin sometime spake unto his Scholar Licentius concerning such advice and counsel as he had given him Nolo te cansas rationesque rimari quae etiamsi reddi possint fidei tamen qua mihi credis non cas debeo so much more must we thus resolve of those lessons which God teacheth us the reasons and grounds of them though they might be given yet it fits not that credit and trust which we owe him once to search into or call in question And so I come to the third general part the Danger of Wresting of Scripture in the last words unto their own Damnation The reward of every sin is Death As the worm eats out the heart of the plant that bred it so whatsoever is done amiss naturally works no other end but destruction of him that doth it As this is true in general so is it as true that when the Scripture doth precisely note out unto us some sin and threatens Death unto it it is commonly an argument that there is more then ordinary that there is some especial sin which shall draw with it some especial punishment This sin of Wresting of Scripture in the eye of some of the Antients seemed so ugly that they have ranged it in the same rank with the sin against the holy Ghost And therefore have they pronounced it a sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 greater then can be pardoned For the most part of others sins are sins of infirmity or simplicity but this is a sin of wit and strength the man that doth it doth it with a high hand he knows and sees and resolves upon it Again Scripture is the voice of God and it is confest by all that the sense is Scripture rather then the words It cannot therefore be avoided but he that wilfully strives to fasten some sense of his own upon it other then the very nature of the place will bear must needs take upon him the Person of God and become a new inditer of Scripture and all that applaud and give consent unto any such in effect cry the same that the people did to Herod The voice of God and not of man If he then that abases the Princes Coin deserves to die what is his desert that instead of the tried silver of Gods word stamps the Name and Character of God upon Nehushtan upon base brasen stuff of his own Thirdly No Scripture is of private interpretation saith the Apostle There can therefore be but two certain and infallible interpreters of Scripture either it self or the holy Ghost the Author of it It self doth then expound it self when the words and circumstances do sound unto us the prime and natural and principal sense But when the place is obscure involved and intricate or when there is contained some secret and hidden mystery beyond the prime sense infallibly to shew us this there can be no Interpreter but the holy Ghost that gave it Besides these two all other Interpretation is private Wherefore as the Lords of the Philistines sometimes said of the kine that drew the Ark unto Bethshemesh If they go of themselves then is this from God but if they go another way then is it not from God it is some chance that hath happened unto us so may it be said of all pretended sense of Scripture If Scripture come unto it of it self then is it of God but if it go another way or if it be violently urged and goaded on then is it but a matter of chance of mans wit and invention As for those marvellous discourses of some framed upon presumption of the Spirits help in private in judging or interpreting of difficult places of Scripture I must needs confess I have often wondred at the boldness of them The Spirit is a thing of dark and secret operation the manner of it none can descry As underminers are never seen till they have wrought their purpose so the Spirit is never perceived but by its effects The effects of the Spirit as far as they concern knowledge and instruction are not particular information for resolution in any doubtful case for this were plainly revelation but as the Angel which was sent unto Cornelius informs him not but sends him to Peter to school so the Spirit teaches not but stirs up in us a desire to learn desire to learn makes us thirst after the means and pious sedulity and carefulness makes us watchful in the choice and diligent in the use of our means The promise to the Apostles of the Spirit which should lead them into all truth was made good unto them by private and secret informing their understandings with the knowledge of high and heavenly mysteries which as yet had never entred into the conceit of any man The same promise is made to us but fulfilled after another manner For what was written by revelation in their hearts for our instruction have they written in their books To us for information otherwise then out of these books the Spirit speaks not When the Spirit regenerates a man it infuses no knowledge of any point of faith but sends him to the Church and to the Scriptures When it stirs him up to newness of life it exhibits not unto him an inventory of his sins as hitherto unknown but either supposes them known in the Law of Nature of which no man can be ignorant or sends him to learn them from the mouth of his teachers More then this in the ordinary proceeding of the holy Spirit in matter of instruction I yet could never descry So that to speak of the help of the Spirit in private either in dijudicating or in interpreting of Scripture is to speak they know not what Which I do the rather note first because by experience we have learnt how apt men are to call their private conceits the Spirit and again because it is the especial errour with which S. Austine long ago charged this kind of men Tanto sunt ad seditionem faciliores quanto sibi videntur spiritu excellere by so much the more prone are they to kindle Schism and contention in the Church by how much they seem to themselves to be endued with a more eminent measure of Spirit then
for our more orderly proceeding we will consider First the sin it self that is here reprehended Wresting of Scripture where we will briefly consider what it is and what causes and motioners it finds in our corrupt understandings Secondly the persons guilty of this offence discipher'd unto us in two Epithets unlearned unstable Last of all the danger in the last words unto their own damnation And first of the sin it self together with some of the special causes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They wrest They deal with Scripture as Chimicks deal with natural bodies torturing them to extract that out of them which God and Nature never put in them Scripture is a rule which will not fit it self to the obliquity of our conceits but our perverse and crooked discourse must fit it self to the straightness of that rule A learned Writer in the age of our fathers commenting upon Scripture spake most truly when he said That his Comments gave no light unto the Text the Text gave light unto his Comments Other Expositions may give rules and directions for understanding their Authors but Scripture gives rules to Exposition it self and interprets the Interpreter Wherefore when we made in Scripture non pro sententia divinarum Scripturarum as St. Austine speaks sed pro nostra itae dimicantes ut tam velimus Scripturarum esse quae nostra est When we strive to give unto it and not to receive from it the sense when we factiously contend to fasten our conceits upon God and like the Harlot in the Book of Kings take our dead and putrified fancies and lay them in the bosome of Scripture as of a mother then are we guilty of this great sin of wresting of Scripture The nature of which will the better appear if we consider a little some of those motioners which drive us upon it One very potent and strong mean is the exceeding affection and love unto our own opinions and conceits For grown we are unto extremities on both hands we cannot with patience either admit of other mens opinions or endure that our own should be withstood As it was in the Lacedaemonian army almost all were Captains so in these disputes all will be leaders and we take our selves to be much discountenanced if others think not as we do So that the complaint which one makes concerning the dissention of Physicians about the diseases of our bodies is true likewise in these disputes which concern the cure of our souls Hinc illae circa aegros miserae sententiarum concertationes nullo idem censente ne videatur accessio alterius From hence have sprung those miserable contentions about the distemper of our souls singularity alone and that we will not seem to stand as cyphers to make up the sum of other mens opinions being cause enough to make us disagree A fault antiently amongst the Christians so apparent that it needed not an Apostolical spirit to discover it the very heathen themselves to our shame and confusion have justly judiciously and sharply taxt us for it Ammianus Marcellinus passing his censure upon Constantius the Emperour Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem saith he and they are words very well worth your marking Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem anili superstitione confudit In qua scrutanda perplexius quam componenda gratius excitavit dissidia plurima quae progressa fusius aluit concertatione verborum dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conatur arbitrium The Christian Religion a Religion of great simplicity and perfection he troubled with dotage and superstition For going about rather perplexedly to search the controversies then gravely to compose them he raised great stirs and by disputing spread them far and wide whilst he went about to make himselfsole Lord and Commander of the whole Profession Now that it may appear wherefore I have noted this it is no hard thing for a man that hath wit and is strongly possest of an opinion and resolute to maintain it to find some places of Scripture which by good handling will be woed to cast a favourable countenance upon it Pythagoras's Scholars having been bred up in the doctrine of Numbers when afterward they diverted upon the studies of Nature fancied unto themselves somewhat in natural bodies like unto Numbers and thereupon fell into a conceit that Numbers were the principles of them So fares it with him that to the reading of Scripture comes fore-possest with some opinion As Antipheron Orietes in Aristotle thought that every where he saw his own shape and picture going afore him so in divers parts of Scripture where these men walk they will easily perswade themselves that they see the image of their own conceits It was and is to this day a fashion in the hotter Countreys at noon when the Sun is in his strength to retire themselves to their closets or beds if they were at home to cool and shady places if they were abroad to avoid the inconvenience of the heat of it To this the Spouse in the Canticles alluding calls after her Beloved as after a shepherd Shew me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest thy flock where thou dost rest at noon The Donatists conceiting unto themselves that the Church was shut up in them alone being urged by the Fathers to shew how the Church being universal came on a suddain thus to be confin'd to Africk they had presently their Scripture for it for so they found it written in the Canticles Indica quem diligit anima mea ubi pascas ubi cubes in meridie In which Text meridies doubtless as they thought was their Southern Countrey of Africk where the Shepherd of Israel was and no where else to feed his flocks I may not trouble you with instances in this kind little observation is able to furnish the man of slenderest reading with abundance The Texts of Scripture which are especially subject to this abuse are those that are of ambiguous and doubtful meaning For as Thucydides observes of the fat and fertile places of Greece that they were evermore the occasions of stirs and seditionsâ— the neighbouring Nations every one striving to make it self Lord of them so is it with these places that are so fertile as it were of interpretation and yeild a multiplicity of sense they are the Palaestra for good wits to prove masteries in where every one desires to be Lord and Absolute A second thing occasioning us to transgress against Scripture and the discreet and sober handling of it is our too quick and speedy entrance upon the practise of interpreting it in our young and green years before that time and experience have ripened us and setled our conceits For that which in all other business and here likewise doth most especially commend us is our cauteâ—ous and wary handling it But this is a flower seldome seen in youths garden Aristotle differencing age and youth makes it a property of youth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
their brethren whilst 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Basil speaks under pretence of interpretation they violently broach their own conceits Great then is the danger in which they wade which take upon them this business of interpretation Temevitas asserendae incertae dubiaeque opinionis saith St. Austine difficile sacrilegii crimen evitat the rashness of those that aver uncertain and doubtful interpretations for Catholick and Absolute can hardly escape the sin of sacrilege But whereas our Apostle saith their own destruction is the destruction onely their own this were well if it stretched no farther The antients much complain of this offence as an hinderer of the salvation of others There were in the days of Isidorus Pelusiota some that gave out that all in the Old Testament was spoken of Christ belike out of extreme opposition to the Manichees who on the other side taught that no Text in the Old Testament did foretel of Christ. That Father therefore dealing with some of that opinion tells them how great the danger of their tenet is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for if saith he we strive with violence to draw and apply those Texts to Christ which apparently pertain not to him we shall gain nothing but this to make all the places that are spoken of him suspected and so discredit the strength of other testimonies which the Church usually urges for the refutation of the Iews For in these cases a wrested proof is like unto a suborn'd witness it never doth help so much whilest it is presumed to be strong as it doth hurt when it is discover'd to be weak St. Austin in his Books de Genesi ad literam sharply reproves some Christians who out of some places of Scripture misunderstood fram'd unto themselves a kind of knowledge in Astronomy and Physiology quite contrary unto some part of heathen Learning in this kind which were true and evident unto sense A man would think that this were but a small errour and yet he doubts not to call it turpe nimis perniciosum maxime cavendum His reason warrants the roundness of his reproof for he charges such to have been a scandal unto the Word and hinderers of the conversion of some heathen men that were Scholars For how saith he shall they believe our books of Scripture perswading the resurrection of the dead the kingdome of heaven and the rest of the mysteries of our profession if they find them faulty in these things of which themselves have undeniable demonstration Yea though the cause we maintain be never so good yet the issue of diseas'd and crazie proofs brought to maintain it must needs be the same For unto all causes be they never so good weakness of proof when it is discovered brings great prejudice but unto the cause of Religion most of all St. Austine observ'd that there were some qui cum de aliquibus qui sanctum nomen profitentur aliquid criminis vel falsi sonuerit vel veri patuerit instant satagunt ambiunt ut de omnibus hoc credatur It fares no otherwise with Religion it self then it doth with the professors of it Divers malignants there are who lie in wait to espie where our reasons on which we build are weak and having deprehended it in some will earnestly solicit the world to believe that all are so if means were made to bring it to light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen speaks using for advantage against us no strength of their own but the vice and imbecility of our defence The book of the revelation is a book full of wonder and mystery the Ancients seem to have made a Religion to meddle with it and thought it much better to admire with silence then to adventure to expound it and therefore amongst their labours in exposition of Scripture scarcely is there any one found that hath touch'd it But our Age hath taken better heart And scarcely any one is there who hath entertained a good conceit of his own abilities but he hath taken that Book as a fit argument to spend his pains on That the Church of Rome hath great cause to suspect her self to fear lest she have a great part in the Prophesies in that book I think the most partial will not deny Yet unto the Expositours of it I will give this advice that they look that that befall not them which Thuoidides observes to befall the common sort of men who though they have good means to acquit themselves like men yet when they think their best hopes fail them and begin to despair of their strength comfort themselves with interpretations of certain dark and obscure prophesies Many plain texts of Scripture are very pregnant and of sufficient strength to overthrow the points maintained by that Church againts us If we leave these and ground our selves upon our private expositions of this Book we shall justly seem in the poverty of better proofs to rest our selves upon those prophesies which though in themselves they are most certain yet our expositions of them must except God give yet further light unto his Church necessarily be mixt with much incertainty as being at the best but unprobable conjectures of our own Scarcely can there be found a thing more harmful to Religion then to vent thus our own conceits and obtrude them upon the world for necessary and absolute The Physicians skill as I conceive of it stands as much in opinion as any that I know whatsoever yet their greatest Master Hippocrates tells them directly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Then the Physicians presumption upon opinion there is not one thing that brings either more blame to himself or danger to his patient If it be thus in an art which opinion taken away must needs fall how little room then must opinion have in that knowledge where nothing can have place but what is of eternal truth where if once admit of opinion all is overthrown But I conclude this point adding onely this general admonition That we be not too peremptory in our positions where express text of Scripture fails us that we lay not our own collections and conclusions with too much precipitancy For experience hath shewed us that the errour and weakness of them being afterwards discovered brings great disadvantage to Christianity and trouble to the Church The Eastern Church before St. Basils time had entertained generally a conceit that those Greek particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the rest were so divided among the Trinity that each of the Persons had his Particle which was no way appliable to the rest St. Basil having discovered this to be but a niceness and needless curiosity beginning to teach so raised in the Church such a tumult that he brought upon himself a great labour of writing many tracts in apology for himself with much ado ere matters could again be setled The fault of this was not in Basil who religiously fearing what by way of consequence might ensue upon an errour taught
It is or should be nothing else but Virtue and Happiness now these are alike purchasable in all estates Poverty disease distress contumely contempt these are as well the object of Virtue as Wealth liberty honour reputation and the rest of that forespoken rank Happiness therefore may as well dwell with the poor miserable and distressed persons as with persons of better fortune since it is confest by all that happiness is nothing else but actio secundum virtutem a leading of our life according to virtue As great art may be exprest in the cutting of a Flint as in the cutting of a Diamond and so the work-man do well express his skill no man will blame him for the baseness of the matter or think the worse of his work Beloved some man hath a Diamond a fair and glittering fortune some man hath a Flint a hard harsh and despicable fortune let him bestow the same skill and care in polishing and cutting of the latter as he would or could have done on the former and be confident it will be as highly valued if not more highly rewarded by God who is no accepter of persons but accepteth every man according to that he hath and not according to that he hath not To him let us commit our selves To him be all honour and praise now and for ever Amen Numb XXXV Verse 33. And the Land cannot be cleansed of bloud that is shed in it but by the bloud of him that shed it THese words are like unto a Scorpion for as in that so in these the self-same thing is both Poison and Remedy Bloud is the poison Bloud is the remedy he that is stricken with the Scorpion must take the oyl of the Scorpion to cure him He that hath poison'd a Land with the sin of Bloud must yeild his own Bloud for Antidote to cure it It might seem strange that I should amongst Christians thus come and deliver a speech of Bloud For when I read the notes and characters of a Christian in holy Scriptures me-thinks it should be almost a sin for such a one to name it Possess your souls in patience By this shall men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another Peace I leave with you The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace in the Holy Ghost Let your softness be known to all men The wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy It is reported by Avenzoar a great Physician that he was so tender-hearted that he could not endure to see a man let-bloud He that should read these passages of Scripture might think that Christians were like Avenzoar that the sight of bloud should be enough to affright them But is the common Christian so soft so tender-hearted is he so peaceable so tame and tractable a creature You shall not find two things of more different countenance and complexion then that Christianity which is commended unto us in the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists and that which is current in use and practise of the times He that shall behold the true face of a Christian as it is deciphered and painted out unto us in the Books of the New Testament and unpartially compare it with that copy or counterfeit of it which is exprest in the life and demeanour of common Christians would think them no more like then those sheilds of gold which Solomon made were unto those of brass which Rehâ—boam made in their stead and might suppose that the Writers of those Books had brought vota magis quam praecepta had rather fancied to themselves some admirable pattern of a Christian such as they could wish then delivered Rules and Laws which seriously and indeed ought or could be practised in common life and conversation St. Iames observes that he which beholds his natural face in a glass goes his way and immediately forgets what manner of man he was Beloved how careful we are to look upon the Glass the Books of holy Scriptures I cannot easily pronounce But this I am sure of we go our ways and quickly forget what manner of shape we saw there As Iacob and Esau had both one father Isaac both one mother Rebecca yet the one was smooth and plain the other rough and hairy of harsh and hard countenance and condition so these two kinds of Christians of which but now I spake though both lay claim to one Father and Mother both call themselves the sons of God and the sons of the Church yet are they almost as unlike as Iacob and Esau the one smooth gentle and peacable the other rough and harsh The notes and characters of Christians as they are described in holy Scriptures are patience easily putting up and digesting of wrongs humility preferring all before our selves And St. Iames tells us that the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated St. Iames indeed hath given the first place unto purity and it were almost a sin to compare Christian virtues together and make them strive for precedency and place For what Solomon saith upon another occasion is here much more true Say not Why is this thing better then that for every thing in its time is seasonable Yet he that shall mark how every where the Scriptures commend unto us gentleness and meekness and that peace is it quam nobis Apostoli totis viribus Spiritus sancti commendant as Tertullian speaks which the Apostles endeavour with all the strength and force of the holy Ghost to plant amongst us might a little invert the words of St. Iames and read them thus The wisdom that is from above is first peaceable then pure The Son of God who is the Wisdom of the Father and who for us men came down from Heaven first and before all other virtues commended this unto the world For when he was born the song of the Angels was Peace upon earth and good will towards men All his doctrine was peace his whole life was peaceable and no man heard his voice in the streets His last legacy and bequest left unto his disciples was the same Peace saith he I leave unto you my peace I give unto you As Christ so Christians In the building of Solomon's Temple there was no noise of any hammer of any instrument of Iron so in the spiritual building and frame of a Christian there is no sound of Iron no noise of any weapons nothing but peace and gentleness Ex praecepto fidei non minus rea ira est sine ratione suscepta quam in operibus legis homicidium saith St. Austin Unadvised anger by the Law of Faith is as great a sin as murther was by the Law of Moses As some Physicians have thought that in man's body the Spleen hath very little use and might well be spared and therefore in dealing with â—undry diseased persons they endeavour by Physick to abate and take away that
and disgrac'd the lives and actions of the best and most excellent men may seem in the judgment of a reasonable man to participate of much envy and uncharitableness so that their good life had remained upon record for our example we might very well have suffer'd their errours to have slept and been buried with their bodies in their graves St. Paul makes it the property of charity to hide the multitude of sins whose property then is it thus to blazon them at mid-day and to fill the ears of the world with the report of them Constantine the first-born among Christian Emperours so far mislik'd this course that he professed openly if he found any of his Bishops and Clergy whom it especially concerned to have a reputation pure and spotless committing any greivous sin to hide it from the eye of the world he would cover it with his own garment he knew well that which experience had long ago observ'd Non tam juvare quae bene dicta sunt quam nocere quae pessime things well said well done do nothing so much profit and further us as the examples of ill speeches ill actions do mischeif and inconvenience us and men are universally more apt from the errours and scapes of good men to draw apologies for their own then to propose their good deeds for examples and patterns for themselves to follow Neither is this my own speculation St. Austin observed it long since who discoursing upon the fall of David complains that from his example many framed unto themselves this apology Si David cur non ego If David did thus then why not I Preparas te ad peccandum saith he disponis peccare Librum Dei ut pecces inspicis Scripturas Dei ad hoc audis ut facias quod displicet Deo Thou dost prepare thy heart to sin thou providest thy self of purpose thou dost look into the Book of God even therefore that thou mightest sin the Scriptures of God thou dost therefore hear that by the example of those that fell thou mayest learn to do that which is displeasing unto God Yea the greater is the person offending the more dangerous is the example For Greatness is able of it self as it were to legitimate foul acts to add authority and credit unto ill doings Facilius efficiet quisquis objecerit crimen honestum quam turpem Catonem saith Seneca of Cato Whosoever he be saith he that objects drunkenness to Cato shall more easily prove drunkenness to be a virtue then that Cato who used it was to blame When St. Peter Galath ij had halted in his behaviour betwixt the Gentiles and those of the Circumcision St. Paul notes that many of the Iews yea Barnabas himself was carried away with their dissimulation and to speak truth whom would not the authority and credit of St. Peter have drawn into an errour So easily the faults of great men adolescunt in exempla grow up and become exemplary and so full of hazard is it to leave unto the world a memorial of the errours and scapes of worthy persons Yet notwithstanding all this the holy Spirit of God who bringeth light out of darkness and worketh above and against all means hath made the Fall of his Saints an especial means to raise his Church and therefore hath it pleased him by the Pen-men of the lives of his Saints in holy Scripture to lay open in the veiw of the world many gross faults and imperfections even of the most excellent instruments of his glory That which he tells the woman in the Gospel who anointed him before his passion that wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached this fact of hers should be recorded in memorial of her the same as it seems was his intent concerning his Saints that wheresoever the word of life should be taught there likewise should be related the grievous sins of his servants And therefore accordingly scarcely is there any one Saint in the whole Book of God who is not recorded in one thing or other to have notably overshot himself Sometimes he hath made the Saints themselves the proclaimers of their own shame So he makes Moses to register his own infidelity so David in his one and fiftieth Psalm by the instinct of God's Spirit leaves unto the Church under his own hand an evidence against himself for his Adultery and Murther Sometimes he makes their dearest freinds the most exact chroniclers of their faults for so St. Chrysostom observes of St. Mark the companion and Scholar of St. Peter who hath more particularly registred the Fall of his Master then any of the other Evangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who would not marvel saith he that St. Mark not onely concealed not the gross escape of his Master but hath more accurately then any of the rest recorded the particulars of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even because he was his Disciple as if he could have done his Master no better service then to deliver a most exact relation of his fault There are yet two things further to be noted in this dispensation of Almighty God the first in regard of us the second in regard of the Saints whose errours are recorded For the first who can but marvel that since all things that are written are written for our instruction that if they be good they may serve for our imitation if otherwise for warning to us yet many sinister actions of the Saints of God are so exprest in Scripture without censure without note that it were almost some danger to pronounce of them Abraham's equivocating with Abimelech Iacob's deluding his blind Father Rachel abusing Laban with a lie Iephthe his sacrificing his daughter Sampson killing himself with the Philistines these and many other besides are so set down that they may seem to have been done rather by divine instinct then out of humane infirmity Wherein the holy Ghost seems to me tanquam adoriri nos ex insidiis to set upon us out of ambush to use a kind of guile to see whether we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual discretion to try whether we will attribute more to mens examples then to his precepts Secondly in regard of the Saints themselves It is worth our noting that God seems to have had more care to discredit them then to honour them in that their faults are many times particularly registred but their repentance is wrapt up in silence so the story of Noah is concluded with his drunkenness after the report of Lot's Incest there is not a word of him throughout the Scriptures as soon as the story of Solomon's Idolatry is related it immediately follows in the Text And Solomon died We should very much wrong these men if we should think that they past out of this life without repentance because their repentance is conceal'd Doubtless if we were worthy to search the mysteries of the Spirit we should find that the holy Ghost hath left something for our instruction even in this
the behaviour of God in these cases to a slothful freind that is loth to leave his warm bed to do his freind a pleasure and here in my Text to an unjust Iudge that fears neither God nor man and secondly by his own behaviour toward the Canaanitish woman It is strange to observe how though he were the meekest person that ever was upon earth yet here he strives as it were to unnaturalize himself and lay by his natural sweetness of disposition almost to forget common humanity and puts on a kind of sullen and surly person of purpose to deterr her you shall not find our Saviour in all the New Testament in such a mood so bent to contemn and vilifie a poor suitour St. Austin comparing together St. Matthew and St. Mark who both of them record the same story and gathering together the circumstances out of them both tells us that first she follows our Saviour in the street and that our Saviour takes house as it were to shelter himself from her but she comes after and throws her self at his feet and he as offended with her importunity again quits the house to be rid of her and all this while deigns her not a word If any behavour could have dash'd a suit and broken the heart of a poor suitour this had been enough but here 's not all we have a civil precept that if we be not disposed to pleasure a suitour yet to give him good words and shape him a gentle answer it is hard if we cannot afford a suitour a gentle word We read of Tiberius the Emperour as I remember that he would never suffer any man to go sad and discontented from him yet our Saviour seems to have forgot this part of civility being importun'd to answer her gives her an answer worse then silence and speaks words like the peircing of a sword as Solomon speaks I may not take the childrens bread and cast it unto dogs And yet after all this strange copy of countenance he fully subscribes to her request Beloved God hath not onely express'd thus much in Parables and practised these strange delays upon Canaanitish women but he hath acted it indeed and that upon his dearest Saints David one of the worthiest of his Saints yet how passionately doth he cry out How long Lord wilt thou forget me how long shall I seek counsel in my soul and be so vexed in my heart Not onely the Saints on earth but even those in heaven do seem to partake in this demeanour of God We read in the Book of the Revelation that when the souls of the Martyrs under the Altar cried out How long Lord just and holy dost thou not avenge our bloud from off the earth they received this answer Have patience yet a little while It is storied of Diogenes that he was wont to supplicate to the Statues and to hold out his hands and beg of them that so he might learn to brook and devour denial and tediousness of suit Beloved let us but meditate upon these examples which I have related and we shall not need to practise any of the â—ynick's art For if the Saints and blessed Martyrs have their suits so long depending in the Courts of Heaven then good reason that we should learn to brook delays and arm our selves with patience and expectation when we find the ears of God not so open to our requests When Ioseph's brethren came down to buy corn he gave them but a course welcome he spake roughly unto them he laid them in prison yet the Text tells us that his bowels melted upon them and at length he opened himself and gave them courteous entertainment Beloved when we come unto God as it were to buy corn to beg at his hands such blessings as we need though he speak roughly though he deal more roughly with us yet let us know he hath still Ioseph's bowels that his heart melts towards us and at length he will open himself and entertain us lovingly And be it peradventure that we gain not what we look for yet our labour of prayer is not lost The blessed souls under the Altar of which I spake but now though their petition was not granted yet had they long white garments given them Even so Beloved if the wisdom of God shall not think it fit to perform our requests yet he will give us the long white garment something which shall be in leiu of a suit though nothing else yet patience and contentment which are the greatest blessings upon earth John xviij 36. Iesus answered My Kingdom is not of this world If my Kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Iews c. AS in the Kingdoms of the world there is an art of Courtship a skill and mystery teaching to manage them so in the Spiritual Kingdom of God and of Christ there is an holy policy there is an art of Spiritual Courtship which teaches every subject there how to demean and bear himself But as betwixt their Kingdoms so betwixt their Arts and Courtship betwixt the Courtier of the one and the Courtier of the other there is as Abraham tells the rich man in St. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great distance a great difference and not onely one but many Sundry of them I shall have occasion to touch in the process of my discourse mean while I will single out one which I will use as a prologue and way unto my Text. In the Kingdoms of earthly Princes every subject is not fit to make a Courtier yea were all fit this were an honour to be communicated onely unto some Sic opus est mundo There is a necessity of disproportion and inequality between men and men and were all persons equal the world could not consist Of men of ordinary fashion and parts some must to the Plough some to their Merchandize some to their Books some to one Trade some to another onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls them men of more then common wit and ability active choice pick'd out of a thousand such must they be that bear Honours attend on Princes persons and serve in their Courts The Scripture tells us that when King Solomon saw that Ieroboam was an active able and industrious young man he took him and made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Ioseph Again when David invited old Barzillai to the Court the good old man excuses himself I am saith he fourscore years of age and can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women Lo here my son Chimham he shall go with my Lord the King and do with him as shall seem good in thine eyes Ieroboam and Chimham strong and able and active persons such are they that dwell in Kings houses of the rest some are too old some too young some too dull some too rude
Auditory Let us a little consider not the weakness of these men but the greatness of the business the manage of which they undertake So great a thing as the skill of Exposition of the Word and Gospel is so fraught with multiplicity of Authors so full of variety of opinion must needs be confest to be a matter of great learning and that it cannot especially in our days in short time with a mediocrity of industry be attained For if in the Apostles times when as yet much of Scripture was scarcely written when God wrought with men miraculously to inform their understanding and supplied by revelation what mans industry could not yield if I say in these times St. Paul required diligent reading and expresly forbad greenness of Scholarship much more then are these conditions required in our times wherein God doth not supply by miracle our natural defects and yet the burden of our profession is infinitely increast All that was necessary in the Apostles times is now necessary and much more For if we adde unto the growth of Christian learning as it was in the Apostles times but this one circumstance to say nothing of all the rest which naturally befalls our times and could not be required at the hands of those who guided the first ages of the Church that is the knowledge of the state and succession of doctrine in the Church from time to time a thing very necessary for the determining the controversies of these our days how great a portion of our labour and industry would this alone require Wherefore if Quintilian thought it necessary to admonish young men that they should not presume themselves satis instructos si quent ex iis qui breves circumferuntur artis libellum edidicerint velut decretis technicorum tutos putent if he thought fit thus to do in an Art of so inferiour and narrow a sphere much more is it behoveful that young Students in so high so spacious so large a profession be advised not to think themselves sufficiently provided upon their acquaintance with some Notitia or Systeme of some technical divine Looke upon those sons of Anak those Giant-like voluminous Writers of Rome in regard of whom our little Tractates and pocket Volumes in this kind what are they but as Grashoppers I speak not this like some seditious or factious spie to bring weakness of hands or melting of heart upon any of Gods people but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stir up and kindle in you the spirit of industry to inlarge your conceits and not to suffer your labours to be copst and mued up within the poverty of some pretended method I will speak as Ioshua did to his people Let us not fear the people of that land they are as meat unto us their shadow is departed from them the Lord is with us fear them not Onely let us not think sedendo votis debellari posse that the conquest will be gotten by sitting still and wishing all were well or that the walls of these strong Cities will fall down if we onely walk about them and blow rams horns But as the voice of Gods people sometime was by the sword of God and of Gideon so that which here gives the victory must be the grace of God and our industry For by this circumcised narrow and penurious form of study we shall be no more able to keep pace with them then a child can with Hercules But I forbear and pass away unto the second Epithet by which these rackers of Scriptures are by St. Peter stiled Vnstable IN the learning which the world teaches it were almost a miracle to find a man constant to his own tenets For not to doubt in things in which we are conversant is either by reason of exellency and serenity of understanding throughly apprehending the main principles on which all things are grounded together with the descrying of the several passages from them unto particular conclusions and the diverticles and blind by-paths which Sophistry and deceit are wont to tread and such a man can nature never yeild or else it is through a sensless stupidity like unto that in the common sort of men who conversing among the creatures and beholding the course of heaven and the heavenly host yet never attend them neither ever sinks it into their heads to marvel or question these things so full of doubt and difficulty Even such a one is he that learns Theology in the School of Nature if he seem to participate of any setledness or composedness of conscience Either it never comes into his head to doubt of any of those things with which the world hath inured him or if it doth it is to no great purpose he may smother and strangle he can never resolve his doubt The reason of which is this It lies not in the worlds power to give in this case a text of sufficient authority to compose and fix the thoughts of a soul that is dispos'd to doubt But this great inconvenience which held the world in uncertainty by the providence of God is prevented in the Church For unto it is left a certain undoubted and sufficient authority able to exalt every valley and lay low every hill to smooth all rubs and make our way so open and passable that little enquiry serves So that as it were a wonder in the School of Nature to find one setled and resolved so might it seem a marvel that in the Church any man is unstable unresolved Yet notwithstanding even here is the unstable man found too and to his charge the Apostle lays this sin of Wresting of Scripture For since that it is confest at all hands that the sense and meaning of Scripture is the rule and ground of our Christian tenets whensoever we alter them we must needs give a new sense unto the word of God So that the man that is unstable in his Religion can never be free from violating of Scripture The especial cause of this levity and flitting disposition in the common and ordinary sort of men is their disability to discern of the strength of such reasons as may be framed against them For which cause they usually start and many times fall away upon every objection that is made In which too sudden entertainment of objections they resemble the state of those who are lately recovered out of some long sickness qui si reliquias eâ—â—ugerint suspicionibus tamen inquiâ—tantur omnem calorem corporis sui calumniantur Who never more wrong themselves then by suspecting every alteration of their temper and being affrighted at every little passion of heat as if it were an ague-fit To bring these men therefore unto an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to purchase them a setledness of mind that temper that St. Austine doth require in him that reads his Book tales meorum Scriptorum velim judices qui responsionem non semper desâ—derent quum his quae le guntur