final impenitency but by keeping out of the reach of these Presumptuous sins 25. From all these intimations in the Text we may conclude there is something more in Presumptuous sins than in sins of Ignorance and Infirmity the Obliquity greater and the Danger greater Which we are now a little farther to discover that so our care to avoid them may be the greater Their Obliquity is best seen in the Cause their Danger in the Effects It hath been cleared already that Presumptuous sins spring from the perversness of the will as the most proper and Immediate cause and it is the will that hath the chief stroke in all moral actions torender them good or bad better or worse It is a Maxime amongst the Cafuists Involuntarium minuit de ratione peccati and Voluntas distinguit maleficia say the Lawyers So that albeit there be many circumstances as of Time Place Persons c. and sundry other respects especially those of the Matter and of the End very considerable for the aggravating extenuating and comparing of sins one with another yet the consent of the Will is of so much greater importance than all the rest that all other considerations laid aside every sin is absolutely by so much greater or lesser by how much it is more or less voluntary Sithence therefore in sins of Ignorance and Infirmity there is less Wilfulness the Will being misled in the one by an Error in the Judgment and in the other transported by the violence of some Passion and in sins of Presumption there is a greater wilfulness wherein the Will wanting either information or leisure to resolve better doth yet knowingly and advisedly resolve to do ill it will necessarily follow that Presumptuous sins are therefore far greater sins than either of the other are The Will being abundantly and beyond measure wilful maketh the sin to be abundantly and beyond measure sinful Doubtless far greater was Davids sin in murthering though but his servant than either Peters in denying his Master or Sauls in blaspheming and persecuting his Saviour 26. Nor only do Presumptuous sins spring from a worse Cause than the other and thence are more Sinful but do also produce worse Effects than they and so are more dangerous whether we look at them before or at the time of Repentance or after Before Repentance they harden the heart wonderfully hey wast the conscience in a fearful manner and bring such a callous crust upon the tnner man that it will be a long and a hard work so to supple soften and iintender the heart again as to make it capable of the impressions of Repentance For alas what hope to do good upon a wilful man The most grave admonitions the most seasonable reproofs the most powerful exhortations the most convincing Reasons that can be used to such a man are but Tabula coeco as a curious Picture to a blind man for who so blind as he that will not see and Fabula surdo a pleasant tale to a deaf man for who so deaf as he that will not hear 27. Thus it is with wicked men and cast-aways whose brawny hearts are by these wilful rebellions fitted for and fatted up unto destruction And verily not much better than thus is it with Gods faithful servants for the time if at any time they hap to fall into any presumptuous sin In what a sad condition may we think poor David was after he had lain with the Wife and slain the Husband What musick could he now trow ye find in his own Anthems With what comfort could he say his Prayers Did not his tongue think ye cleave to the roof of his mouth And had not his right hand well-nigh forgot her cunning To the judgment of man no difference for some months together during his unrepentance betwixt holy David the man after Gods own heart and a profane scorner that had no fear of God before his eyes Such wast and havock had that great sin made and such spoil of the graces and pledges of Gods holy Spirit in his soul. Look how a sober wise man who when he is himself is able to order his words and affairs with excellent discretion when in a sharp burning-â—ever his blood is inflamed and his brains distempered will rave and talk at random and fling stones and dirt at all about him and every other way in his speeches and motions behave himself like a fool or mad-man so is the servant of God lying under the guilt of a Presumptuous sin before Repentance 28. And then when he doth come to repent Lord what a do there is with him before that great stomach of his will come down and his Masterful spirit be soundly subdued And yet down it must subdued it must be or he getteth no pardon What shrinking and drawing back when the wound cometh to be searcht And yet searcht it must be and probed to the bottom or there will be no perfect recovery Presumptuous sins being so grievous hath been shewed let no man think they will be removed with mean and ordinary Humiliations The Remedy must be proportioned both for strength and quantity Ingredients and Dose to the Quality and Malignity of the distemper or it will never do the cure As stains of a deep dye will not out of the cloth with such ordinary washings as will fetch out lighter spots so to cleanse the heart defiled with these deeper pollutions these crimson and scarlet sins and to restore it pure white as snow or wooll a more solemn and lasting course is requisite than for lesser transgressions It will ask more sighs more tears more Indignation more revenge a stronger infusion of all those soveraign ingredients prescribed by St. Paul 2 Cor. 7. before there can be any comfortable hope that it is pardoned The will of man is a sowre and stubborn piece of clay that will not frame to any serviceable use without much working A soft and tender heart indeed is soon rent in pieces like a silken garment if it do but catch upon any little nail But a heart hardned with long custom of sinning especially if it be with one of these presumptuous sins is like the knotty root-end of an old Oak that hath lain long a drying in the Sun It must be a hard wedge that will enter and it must be handled with some skill too to make it do that and when the wedge is entred it will endure many a hard knock before it will yield to the Cleaver and fall in sunder And indeed it is a blessed thing and to be acknowledged a gracious evidence of Gods unspeakable mercy to those that have wilfully suffered such an unclean spirit to enter in and to take possession of their souls if they shall ever be enabled to out him again though with never so much fasting and Prayer Potentes Potenter they that have mightily offended shall be sure to be mightily tormented if they repent not and therefore it is
it and to dress it and besides the charge given us in that behalf it behoveth us much for our own good to keep them with all diligence If we husband them well the benefit will be ours he looketh for no more but his rent and that an easie rent the Glory and the Thanks the fruits wholly accure to us as Usufructuaries But if we be such ill husbands so careless and improvident as to let them sylvescere overgrow with wild and superfluous branches to hinder the thriving of the grafts whereby they become ill-liking and unfruitful we shall neither answer the trust committed to us nor be able to pay our rent we shall bring him in no glory nor do our selves any good but run behind hand continually and come to nought at last 18. It will behove us therefore if we will have our fruit in holiness and the end everlasting life to look to it betimes lest some root of bitterness springing up put us to more trouble than we are aware of for the present or can be well able to deal withal afterwards The Flesh will find us work enough to be sure it is ever and anon putting forth spurns of Avarice Ambition Envy Revenge Pride Luxury some noisom lust or other like a rotten dunghil that 's rank of weeds If we neglect them but a little out of a thought that they can do no great harm yet or that we shall have time enough to snub them hereafter we do it to our own certain disadvantage if not utter undoing we shall either never be able to overcome them or not without very much more labour and difficulty than we might have done at the first 19. In the mean time whilst these superfluous excrescencies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know not how to call them are suffered they draw away the sap to their own nourishment and so pine and starve the grafts that they never come to good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Iames we translate it wherefore laying aside perhaps it may import a little more The whole verse is well worth the further considering if we had time to insist upon it it seemeth to allude throughout to the lopping off of those suckers or superfluous branches that hinder the prospering of grafts As if he had said If you desire that the holy Word of God which is to be grafted in your hearts should bring forth fruit to the saving of your souls suffer not these filthy and naughty superfluities of fleshly lusts to hinder the growth thereof but off with them away with them and the sooner the better That is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 20. I should from this Point before I had left it but that I have other things to speak to and may not insist have pressed two things more First the necessity of our Prayers It is true our endeavours are necessary God that doth our work for us will not do it without us But without the assistance of his Spirit all our endeavours are bootless and we have no reason to persume of his assistance if we think our selves too good to ask it We may not think we have done all our part toward fruit-bearing when we have planted and watered until we have earnestly solicited him to do his part too in giving the encrease and crowning our endeavours with success 21. Secondly a duty of Thankfulness If by his good blessing upon our prayers and endeavours we have been enabled to bring forth any fruit such as he will graciously accept take we heed we do not withdraw the least part of the glory of it from him to derive it upon our selves or our own endeavours Non nobis Domine non Nobis Not unto us O Lord by no means to us but to thy Name be the glory Enough it is for us that we have the comfort onward and shall have an unmeasurable reward at the last for the good we have done either of both which is infinitly more than we deserve but far be it from us to claim any share in the glory let all that be to him alone Whatsoever fruit therefore we bear or how much soever let us not be high-minded thereupon or take too much upon us For we bear not the root but the root beareth us and when we have done our utmost endeavors the fruit we bear is still the fruit of the Spirit not the fruit of our endeavours 22. I have dwelt long upon this first difference not so much because it was the first though that somtimes falleth out to be the best excuse we are able to make for such prolixities as because it is the most maâ—erial as arising from the different nature of the things spoken of whereas the three that follow are rather verbal arising but from the different manner of the Apostles expressions in respect of the words The first whereof the second of the whole four is that the evil effects proceeding from the flesh are called by the name of Works and the good effects proceeding from the Spirit are called by the name of Fruits The Quaery is Why those and these being both effects alike they are not either both alike called Works or both alike called Fruits but the one Works the othere Fruit The works of the Flesh there here the fruit of the Spirit 23. For answer whereunto I shall propose to your choice two Conjectures The one more Theological or rather Metaphysical which is almost as new to me as perhaps it will seem to you for it came not into my thoughts till I was upon it the other more moral and popular For the former take it thus Where the immediate Agent produceth a work or effect virtue propriâ by his own power and not in the virtue of a superiour Agent both the work it self produced and the efficacy of the operation whereby it is produced are to be ascribed to him alone so as it may be said properly and precisely to be his work But where the immediate Agent operateth virtute aliâ—nâ in the strength and virtue of some higher Agent without which he were not able to produce the effect tho the work done may even there also be attributed in some soâ—â— to the inferior and subordinate Agent as the immediate cause yet the efficacy whereby it was wrought cannot be so properly imputed to him but ought rather to be ascribed to that higher Agent in whose virtue he did operate 24. The Application will make it somewhat plainer In all humane actions whether good or bad the will of Man is the immediate Agent so that whether we commit a sin or do a good work inasmuch as it proceedeth from our free Wills the work is still our work howsoever But herein is the difference between good and evil actions The Will which is naturally in this depraved estate conrupt and fleshly operateth by its own power alone for the producing of a sinful action without any co-operation at all as was said already
of God or his holy Spirit and therefore the sin so produced is to be ascribed to the fleshly Will as to the sole and proper cause thereof and may therefore very rightly be said to be the work of the flesh But in the producing of any action that is spiritually good the Will operateth only as a subordinate Agent to the grace of the holy Spirit and in the power and virtue thereof and therefore altho the good work may in some sort be said to be our work because immediately produced by our Wills yet it is in truth the fruit of that Spirit and not of our Wills because it is wrought by the power of that Spirit and not by any power of our Wills Nevertheless not I but the grace of God with me 1 Cor. 15. 25. If this seem but a subtilty and satisfy not let it go the other I presume will being it is so plain and popular The word Fruit most what relateth to some Labour going before Hoc fructûs pro labore ab his fero in the Poet. So in the Scriptures Nevertheless this is the fruit of my labour The husbandman that first laboureth must be partaker of the fruit Labour first and then Fruit. That which David calleth the labour of the hands Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hands Psal. 128. Solomon calleth the fruit of the hands Give her of the fruit of her hands Prov. 31. 26. The reason is because no Man would willingly undergo any toil or labour to no end he would have something or other in his eye that might in some measure recompence his pains and that is called the fruit of his labour Tully therefore joineth proemium and fructum together as importing the same thing Who planteth a Vineyard but in hope to eat of the fruit of it Or what Husbandman would plow and sow and plant and prune and dig and dung if he did not hope to find it all answered again when he cometh to inn the Fruits Spe fructûs dura ferentes The first question in every Man's thoughts when he is importuned to any thing of labour and business is Ecquid erit pretii Will it be worth my labour What benefit shall I reap by it What will be the fruit of my pains 27. In all deliberations where two ways are offered to our choice Wisdom would that we should first weigh as advisedly and exactly as we can the labour and the fruit of the one against the other and as we find those rightly compared to be more or less to make our resolutions accordingly We are called on hard on both sides God commandeth us to serve him Satan and the World solicite us to the service of sin Promises there are or Intimations of Fruit on both sides Salvation to our Souls on the one side Satisfaction to our Lusts on the other Here then is our business and our wisdom to compare what is required and what is offered on both sides to examine on the one side first and then on the other whether the Work exceed the Fruit or the Fruit the Work 28. Now the Apostle by the very choice of his words here hath after a sort done the business and determined the Controversy to our hands In the service of sin the toil is so great that in comparison thereof the benefit is as nothing and in the Service of God the benefit so great that in comparison thereof the pains is as nothing Where the Flesh ruleth all the Work exceedeth the Fruit and therefore without ever mentioning the Fruit they are called the Works of the Flesh. But where the Spirit of God ruleth the Fruit exceedeth the Work and therefore without ever mentioning the Work it is called the Fruit of the Spirit 29. If in this passage only this different manner of speaking had been used by the Apostle it might perhaps have been taken for a casual expression unsufficient to ground any collection upon But look into Eph. 5. and you cannot doubt but it was done of choice and with this very meaning Speaking there of the Duties of Holiness even as here without any mention of work he calleth them by the name of Fruit The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth vers 9. But by and by vers 11. speaking of sinful actions he doth not only call them Works as he doth here but positively and expresly pronounceth them fruitless Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness Works but without Fruit unfruitful works of darkness This justifieth the collection to be evident and natural and without enforcement The ways of sin are very toilsom yet withal unfruitful but in all spiritual labour there is profit The fruit will countervail the pains and recompence it abundantly We may not unfitly apply to these two his words in the Comedy In his fructus est in his opera luditur 30. The paths of sin seem indeed at the first hand and in the entrance to be very pleasant and even The Devil to draw Men in goeth before like a leveller and smootheth the way for them but when they are in he driveth them along and on they must Be the way never so dark and slippery never so crooked or craggy never so intricate and perplexed being once engaged they must go through it per saxa per ignes stick at nothing be it never so contrary to the Laws of God or Men to all natural civil or religious obligations yea even to the principles of common humanity and reason that avarice ambition revenge or any other vicious lust putteth them upon Ambulavimus vias difficiles they confess it at last when it is too late and befool themselves for it We have wearied our selves in the way of wickedness and destruction we have gone through dangerous ways c. Wisd. 5. They have wearied themselves to work iniquity saith the Prophet Ieremiah and the Prophet Habakkuk The people labour in the very fire The Greek word that signifieth wickedness cometh of another that signifieth labour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And how often in the Scriptures do we meet with such-like Phrases as those to work wickedness workers of iniquity c. St. Chrysostom's eloquence enlargeth it self and triumpheth in this argument more frequently and with greater variety of invention and amplification than in almost any other and he cleareth it often and beyond all exception both by Scripture and Reason that the life of a wicked or worldly Man is a very druggery infinitely more toilsom vexatious and unpleasant than a godly life is 31. Now if after all this droyling the fruit would tho but in a scant proportion answer the pains it were the more tolerable But there is no such matter the Sinner hath but his labour for his pains Nay I may say it were happy for him if he had but his labour for his pains and that there were not a
we too severely censure the Persons either for the future as Reprobates and Cast-aways and such as shall be certainly damned or at leastwise for the present as Hypocriâ—es and unsanctified and profane and such as are in the state of Damnation not considering into what fearful sins it may please God to suffer not only his chosen ones before Calling but even his holy ones too after Calling sometimes to fall for ends most times unknown to us but ever just and gracious in him Or thirdly when for want either of Charity oâ— Knowledge as in the present case of this Chapter we interpret things for the worst to our Brethren and condemn them of sin for such actions as are not directly and in themselves necessarily sinful but may with due circumstances be performed with a good conscience and without sin Now all judging and condemning of our Brethren in any of these kinds is sinful and damnable and that in very many respects especially these four which may serve as so many weighty reasons why we ought not to judge one another The usurpation the rashness the uncharitableness and the scandal of it First it is an Usurpation He that is of right to judge must have a Calling and Commission for it Quis constituit te sharply replied upon Moses Exod. 2. Who made thee a Iudge and Quis constituit me reasonably alledged by our Saviour Luke 12. Who made me a Iudge Thou takest too much upon thee then thou son of man whosoever thou art that judgest thus saucily to thrust thy self into God's seat and to invade his Throne Remember thy self well and learn to know thine own rank Quis tu Who art thou that judgest another Iames 4. Or Who art thou that judgest anothers Servant in the next following Verse to my Text. As if the Apostle had said What art thou Or what hast thou to do to judge him that standeth or falleth to his own Master Thou art his fellow-Servant not his Lord. He hath another Lord that can and will judge him who is thy Lord too and can and will judge thee for so he argueth anon at Verse 10. Why dost thou judge thy brother We shall all stand before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ. God hath reserved three Prerogatives Royal to himself Vengeance Glory and Iudgment As it is not safe for us then to encroach upon God's Royalties in either of the other two Glory or Vengeance so neither in this of Judgment Dominus judicabit The Lord himself will judge his people Heb. 10. It is flat Usurpation in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Secondly it is rashness in us A Judge must understand the truth both for matter of fact and for point of Law and he must be sure he is in the right for both before he proceed to sentence or else he will give rash judgment How then dare any of us undertake to sit as Iudges upon other mens Consciences wherewith we are so little acquainted that we are indeed but too much unacquainted with our own We are not able to search the depth of our own wicked and deceitful hearts and to ran sack throughly the many secret windings and turnings therein how much less then are we able to fathome the bottoms of other mens hearts with any certainty to pronounce of them either good or evil We must then leave the judgments of other mens Spirits and hearts and reins to him that is the Father of Spirits and alone searcheth the hearts and reins before whose eyes all things are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word is most Emphatical Heb. 4. Wherefore our Apostles precept elsewhere is good to this purpose 1 Cor. 4. Iudge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts Unless we be able to bring these hidden things to light and to make manifest these counsels it is rashness in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Thirdly this judging is uncharitable Charity is not easily suspicious but upon just cause much less then censorious and peremptory Indeed when we are to judge of Things it is wisdom to judge of them Secundùm quod sunt as near as we can to judge of them just as they are without any sway or partial inclination either to the right hand or to the left But when we are to judge of Men and their Actions it is not altogether so there the rule of charity must take place dubia in meliorem partem sunt interpretanda Unless we see manifest cause to the contrary we ought ever to interpret what is done by others with as much favour as may be To err thus is better than to hit right the other way because this course is safe and secureth us as from injuring others so from endangering our selves whereas in judging ill though right we are still unjust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the event only and not our choice freeing us from wrong judgment True Charity is ingenuous it thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13. How far then are they from Charity that are ever suspicious and think nothing well For us let it be our care to maintain Charity and to avoid as far as humane frailty will give leave even sinister suspicions of our brethrens actions or if through frailty we cannot that yet let us not from light suspicions fall into uncharitable censures let us at leastwise suspend our definitive judgment and not determine too peremptorily against such as do not in every respect just as we do or as we would have them do or as we think they should do It is uncharitable for us to judge and therefore we must not judge Lastly There is Scandal in judging Possibly he that is judged may have that strength of Faith and Charity that though rash and uncharitable censures lye thick in his way he can lightly skip over all those stumbling-blocks and scape a fall Saint Paul had such a measure of strength with me it is a very small thing saith he that I should be judged of you or of humane judgment 1 Cor. 4. If our judging light upon such an Object it is indeed no scandal to him but that 's no thanks to us We are to esteem things by their natures not events and therefore we give a scandal if we judge notwithstanding he that is judged take it not as a scandal For that judging is in itself a scandal is clear from Vers. 13. of this Chapter Let us not therefore saith S. Paul judge one another any more but judge this rather That no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall into his brothers way And thus we see four main Reasons against this judging of our brethren 1. We have no right to judge and so our
have offered the exposal of his Daughters to the Iusts of the beastly Sodomites though it were to redeem his guests from the abuse of â—ouler and more abominable filthiness Absolutely there cannot be a Case imagined wherein it should be impossible to avoid one sin unless by the committing of another The Case which of all other cometh nearest to a Perplexity is that of an erroneous Conscience Because of a double bond the bond of God's Law which to transgress is a sin and the bond of particular Conscience which also to transgress is a sin Whereupon there seemeth to follow an inevitable necessity of sinning when God's Law requireth one thing and particular conscience dictateth the flat contrary for in such a case a man must either obey God's Law and so sin against his own conscience or obey his own conscience and so sin against God's Law But neither in this case is there any perplexity at all in the things themselves that which there is is through the default of the man only whose judgment being erroneous mis-leadeth his conscience and so casteth him upon a necessity of sinning But yet the necessity is no simple and absolute and unavoidable and perpetual necessity for it is only a necessity ex hypothesi and for a time and continueth but stante tali errore And still there is a way out betwixt those sins and that without a third and that way is deponere erroneam conscientiam He must rectifie his judgment and reform the error of his Conscience and then all is well There is no perplexity no necessity no obligation no expediency which should either enforce or perswade us to any sin The resolution is damnable Let us do evil that good may come I must take leave before I pass from this point to make two Instances and to measure out from the Rule of my Text an answer to them both They are such as I would desire you of this place to take due and special consideration of I desire to deal plainly and I hope it shall be by God's blessing upon it effectually for your good and the Churches peace One instance shall be in a sin of Commission and the other in a sin of Omission The sin of Commission wherein I would instance is indeed a sin beyond Commission it is the usurping of the Magistrates Office without a Commission The Question is Whether the zealous intention of a good end may not warrant it good or at least excuse it from being evil and a sin I need not frame a Case for the illustration of this instance the inconsiderate forwardness of some hath made it to my hand You may read it in the disfigured windows and walls of this Church Pictures and Statua's and Images and for their sakes the windows and walls wherein they stood have been heretofore and of late pulled down and broken in pieces and defaced without the Command or so much as leave of those who have power to reform things amiss in that kind Charity bindeth us to think the best of those that have done it that is they did it out of a forward though misgoverned zeal intending therein Gods glory in the farther suppression of Idolatry by taking away these as they supposed likely occasions of it Now in such a case as this the question is Whether the intention of such an end can justifie such a deed And the fact of Phineas Numb 25. who for a much like end for the staying of the people from Idolatry executed vengeance upon Zimri and Cosbi being but a private man and no Magistrate seemeth to make for it But my Text ruleth it otherwise If it be evil it is not to be done no not for the preventing of Idolatry I pass by some considerations otherwise of good moment as namely first whether Statua's and Pictures may not be permitted in Christian Churches for the adorning of God's House and for civil and historical uses not only lawfully and decently but even profitably I must confess I never heard substantial reason given why they might not at the least so long as there is no apparent danger of superstition And secondly whether things either in their first erection or by succeeding abuse superstitious may not be profitably continued if the Superstition be abolished Otherwise not Pictures only and Crosses and Images but most of our Hospitals and Schools and Colleges and Churches too must down and so the hatred of Idolatry should but usher in licentious Sacrilege contrary to that passage of our Apostle in the next Chapter before this Thou that abhorrest Idols committest thou Sacrilege And thirdly whether these forward ones have not bewrayed somewhat their own self-guiltiness in this act at least for the manner of it in doing it secretly and in the dark A man should not dare to do that which he would not willingly either be seen when it is doing or own being done To pass by these consider no more but this one thing only into what dangerous and unsufferable absurdities a man might run if he should but follow these mens grounds Erranti nullus terminus Error knoweth no stay and a false Principle once received multiplieth into a thousand absurd conclusions It is good for men to go upon sure grounds else they may run and wander in insinitum A little error at the first if there be way given to it will increase beyond belief As a small spark may fire a large City and a cloud no bigger than a mans hand in short space overspread the face of the whole Heavens For grant for the suppression of Idolatry in case the Magistrate will not do his office that it is lawful for a private man to take upon him to reform what he thinketh amiss and to do the part and office of a Magistrate which must needs have been their ground if they had any for this action there can be no sufficient cause given why by the same reason and upon the same grounds a private man may not take upon him to establish Laws raise Powers administer Iustice execute Malefactors or do any other thing the Magistrate should do in case the Magistrate slack to do his duty in any of the premises Which if it were once granted as granted it must be if these mens fact be justifiable every wise man seeth the end could be no other but vast Anarchy and confusion both in Church and Commonwealth whereupon must unavoidably follow the speedy subversion both of Religion and State If things be amiss and the Magistrate help it not private men may lament it and as occasion serveth and their condition and calling permitteth soberly and discreetly put the Magistrate in mind of it But they not make themselves Magistrates to reform it And as to the act of Phinehas though I rather think he did yet what if he did not well in so doing It is a thing we are not certain of and we must
and Industry and these were not given thee but thou hast won them proprio Marte and therefore well deservest to wear them Deceive not thy self it is neither so nor so Our Apostle in the place now last mentioned cutteth off all such challenges Quis te discrevit who made thee to differ from another Say there were as there is not such a difference in and from Nature as thou conceivest yet still in the last resolution there must be a receipt acknowledged for even Nature it self in the last resolution is of Grace for God gave thee that Or say there were as there is not such a difference of desert as thou pretendest yet still that were to be acknowledged as a gift too for God gave thee that power whatsoever it was whereby thou hast attained to whatsoever thou hast But the truth is the difference that is in men in regard of these gifts and abilities ariseth neither from the power of Nature nor from the merit of labour otherwise than as God is pleased to use these as second causes under him but it cometh merely from the good will and pleasure of that free spirit which bloweth where and when and how he listeth dividing his graces severally to every man as he will at the eleventh and ' ' as it hath pleased him at verse 18. of this Chapter Nature is a necessary Agent and if not either hindred by some inferiour impediment or over-ruled by some higher power worketh always alike and produceth the same effects in all individuals of the same kind and how is it possible she should make a difference that knoweth none And as for Desert there is indeed no such thing and therefore it can work nothing For can God be a debtor to any man or hath any man given to him first that it might be recompensed him again As a lump of Clay lieth before the Potter so is all mankind in the hand of God The Potter at his pleasure out of that lump frameth vessels of all sorts of different shape proportion strength fineness capacity as he thinketh good unto the several uses for which he intendeth them So God after the good pleasure of his own will out of mankind as out of an untoward lump of Clay all of the same piece equal in nature and desert maketh up Vessels for the use of his Sanctuary by fitting several men with several gifts more or less greater or meaner better or worse according to the difference of those offices and employments for which he intended them It is not the Clay but the Potter that maketh the difference there neither is it any thing in man but the Spirit of God that maketh the difference here Whatsoever spiritual abilities we have we have them of gift and by grace The manifestation of the spirit is given to every man A point of very fruitful consideration for men of all sorts whether they be of greater or of meaner gifts And first all of us generally may hence take two profitable directions the one if we have any useful gifts whom to thank for them the other if we want any needful gifts where to seek for them Whatsoever manifestation of the Spirit thou hast it is given thee and to whom can thy thanks for it be due but to the giver Sacrifice not to thine own nets either of Nature or Endeavour as if these Abilities were the manifestation of thine own spirit but enlarge thy heart to magnifie the goodness and bounty of him who is Pater spirituum the Father of the spirits of all flesh and hath wrought those graces in thee by communicating his spirit unto thee If thou shinest as a star in the firmament of the Church whether of a greater or lesser magnitude as one star differeth from another in glory remember thou shinest but by a borrowed light from him who is Pater luminum the Father and Fountain of all lights as the Sun in the firmament from whom descendeth every good gift and every perfect giving Whatsoever Grace thou hast it is given thee therefore be thankful to the giver But if thou wantest any grace or measure of grace which seemeth needful for thee in that station and calling wherein God hath set thee herein is a second direction for thee where to seek it even from his hands who alone can give it If any man lack wisdom saith S. Iames let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and it shall be given him A large and liberal promise but yet a promise most certain and full of comfortable assurance provided it be understood aright viz with these two necessary Limitations if God shall see it expedient and if he pray for it as he ought Thou mayest pray with an humble and upright affection and put to thy best endeavours withal and yet not obtain the gift thou prayest for because being a common Grace and not of absolute Necessity for salvation it may be in the wisdom of God who best knoweth what is best and when not expedient for thee or not for his Church at that time and in that manner or measure Necessary Graces such as are those of sanctification pray for them absolutely and thou shalt absolutely receive them there needeth no conditional clause of Expediency in thy prayers for them because they can never be inexpedient But these may and therefore as thou oughtest not to pray for them but with all subjection of thy desires to his most holy and most wise appointments so thou oughtest to take a denial from him not only contentedly but even thankfully as a gracious fruit of his love unto thee and a certain sign of the inexpediency of the thing desired But if it be expedient it will not yet come for asking unless it be asked aright But let him pray in Faith saith St. Iames Whoso doth not let not that man think to receive any good from the Lord. Now that man only prayeth in Faith who looketh to receive the thing he prayeth for upon such terms as God hath promised to give it for Faith ever looketh to the promise And God hath not made us any promise of the end other than conditional viz. upon our conscionable use of the appointed means And the means which he hath ordained both for the obtaining and the improving of spiritual gifts are study and industry and diligent meditation We must not now look as in the infancy of the Church to have the teats put into our mouths and to receive spiritual graces by immediate infusion That manna as one saith was for the Wilderness But now the Church is possessed of the Land and grown to years of better strength we must plow and sow and eat of the fruit of the Land in the sweat of our faces and now he that will not labour he may thank himself if he have not to eat He prayeth but with an overly desire and
the throne is established in the sixteenth and of its height too for it exalteth a Nation in the 14th of the Proverbs As then in a Building when for want of good looking to the Mortar getting wet dissolveth and the walls belly out the house cannot but settle apace and without speedy repairs fall to the ground so there is not a more certain symptom of a declining and decaying and tottering State than is the general dissolution of manners for want of the due execution and administration of Iustice. The more cause have we that are Gods Ministers by frequent exhortations admonitions obsecrations expostulations even out of season sometimes but especially upon such seasonable opportunities as this to be instant with all them that have any thing to do in matters of Iustice but especially with you who are Gods Ministers too though in another kind you who are in commission to sit upon the Bench of Judicature either for Sentence or Assistance to do your God and King service to do your Country and Calling honour to do your selves and others right by advancing to the utmost of your powers the due course of Iustice. Wherein as I verily think none dare but the guilty so I am well assured none can justly mislike in us the choise either of our Argument that we beat upon these things or of our Method that we begin first with you For as we cannot be perswaded on the one side but that we are bound for the discharge of our duties to put you in mind of yours so we cannot be perswaded on the other side but that if there were generally in the greater ones that care and conscience and zeal there ought to be of the common good a thousand corruptions rife among inferiours would be if not wholly reformed as leastwise practised with less connivence from you confidence in them grievance to others But right and reason will that every man bear his own burthen And therefore as we may not make you innocent if you be faulty by transferring your faults upon others so far be it from us to impute their faults to you otherwise than as by not doing your best to hinder them you make them yours For Iustice we know is an Engine that turneth upon many hinges And to the exercise of judicature besides the Sentence which is properly yours there are divers other things required Informations and Testimonies and Arguings and Inquests and sundry Formalites which I am neither able to name nor yet covetous to learn wherein you are to rest much upon the faithfulness of other men In any of whom if there be as sometimes there will be foul and unfaithful dealing such as you either cannot spie or cannot help wrong sentence may proceed from out your lips without your fault As in a curious Watch or Clock that moveth upon many wheels the finger may point a wrong hour though the wheel that next moveth it be most exactly true if but some little pinn or notch or spring be out of order in or about any of the baser and inferiour wheels What he said of old Non fieri potest quin Principes etiam valde boni iniqua faciant was then and ever since and yet is and ever will be most true For say a Iudge be never so honestly minded never so zealous of the truth never so careful to do right yet if there be a spiteful Accuser that will suggest any thing or an audacious witness that will swear any thing or a crafty Pleader that will maintain any thing or a tame Iury that will swallow any thing or a craving Clark or Officer that for a bribe will foist in any thing the Iudge who is tied as it is meet he should to proceed secundùm allegata probata cannot with his best care and wisdom prevent it but that sometimes justice shall be perverted innocency oppressed and guilty ones justified Out of which consideration I the rather desired for this Assise-Assembly to choose a Text as near as I could of equal latitude with the Assise-Business For which purpose I could not readily think of any other portion of Scripture so proper and full to meet with all sorts of persons and all sorts of abuses as these three verses are Is there either Calumny in the Accuser or Perjury in the Witness Supinity in the Iurer or Sophistry in the Pleader or Partiality in any Officer or any close corruption any where lurking amid those many passages and conveyances that belong to a Iudicial proceeding my Text searcheth it out and indicteth â—â—e offender at the tribunal of that impartial Judge that keepeth a privy Sessions in each mans breast The words are laid down so distinctly in five Rules or Precepts or rather being all negative in so many Prohibitions that I may spare the labour of making other division of them All that I shall need to do about them will be to set out the several portions in such sort as that every man who hath any part or fellowship in this business may have his due share in them Art thou first an Accuser in any kind either as a party in a Iudicial controversie or bound over to prosecute for the King in a criminal Cause or as a voluntary Informer upon some penal statute here is something for thee Thou shalt not raise a false report Art thou secondly a Witness either fetched in by Process to give publick testimony upon oath or come of good or ill will privately to speak a good word for or to cast out a shrewd word against any person here is something for thee too Put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness Art thou thirdly returned to serve as a sworn man in a matter of grand or petty inquest here is something for thee too Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil Comest thou hither fourthly to advocate the cause of thy Client who flyeth to thy learning experience and authority for succour against his adversary and commendeth his state and sute to thy care and trust here is something for thee too Neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest Iudgment Art thou lastly in any Office of trust or place of service in or about the Courts so as it may sometimes fall within thy power or opportunity to do a suiter a favour or a spite here is something for thee too Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause The two first in the first the two next in the second this last in the third verse In which distribution of the Offices of Justice in my Text let none imagine because I have shared out all among them that are below the Bench that therefore there is nothing left for them that sit upon it Rather as in dividing the land of Canaan Levi who had no distinct plot by himself
ween is another-gates matter than to make the face to shine This for material Oil. Then for those other outward things which for some respects I told you might be also comprehended under the name of Ointments Riches Honours and worldly Pleasures alas how poor and sorry comforts are they to a man that hath forfeited his good Name that liveth in no credit not reputation that groaneth under the contempt and reproach and infamy of every honest or but sober man Whereas he that by godly and vertuous Actions by doing Iustice and exercising Mercy and ordering himself and his affairs discreetly holdeth up his good Name and reputation hath that yet to comfort himself withal and to fill his bones as with marrow and fatness though encompassed otherwise with many outward wants and calamities Without which even life it self would be unpleasant I say not to a perfect Christian only but even to every ingenuous moral man The worthier â—ort of men among the Heathens would have chosen rather to have died the most cruel deaths than to have lived infamous under shame and disgrace And do not those words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 9. shew that he was not much otherwise minded It were better for me to dye than that any man should make my glorying void Thus a good Name is better than any precious Ointment take it as you will properly or tropically because it yieldeth more solid content and satisfaction to him that enjoyeth it than the other doth 17. Compare them thirdly in those performances whereunto they enable us Oils and Ointments by a certain penetrative faculty that they have being well chaâ—ed in do supple the joynts and strengthen the sinews very much and thereby greatly enable the body for action making it more nimble and vigorous than otherwise it would be Whence it was that among the Greeks and from their example among the Romans and in other Nations those that were to exercise Arms or other feats of Activity in their solemn Games especially Wrestlers did usually by frictions and anointings prepare and fit their bodies for those Athletick performances to do them with more agility and less weariness Insomuch as Chrysostom and other Greek Fathers almost every where use the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only when they speak of those preparatory advantages such as are prayer fasting meditation of Christs Sufferings or of the Joys of Heaven and the like wherewith Christians may fortifie and secure themselves when they are to enter the combate with their spiritual enemies but more generally to signifie any preparing or fitting of a person for any manner of action whatsoever 18. But how much more excellent then is a good name Which is of such mighty consequence advantage for the expediting of any honest enterprise that we take in hand either in our Christian course or civil life in this World It is an old saying taken up indeed in relation to another matter somewhat distant from that we are now treating of but it holdeth no less true in this than in that other respect Duo cum faciunt idem non est idem Let two men speak the same words give the same advice pursue the same business drive the same design with equal right equal means equal diligence every other thing equal yet commonly the success is strangely different if the one be well thought of and the other labour of an ill name So singular an advantage is it for the crowning of our endeavours with good success to be in a good name If there be a good opinion held of us and our names once up whether we deserve it or no whatsoever we do is well taken whatsoever we propose is readily entertained our counsels yea and rebukes too carry weight and authority with them By which means we are enabled if we have but grace to make that good use thereof to do the more good to bring the more glory to God to give better countenance to his truth and to good causes and things Whereas on the other side if we be in an ill name whether we deserve it or no all our speeches and actions are ill-interpreted no man regardeth much what we say or do our proposals are suspected our counsels and rebukes though wholsom and just scorned and kickt at so as those men we speak for that side we adhere to those causes we defend those businesses we manage shall lie under some prejudice and be like to speed the worse for the evil opinion that is held of us We know well it should be otherwise Non quis sed quid As the Magistrate that exerciseth publick judgment should lay aside all respect of the person and look at the cause only so should we all in our private judgings of other mens speeches and actions look barely upon the truth of what they say and the goodness of what they do and accordingly esteem of both neither better nor worse more or less for whatsoever fore-conceits we may have of the person Otherwise how can we avoid the charge of having the faith of our Lord Iesus Christ the Lord of Glory with respect of persons But yet since men are corrupt and will be partial this way do we what we can and that the World and the affairs thereof are so much steered by Opinion it will be a point of godly wisdom in us so far to make use of this common corruption as not to disadvantage our selves for want of a good name and good Opinion for the doing of that good whilst we live here among men subject to such frailties which we should set our desires and bend our endeavours to do And so a good Name is better than a good Ointment in that it enableth us to better and worthier performances 19. Compare them Fourthly in their Extensions and that both for Place and Time For place first That Quality of the three before-mentioned which especially setteth a value upon Ointments advancing their price and esteem more eminently than any other consideration is their smell those being ever held most precious and of greatest delicacy that excel that way And herein is the excellency of the choicest Aromatical Ointments that they do not only please the sence if they be held near to the Organ but they do also disperse the fragrance of their scent round about them to a great distance Of the sweetest herbs and flowers the smell is not much perceived unless they be held somewhat near to the Nostril But the smell of a precious Ointment will instantly diffuse it self into every corner though of a very spacious room as you heard but now of the Spikenard poured on our Saviours feet Ioh. 12. But see how in that very thing wherein the excellency of precious Ointments consisteth a good Name still goeth beyond it It is more diffusive and spreadeth farther Of King Uzziah so long as he did well and
it is said of our blessed Saviour Luke 2. that he encreased in favour with God and men My son let not mercy and truth forsake thee c. so shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man saith our Solomon Prov. 3. And S. Paul Rom. 14. He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men In all which places favour and acceptation with God goeth before favour and approbation with men followeth after 23. You may see the proof of it in the whole course of the Sacred Story wherein the Lords dealing with his own people in this kind is remarkable When they started aside to walk after their own counsels and displeased him how he stirred them up enemies round about them how he sold them into the hands of those that spoiled them how he hardened the hearts of all those that contended with them that they should not pity them Again on the other side when they believed his Word walked in his Ways and pleased him how he raised them up friends how he made their Enemies to bow under them how he enclined the hearts of Strangers and of Pagans to pity them Instances are obvious and therefore I omit them 24. Of which Effect the first and principal cause is none other than the over-ruling hand of God who not only disposeth of all outward things according to the good pleasure of his will but hath also in his hands the hearts of all men even of the greatest Kings as the rivers of water to turn them which way soever he will as our Solomon speaketh at the 21. Chapter of this Book The Original there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Palge majim as you would say the divisions of waters Which is not to be understood of the great Rivers though the greatest of them all even the wide and great Sea also is in the hands of God to turn which way soever he will as he turned the waters of the Red Sea backwards to let his people go through and then turned them forward again to overwhelm their enemies But the Allusion there is clearly to the little trenches whereby in those drier Eastern Countries husbandmen used to derive water from some Fountain or Cistern to the several parts of their Gardens for the better nourishing of their Herbs and Fruit-trees Now you know when a Gardiner hath cut many such trenches all over his Garden with what ease he can turn the water out of any one into any other of those Channels suffering it to run so long in one as he thinketh good and then stopping it thence and deriving it into another even as it pleaseth him and as he seeth it most conducible for the necessities of his Garden With much more ease can the Lord stop the current of any mans favour and affections in the course wherein it presently runneth and turn it quite into another Channel drying it up against one man and deriving it upon another even as it seemeth good in his sight and as will best serve other his holy and just purposes whether he intend to chastize his Children or to comfort them or to exercise any other part or passage of his blessed providence upon them Thus he gave his people favour in the sight of the Aegyptians so as they lent them all their precious things at their departure who but a little before had consulted the rooting out the whole generation of them And thus after that in his just displeasure against them for their sins he had given them over into captivity into their enemies hands when he was pleased again with their Humiliations he not only pitied them himself according to the multitude of his mercies but he turned the hatred of their Enemies also into compassion and made all those that had led them away captives to pity them as it is in Psalm 160. 25. The Lord is a God of Power and therefore can work such effects as he pleaseth for our peace without any apparent means on our parts But being withal a God of order for the most part therefore and in the ordinary course of his providence he worketh his own purposes by second Causes and subordinate means At least he hath so tied us to the use of probable means for the bringing about of what he hath promised that although we ought to be perswaded he can yet we may not presume he will work our good without our Endeavours Now the subordinate means to be used on our part without which we cannot reasonably expect that God should make our Enemies to be at peace with us is our fair and amicable conversation with others For who will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good saith St. Peter As if he had said so long as you carry your selves graciously and wisely if the hearts of your Enemies will not be so far wrought upon as to love and affect you yet their mouths will be muzled and their hands â—anacled from breaking out into any outragious either terms or actions of open hostility so as you shall enjoy your peace with them in some measure Though they mean you no good yet they shall do you no harm 26. But it may be objected both from Scripture and Experience that sundry times when a mans Ways are right and therefore pleasing unto God his Enemies are nothing less if not perhaps much more enraged against him than formerly they were Our Saviour often foretold his Disciples that they should be hated of all men for his sake And David complaineth in Psal. 38. of some that were against him eo nomine and for that very reason because he was a follower of that which was good What a seeming distance is there between the Prophets and the Apostles speeches Or else how may they be reconciled Who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good saith the one Yea saith the other there are some against me even therefore because I follow that which is good As if by seeking to please God he had rather lost his friends than gained his Enemies 27. There are sundry Considerations that may be of good use to us in the present difficulty As First if God have not yet made our Enemies to be at peace with us yet it may be he will do it hereafter being no way bound to us we may give him leave to take his own time Non est vestrum nôsse if it be not for us to know much less is it for us to prescribe the seasons which the Father hath kept in his own power It is his Prerogative to appoint the times it is our Duty to wait his leisure It may be secondly neither is it unlikely that we do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 walk with an even foot and by a straight line But tread awry in something or other which displeaseth God and for
and estate And it should in all reason secondly quicken the hearts of all loyal and well-affected Subjects by their prayers counsels services aids and chearful obedience respectively rather to afford Princes their best assistance for the comfortable support of that their weighty and troublesom charge than out of ambition discontent popularity envy or any other cross or peevish humour add unto their cares and create unto them more troubles 15. David you see had troubles as a man as a godly man as a King But who caused them Sure in those his first times when as I conjecture he wrote this Psalm Saul with his Princes and followers was the chiefest cause of most of his troubles and afterwards crafty Achitophel caused him much trouble and railing Shimei some and seditious Sheba not a little but his rebellious Son Absolon most of all He complaineth of many troubles raised by the means of that Son in Psal. 3. Domine quà m multiplicati Lord how are they encreased that trouble me Yet here you see he over-looketh them all and all other second causes and ascribeth his troubles wholly unto God So he did also afterwards in the particular of Shimei's railing Let him alone saith he to Abishai Let him curse on for God hath bidden him Even as Iob had done before him when the Sabeans and the Chaldeans had taken away his Cattle and Goods he scarce took notice of them he knew they were but Instruments but looked at the hand of God only as the chief and principal cause Dominus abstulit The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away Neither did David any injury at all to Almighty God in ascribing it to him for God also himself taketh it all upon himself I will raise him evil out of his own house and I will do it before the sun 2 Sam. 12. 16. How all those things wherein wicked men serving their own lusts only in their own purpose do yet unwittingly do service to God Almighty in furthering his wise and holy designs can have their efficiency from causes of such contrary quality and looking at such contrary ends to the producing of one and the same effect is a speculation more curious than profitable It is enough for us to know that it neither casteth any blemish at all upon him that he maketh such use of them nor giveth any excuse at all to them that they do such service to him but that all this notwithstanding he shall still have the whole glory of his own wisdom and holiness and they shall still bear the whole burthen of their own folly and wickedness But there is another and that a far better use to be made hereof than to trouble ourselves about a mystery that we shall never be able in this life to comprehend and that is this that seeing all the troubles that befal us in any kind whatsoever or by what instruments soever come yet from the hand of God we should not therefore when at any time we meet with trouble rage against the second causes or seek to vent our spleen upon them as of our selves we are very apt to do but laying our hands upon our hearts and upon our mouths compose our selves to a holy patience and silence considering it is his will and pleasure to have it so to whom it is both our duty and wisdom wholly to submit 17. We may learn it of holy Iob. His wife moved his patience not a little by moving him to impatience Thou talkest like a foolish woman saith he shall we receive good things at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil also Or we may learn it of good old Eli. When he received a message from the Lord by the mouth of young Samuel of a right heavy judgment shortly to fall upon him and his house for his fond indulgence to his ungracious Children he made no more reply but said only It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Or to go on further than our Prophet David we may learn it sufficiently from him I was dumb saith he and opened not my mouth Quoniam tu fecisti for it was thy doing This consideration alone Quoniam tu fecisti is enough to silence all tumultuous thoughts and to cut off all farther disputing and debating the matter that it is God that causeth us to be troubled All whose judgments are not only done in righteousness as we have hitherto heard but towards his children also out of much love and faithfulness as we are next to hear I know that of very faithfulness thou hast caused me to be troubled 18. In the former part of the verse where he spake of the righteousness of God he did it indefinitely without mentioning either himself or any other person not particularly Thy judgments upon me but indefinitely I know O Lord that thy judgments are right But now in this latter part of the verse where he cometh to speak of the faithfulness of God he nameth himself And that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled For as earthly Princes must do justice to all men for Iustice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every man may challenge it and there must be no respect had no difference made of Persons therein but their favours they may bestow upon whom they think good so God will have his justice to appear in all his dealings with all men generally be they good or bad that none of them all shall be able to say he hath done them the least wrong but yet his tender mercies and loving kindnesses those he reserveth for the Godly only who are in special favour with him and towards whom he beareth a special respect For by faithfulness here as in sundry other places of Scripture is meant nothing else but the speâ—ial love and favour of God towards those that love and fear him whereby he ordereth and disposeth all things so as may make most for their good 19. And it is not unfitly so called whether we respect the gracious promises that God hath made unto them or those sundry mutual relations that are between him and them First faithfulness relaâ—eth to a promise He is faithful that hath promised Heb. 10. Truly God is a debtor to no man that he doth for us any thing at all it is ex mero motu of his own grace and goodness merely we can challenge nothing at his hands But yet so desirous is he to manifest his gracious love to us that he hath freely bound himself and so made himself a voluntary debtor by his promises for promise is due debt insomuch as he giveth us the leave and alloweth us the boldness to remind him of his promises to urge him with them and as it were to adjure him by all his truth and faithfulness to make them good But what a kind of promise is this may some say to promise a man to trouble him It
discerned as they And that is this that we beware by all means we do not indeed manage our own quarrels whilest we pretend to stand for the glory of God Is it not enough for us to doat upon out own wild fancies as Pigmalion did upon the Image himself had carved Enough when we have embraced some fond conceit upon weak grounds through ignorance or prejudice to contend with some acrimony for it Enough having perhaps overshot our selves in some speech or action rashly to set our selves to maintain it for our credits sake when our hearts can tell us all was not right But we must needs draw in God and make him a party in the business as if the cause were his as if in all we had said or done we had sought nothing more than him and his glory nothing less than our selves and our own interest Alass what a pity it is nay what a shame that Conscience Religion the honor of God and the vindicating of his glory should be made a stale to disloyalty sacrilege sedition faction or private revenge Yet so it is dayly and so it ever was and so it ever will be more or less whilst the World standeth In nomine Domini you know the old saying and what a world of errors and mischiefs men have been led into under that notion Those words are used pro forma and set in the beginning of the instrument when all that followeth after in the whole writing contain nothing but our own Wills Time was when they that killed the Apostles thought they did God a piece of good service in it and when our Apostle before his conversion made havock of the Church it was the zeal of Gods Glory that so bemadded him Concerning zeal persecuting the Church And neither of these I take it a pretended zeal but true and real that is to say not counterfeit though erroneous 19. But as in all Monopolies there is a pretention of some common good held forth to make them passable when as in most of them it may be there is no good at all intended to the publick but private lucre only or at the best together with some little good to the publick such an appearance withal of private interest over-balancing it as that wise men justly fear they will prove rather mischievous than beneficial taken in the whole lump So doubtless many times zeal of Gods Glory is unconscionably pretended where either it is not at all but in shew or at leastwise mingled with such a strong infusion of corrupt partiality and self-seeking as sowreth it extremely and rendreth it very inexcusable How did the Pharisees and other Iews juggle with the poor man that had been born blind Ioh. 9. seeking to work upon him with fair words and pretences Give God the praise c. when at the same instant they did most wickedly endeavour to obscure the Glory of that miraculous cure which Christ had wrought upon him in giving him his sight 20. It were no hard matter if the time would suffer or indeed if the times would suffer to set before you variety of instances even unto the satiety But I shall only give you a taste in two both concerning matters Ecclesiastical the one in point of Government the other of Worship For Church Government who knoweth not on the one side how in some former Ages one man taking the advantage of every opportunity whereof the ambitions and factions of Princes and Bishops in every age afforded good store to lift up himself still higher and higher hath perked himself up at length in the Temple of God there bearing himself as God or a vice-god at least stretching his Diocess over the whole World and challenging a Monarchial superintendency over the universal Church of Christ as Oecumenical Pastour or Christs Vicar-general upon earth And who seeth not on the other side how busie some spirits have been in this last Age and a very little before to draw all down to such a Democratical parity for such indeed it is and not Aristocratical as they would fain have the world believe it to be as was never practised nor for any thing appeareth in the ancient Histories and Monuments of the Church ever so much as heard of in any settled Church in Asia Europe or Africa for fifteen hundred years together Both sides pretend from Scripture and for the glory of God both and that with equal confidence and for ought I know upon equal Grounds that is to speak plain no grounds at all for either For no man yet on either side hath been able to make it sufficiently appear from clear evidence of Scripture or Reason that it is the pleasure of God to be glorified by either of those new devices 21. Likewise in point of Publick Worship How just the blame is on either side I dispute not that is not now the business But some have been blamed for bringing into the Church new Forms and Ceremonies or which is all one in the apprehensions of men that consider not much and so is liable to the same censure for reviving old ones but long disused and forgotten and other-some have been blamed for seeking to strip her both of old and new and to leave her stark naked of all her Ornaments and Formalities In this case also as in the former the glory of God is pretended on both sides Those thinking their way maketh most for the honor of God as adding decency and solemnity to his service and these theirs as better suiting with the simplicity of the Gospel 22. Methinks dust and ashes that we are we should tremble to make so bold with the glory of the great God of Heaven and Earth which is the most sacred thing in the world as to engage it in our quarrels and to make it serve to our humours or ends when and how we list Were it not a lamentable case if it should ever come to that that Religion should lie at the top where Avarice Ambition or Sacrilege lie at the bottom and perhaps Malice Partiality Oppression Murther some wicked Lust or other in the midst Yet is not any of this impossible to be yea rather scarce possible to be avoided so long as we dare take upon us out of the furiousness of our spirits and the rashness of a distempered Zeal to be wiser and holier than God would have us I mean in the determining of his glory according to our fancies where we have no clear Texts of Scripture to assure us that the glory of God is so much concerned in these or those particulars that we so eagerly contend for Nay when there seem to be clear Texts of Scripture to assure us rather of the contrary and that the Glory of God doth not consist therein but in things of a higher nature For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink saith the Apostle in the next former Chapter It consists not in this whether such or such meats may he
both sorts as they are set down the one in the beginning of verse 19. The works of the Flesh are manifest which are these Adultery c. the other in the beginning of verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is Love c. And those differences are four First those effects of the former sort proceed originally from the Flesh these from the Spirit Secondly those are rather stiled by the name of Works these by the name of Fruit the Works of the Flesh but the Fruit of the Spirit Thirdly those are set forth as many and apart Works in the Plural These as many but united into one Fruit in the Singular Fourthly those are expresly said to be manifest of these no such thing at all mentioned 6. The first difference which ariseth from the nature of the things themselves as they relate to their several proper causes is of the four the most obvious and important and it is this That whereas the vicious habits and sinful actions catalogued in the former verses are the production of the Flesh the Graces and Vertues specified in the Text are ascribed to the Spirit as to their proper and original cause They are not the works of the Flesh as the former but the fruit of the Spirit 7. Where the first Question that every man will be ready to ask is What is here meant by the Spirit The necessity of expressing supernatural and divine things by words taken from natural or humane affairs hath produced another necessity of enlarging the significations of sundry of those words to a very great Latitude Which is one special cause of the obscurity which is found in sundry places of holy Scripture and consequently of the difficulty of giving the proper and genuine sence of such places and consequently to that amidst so many interpretations of one and the same place whilst each contendeth for that sence which himself hath pitched upon of infinite disputes and controversies in point of Religion Among which words three especially I have observed all of them of very frequent use in the New Testament which as they are subject to greater variety of signification than most other words are so have they ever yet been and are like to be to the Worlds end the matter and fuel of very many and very fierce contentions in the Church Those three are Faith Grace and Spirit Truly I am perswaded if it were possible all men could agree in what signification each of those three words were to be understood in each place where any of them are found three full parts at least of four of those unhappy Controversies that have been held up in the Christian Church would vanish 8. And of the three this of Spirit hath yet the greatest variety of Significations God in his Essence the Person of the Holy Ghost good Angels evil Angels extraordinary gifts wherewith the Apostles and others in the Primitive times were endowed the several faculties of the Soul as Understanding Affections and Conscience the whole Soul of man supernatural Grace besides many others not needful now to be remembred all come under this appellation of Spirit Much of the ambiguity of the World I confess is cut off when it is opposed to Flesh yet even then also it wanteth no variety The Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Christ the literal and mystical sence of Scripture the Ordinances of the Old and New Testament the Body and the Soul Sensuality and Reason the corruption of Nature and the Grace of God all these may according to the peculiar exigence of several places be understood by the terms of Flesh and Spirit 9. Generally the word Spirit in the common notion of it importeth a thing of subtile parts but of an operative quality So that the less any thing hath of matter and the more of vertue the nearer it cometh to the nature of a Spirit as the Wind and the Quintessences of Vegetables or Minerals extracted by Chymical operation We use to say of a man that is of a sad sluggish and flegmatick temper that he hath no Spirit but if he belively active quick and vigorous we then say he hath spirit in him It is said of the Queen of Sheba when she saw the wisdom and royal state of King of Solomon that there was no more spirit left in her that is she stood mute and amazed at it as if she had had no life speech sense or motion in her The Soul is therefore called a Spirit because being it self no bodily substance it yet actuateth and enliveneth the body and is the inward principle of life thereunto called therefore The Spirit of life and St. Iames saith The body without the Spirit is dead that is it is a liveless Iump of flesh without the Soul So that whatsoever is principium agendi internum the fountain of action or operation as an inward principle thereof may in that respect and so far forth borrow the name of a Spirit Insomuch as the very flesh it self so far forth as it is the fountain of all those evil works mentioned in the foregoing verses may in that respect be called a Spirit and so is by St. Iames The Spirit that is in us lusteth after Envy saith he that is in very deed the Flesh that is in us for among the lusts and work of the flesh is envy reckoned in the very next verse before the Text. 10. To come up close to the Point for I fear I have kept off too long as they stand here opposed by Flesh I take to be clearly meant the Natural Corruption of Man and by Spirit the Supernatural Grace of God Even as the same words are also taken in some other places as namely in that saying of our Saviour Ioh. 3. That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Which words may serve as a good Commentary upon this part of the Text for they do not only warrant the interpretation but afford us also the reason of it under the analogy of a twofold Birth or Generation The Generation whether of Plants or living Creatures is effectual by that prolifical vertue which is in the seed Answerable therefore unto the twofold Birth spoken of in the Scriptures there is also a twofold seed The first Birth is that of the Old man by natural generation whereby we are born the sons of Adam The second Birth is that of the New man by spiritual regeneration whereby we are born the Sons of God Answerably whereunto the first seed is Semen Adae the seed of old Adam derived unto us by carnal propagation from our natural Parents who are therefore called The Fathers of our Flesh together wherewith is also derived that uncleanness or corruption which upon our first birth cleaveth so inseparably to our nature and is the inward principle from which all the works of the flesh have their emanation But then there is another seed