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
only to the manners of men but almost to common sense also they gave occasion to the Wits of those times under a colour of making themselves merry with the Paradoxes of the Stoicks to laugh even true vertue it self out of countenance 22. Lastly for why should I trouble you with any more These are enow by condemning sundry indifferent things and namely Church Ceremonies as unlawful we give great scandal to those of the Separation to their farther confirming in that their unjust Schism For why should these men will they say and for ought I know they speak but reason why should they who agree so well with us in our Principles hold off from our Conclusions Why do they yet hold communion with or remain in the bosom of that Church that imposeth such unlawful things upon them How are they not guilty themselves of that luke-warm Laodicean temper wherewith they so often and so deeply charge others Why do they halt so shamefully between two opinions if Baal be God and the Ceremonies lawful why do not they yield obedience chearful obedience to their Governours so long as they command but lawful things But if Baal be an Idol and the Ceremonies unlawful as they and we consent Why do they not either set them packing or if they cannot get that done pack themselves away from them as fast as they can either to Amsterdam or to some other place The Objection is so strong that I must confess for my own part If I could see cause to admit of those principles whereon most of our Non-Conformers and such as favour them ground their dislike of our Church-Orders and Ceremonies I should hold my self in all conscience bound for any thing I yet ever read or heard to the contrary to forsake the Church of England and to fly out of Babylon before I were many weeks older 23. Truly Brethren if these unhappy fruits were but accidental events only occasioned rather than caused by such our opinions I should have thought the time mis-spent in but naming them since the very best things that are may by accident produce evil effects But being they do in very truth naturally and unavoidably issue therefrom as from their true and proper cause I cannot but earnestly beseech all such as are otherwise minded in the bowels and in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ and by all the love they bear to Gods holy truth which they seem so much to stand for to take these things into their due consideration and to lay them close to their consciences Aud as for those my brethren of the Clergy that have most authority in the hearts of such as byass too much that way for they only may have some hope to prevail with them the rest are shut out by prejudice if I were in place where I should require and charge them as they will answer the contrary to God the Church and their own Consciences that they would approve their faithfulness in their Ministry by giving their best diligence to inform the judgments of Gods people aright as concerning the nature and use of indifferent things and as in love to their souls they are bound that they would not humour them in these their pernicious errors nor suffer them to continue therein for want of their rebuke either in their publick teaching or otherwise as they shall have opportunity thereunto in private discourses 24. But you will say if these things were so how should it then come to pass that so many men pretending to Godliness and thousands of them doubtless such as they pretend for it were an uncharitable thing to charge them all with hypocrisie should so often and so grievously offend this way To omit those two more universal causes Almighty God's Permission first whose good pleasure it is for sundry wise and gracious ends to exercise his Church during her warfare here with Heresies and Schisms and Scandals And then the wiliness of Satan who cunningly observeth whether way our hearts incline most to looseness or to strictness and then frameth his Temptations thereafter So he can but put us cut of the way it is no great matter to him on whether hand it be he hath his end howsoever Nor to insist upon sundry more particular causes as namely a natural proneness in all men to superstition in many an affectation of singularity to go beyond the ordinary sort of people in something or other the difficulty of shunning one without running into the contrary extreme the great force of Education and Custom besides manifold abuses offences and provocations arising from the carriage of others and the rest I shall note but these two only as the two great fountains of Error to which also most of the other may be reduced Ignorance and Partiality from neither of which God 's dearest Servants and Children are in this life wholly exempted 25. Ignorance first is a fruitful mother of Errors Ye err not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. Yet not so much Gross Ignorance neither I mean not that For your mere Ignaro's what they err they err for company they judge not at all neither according to the appearance nor yet righteous judgment They only run on with the herd and follow as they are led be it right or wrong and never trouble themselves farther But by Ignorance I mean weakness of judgment which consisteth in a disproportion between the affections and the understanding when a man is very earnest but withall very shallow readeth much and heareth much and thinketh that he knoweth much but hath not the judgment to sever truth from falshood nor to discern between a sound Argument and a captious Fallacy And so for want of ability to examine the soundness and strength of those principles from whence he fetcheth his Conclusions he is easily carried away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Apostle elsewhere speaketh with vain words and empty arguments As St. Augustine said of Donatus Rationes irripuit he catcheth hold of some reasons as wranglers will catch at a small thing rather than yield from their opinions quas consider antes verisimiles esse potius quam veras invenimus which saith he we found to have more shew of probability at the first appearance than substance of truth after they were well considered of 26. And I dare say whosoever shall peruse with a judicious and unpartial eye most of those Pamphlets that in this daring age have been thrust into the World against the Ceremonies of the Church against Episcopal Government to pass by things of lesser regard and usefulness and more open to exception and abuse yet so far as I can understand unjustly condemned as things utterly unlawful such as are lusorious lots dancing Stage-plays and some other things of like nature When he shall have drained out the bitter invectives unmannerly jeers petulant girding at those that are in authority impertinent digressions but above all those most bold and perverse
very life it self the substance essence or being of a Man And he that should violenty take away that from another if the wise Son of Sirac were of the Inquest would certainly be found guilty of no less than Murder Hear his verdict in the case and the reason of it The bread of the needy is their life he that defraudeth him thereof is a Man of blood He that taketh away his neighbours living slayeth him and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a bloodshedder Ecclus. 34. 17. And as these poor ones deserve our pity and our help in regard of the grievousness of their distresses so are we secondly bound so much the more to endeavour to succour them by how much the more they are destitute of friends or other means whereby to relieve or help themselves The Scriptures therefore especially commend to our care and protection the stranger the fatherless and the widow for these are of all others the most exposed to the injuries and opressions of their potent Adversaries because they have few or no friends to take their part so that if Men of Place and Power shall not stick close to them in their righteous causes they will be overborn and undone This Solomon saw with much grief and indignation insomuch as out of that very consideration he praiseth the dead that were already dead more than the living that were yet alive Eccles. 4. when viewing all the oppressions that are done under the Sun he beheld the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter and on the side of their Oppressors there was power but they had no comforter Power and might and friends and part-taking on the one side no power no strength no friends no comforter on the other side When things are thus and thus they have ever been and thus will they ever be more or less whilst the world continueth there is then a rich opportunity for every great and good Man especially for every conscionable Magistrate to set in for God's cause and in God's stead and by the greatness of his power to stop the course of violence and oppression and to rescue out of the hands of the Mighty those that are marked out to destruction or undoing Then is it a fit time for him to buckle on his armour with Iob to gird himself with zeal and righteousness as with a breast-plate to close with the giant oppressour and not to give over the combate till he have broken the jaws of the wicked and plucked the prey out of his teeth A good Magistrate should be as he was eyes to the blind feet to the lame a husband to the widow a father to the orphan a brother to the stranger in a word as St. Paul was but in another sense Omnia omnibus all things to all Men according to their several necessities and occasions that by all means he might at least save some from oppression and wrong 18. But that which above all other considerations should stir up our compassion to those that are in distress and make us bestir our selves in their behalf is that which I mentioned in the third place The equity of their Cause when by the power and iniquity of an unjust Adversary they are in danger to be over-born in arighteous matter For unless their matters be good and right be they never so poor their distresses never so great we should not pity them I mean not so to pity them as to be assistant to them therein For as in God so in every Minister of God every Magistrate and in every Child of God every good Man Iustice and Mercy should meet together and kiss each other Iustice without Mercy and Mercy without Justice are both alike hateful to God both alike to be shuned of every good Man and Magistrate Lest therefore any Man should deceive himself by thinking it a glorious or a charitable act to help a poor Man howsoever the Lord hath given an express prohibition to the contrary Exod. 23. Thou shalt not countenance a poor Man in his Cause that is in a good cause shrink not from him but if his cause be naught let his poverty be what it will be thou mayest not countenance him in it He that hath respect of persons in judgment cannot but transgress and he that respecteth a Man for his poverty is no less a respecter of persons than he that respecteth a Man for friendship or neighbour-hood or greatness or a bribe In this case the Magistrate cannot propose to himself a fitter or safer example than that of God himself who as he often professeth to have a special care over the stranger and fatherless and widow and needy so doth he often declare his proceedings to be evermore without respect of persons 19. That therefore whilst we avoid the one extreme that of incompassion we may not fall into the other that of foolish pity it will be needful that we rightly understand Solomon's purpose in the Text. For it may perhaps seem to some to be here intended that every Man should do his utmost to save the life of every other Man that is in danger to lose it And accordingly many Men are forward more than any good subject hath cause to con them thanks for to deprecate the favour of the Iudge for the saving of some hanious Malefactor or to sue out a Pardon for a wilful Murderer or say it be but to help some busie crafty compaion to come fair off in a fould business And when they have so done as if they had deserved a Garland for their service so do they glory among their neighbours at their return from these great Assemblies that their journey was well bestowed for they had saved a proper Man from the Gallows or holpen a good fellow out of the Briers Alas little do such Men consider that they glory in that which ought rather to be their shame such glorying is not good For albeit in the Text it be not expressedly so set down yet must Solomon of necessity be understood to speak of the delivering of such only as are unjustly drawn to the slaughter and not of such Malefactors as by Robberies Rapes Murders Treasons and other guiltinesses have justly deserved the sentence of death by the Law For we must so understand him here as not to make him contradict himself who else-where telleth us that it is the part and property of a wise King to scatter the wicked and to bring the wheel over them and that he that hath done violence to the blood of any person should flie to the pit and no man should stay him Against Murder the Lord provided by an early Law Gen. 9. enacted and published before him out of whose loins the whole World after the floud was to be repeopled to shew it was not meant for a national and temporary ordinance but for an universal and perpetual Law Whoso sheddeth Man's
according to truth and pronounce of them as they are and not as they seem may we not much rather invert the Proverb and say One tale cannot be good till the other be told that is whether it be good or not the Iudg may not give credit to either till he hath heard both Nay may we not many times farther say when both tales are told that neither is good Because there is most-what in every Man's tale a mixture of some falshoods with some truths whereby it may so happen sometimes that he which hath in truth the more equity on his side by the mingling in some easily discoverable falshoods in telling his tale may render his cause the more suspicious to him that heareth it to think the whole tale naught and he that hath indeed and upon the whole matter the worst cause may yet by the weaving in some evident truths or pregnant probabilities in the telling of his tale gain such credit with him that heareth it that he will be very inclinable to believe the whole tale to be good Or howsoever they may be both so equally false or at least both so equally doubtful as no one that heareth them can well tell whether of both to give credit to It was so in the famous case of the two inmate Harlots whereof King Solomon had the hearing The living Child is mine the dead one thine faith the one No faith the other The dead Child is thine and the living mine Here were presumptions on both sides for why should any Woman challenge another Woman's Child but proofs on neither for being there were none in the house but they two neither of them could produce any witnesses The case hung thus even no more evidence on the one side than on the other no less confidence on the one side than on the other Solomon indeed by that wisdom wherewith God had endowed him in a transcendent measure found out a means whereby to turn the scales to unty that hard knot and to discover the hidden truth But what could a Iudg or a Iury of no more than ordinary wisdom then have been able to have said or done in such a case but even to have left it as they found it And truly for any thing I know Ignorance must have been their best excuse 12. And as first in the Information so there may be a defect secondly in the Proofs He that hath the better cause in veritate rei may yet fail in his proofs and not be able to make it judicially appear that he hath the better cause In which case the old Axiom holdeth Idem est non esse non apparere it is all one in foro externo and as to the determination of a Judg upon the Bench who is to pronounce secundum allegata probata for a Man not to have a right and not to be able to make it appear in a legal way and by such evidence as is requisite in a judicial proceeding that he hath such a right Or he may be out-sworn by the depositions of the witnesses produced on the behalf of the adverse part tho it may be utterly false yet direct and punctual against him and so strong enough howsoever to cast him in his Suit For what Judg but the great Judg of Heaven and Earth can certainly and infallibly know when two or three Men swear directly to a point and agree in one whether yet they swear a falshood or no Or what should induce a mortal Iudg not to believe them especially if withal he see the proofs on the other side to fall short And if in such a case following the evidence in the simplicity of his heart he gave away an honst Mans right from him to a knave he is not to be charged with it as a perverter of justice but hath his Apology here ready fitted for him in the Text Behold we knew it not 13. Add hereunto in the third place the great advantage or disadvantage that may be given to a cause in the pleading by the artificial insinuations of a powerful Orator That same flaxanimis Pitho and Suadae medulla as some of the old Heathens termed it that winning and persuasive faculty which dwelleth in the tongues of some men whereby they are able not only to work strongly upon the affections of Men but to arrest their judgments also and to encline them whether way they please is an excellent endowment of nature or rather to speak more properly an excellent gift of God Which whosoever hath received is by so much the more bound to be truly thankful to him that gave it and to do him the best service he can with it by how much he is enabled thereby to gain more glory to God and to do more good to human Society than most of his brethren are And the good blessing of God be upon the heads of all those be they few or many that use their eloquence aright and employ their Talent in that kind for the advancement of justice the quelling of opression the repressing and discountenancing of insolency and the encouraging and protecting of innocency But what shall I say then of those be they many or few that abuse the gracefulness of their elocution good speakers but to ill purposes to enchant the ears of an easie Magistrate with the charms of a fluent tongue or to cast a mist before the eyes of a weak Iury as Juglers may sport with Country people to make white seem black or black seem white so setting a fair varnish upon a rotten post and a smooth gloss upon a course cloth as Protagoras sometimes boasted that he could make a bad cause good when he listed By which means judgment is perverted the hands of violence and robbery strengthned the edge of the sword of justice abated great offenders acquitted gracious and vertuous Men molested and injured I know not what fitter reward to wish them for their pernicious eloquence as their best deserved Fee than to remit them over or what David hath assigned them in Psal. 120. What reward shall be given or done unto thee O thou false tongue Even mighty and sharp arrows with hot burning coals I might add to those how that sometimes by the subtilty and cunning of a sly Commissioner sometimes by the wilful misprision of a corrupt or the slip of a negligent or the oversight of an ignorant Clerk and by sundry other means which in regard of their number and my inexperience I am not able to recite it may come to pass that the light of Truth may be so clouded and the beams thereof intercepted from the eyes of the most circumspect Magistrate that he cannot at all times clearly discern the Equity of those Causes that are brought before him In all which cases the only Apology that is left him is still the same as before even this Behold we knew it not 14. But when he perfectly understandeth the whole business and seeth
have bestowed also upon the Ceremonies the Epithet of Superstitious Which is a word likewise as the former of late very much extended and standeth in need of a Boundary too and a definition as well as it But howsoever they do with the words I must needs set bounds to my discourse lest I weary the Reader The point of Superstition I have had occasion to touch upon more than once as I remember in some of these Sermons and proved that the Superstition lyeth indeed at their door not ours They forbid the things commanded by the Church under the obligation of Sin and that Obligation arising not from their forbidding them but from the things themselves which they judge to be unlawful and thence impose upon all men a necessity of not using them which is Superstition Whereas the Church requires obedience indeed to her Commands and that also under the obligation of Sin but that obligation arising not at all from the nature of the things themselves always held and declared Indifferent but immediately from the Authority of the Superior commanding the thing and originally from the Ordinance of God commanding Obedience to Superiors as already hath been said and this is not Superstition For further satisfaction therefore in this matter referring the Reader to the Sermons themselves I shall only by way of addition represent to the Objectors St. Paul's demeanor at Athens Where finding the City full of Idols or wholly given to Idolatry he doth not yet fall foul upon them nor exclaim against them in any reproachful manner no nor so much as call them Idolaters though they were such and that in a very high degree but tempering his Speeches with all lenity and condescension he telleth them only of their Superstition and that in the calmest manner too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the comparative degree in such kind of speaking being usually taken for a diminuent term How distant are they from his Example with whom every thing they mislike is presently an Idol Christmas day an Idol the Surplice an Idol the Cross after Baptism a great Idol the Common-Prayer Book an abominable Idol When yet if the worst that can be said against them were granted the most it could amount to is but Superstition and till that be granted which must not be till it be well proved it is more childish than manly to cry out Superstition Superstition § XVII Their next is a Suspicion rather than Objection and that upon no very good ground But Charity is not easily suspicious nor without cause Wherein I have somewhat to say in behalf of my self and other my Brethren and somewhat by way of return to them For my self I had a desire I may truly say almost from my very Childhood to understand as much as was possible for me the bottom of our Religion and particularly as it stood in relation both to the Papists and as they were then stiled Puritans to inform my self rightly wherein consisted the true differences between them and the Church of England together with the grounds of those differences For I could even then observe which was no hard matter to do that the most of mankind took up their Religion upon trust as Custom or Education had framed them rather than choice It pleased God in his goodness to afford me some opportunities suitable to that my desire by means whereof and by his good blessing I attained to understand so much of the Romish Religion as not only to dislike it but to be able to give some rational account why I so do And I doubt not but these very Sermons were there nothing else to do it will sufficiently free me from the least suspicion of driving on any design for Rome As for those other regular Sons of the Church of England that have appeared in this Controversie on her behalf how improbable and so far forth uncharitable the suspicion is that they should be any way instrumental towards the promoting of the Papal Interest may appear amongst other by these few Considerations following 1. That those very persons who were under God the Instruments of freeing us from the Roman Yoke by casting Popery out of the Church and sundry of them Martyred in the cause those very Persons I say were great favourers of these now accounted Popish Ceremonies and the chief Authors or Procurers of the Constitutions made in that behalf Hae manus Trojam erigent 2. That in all former times since the beginning of the Reformation our Archbishops and Bishops with their Chaplains and others of the Prelatical Party many of them such as have written also in defence of the Church against the Puritans were the Principal I had almost said the only Champions to maintain the Cause of Religion against the Papists 3. That even in these times of so great distraction and consequently thereunto of so great advantage to the Factors for Rome none have stept into the gap more readily nor appeared in the face of the Enemy more openly nor maintained the Fight with more stoutness and Gallantry than the Episcopal Divines have done as their late learned Writings testifie Yea and some of them such as beside their other sufferings have lain as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly-affected as any other of their Brethren whosoever 4. That by the endeavours of these Episcopal Divines some that were bred Papists have been gained to our Church others that began to waver confirmed and setled in their old Religion and some that were fallen from us recovered and reduced notwithstanding all the disadvantages of these confused times and of each of these I am able to produce some instance But I profess sincerely as in the presence of God and before the World that I have not known at least I cannot call to remembrance so much as one single Example of any of this done by any of our Anti-Ceremonian Brethren whether Presbyterian or Independent § XVIII But I have somewhat to return upon these our Brethren who thus causelesly suspect us Possible it will not please them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I must speak it out both for the truths sake and theirs To wit that themselves are in truth though not purposely and intentionally whereof in my own thought I freely acquit them yet really and eventually the great promoters of the Roman Interest among us and that more ways than one These three among the rest are evident First by putting to their helping hand to the pulling down of Episcopacy It is very well known to many what rejoycing that Vote brought to the Romish party How even in Rome it self they sang their Io-â—aeans upon the tydings thereof and said triumphantly Now the day is ours Now is the fatal blow given to the Protestant Religion in England They who by conversing much with that Nation were well acquainted with the fiery turbulent spirits of the Scottish Presbyterians knew as well how to make their advantage
thereof and handled the matter with so much cunning by fomenting their discontents under-hand till they had framed them and by their means some of the same party here to become the fittest Instruments for the carrying on of their great design And this I verily believe was the very Master-piece of the whole Plot. They could not but fore-see as the event hath also proved that if the old Government a main Piller in the Building were once dissolved the whole Fabrick would be â—ore shaken if not presently shattered in pieces and ruined things would presently run into confusion distractions and divisions would certainly follow And when the waters should be sufficiently troubled and muddied then would be their opportunity to cast in their Nets for a draught Some who have undertaken to discover to the World the great Plot the Papists had of late years for the introducing of Popery in the several parts of it might have done well to have taken some little notice of this also I wonder how they could look beside it being so visible and indeed the fundamental part of the Plot. Without which neither could the sparks of Errors and Heresies have been blown to that height nor that Libertinism and some other things therewith mentioned have so soon overspread the whole face of the Land as now we find they have done Secondly They promote the Interest of Rome by opposing it with more violence than reason Which ought not to seem any strange thing to us since we see by daily experience the like to happen in other matters also Many a man when he thought most to make it sure hath quite marred a good business by over-doing it The most prudent just and in all likelihood effectual way to win upon an adversary is by yielding him as much as with safety of truth can be yielded who if he shall find himself contradicted in that which he is sure is true as well as in that which is indeed false will by a kind of Antiperistasis be hardned into more obstinacy than before to defend all true and false with equal fierceness It hath been observed by some and I know no reason to question the truth of the observation that in those Counties Lancashire for one where there are the most and the most rigid Prebyterians there are also the most and the most zealous Roman Catholicks Thirdly they promote the Interest of Rome and betray the Protestant Cause partly by mistaking the Question a very common fault among them but especially through the necessity of some false Principle or other which having once imbibed they think themselves bound to maintain Some of them especially such as betook themselves to Preaching betimes and had not the leisure and opportunity to look much into Controversies understand very little as it is impossible they should much of the true state of the Question in many controverted points and yet to shew their zeal against Popery are forward enough to be medling therewithal in the Pulpit But with so much weakness and impertinency not seldom that they leave the Question worse than they found it and the Hearer if he brought any doubts with him to go from Sermon more dissatisfied than he came The rest of them that have better knowledge are yet so bound up by some false Principle or other they have received that they cannot without deserting the same and that they must not do whatsoever betideth them treat to the satisfaction of a rational and ingenuous adversary Among those false Principles it shall suffice for the present to have named but this one That the Church of Rome is no true Church The disadvantages of which assertion to our Cause in the dispute about the visibility of the Church besides the falseness and uncharitableness of it their Zeal or Prejudice rather will not suffer them to consider With what out-cries was Bishop Hall good man who little dreamt of any peace with Rome pursued by Burton and other Hot-spurs for yielding it a Church Who had made the same concession over and over again before he was Bishop as Iunius Reynolds and our best Controversie-Writers generally do and no notice taken no noise made of it You may perceive by this one instance where the shooe wringeth § XIX In their next that they may not appear so uncharitable as to suspect their Brethren without cause they tell us Upon what grounds they so do viz. these two The endeavours of Reconciliation in the Sixth and the pressing of Ceremonies in the Seventh Objection As to the former First All endeavours of Peace without loss of Truth are certainly commendable in the undertakers prove the event as it will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12. is every mans warrant for that If any particular private man have made overtures of peace in this kind upon other terms than he ought let him answer it as he can what is that to us Admit Secondly which I fear is too true that there is little hope scarce a possibility of reconcilement if we well preserve as we are in Conscience bound the truth and purity of our Religion yet ought not that fear to hinder any man fitted with abilities and opportunities for it from such Endeavours whereof whatsoever the success be otherwise these two good effects will follow It will be some comfort to him within his own bosom that he hath done what was his duty to do to his utmost power And it will appear to the world where the business stuck and through whose default most the Endeavour proved fruitless Thirdly though there be little hope and since the Trent Council less than before of bringing things to a perfect agreement yet methinks it should be thought worth the while Est quadam prodire tenus si non datur ultra to bring both sides to as near an agreement and reduce the differences to as small a number and as narrow a point as may be That if we cannot grow to be of the same belief in every thing we might at least be brought to shew more Charity either to other than to damn one another for every difference and more Ingenuity than to seek to render the one the other more odious to the World than we ought by representing each others opinions worse than they are § XX. The Seventh Objection containeth the other ground of their said former suspicion to wit the vehement pressing of the Ceremonies Wherein First they do not well in calling them Popish and Superstitious but that having already fully â—leared I shall not now insist upon Secondly by requiring to have some Command or Example of Scripture produced to warrant to their Consciences the use of the Ceremonies They offer occasion to consider of that point wherein the very Mystery of Puritanism consisteth viz. That no man may with a safe Conscience do any thing for which there may not be produced either Command or Example from the Scripture Which erroneous Principle being
Only I may not dissemble what my own fears have long been and yet are That if things shall still go on according as they have begun and hitherto proceeded the application that some have made of that passage Iohn 11. 48. Venient Romani capient gentem nostram will prove but too true a Prophecy and Popery will over-run all at the last Whether there be just cause so to fear or no I leave it to wiser men to judge when together with what hath been already said concerning the great scandals and advantages given to the Papists by our confusions they shall have duly considered the probability of what I shall now farther say It is a wonder to see in how short a time our Anti-ceremonian Brethren are strangely both multiplied and divided multiplied in their number but divided by their opinions and subdivided into so many several tribes and familes that their power is nothing so much encreased by that multiplication as it is weakned by these divisions In as much as many of those Sects into which they have spread and diffused themselves are not more opposite to the Truth the only property wherein they all agree than they are one to another in so far that the establishment of any one cannot be but by the destruction of all or most of the rest This experience giveth us to see How impossible a thing it is they should long hold together in one entire body for their own preservation But whilest they are still crumbling into fractions and factions biting and ready to devour one another a vigilant adversary that is intent upon all advantages and opportunities may when he spieth his time over-master them with much ease and little resistance Whereas the Papists on the other side are by the very nature as I may say of their Religion and the fundamental Principle thereof viz. To believe as the Church believeth tyed together in a fast unity among themselves against all opposers of their Church or of any point of Faith designed by the Church So that these holding altogether as an imbodied Army and those dispersed abroad in scattered troops and many small parties Who is like to become Master of the Field is no hard matter to judge Neither will the supposed and I fear truly supposed greater number of Atheists than either Papists or Sectaries be any hinderance to the Papists for finally prevailing Because it is not for the interest of the Atheist and his Religion pardon the boldness of the Catachresis to engage either for or against any side farther than a jeer But to let them fight it out keep himself quiet till they have done and then clap in with him that getteth the day He that is of no Religion can make a shift to be of any rather than suffer And the Atheist though he be in truth and in heart neither Protestant nor Papist nor any thing else yet can he be in face and outward comportment either Protestant or Papist or any thing else Iew or Turk if need be as will best serve his present turn That this is their mind some of them in a bravery have given us to understand plainly enough and in print § XXIV And is it not high time then trow we to look about us Hannibal ad portas When the danger is so great and so near withal even at the door shall we be so wretchlesly wilful as neither to open our eyes to see it our selves nor endure with patience that any body else should tell us of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What I have now said how it will be taken I know not Prophets are seldom welcome that prophesie unwelcome things But truly at the sad apprehension of the dangerous condition we now stand in and in zeal for the safety and honour of my dear Mother the Church of England which hath nourished me up to become a Christian and a Protestant that is to say a pure pute Christian without any other addition or Epithete my heart waxed hot within me and the fire so kindled that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I could not forbear but upon the first opportunity offered once more to give Vent thereunto by laying open the second time my inmost thoughts to the view of the World Which I have done with the greatest plainness and freedom that avoiding bitterness was possible for me to do I was willing to sharpen my style I confess that it might enter as it was but needful where the skin was callous But with the only intention as the great Searcher of all hearts knoweth by putting the Patient to a little smart at the first piercing of the Sore to give future ease to the part affected and not at all by angering the Sore to make it worse With which Protestation I hope the more sober among them will rest satisfied I mean the Moderate Presbyterian especially Of which sort I know many whom I verily believe to be godly and conscientious men though in error and whom I therefore love and honour These are the only adversaries in this controversie whose spirits are in a disposition and capacity to be wrought upon in a rational way As for the rest I mean the rigid Scotised through-paced Presbyterian on the one side and the giddy Enthusiast on the other such is their either obstinacy or madness that it is vain to think of doing any good upon them by argument till it shall please God to make them of more humble and teachable spirits I entreat the Reader if he shall meet with any thing herein written that hath any bitterness in it or but sharpness more than one that would deal plainly cannot avoid that he would take it as meant against these last only and not at all against those of the former rank whom I never meant to exasperate Hear the conclusion of the whole matter Read without gall or prejudice Let not truth fare the worse for the Plainness Catch not at Syllables and Phrases Study and seek the Churches peace Judge not anothers servant who must stand and fall to his own Master Keep Faith and a good Conscience Bear one anothers Burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ. Consider what hath been said and pray to the Lord to give us all a right understanding in all things Amen Amen Botheby Paynell July 13. MDCLVII Placere singulis volam sed ut prosim Nec displicere metuam dummodo prosim Scazon THE SUMMARY of CONTENTS Of the several ensuing SERMONS Sermon I. Ad Clerum on Rom. 14. 3. Sect. 1. THE Occasion of the TEXT 2 Scope of the TEXT 3 Coherence of the TEXT 4 and Division of the TEXT 5 POINT I. Of not Despising others 6 Be they never so weak 7 and we never so strong 8 Both for the Sins sake to the Despisers 9 and for the Scandals sake in the Despised 10-11 POINT II. Of not Judging others 12 with the true meaning thereof And four Reasons 13 viz. 1. The want of Commission
in Us. 14 2. The want of Skill in Us. 15 3. The Uncharitableness and of the thing it self 16 4. The Scandalousness of the thing it self 17 APPLICATION To the Case in our Church shewing 18 1. Wherein it agreeth with that of the Romans in this Chapter 19-21 2. And how it differeth from it I. in the matter 22 II. in respect of the Persons 23 III. in the Practice of the Persons 24 IV. in their mutual respective Carriage And that 25 1. in the point of Despising Where 26 The several grievances of our Brethren are proposed 27-29 and answered 30-37 2. in the point of Judging 38 The Conclusion Serâ—on II. Ad 〈…〉 Sect. 1 THE Occasion of the TEXT 2 Coherence of the TEXT 3 Division and of the TEXT 4 Summe of the TEXT 5 OBSERV I. Divine Truths to be cleared from Cavil 6 II. The slander of the Ministers regular Doctrine more than an ordinary Slander 7 III. The best Truths subject to slander 8 with the Causes thereof 9 and Inferences thenceâ— O 10 12 IV. Every slander against the Truth damnable 13 20 V. No Evil to be â—one for any good that may come thereof 1â— 15 19 Of the kinds anâ— deâ—â—ees of Evil 〈◊〉 by way of Explications 1â—-17 Of things Equally 〈◊〉 Inequally â—nâ—ifferent by way of Explications 18 An useful Digression 21-23 With some Reasons of the Point 24-26 and the Inferences thence 27 The general Application thereof in two Instances 28-30 The Former 31-33 The Latter 34 A more particular Application in defence of the former Sermon 35 The Conclusion Sermon III. Ad Clerum on 1 Cor. 12. 7. Sect. 1. THE Occasion of the TEXT 2 Coherence and of the TEXT 3 Division of the TEXT 4 The Explication of the Words What is meant 5-7 By the Spirit and what 8 by Manifestation 9-11 POINT I. Spiritual Gifts how to be understood 12-15 Four Inferences from the premisses 16 POINT II. The conveyance of spiritual graces to us 17 by way of Gift 18 Not from Nature or Desert 19 Inferences thence I. General 1. Of Thankfulness 20 2. Of Prayer 21-22 3. joyning our faithful Endeavours thereunto 23-25 II. more especial 1. To those of more eminent gifts 26 To those of meaner gifts 27 POINT III. The End of Spiritual gifts Not our own only 28 〈◊〉 chiefly thâ— profit of others 29 Reasons hereof I. in respect of the Giver 30 II. in respect of â—he â—hing givâ—n 31 III. in respect of the Receiver 32-34 Three Inâ—erences the thenceâ— 35 The Conclusion Sermon IV. Ad Clâ—rum on Rom. 14. 23. Sect. 1. THE Coherence and Scope of the TEXT 2 The word FAITH diversly interpreted 3 INTERPRETATION I of justifying Faith 4-5 Not Proper heâ—â—â—lthough in it self True 6 INTERPRETATION II Of the Doctrine of Faith 7 utterly reâ—ecâ—â—d â— â—s False in it self 8-9 â—otâ— in the Rigour of it 10 〈◊〉 the Mâ—â—igâ—â—ion 11-15 2. as Perâ—â—cious 〈◊〉 the Consequents 16 3. as having no 〈◊〉 with â—â—â— resent Text. 17 INTERPRETATION III. Of Perswasion of Judgment asserted 18 Thence sundry Questions resolved viz. 19 I. What is the Power of the Conscience as concerning the Lawfulness or unlawfulness of humane actions 20 II. Whether in every thing we do 〈◊〉 actual consideration of the Lawfulness thereof be necessarily requisite 21 III. What degree of Perswasion is required for the Warranting of our Actions 22 IV. Whether or no and how fâ—r forth a mâ—n may warrantably act with reluctancy of Conscience Wherâ—â—n is considered the Case 23-24 1. Of a Resolved Conscience 25-28 2. Of a Doubting Conscience 29-30 And therein sundry Objections removed 33 3. Of a Scrupulous Conscience 34 The Conclusion Sermon I. Ad Magistratum on Job 29. 14. 17. Sect. 1. THE Occasion of the TEXT 2 Scope of the TEXT 3 Sum and of the TEXT 4 Division of the TEXT 5-6 The Magistrates I. DUTY Zeal to Justice 7 with some Examples 8 and Four Reasons thereof 9 DUTY II. Compassion to the Distressed 10 with the Reasons 11 and Extent thereof 12-13 DUTY III. Diligence in searching out the Truth 14 with some Instances 15 and Four Reasons thereof 16-17 DUTY IV. Courage in Executing Iustice 18 With the Reasons thereof 1. in respect of the Laws 19 2. of the Magistrate himself 20 3. of the Offenders 21 Three main Inferences from the Premisses viz. 22-22 I. of Direction for the Choice of Magistrates 25 II. of Reproof for the neglect of the aforesaid Duties 26 III. of Exhortation to the Conscionable Performance of the same Sermon II. Ad Magistratum on Exod. 23. 1. 3. Sect. 1. 3. THE necessity of treating on this Argument 4 The fitness of the Text for that purpose 5 The Division and thereof 6 Extent thereof 7 POINT I. The accuser not to raise a false report 8-11 sundry ways by which it may be done 12 Three Reasons of the point viz. in respect of 13 1. The Sin in the Doer 14 2. The Wrong to the Sufferer 15 3. The Mischiefs to the Common-wealth 16 Inference To avoid the fault for which purpose 17-21 four especial Causes thereof are discovered 22 POINT II. The Judge not to receive a false report 23 A threefold Care requisite thereunto 1. In receiving Informations 24 in examining Causes 25 3. in repressing Contentious Persons and Suits 26 For which purpose the likeliest Helps are 27 1. To reject Informations tendered without Oath 28 2. To temper the rigour of Iustice with Equity 29 3. To punish Partiality and Collusion in the Informer 30 4. To allow the wronged party full satisfaction 31 5. To restrain abuses in their Servants and Officers 32 The Conclusion Sermon III. Ad Magistratum on Psal. 106. 30. Sect. 1 -2 THe Argument and Matter of the Psalm 3 The Coherence Scope 4 and Division of the TEXT 5-6 The History of Balak and Balaam's Plot against Israel 7-8 With the Success thereof both in the Sin and Punishment 9-10 Zimri's Provocation and Execution 11 The Person of Phineas considered 12 OBSERVATION I. The Spiritual Power doth not include 13 not yet exclude the Temporal 14 Phineas his Fact examined 15 and justified 16-17 How far forth it may be imitated 18 OBSERVATION II. The Zeal of Phineas 19 Manifested by executing judgment 20 1. Personally 21 2. Speedily 22 3. Resolutely 23-25 OBSERVATION III. The plague stayed by executing judgment 26-28 With Aplication to England 29 An Exhortation to execute judgment 30 With Particular Application 31 1. To the Accuser 32 2. To the Witness 33 3. To the Jurer 34 4. To the Pleader 35 5. To the Officer 36 6. To the Judge Sermon I. Ad Populum on 1 Kings 21. 29. Sect. 1. THe Coherence of the. TEXT 2 Argument and of the. TEXT 3 Division of the. TEXT 4-5 From Ahab's Person and Carriage 6-8 OBSERVATION I. How far an Hypocrite may go in the performance of holy Duties 9 Four Inferences I. Of Terrour to the profane 10 II. Of Exhortation to abound in the fruits of godliness 11 III. Of
and the office of teaching and instructing others And such men should not be weaklings Secondly Ours are such as take themselves to have far more knowledge and understanding and insight in the Scriptures and all divine Learning than other men such as between pity and scorn seem most to wonder at the ignorance and simplicity of the vulgar and to lament which is God knoweth lamentable enough though not comparable to what it was within not many years since the want of knowledge and the unsufficiency of some of the Clergie in the Land And with what reason should these men expect the priviledge of Weak ones Thirdly Our Church hath sufficiently declared and published the innocency of her purpose and meaning in enjoyning the Ceremonies nor so only but hath been content to hear and receive and admit the Objections and Reasons of the Refusers and have taken pains to answer and satisfie to the full all that ever yet could be said in that behalf And therefore it is vanity for these men or their Friends in their behalf to alledge weakness where all good means have been plentifully used for full information in the points in doubt Lastly Upon the premisses it doth appear that the weakness of our Brethren pretended by those that are willing to speak favourably of them proceedeth for the most part not so much out of simple ignorance arising from the defect either of understanding or means as out of an ignorance at the best in some degree of wilfulness and affectation in not seeking or not admitting such ingenuous satisfaction as they might have by Reason if not out of the poyson of corrupt and carnal affections as they give us sometimes but too much cause to suspect of pride of singularity of envy of contention of factious admiring some mens persons By which and other like partial affections mens judgments become oftentimes so blinded that of unwilling at the first they become at length unable to discern things with that freedom and ingenuity they should And so the Cases differ in regard of the Persons They differ thirdly in the Practice of the Persons There the strong did eat because he was well assured he might do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Verse before my Text and the weak did no more but forbear eating as indeed he might do no Authority interposing to the contrary But here we conform not only because we know we may lawfully do it but for that we know we must of necessity do it as bound thereunto in obedience to lawful Authority and in the conscience we ought to make of such obedience And the refusers do not only de facto not conform to the contempt of Authority and the scandal of others but they stand in it too and trouble the peace of the Church by their restless Petitions and Supplications and Admonitions and other publications of the reasons and grounds of their such refusal And verily this Countrey and the County hath been not the least busie in these factious and tumultuous courses both in troubling our most gracious judicious and religious Sovereign with their Petitions and also in publishing their Reasons in a Book called The Abridgment Printed 1605. to their own shame and the shame of their Countrey He who as I have been informed was thought to have had a chief hand in the collecting of those Reasons and Printing of that Book was for his obstinate refusal of Conformity justly deprived from his Benefice in this Diocess and thereupon relinquished his Ministery for a time betaking himself to another Calling so depriving the Church and People of God of the fruit and benefit of those excellent gifts which were in him But since that time he hath upon better and more advised judgment Subscribed and Conformed and the Church like an indulgent Mother hath not only received him into her bosom again but hath restored him too though not to the same yet to a Benefice elsewhere of far greater value Lastly There is difference in the faulty carriage of the persons and that on both parts especially on ours For though our Non-Conforming Brethren condemn us with much liberty of speech and spirit having yet less reason for it than the weak Romans had for the strong among them might have forborn some things for the weak's sake and it would have well become them for the avoiding of scandal so to have done which we cannot do without greater scandal in the open contempt of lawful Authority yet we do not despise them I mean with allowance from the Church if particular men do more than they should it is their private fault and ought not to be imputed to us or to our Church but use all good means we can to draw them to moderate courses and just obedience although they better deserve to be despised than the weak Romans did they being truly Weak ours Obstinate they Timorons ours also Contemptuous Now these differences are opened betwixt the Case in my Text and the Case of the Church we may the better judge how far forth Saint Paul's advice here given to the Romans in their case of eating and not-eating ought to rule us in our case of conforming and not-conforming in point of Ceremony And first of not despising then of not judging The ground of the Apostles precept for not despising him that ate not was his Weakness So far then as this ground holdeth in our case this precept is to be extended and no further And we are hereby bound not to despise our Non-conforming Brethren so far forth as it may probably appear to us they are weak and not wilful But so far forth as by their courses and proceedings it may be reasonably thought their refusal proceedeth from corrupt or partial affections or is apparently maintained with Obstinacy and Contempt I take it we may notwithstanding the Apostles admonition in my Text in some sort even despise them But because they think they are not so well and fairly dealt withal as they should be Let us consider their particular grievances wherein they take themselves despised and examine how just they are They say first they are despised in being scoffed and flouted and derided by loose companions and by profane or Popishly affected persons in being stiled Puritans and Brethren and Precisians and having many jests and fooleries fastned upon them whereof they are not guilty They are secondly despised they say in that when they are convented before the Bishops and others in Authority they cannot have the favour of an indifferent Hearing but are proceeded against as far as Suspension and sometimes Deprivation without taking their Answers to what is objected or giving Answers to what they object Thirdly in that many honest and religious men of excellent and useful gifts cannot be permitted the liberty of their Consciences and the free exercise of their Ministery only for standing out in these things which our selves cannot but confess to
stumble or be offended or be made weak by it the action becometh evil All things are pure but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence ver 20. there Thirdly Comparison in regard of other actions Though the thing be good yet if we prefer it before better things and neglect or omit them for it the action becometh evil Go and learn what that is I will have mercy and not sacrifice Matth. 9. The stuff thus prepared by differencing out those things which undistinguished might breed confusion our next business must be to lay the rule and to apply it to the several kinds of evil as they have been differenced I foresaw we should not have time to go thorow all that was intended and therefore we will content our selves for this time with the consideration of this Rule applied to things simply evil In them the Rule holdeth perpetually and without exception that which is simply evil may not for any good be done We know not any greater good for there is not any greater good than the Glory of God we scarce know a lesser sin if any sin may be accounted little than a harmless officious lye Yet may not this be done no not for that Will you speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him Job 13. 7. If not for the glory of God then certainly not for any other inferiour end not for the saving of a life not for the conversion of a Soul not for the peace of a Church and if even that were possible too not for the redemption of a world No intention of any end can warrant the choice of sinful means to compass it The Reasons are strong One is because sin in its own nature is de numero ineligibilium and therefore as not eligible propter se for its own sake there is neither form nor beauty in it that we should desire it so neither propter aliud with reference to any farther end Actus peccati non est ordinabilis in bonum finem is the common resolution of the Schools In civil and popular elections if men make choice of such a person to bear any office or place among them as by the local Charters Ordinances Statutes or other Customs which should rule them in their choice is altogether ineligible the election is de jure nulla naught and void the incapacity of the person elected making a nullity in the act of election No less is it in moral actions and elections if for any intended end we make choice of such means as by the Law of God which is our rule and must guide us are ineligible and such is every sin Another reason is grounded upon that Principle Bonum ex causa integra Malum ex partiali Any partial or particular defect in Object End Manner or other Circumstance is enough to make the whole action bad but to make it good there must be an universal concurrence of all requisite conditions in every of these respects As a disfigured eye or nose or lip maketh the face deformed but to make it comely there is required the due proportion of every part And any one short Clause or Proviso not legal is sufficient to abate the whole Writ or Instrument though in every other part absolute and without exception The intention then be it granted never so good is unsufficient to warrant an Action good so long as it faileth either in the object or manner or any requisite circumstance whatsoever Saul pretended a good end inspring the fat things of Amaleck that he might therewith do sacrifice to the Lord but God rejected both it and him 1 Sam. 15. We can think no other but that Uzzah intended the safety of Gods Ark when it tottered in the Cart and he stretched out his hand to stay it from falling but God interpreted it a presumption and punished it 2 Sam. 6. Doubtless Peter meant no hurt to Christ but rather good when he took him aside and advised him to be good to himself and to keep him out of danger yet Christ rebuked him for it and sent him packing in the Devils name Get thee behind me Satan Matth. 16. But what will we say and let that stand for a third reason if our pretended good intention prove indeed no good intention And certainly be it as fair and glorious as we could be content to imagine it such it will prove to be if it set us upon any sinful or unwarranted means indeed no good intention but a bad For granted it must be that the Intention of any end doth virtually include the means as in a Syllogism the premises do the Conclusion No more then can the choice of ill means proceed from a good intention than can a false Conclusion be inferred from true Premises and that is impossible From which ground it is that the Fathers and other Divines do oftentimes argue from the Intention to the Action and from the goodness of the one to the goodness of both to that purpose applying those speeches of our Saviour in the twelfth and in the Sixth of Matthew Either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt And If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness The light of the body is the eye and of the work the intention No marvel when the eye is evil if the whole body be dark and when the intention is evil if the whole work be naught That which deceiveth most men in judging of good or bad intentions is that they take the end and the intention for one and the same thing betwixt which two there is a spacious difference For the end is the thing propter quid for which we work that whereat we aim in working and so hath rationem causae finalis but the intention is the cause à qua from which we work that which setteth us on working and so hath rationem causae efficientis Now between these two kinds of causes the final and the efficient there is not only a great difference but even a repugnancy in such sort as that it is impossible they should at any time coincidere which some other kinds of causes may do It is therefore an errour to think that if the end be good the intention of that end must needs be good for there may as well be a bad intention of a good end as a bad desire of a good object Whatsoever the end be we intend it is certain that intention cannot be good which putteth us upon the choice of evil means Methinks the Church of Rome should blush if her forehead dyed red with the blood of God's Saints were capable of any tincture of shame at the discovery of her manifold impostures in counterfeiting of Reliques in coyning of
practice and yet very rarely observed and more rarely reprehended God hath endowed a man with good abilities and parts in some kind or other I instance but in one gift only for examples sake viz. an ability to enlarge himself in prayer readily and with fit expressions upon any present occasion Being in the Ministry or other Calling he is careful to exercise his gifts by praying with his family praying with the sick praying with other company upon such other occasions as may fall out He thinketh and he thinketh well that if he should do otherwise or less than he doth he should not be able to discharge himself from the guilt of unfaithfulness in not employing the talent he hath received to the best advantage when the exercise of it might redound to the glory of the giver Hitherto he is in the right so long as he maketh his gift a Rule but to himself But now if this man shall stretch out this Rule unto all his brethren in the same Calling by imposing upon them a necessity of doing the like if he shall expect or exact from them that they also should be able to commend unto God the necessities of their families or the state of a sick person or the like by extemporary prayer but especially if he shall judge or censure them that dare not adventure so to do of intrusion into or of unfaithfulness in their Callings he committeth a great fault and well deserving a sharp reprehension For what is this else but to lay heavier burdens upon mens shoulders than they can stand under to make our selves judges of other mens consciences and our Abilities Rules of their Actions yea and even to lay an imputation upon our Master with that ungracious servant in the Gospel as if he were an hard man reaping where he hath not sown and gathering where he hath not strewed and requiring much where he hath given little and like Pharaoh's Task-masters exacting the full tale of Bricks without sufficient allowance of materials Shall he that hath a thousand a year count him that hath but an hundred a Churl if he do not spend as much in his house weekly keep as plentiful a table and bear as much in every common charge as himself No less unreasonable is he that would bind his brother of inferiour gifts to the same frequency and method in preaching to the same readiness and copiousness in praying to the same necessity and measure in the performance of other duties whereunto according to those gifts he findeth in himself he findeth himself bound The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man let no man be so severe to his brother as to look he should manifest more of the Spirit than he hath received Now as for you to whom God hath dealt these spiritual gifts with a more sparing hand the freedom of God's distribution may be a fruitful meditation for you also First thou hast no reason whosoever thou art to grudge at the scantness of thy gifts or to repine at the Giver How little soever God hath given thee it is more than he owed thee If the distribution of the Spirit were a matter of justice or of debt God we know is no accepter of persons and he would have given to thee as to another But being as it is a matter of gift not of debt nor of justice but of grace take that is thine thankfully and be content withal He hath done thee no wrong may he not do as he will with his own Secondly since the manifestation of the Spirit is a matter of free gift thou hast no cause to envy thy brother whose portion is greater Why should thy eye be therefore evil against him because God hath been so good unto him Shall the foot envy the hand or the ear the eye because the foot cannot work nor the ear see If the whole body were hand where were the going and if the whole were eye where were the hearing or if the whole were any One member where were the body If the hand can work which the foot cannot yet the foot can go which the hand cannot and if the eye can see which the ear cannot yet the ear can hearken which the eye cannot And if thy brother have some Abilities which thou hast not thou art not so bare but thou hast other some again which he hath not Say thine be meaner yet the meanest member as it hath his necessary office so it is not destitute of his proper comeliness in the Body Thirdly if thy gifts be mean thou hast this comfort withal that thy accounts will be so much the easier Merchants that have the greatest dealings are not ever the safest men And how happy a thing had it been for many men in the world if they had had less of other mens goods in their hands The less thou hast received the less thou hast to answer for If God hath given thee but one single talent he will not require five nor if five ten Fourthly in the meanness of thy gifts thou mayest read thy self a daily Lecture of humility and humility alone is a thing of more value than all the perfections that are in the world besides without it This think That God who disposeth all things for the best to those that are his would have given thee other and greater gifts if he had seen it so expedient for thee That therefore he hath holden his hand and with-holden those things from thee conceive it done either for thy former unworthiness and that should make thee humble or for thy future good and that should make thee also thankful Lastly remember what the Preacher saith in Eccles. 10. If the Iron be blunt then he must put to the more strength Many men that are well left by their friends and full of money because they think they shall never see the bottom of it take no care by any employment to encrease it but spend on upon the stock without either fear or wit they care not what or how till they be sunk to nothing before they be aware whereas on the contrary industrious men that have but little to begin withal yet by their care and providence and pains-taking get up wonderfully It is almost incredible what industry and diligence and exercise and holy emulation which our Apostle commendeth in the last Verse of this Chapter are able to effect for the bettering and increasing of our spiritual gifts provided ever we joyn with these hearty prayer unto and faithful dependance upon God for his blessing thereupon I know no so lawful usury as of those spiritual talents nor do I know any so profitable usury or that multiplieth so fast as this doth your use upon use that doubleth the principal in seven years is nothing to it Oh then cast in thy talent into the bank make thy returns as speedy and as many as thou canst lose
confession of their own learned Writers depend upon unwritten Traditions more than upon the Scriptures True it is that for most of these they pretend to Scripture also but with so little colour at the best and with so little confidence at the last that when they are hard put to it they are forced to fly from that hold and to shelter themselves under their great Diana Tradition Take away that it is confessed that many of the chief Articles of their Faith nature vacillare videbuntur will seem even to totter and reel and have much ado to keep up For what else could we imagine should make them strive so much to debase the Scripture all they can denying it to be a Rule of Faith and charging it with imperfection obscurity uncertainty and many other defects and on the other side to magnifie Traditions as every way more absolute but meerly their consciousness that sundry of their Doctrines if they should be examined to the bottom would appear to have no sound foundation in the Written Word And then must we needs conclude from what hath been already delivered that they ought to be received or rather not to be received but rejected as the Doctrines and Commandments of men 14. Nor will their flying to Tradition help them in this Case or free them from Pharisaism but rather make the more against them For to omit that it hath been the usual course of false teachers when their Doctrines were found not to be Scripture-proof to fly to Tradition do but enquire a little into the Original and growth of Pharisaical Traditions and you shall find that one Egg is not more like another than the Papists and the Pharisees are alike in this matter When Sadoc or whosoever else was the first Author of the Sect of the Sadduces and his followers began to vent their pestilent and Atheistical Doctrines against the immortality of the Soul the resurrection of the Body and other like the best learned among the Iews the Pharisees especially opposed against them by arguments and collections drawn from the Scriptures The Sadduces finding themselves unable to hold argument with them as having two shrewd disadvantages but a little Learning and a bad cause had no other means to avoid the force of all their arguments than to hold them precisely to the letter of the Text without admitting any Exposition thereof or Collection therefrom Unless they could bring clear Text that should affirm totidem verbis what they denied they would not yield The Pharisees on the contrary refused as they had good cause to be tied to such unreasonable conditions but stood upon the meaning of the Scriptures as the Sadduces did upon the letter confirming the truth of their interpretations partly from Reason and partly from Tradition Not meaning by Tradition as yet any Doctrine other than what was already sufficiently contained in the Scriptures but meerly the Doctrine which had been in all ages constantly taught and received with an Universal consent among the People of God as consonant to the holy Scriptures and grounded thereon By this means though they could not satisfie the Sadduces as Hereticks and Sectaries commonly are obstinate yet so far they satisfied the generality of the People that they grew into very great esteem with them and within a while carried all before them the detestation of the Sadduces and of their loose Errors also conducing not a little thereunto And who now but the Pharisees and what now but Tradition In every Mans eye and mouth Things being at this pass any Wise Man may Judge how easie a matter it was for Men so reverenced as the Pharisees were to abuse the Credulity of the People and the interest they had in their good Opinion to their own advantage to make themselves Lords of the Peoples Faith and by little and little to bring into the Worship whatsoever Doctrines and observances they pleased and all under the acceptable name of the Traditions of the Elders And so they did winning continually upon the People by their cunning and shews of Religion and proceeding still more and more till the Iewish Worship by their means was grown to that height of superstition and formality as we see it was in our Saviours days Such was the beginning and such the rise of these Pharisaical Traditions 15. Popish Traditions also both came in and grew up just after the same manner The Orthodox Bishops and Doctors in the ancient Church being to maintain the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father the Hypostatical union of the two Natures in the Person of Christ the Divinity of the Holy Ghost and other like Articles of the Catholick Religion against the Arrians Eunomians Macedonians and other Hereticks for that the words Trinity Homoiision Hypostasis Procession c. which for the better expressing of the Catholick sence they were forced to use were not expresly to be found in the holy Scriptures had recourse therefore very often in their writings against the Hereticks of their times to the Tradition of the Church Whereby they meant not as the Papists would now wrest their words any unwritten Doctrine not contained in the Scriptures but the very Doctrine of the Scriptures themselves as they had been constantly understood and believed by all faithful Christians in the Catholick Church down from the Apostles times till the several present Ages wherein they lived This course of theirs of so serviceable and necessary use in those times gave the first occasion and after-rise to that heap of Errors and Superstitions which in process of time by the Power and Policy of the Bishop of Rome especially were introduced into the Christian Church under the specious name and colour of Catholick Traditions Thus have they trodden in the steps of their Forefathers the Pharisees and stand guilty even as they of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour in teaching for Doctrines mens Precepts 16. But if the Church of Rome be cast how shall the Church of England be quit That symbolizeth so much with her in many of her Ceremonies and otherwise What are all our crossings and kneelings and duckings What Surplice and Ring and all those other Rites and Accoutrements that are used in or about the Publick Worship but so many Commandments of men For it cannot be made appear nor truly do I think was it ever endeavoured that God hath any where commanded them Indeed these things have been objected heretofore with clamour enough and the cry is of late revived again with more noise and malice than ever in a world of base and unworthy Pamphlets that like the Frogs of Aegypt croak in every corner of the Land And I pray God the suffering of them to multiply into such heaps do not cause the whole Land so to stink in his Nostrils that he grow weary of it and forsake us But I undertook to justifle the Church of
our selves and others See now if we have not reason to love Justice and Judgment and to make it our delight to put Righteousness upon us and to cloath us with judgment as with a Robe and a Diadem being a thing in it self so excellent and being from it there redoundeth so much glory to God to our selves so much comfort and so much benefit unto others The Inferences of use from this first Duty as also from the rest I omit for the present reserving them all to the latter end partly because I would handle them all together partly also and especially for that I desire to leave them fresh in your memory when you depart the Congregation And therefore without farther adoe I proceed forth with to the next duty contained in these words I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame I was a father to the poor Wherein Iob declareth his own readiness in his Place and Calling to be helpful to those that were any way distressed or stood in need of him by affording them such supply to his power as their several necessities required And like him should every Magistrate be in this also which I propose as the second Duty of the good Magistrate he must be forward to succour those that are distressed and oppressed and to help and relieve them to his power Mens necessities are many and of great variety but most of them spring from one of these two defects ignorance or want of skill and impotence or want of power here signified by Blindness and Lameness The blind man perhaps hath his limbs and strength to walk in the way if he could see it but because he wanteth his Eyes he can neither find the right way nor spy the rubs that are in it and therefore he must either sit still or put himself upon the necessity of a double hazard of stumbling and of going wrong The lame man perhaps hath his Eyes and sight perfect and knoweth which way he should go and seeth it well enough but because he wanteth his limbs he is not able to stir a foot forward and therefore he must have patience perforce and be content to sit still because he cannot go withal Both the one and the other may perish unless some good body help them and become a Guide to the blind a Staff to the lame leading the one and supporting the other Abroad in the World there are many in every Society Corporation and Congregation there are some of both sorts some Blind some Lame Some that stand in need of Counsel and Advice and Direction as the Blind others that stand in need of Help and assistance and support as the Lame If there be any other besides these whose case deserveth pity in what kind soever it be the word Poor comprehendeth him and maketh him a fit object for the care and compassion of the Magistrate To each of these the Magistrate must be a succourer to his power He must be as here Iob was an Eye to the blind ignorantem dirigendo by giving sound and honest counsel the best he can to them that are simple or might without his help be easily overseen And he must be as here Iob was feet to the lame impotentem adjuvando by giving countenance and assistance in just and honest Causes the best he can to them that are of meaner ability or might without his help be easily overborn If there be either of these or any other defect which standeth in need of a supply in any other man he must be as here Iob was a Father to the poor indigentem sublevando by giving convenient safety and protection the best he can to them that are destitute of help and fly unto him as to a Sanctuary for shelter and for refuge in any misery grievance or distress Upon these he must both have compassion inwardly and he must shew it too outwardly Affectu and Effectu pitying them in his heart and helping them with his hand It is not enough for him to see the Blind and the Lame and the Poor and to be sorry for them but his compassion must be real He must lend his Eyes to the Blind to direct them and he must lend his feet to the Lame to support them and he must pity the Poor as a father doth his children so pity them that he do something for them Princes and Iudges and Magistrates were not ordained altogether nor yet so much for their own sakes that they might have over whom to bear rule and to domineer at pleasure as for the peoples sakes that the people might have to whom to resort and upon whom to depend for help and succour and relief in their necessities And they ought to remember that for this end God hath endued them with that power which others want that they might by their power help them to right who have not power to right themselves Hoc reges habent magnificum ingens c. Prodesse miseris supplices fido lare protegere c. This is the very thing wherein the Preheminence of Princes and Magistrates and great ones above the ordinary sort singularly consisteth and wherein specially they have the advantage and whereby they hold the title of Gods that they are able to do good and to help the distressed more than others are For which ability how they have used it they stand accountable to him from whom they have received it and woe unto them if the Accounts they bring in be not in some reasonable proportion answerable to the Receipts Potentes potenter into whose hand much hath been given from their hands much will be required and the mighty ones if they have not done a mighty deal of good withal shall be mightily tormented And as they have received power from God so they do receive honours and service and tributes from their people for the maintenance of that power and these as wages by Gods righteous Ordinance for their care and pains for the peoples good God hath imprinted in the natural Conscience of every man notions of fear and honour and reverence and obedience and subjection and contribution and other Duties to be performed towards Kings and Magistrate and other Superiours not only for wrath but also for conscience sake and all this for the maintenance of that power in them by the right use whereof themselves are again maintained Now the same Conscience which bindeth us who are under Authority to the performance bindeth you who are in Authority to the requital of these Duties I say the same Conscience though not the same Wrath for here is the difference Both Wrath and Conscience bind us to our duties so that if we withdraw our subjection we both wound our own Consciences and incur your just Wrath but only Conscience bindeth you to yours and not Wrath so that if ye withdraw your help we may not use wrath but must suffer it
the Bench yet the Text saith he cared for none of those things as if they had their names given them by an Antiphrasis like Diogenes his man manes à manendo because he would be now and then running away so these Iustices à justitia because they neither do nor care to do Iustice. Peradventure here and there one or two in a whole side of a Country to be found that make a Conscience of their duty more than the rest and are forward to do the best good they can Gods blessing rest upon their heads for it But what cometh of it The rest glad of their forwardness make only this use of it to themselves even to slip their own necks out of the yoke and leave all the burthen upon them and so at length even tire out them too by making common pack horses of them A little it may be is done by the rest for fashion but to little purpose sometimes more to shew their Iusticeship than to do Iustice and a little more may be is wrung from them by importunity as the poor widow in the parable by her clamorousness wrung a piece of Iustice with much ado from the Iudge that neither feared God nor regarded man Alas Beloved if all were right within if there were generally that zeal that should be in Magistrates good Laws would not thus languish as they do for want of execution there would not be that insolency of Popish rescuants that licence of Rogues and Wanderers that prouling of Officers that inhancing of sees that delay of suits that countenancing of abuses those carcases of depopulated Towns infinite other mischiefs which are the sins shall I say or the Plagues it is hard to say whether more they are indeed both the sins and the Plagues of this Land And as for Compassion to the distressed is there not now just cause if ever to complain If in these hard times wherein nothing aboundeth but poverty and sin when the greater ones of the earth should most of all enlarge their bowels and reach out the hand to relieve the extreme necessity of thousands that are ready to starve if I say in these times great men yea and men of Iustice are as throng as ever in pulling down houses and setting up hedges in unpeopleing Towns and creating beggars in racking the backs and grinding the faces of the poor how dwelleth the love of God how dwelleth the spirit of compassion in these men Are these eyes to the blind feet to the lame and fathers to the poor as Iob was I know your hearts cannot but rise in detestation of these things at the very mentioning of them But what would you say if as it was said to Ezekiel so I should bid you turn again and behold yet greater and yet greater abominations of the lamentable oppressions of the poor by them and their instruments who stand bound in all conscience and in regard of their places to protect them from the injuries and oppressions of others But I forbear to do that and choose rather out of one passage in the Prophet Amos to give you some short intimation both of the faults and of the reason of my forbearance It is in Amos 5. v. 12 13. I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins they afflict the just they take a bribe and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time for it is an evil time And as for searching out the truth in mens causes which is the third Duty First those Sycophants deserve a rebuke who by false accusations and cunningly devised tales 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of purpose involve the truth of things to set a fair colour upon a bad matter or to take away the righteousness of the innocent from him And yet how many are there such as these in most of our Courts of justice informing and promoting and pettifogging make-bates Now it were a lamentable thing if these men should be known and yet suffered but what if countenanced and encouraged and under hand maintained by the Magistrates of those Courts of purpose to bring Moulter to their own Mills Secondly since Magistrates must be content for they are but men and cannot be every where at once in many things to see with other mens eyes and to hear with other mens ears and to proceed upon information those men deserve a rebuke who being by their office to ripen causes for judgment and to facilitate the Magistrates care and pains for inquisition do yet either for fear or favour or negligence or a fee keep back true and necessary informations or else for spight or gain clog the Courts with false or trifling ones But most of all the Magistrates themselves deserve a rebuke if either they be hasty to acquit a man upon his own bare denial or protestation for si inficiari sufficiet ecquis erit nocens as the Orator pleaded before Iulian the Emperour if a denial may serve the turn none shall be guilty or if hasty to condemn a man upon anothers bare accusation for si accusasse sufficiet ecquis erit innocens as the Emperour excellently replied upon that Orator if an accusation may serve the turn none shall be innocent or if they suffer themselves to be possessed with prejudice and not keep one ear open as they write of Alexander the great for the contrary party that they may stand indifferent till the truth be throughly canvassed or if to keep causes long in their hands they either delay to search the truth out that they may know it or to decide the cause according to the truth when they have found it And as for Courage to execute Iustice which is the last Duty what need we trouble our selves to seek out the causes when we see the effects so daily and plainly before our eyes whether it be through his own cowardice or inconstancy that he keepeth off or that a fair word whistleth him off or that a greater mans letter staveth him off or that his own guilty conscience doggeth him off or that his hands are manacled with a bribe that he cannot fasten or whatsoever other matter there is in it sure we are the Magistrate too often letteth the wicked carry away the spoil without breaking a jaw of him or so much as offering to pick his teeth It was not well in David's time and yet David a Godly King when complaining he asked the Question Who will stand up with me against the evil doers It was not well in Solomon's time and yet Solomon a peaceable King when considering the Oppressions that were done under the Sun he saw that on the side of the oppressors there was power but as for the oppressed they had no comforter We live under the happy government of a godly and peaceable King Gods holy name be blessed for it and yet God knoweth and we all know
it is as dayly experience sheweth that many men who make no conscience of a lye do yet take some bog at an Oath And it cannot but open a wide gap to the raising and receiving of false reports and to many other abuses of very noisom consequence in the common weal if the Magistrate when he may help it to enrich himself or his Officers or for any other indirect end shall suffer men to be impleaded and brought into trouble upon Bills and Presentments tendered without Oath Secondly since Laws cannot be so conceived but that through the infinite variety of humane occurrences they may sometimes fall heavy upon particular men and yet for the preventing of more general inconveniences it is necessary there should be Laws for better a mischief sometimes than always an Inconvenience there hath been left for any thing I find to the contrary in all well governed Policies a kind of latitude more or less and power in the Magistrates even in those Courts that were strictissimi juris upon fit occasion to qualifie and to mitigate something the rigour of the Laws by the Rules of Equity For I know not any extremity of wrong beyond the extremity of Right when Laws intended for fences are made snares and are calumniously wrested to oppress that innocency which they should protect And this is most properly Calumny in the prime notion of the word for a man upon a meer trick or quillet from the letters and syllables of the Law or other writing or evidence pressed with advantage to bring his Action or lay his Accusation against another man who yet bonâ fide and in Equity and Conscience hath done nothing worthy to bring him into such trouble Now if the Magistrate of Justice shall use his full power by interpreting the Law in rigour where he should not to second the boldness of a calumnious Accuser or if he shall not use his full power by affording his lawful favour in due time and place to succour the innocency of the so accused he shall thereby but give encouragement to the Raisers and he must look to answer for it one day as the Receiver of a false report Thirdly since that Iustice which especially supporteth the Common-weal consisteth in nothing more than in the right distribution of rewards and punishments many Law-givers have been careful by proposing rewards to encourage men to give in true and needful Informations and on the contrary to suppress those that are false or idle by proposing punishments For the Informers Office though it be as we heard a necessary yet it is in truth a very thankless office and men would be loth without special grievance to undergo the hatred and envy which commonly attendeth such as are officious that way unless there were some profit mixt withal to sweeten that hatred and to countervail that envy For which cause in most penal Statutes a moiety or a third or fourth which was the usual proportion in Rome whence the name of quadruplatores came or some other greater or lesser part of the fine penalty or forfeiture expressed in the Law is by the said Law allowed to the Informer by way of recompence for the service he hath done the State by his information And if he be faithful and conscionable in his Office good reason he should have it For he that hath an office in any lawful Calling and the Informers calling is such howsoever through the iniquity of those that have usually exercised it it hath long laboured of an ill name but he that hath such an office as it is meet he should attend it so it is meet it should maintain him for Who goeth to warfare at any time of his own cost But if such an Informer shall indict one man for an offence pretending it to be done to the great hurt of the Common-weal yet for favour fear or fee balk another man whom he knoweth to have committed the same offence or a greater or if having entred his complaint in the open Court he shall afterwards let the suit fall and take up the matter in a private Chamber this is Collusion and so far forth a false report as every thing may be called false when it is partial and should be entire And the Magistrate if he have power to chastise such an Informer some semblance whereof there was in that Iudicium Praevaricationis in Rome he shall do the Common-weal good service and himself much honour now and then to use it Fourthly since nothing is so powerful to repress audacious Accusers as severe punishment is it is observable what care and caution was used among the Romans whilst that state flourished to deter men from unjust Calumniations In private and civil Controversies for trial of right between party and party they had their Sponsiones which was a Sum of Money in some proportionable rate to the value of the thing in Question which the Plaintiff entred Bond to pay to the Defendant in case he should not be able to prove his Action the Defendant also making the like Sponsion and entring the like Bond in case he should be cast But in publick and criminal matters whether Capital or Penal if for want of due proof on the Accusers part the party accused were quit in judgment there went a Trial upon the Accuser at the suit of the accused which they called Iudicium Calumniae wherein they examined the original ground and foundation of the accusation which if it appeared to have proceeded from some just error or mistake bonâfide it excused him but if it should appear the Accusation to have proceeded from some left handed respect as Malice Envy Gain c. he was then condemned of Calumny And his ordinary punishment then was whereunto he had virtually bound himself by suscribing his Libel Poena talionis the same kind of punishment whatsoever it was which by the Laws had been due to the party accused if the libel had been proved against him Yea and for his farther shame it was provided by one Law that he should be burnt in the forehead with the Letter K. to proclaim him a Calumniator to the world that in old Orthography being the first letter of the word Kalumnia The same letter would serve the turn very well with us also though we use it to signifie another thing and yet not so much another thing as a thing more general but comprehending this as one species of it But as I said I may not prescribe especially beyond Law The thing for which I mention all this is this If all that care and severity in them could not prevent it but that still unjust actions would be brought and false accusations raised what a world of unconscionable Suits and wrongful Informations may we think there would be if contenticus Plantiffs and calumnious Sycophants when they have failed their proof should yet get off easily and
pleasure to the prejudice of the Adversaries person or cause Seek not preposterously to win the name of a Good Lawyer by wresting and perverting good Laws or the opinion of the best Counsellor by giving the worst and the shrewdest Counsel Count it not as Protagoras did the glory of thy profession by subtilty of wit and volubility of tongue to make the worse cause the better but like a Good Man as well as Good Orator use the power of thy tongue and wit to shame impudence and protect innocency to crush oppressors and succour the afflicted to advance Justice and Equity and to help them to right that suffer wrong Let it be as a Ruled case to thee in all thy pleadings not to speak in any cause to wrest judgment If lastly thou art in any place or office of service or trust or command or attendance about the Courts rejoyce not as if it were now in thy power to do a friend a courtesie or a foe a spite Do not shew a cast of thy Office for the promise or hope of a reward in helping a great Offender out of the Briars Compel not men that have been long weather-beaten in the Main and are now arrived at the Haven of their business to weather for their Passports until they have offered some sacrifice to that great Diana Expedition Let no fear or hope or bribe or letter or envy or favour no not charity it self and compassion to the poverty or distressedness of any make you partial for the person to disregard the Cause If you would be charitable to the poor give them from your own but do not carve them from another's Trencher To relieve a poor man in his wants is the proper Office of Charity but Iustice must have no eyes to see nor bowels to yern at the wants of any man Be he rich or poor that bringeth his cause hither Currat Lex Let him find such as he bringeth Let him have as his cause deserveth The last of those Rules must be thine Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause If any of these to whom I have now spoken Accusers Witnesses Iurers Pleaders Officers shall transgress these Rules to the perverting of Iustice our refuge must be next under God to you that are the Magistrates of Justice and sit upon the Bench of Judicature At your gravity and authority we must take sanctuary against them that pursue us wrongfully as at the horns of the Altar It is your Duty or if it be as to most men it is a more pleasing thing to be remembred of their Power than of their Duty it is in your power if not to reform all the abuses and corruptions of these persons yet to curb their open insolencies and to contain them at least within modest bounds Nay since I have begun to magnifie your power let me speak it with all the due reverence to God and the King there is no power so great over which in a qualified sence you have not a greater power It is in your power to bear up the pillars of the State when the land is even dissolved and the pillars thereof grown weak for that is done by judging the Congregation according to right Psal. 75. In yours to make this yet flourishing Country and Kingdom glorious or despicable for Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people Prov. 14. In yours to settle the Throne upon the King and to entail it by a kind of perpetuity unto the right heir for many succeeding generations for The Throne is established by justice Prov. 16. In yours to discharge Gods punishing Angel who now destroyeth us with a grievous destruction and by unsheathing your Sword to make him sheath his as here in my Text Phinees stood up and executed judgment and the plague ceased In yours though you be but Gods on Earth and in these Courts mortal and petty Gods yet to send prohibitions into the Court of Heaven and there to stop the judgments of the great and Eternal God before they come forth yea and when the Decree is gone forth to stay Execution In a word as it was said to Ieremy but in another sence you are Set over Nations and over Kingdoms to root out and to destroy to build and to plant Only then be intreated to use that power God hath given you unto edification and not unto destruction And now I have done my message God grant unto all of us that by our hearty sorrow and repentance for our sins past by our stedfast resolutions of future amendment and by setting our selves faithfully and uprightly in our several places and callings to do God and the King and our Country service in beating down sin and rooting out sinners we may by his good grace and mercy obtain pardon of our sins and deliverance from his wrath and be preserved by his power through faith unto salvation Now to God the Father the Son c. AD POPULUM The First Sermon At Grantham Linc. Octob. 3. 1620. 3 KINGS 21. 29. Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days but in his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house THE History of this whole Chapter affordeth matter of much Variety and Use but no passage in it so much either of Wonder or Comfort as this in the close of the whole both Story and Chapter That there should be Mighty ones sick with longing after their meaner Neighbours Vineyards That there should be crafty heads to contrive for Greedy Great Ones what they unjustly desire That there should be officious instruments to do a piece of legal injustice upon a great mans letter That there should be Knights of the Post to depose any thing though never so false in any cause though never so bad against any man though never so innocent That an honest man cannot be secure of his life so long as he hath any thing else worth the losing There is instance in the fore-part of the Chapter of all this in Ahab sickning and Iezebel plotting and the Elders obeying and the Witnesses accusing and poor Naboth suffering But what is there in all this singularly either Strange or Comfortable All is but Oppression Active in the rest Passive in Naboth And what wonder in either of these stupet haec qui jam post terga reliquit Sexaginta annos himself may pass for a wonder if he be of any standing or experience in the world that taketh either of these for a wonder And as for matter of Comfort there is matter indeed but of Detestation in the one of Pity in the other in neither of Comfort To pass by the other Occurrents also in the latter part of the Chapter as That a great Oppressor should hug himself in the cleanly carriage and
of and for which God here promiseth that he will not bring the evil in his days Lay all this together the man and his ill conditions and his present carriage with the occasion and success of it and it offereth three notable things to our consideration See first how far an Hypocrite a Cast-away may go in the outward performance of holy duties and particularly in the Practice of Repentance here is Ahab humbled such a man and yet so penitent See again secondly how deep God's Word though in the mouth but of weak Instruments when he is pleased to give strength unto it pierceth into the Consciences of obstinate sinners and bringeth the proudest of them upon their knees in despite of their hearts here is Ahab quelled by Elijah such a great one by such a weak one See yet again thirdly how prone God is to mercy and how ready to apprehend any advantage as it were and occasion to shew compassion here is Ahab humbled and his Judgment adjourned such a real substantial favour and yet upon such an empty shadow of Repentance Of these three at this time in their order and of the first first An Hypocrite may go very far in the outward performances of holy duties For the right conceiving of which assertion Note first that I speak not now of the common Graces of Illumination and Edification and good dexterity for the practising of some particular Calling which Gifts with sundry other like are oftentimes found even in such apparently wicked and profane men as have not so much as the form much less the power of Godliness but I speak even of those Graces which de tota specie if they be true and sincere are the undoubted blessed fruits of God's holy renewing Spirit of Sanctification such as are Repentance Faith Hope Ioy Humility Patience Temperance Meekness Zeal Reformation c. in such as these Hypocrites may go very far as to the outward semblance and performance Note secondly that I speak not of the inward power and reality of these Graces for Cast-aways and Hypocrites not having union with God by a lively Faith in his Son nor communion with him by the effectual working of his Spirit have no part nor fellowship in these things which are proper to the chosen and called of God and peculiar to those that are his peculiar people but I speak only of the outward performances and exercises of such actions as may seem to flow from such spiritual Graces habitually rooted in the heart when as yet they may spring also and when they are found in unregenerate men do so spring from Nature perhaps moralized or otherwise restrained but yet unrenewed by saving and sanctifying Grace Note thirdly that when I say an Hypocrite may go very far in such outward performances by the Hypocrite is meant not only the gross or formal Hypocrite but every natural and unregenerate man including also the Elect of God before their effectual calling and conversion as also Reprobates and Cast-aways for the whole time of their lives all of which may have such fair semblances of the fore-named Graces and of other like them as not only others who are to judge the best by the Law of Charity but themselves also through the wretched deceitfulness of their own wicked and corrupt hearts may mistake for those very Graces they resemble The Parable of the seed sown in the stony ground may serve for a full both declaration and proof hereof which seed is said to have sprouted forth immediately springing up forthwith after it was sown but yet never came to good but speedily withered away because for want of deepness of earth it had not moisture enough to feed it to any perfection of growth and ripeness And that branch of the Parable our blessed Saviour himself in his Exposition applieth to such hearers as when they hear the Word immediately receive it with gladness and who so forward as they to repent and believe and reform their lives but yet all that forwardness cometh to nothing they endure but for a short time because they have no root in themselves but want the sap and moisture of Grace to give life and lasting to those beginnings and imperfect offers and essays of goodness they made shew of Here are good affections to see to unto the good word of God they receive it with joy it worketh not only upon their judgments but it seemeth also to rejoice yea after a sort to ravish their hearts so as they feel a kind of tickling Pleasure and Delight in it which the Apostle calleth tasting of the heavenly gift and the good Word of God and the powers of the World to come Heb. 6. And as they receive the seed joyfully so it appeareth quickly it springeâ—h up anon in the likeness of Repentance and Faith and Obedience and newness of life They may be touched with a deep feeling of their sins and with heavy hearts and many tears confess and bewail them and not only promise but also purpose amendment They may be superficially affected with and find some overly comfort and refreshing from the contemplation of those gracious promises of mercy and reconciliation and salvation which are contained in the glorious Gospel of our Lord Iesus Christ and have some degrees of perswasion that those promises are true and some flashes of confidence withal of their own personal interest therein They may reform themselves in the general course of their lives in sundry particulars refraining from some gross disorders and avoiding the occasions of them wherein they have formerly lived and delighted aud practising many outward Duties of Piety and Charity conformable to the letter of the Laws of both Tables and misliking and opposing against the common errors or corruptions of the times and places wherein they live and all this to their own and others thinking with as great zeal unto godliness and as thorough indignation against sin as any others All this they may do and yet all the while be rotten at the Heart wholly carnal and unrenewed quite empty of sound Faith and Repentance and Obédience and every good Grace full of damnable Pride and Hypocrisie and in the present state of Damnation and in the purpose of God Reprobates and Cast-aways Examples hereof we have in Saul's care for the destroying of Witches in Iehu's zeal in killing Baal's Priests in Herod's hearing of Iohn Baptist gladly and doing many things thereafter and to omit others in this wicked King Ahab's present fit of Repentance and Humiliation At all which and sundry other like effects we shall the less need to marvel if we shall seriously consider the Causes and Reasons thereof I will name but a few of many and but name them neither First Great is the force of Natural Conscience even in the most wicked men especially when it is awakened by the hand of God
saith Chrysostome there When our turn is served and we have what we would have by and by all our devotion is at an end we never think of thanks All the ten Lepers begged hard of Christ for a cleansing the Text saith They lift up their voices they were all loud enough whilst they were Suitors Sed ubi novem There returned not to give God thanks for their cleansing of the whole ten any more than barely one single man It is our case just When we want any of the good Creatures of God for our necessities we open our mouths wide till he open his hand and fill them with plenteousness but after as if the filling of our Mouths were the stopping of our Throats so are we speechless and heartless Shame we to be so clamorous when we crave from him and so dumb when we should give him thanks Consider lastly how freely God hath given thee what he hath given thee Dupliciter gratis saith Bernard sine merito sine labore Freely both ways freely without thy desert and freely without so much as thy pains Freely first without thy desert Iacob a man as well deserving as thou yet confessed himself Not worthy of the least of all God's Mercies And St. Paul cutteth off all challenge of desert by that Interrogatory Who hath first given him and it shall be recompensed him As who should say No man can challenge God as if he owed him ought If he have made himself a Debtor to us by his Promise and indeed he hath so made himself a debtor to us yet that is still gratis and for nothing because the Promise it self was free without either Debt in him or Desert in us Nay more God hath been good to us not only when we had not deserved it but which still more magnifieth his bounty and bindeth us the stronger to be thankful when we had deserved the quite contrary And how is it possible we should forget such his unspeakable kindness in giving us much good when we had done none nay in giving us much good when we had done much ill And as he gave it sine merito so sine labore too the Creature being freely bestowed on us as on the one side not by way of reward for any desert of ours so neither on the other side by way of wages for any labour of ours To shew that God giveth not his Blessings for our labour meerly he sometimes giveth them not where they are laboured for and again he giveth them sometimes where they are not laboured for If in the ordinary dispensation of his Providence he bestowed them upon them that labour as Solomon saith The diligent hand maketh rich and seldom otherwise for He that will not labour it is fit he should not eat yet that labour is to be accounted but as the means not as a sufficient cause thereof And if we dig to the root we shall still find it was gratis for even that power to labour was the gift of God It is God that giveth thee power to get wealth Yea in this sence nature it self is grace because given gratis and freely without any labour preparation disposition desert or any thing at all in us All these considerations the excellency of the Duty the continuance of God's Blessings our future necessity our Misery in wanting our Importunity in craving his free Liberality in bestowing should quicken us to a more conscionable performance of this so necessary so just so religious a Duty And thus having seen our Unthankfulness discovered in six points and heard many Considerations to provoke us to thankfulness it may be we have seen enough in that to make us hate the fault and we would fain amend it and it may be we have heard enough in this to make us affect the Duty and we would fain practise it may some say but we are yet to learn how The Duty being hard and our backwardness great what good course might be taken effectually to reform this our so great backwardness and to perform that so hard a Duty And so you see my second Inference for Exhortation breedeth a third and that is for direction which for satisfaction of those men that pretend willingness but plead ignorance I should also prosecute if I had so much time to spare wherein should be discovered what be the principal causes of our so great Unthankfulness which taken away the effect will instantly and of it self cease Now those Causes are especially as I conceive these five viz. 1. Pride and Self-love 2. Envy and Discontentment 3. Riotousness and Epicurism 4. Worldly Carefulness and immoderate Desires 5. Carnal Security and foreslowing the time Now then besides the application of that which hath already been spoken in the former Discoveries and Motives for every Discovery of a fault doth virtually contain some means for the correcting of it and every true Motive to a duty doth virtually contain some helps unto the practice of it besides these I say I know not how to prescribe any better remedies against unthankfulness or helps unto thankfulness than faithfully to strive for the casting out of those sins and the subduing of those Corruptions in us which cause the one and hinder the other But because the time and my strength are near spent I am content to ease both my self and you by cutting off so much of my provision as concerneth this Inference for Direction and desire you that it may suffice for the present but thus to have pointed at these Impediments and once more to name them They are Pride Envy Epicurism Carefulness Security I place Pride where it would be the foremost because it is of all other the Impediment of Thankfulness Certainly there is no one thing in the World so much as Pride that maketh men unthankful He that would be truly thankful must have his eyes upon both the one eye upon the Gift and the other upon the Giver and this the proud man never hath Either through self-love he is stark blind and seeth neither or else through Partiality he winketh on one eye and will not look at both Sometimes he seeth the Gift but too much and boasteth of it but then he forgetteth the Giver he boasteth as if he had not received it Sometimes again he over-looketh the Gift as not good enough for him and so repineth at the Giver as if he had not given him according to his worth Either he undervalueth the Gift or else he overvalueth himself as if he were himself the Giver or at least the Deserver and is in both unthankful To remove this impediment whoever desireth to be thankful let him humble himself nay empty himself nay deny himself and all his desert confess himself with Iacob less than the least of God's mercies and condemn his own heart of much sinful sacrilege if it dare but think the least thought tending to rob God of the
the edification of his Church and the promoting of any one soul in Faith and Holiness towards the attainment of everlasting salvation I shall have great cause of rejoycing in it as a singular evidence of his underserved mercy towards me and an incomparably rich reward of so poor and unworthy labours Yet dare I not promise to my self any great hopes that any thing that can be spoken in an argument of this nature though with never so much strength of reason and evidence of truth should work any kindly effect upon the men of this generation when the times are nothing favourable and themselves altogether undisposed to receive it No more than the choisest Musick can affect the ear that is stopt up or the most proper Physick operate upon him that either cannot or will not take it But as the Sun when it shineth clearest in a bright day if the beams thereof be intercepted by a beam too but of another kind lying upon the eye is to the party so blinded as if the light were not at all so I fear it is in this case Not through any incapacity in the Organ so much especially in the learneder part among them as from the interposition of an unsound Principle which they have received with so much affection that for the great complacency they have in it they are loth to have it removed And as they of the Roman party having once throughly imbibed this grand Principle that the Catholick Church and that must needs be it of Rome is infallible are thereby rendred incapable to receive any impressions from the most regular and concluding discourses that can be tendred to them if they discern any thing therein disagreeing from the dictates of Rome and so are perpetually shut up into a necessity of erring if that Church can err unless they can be wrought off from the belief of that Principle which is not very easily to be done after they have once swallowed it and digested it without the great mercy of God and a huge measure of self-denial Even so have these our Anti-ceremonial Brethren framed to themselves a false Principle likewise which holdeth them in Errour and hardneth them against all impressions or but Offers of reason to the contrary 8. All Errors Sects and Heresies as they are mixed with some inferior Truths to make them the more passable to others so do they usually owe their original to some eminent Truths either misunderstood or misapplied whereby they become the less discernable to their own Teachers whence it is that such Teachers both deceive and are deceived To apply this then to the business in hand There is a most sound and eminent Truth justly maintained in our own and other Reformed Churches concerning the Perfection and Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures Which is to be understood of the revelation of supernatural Truths and the Substantials of Gods Worship and the advancing of Moral and Civil duties to a more sublime and spiritual height by directing them to a more noble end and exacting performance of them in a holy manner But without any purpose thereby to exclude the belief of what is otherwise reasonable or the practice of what is prudential This Orthodox Truth hath by an unhappy misunderstanding proved that great stone of offence whereat all our late Sectaries have stumbled Upon this foundation as they had laid it began our Anti-ceremonians first to raise their so often renewed Models of Reformation but they had first transformed it into quite another thing by them perhaps mistaken for the same but really as distant from it as Falshood from Truth to wit this That Nothing might lawfully be done or used in the Churches of Christ unless there were either Command or Example for it in the Scriptures Whence they inferred that whatsoever had been otherwise done or used was to be cast out as Popish Antichristian and Superstitious This is that unfound corrupt Principle whereof I spake that root of bitterness whose stem in process of time hath brought forth all these numerous branches of Sects and Heresies wherewith this sinful Nation is now so much pestered 9. It is not my purpose nor is this a place for it to make any large discovery of the cause of the mistake the unsoundness of the Tenent it self and how pernicious it is in the Consequents Yet I cannot but humbly and earnestly entreat them for the love of God and the comfort of their own souls as they tender the peace of the Church and the honour of our Religion and in compassion to thousands of their Christian Brethren who are otherwise in great danger to be either misled or scandalized that they would think it possible for themselves to be mistaken in their Principle as well as others and possible also for those Principles they rest upon to have some frailties and infirmities in them though not hitherto by them adverted because never suspected that therefore they would not hasten to their Conclusion before they are well assured of the Premisses nor so freely bestow the name of Popish and Superstitious upon the opinions or actions of their Brethren as they have used to do before they have first and throughly examined the solidity of their own Grounds finally and in order thereunto That they would not therefore despise the Offer of these few things ensuing to their consideration because tendered by one that standeth better affected to their Persons than Opinions 10. And first I beseech them to consider how unluckily they have at once both straitned too much and yet too much widened that which they would have to be the adequate Rule of warrantable actions by leaving out Prudence and taking in Example Nor doth it sound well that the examples of men though never so Godly should as to the effect of warranting our actions stand in so near equipage with the commands of God as they are here placed joyntly together without any character of difference so much as in degree But the superadding of Examples to Commands in such manner as in this Assertion is done either signifieth nothing or overthroweth all the rest which is so evident that I wonder how it could escape their own observation For that Example which is by them supposed sufficient for our warranty was it self either warranted by some Command or former Example or it was not If it were then the adding of it clearly signifieth nothing for then that warrant we have by it proceedeth not from it but from that precedent Command or Example which warranted it If it were not then was it done meerly upon the dictates of Prudence and Reason and then if we be sufficiently warranted by that Example as is still by them supposed to act after it we are also sufficiently thereby warranted to act upon the meer dictates of Prudence and Reason without the necessity of any other either Command or former Example for so doing What is the proper use that ought to be made of Examples is touched
against them openly before their Congregations as unlawful but have been since convinced in their judgments of the Lawfulness thereof should yet with-hold their Conformity thereunto and chuse rather not only to expose themselves to such mischiefs and inconveniences as that refusal may bring upon them but to seem also to persist in their former error to the great scandal of their people and cheating their own Consciences than by acknowledging that they have erred adventure the loss of that great reputation they had by their former opposition gained amongst their credulous followers 3. Alas that there should still be found among our People men who being conscious to themselves of some secret wrongs done to their brethren in their worldly estate by oppression fraud or other false dealing do yet hold off from making them just restitution or other meet compensation for the same and so become really cruel to their own Consciences whil'st they are so fondly tender over their reputations with others as rather to continue still dishonest in retaining than acknowledge their former dishonesty in obtaining those ill gotten parcels 25. But leaving all these to the judgment of God and their own hearts and to ruminate on that sad Text Luk. 16. That which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God For thee Christian brother who ever thou art that shall at any time be in a strait between two evils shaken with doubtings and distractions what to do when thy Conscience and thy Credit lie both at stake together ' ' Thou hast a ready resolution from the old Maxim E malis minimum As the Merchant in a storm throweth his dear commodities into the Sea to save himself so do thou resolve to redeem thy Conscience howsoever and at any rate whatsoever betide thy Credit I forbid thee not to be tender of thy good Name it is an honest care but I charge thee upon thy soul to be more tender of thy Conscience 26. This admonition premised I shall now with your patience proceed to some Inferences from what hath been delivered concerning the excellency of a good Name and what a precious thing it is But the more precious it is the more grievous first is their sin that seek to rob others of it We read in Pliny that there were some Ointments in the shops in his time made of such costly ingredients so great was the riot of those times that every pound weight was sold at 400 Roman Pence which by computation allowing to the Roman Penny seven pence half-penny of our Coyn cometh to above twenty two pounds English which was a very great rate especially considering the time wherein he lived about fifteen hundred years ago We would all think that man had done a very foul robbery that should have broken a shop and carryed thence any considerable quantity of such Costly ware And must we not then adjudge him a far worse Thief that injuriously taketh away a man's good Name from him which we have heard to be in many respects far more precious than the most precious Ointments can be But Murther is a felony of a higher degree than Theft Sometimes we pity Thieves but we detest Murtherers Yet neither Thieves nor Murtherers are more cruel and injurious than Slanderers and Back-biters and Tale-bearers and Whisperers and false Accusers are Those bereave a manâ— but of his Livelihood or at most of his Life but these take that from him which is justly more dear to him than either Life or Livelihood 27. It were to be wished that all malicious and envious persons would lay this to heart who seek to raise their own Fame upon the ruine of their Brothers whose daily endeavour it is and daily practice to raise scandalous reports of others and to cast foul aspersions upon them without cause to make their Names unsavoury and thereby to render their persons odious among such as will be ready to spread the Report farther and it is great odds they will do it with some addition of their own too or otherwise make ill use of it to their prejudice But since such mischievous persons will not or cannot learn to do better having been long accustomed to do ill no more then a Leopard can change his spots or a blackamore his skin It will concern us very much not to suffer our selves to become Receivers to these Thieves or Abbettors to these Murtheress by setting our Ears wide open to their detractions but rather to suspect him as an Impe of Satan that delighteth in Satan's Office in being an accuser of his Brethren 28. Secondly how distant are they from Solomon's judgment that value any outward thing in the World it may be some little sordid gain or some petty slippery preferment or some poor fruitless pleasure at a higher rate than they do their good Name which Solomon here so much preferreth before them all 1. The Covetous Worldling so he may but lade himself fast enough with thick clay what careth he what men say or think of him Call him Churl Miser Caitiff Wretch or what else they think good at mihi plaudo domi Tush saith he let them say on The Fox fareth best when he is curst If this man be a wise man as himself thinketh none wiser sure then Solomon was not so wise a man as he is taken for to say as he doth Prov. 22. A good Name is rather to be chosen than great riches c. 2. The Ambitious man that panteth after Preferment what regardeth he though all the World should tax him of Flattery of Bribery of Calumny of Treachery of Perjury So he can but climb up to the step at which he aimed and from which he knoweth not how soon he may be justled off by another as ambitious as himself 3. The luxurious Wanton the prodigal Gamester the Glutton Drunkard or other voluptuous beast in any kind when once imboldned in his ways sitteth him down in the seat of the scorner laugheth at all mankind that will not run with him to the same excess of riot resolveth against whatsoever dislikes sober men bewray of his exorbitances to take his own pleasure howsoever and then let others talk theirs bestoweth a nick-name or perhaps a rhime or two upon those that censure him and then as if he had stabb'd them dead and the day were his he insulteth like a Conqueror and thinketh he hath now quit himself sufficiently for the loss of his Reputation 29. Quid facias illi Without more than the ordinary mercy of God in awakening their Consciences by some immediate work of his own desperate is the condition of all these men Shame is the most powerful curb to restrain men from such vicious excesses as are of evil report and Reproof seasonably lovingly and discreetly tendered the most proper instrument to work Shame in those that have done amiss What hope is there then as to humane endeavours 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
God himself as tending to the contempt and dishonour of him their Maker 14. Besides this Natural God hath put upon man a Personal Excellency which is an effect of his Providence in the Government of the World as the former was of his Power in the Creation of it And here first beginneth the difference that is between one man and another That saying Homo homini quantum praestat hath no place till you come to this And that in regard of Gods free distribution of several gifts and offices and callings to several men with admirable variety and with no less admirable wisdom Alius sic Alius vero sic Even as the members of the natural body besides life which is common to them all have also their several abilities functions and operations with much different variety each from other And as the members according to those differences are differently honoured one kind of honour belonging to the head another to the hand another to the feet and so to the rest according as they are some more some less honourable so in the World men receive different honours according to their different capacities the King in one kind the Priest in another the Souldier the Husbandman the Artificer and so all the rest in other kinds It is an observation of some Divines that there is some Image of God though I think it were better to call it Vestigium or Umbra than Imago a shadow rather than Image some weak representation and dark resemblance they mean in Kings of his absolute Soveraignty in Iudges and Magistrates of his Iustice in Priests of his Holiness in Old men of his Eternity in Parents of his Causality in Counsellors of Wisdom in Learned men of his Knowledge in Artificers and Labourers of his operative Power c. A conceit to my understannig neither so light as to be rejected for a meer fancy neither yet so solid as to build a firm conclusion upon to satisfie either judgment or conscience But whether that conceit stand or fall certain it is howsoever that it is Gods stamp alone that setteth a value upon all humane Excellency whether Natural or Personal and thereby rendreth it honorable For whether we consider mens Personal Excellencies quoad statum gradum according to their different particular places callings and conditions or quoad meritum according to their different particular graces abilities and qualifications still they have their rise meerly from Gods gracious distributions who hath put them into those places by his all-ruling providence and imparted those graces to them by his powerful dispensation Sith therefore not the meanest man in the World but hath received from God some Personal Excellency in some kind or other and in some degree or other whereby he may become some way or other useful and serviceable to humane society some very few excepted as infants natural fools and distracted persons whose personal defects yet are by way of meditation and reflection useful to others and so they not to be despised but as less honorable members to be therefore rather the more carefully and tenderly respected there ought to be therefore given to every man even the very meanest some kind and degree of respect and honour proportionable to that excellency And thus in regard of the Image of God shining both in their nature and persons we are tied in Religion to honour all men 15. We have seen hitherto both the Duty and the Obligation of it Quid nominis and Quid Iuris What we are to perform and Why We come now to the Quid facti to examine a little how it is performed among us Slackly and untowardly enough no doubt as to the generality as all other duties are Are there not some first who are so far from honouring all men as the Text requireth that themselves only excepted they honour no man at all at least not as they ought to do No not their known Superiours But how much less then their Equals or Inferiours Despising Governments in their hearts and speaking evil of Dignities with their mouths and kicking against Authority with their heels No matter what shews and professions men make of I know not what respect and observance They honour the King and the Church and are in charity with all the World it were pity they should live else But quid verba audiam facta cum videam Let protestations go and look into the practice How do they honour the Magistrate that decline as much as they can all needful services for his support and repine at what they cannot avoid Or how the Minister that grudge him the portion which if not by the Ordinance of God for that they think will bear a dispute yet without all contradiction is setled upon him by the same and therefore by as strong a title as they hold their own inheritance by and are ever studying to find out new devices and quillets to put him beside it Or how their Equals that to get aloft depress their brethren by odious comparisons or which is worse disparage them by false suggestions Or how their Inferiours that trample them under their feet as they do the clay in the streets and use them with less regard many times than they do the dogs that feed under their Tables as the rich glutton did poor Lazarus 16. There are others secondly that may perhaps be perswaded to yield some honour to their betters that may be but reason but that they should be bound to honour those that are not so good men as themselves or at the most but such like as themselves are they see no great reason for that But there is no remedy St Peter here telleth them that must be done too He that saith Honour all men excludeth none no not the lowest and meanest Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones Mat. 18. there is a kind of honour it seemeth due to the little ones and they may not be despised The poor mans wisdom is despised saith the Preacher Eccles. 9. He saith it is so and so it is but too often through the pride of the great and wealthy as it is said in the Psalm Our soul is filled with the scornful reproof of the wealthy and with the despitefulness of the prâ—ud But he doth not say it should be so Iobs carriage was otherwise in so far that he disavoweth it and protesteth against it utterly If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or of my maid servant when they contended with me c. He would afford the meanest servants he had the honour to debate the matter with them and if there were reason on their side to allow it The greatest subject in the land need not think it any disparagement to him to give a just respect to a very mean person if he will but remember that it is the duty even of the King himself to vouchsafe that honour to the
into which he fell a fresh remembrance withal of the matter of Uriah not without some grief and shame thereat As the distress Iosephs brethren met with in Aegypt Gen. 42. brought to their remembrance their treacherous dealings with him which was by probable computation at the least twenty years after the thing was done Yea and after their Fathers death which by the like probable computation was dear upon twenty year s more the remorse of the same sin wrought upon their Consciences afresh perplexing their hearts with new fears and jealousies True it is the sinner once throughly purged of the sin by repentance hath no more conscience of that sin in that fearful degree ordinarily as to be a perpetual rack to his soul and to torment him with restless doubtings of his reconcilement even to despair yet can it not chuse but put some affrightment into him to remember into what a desperate estate he had before plunged himself by his own wilful disobedience if God had not been infinitely gracious to him therein Great presumptions will not suffer him that hath repented them for ever quite to forget them and he shall never be able to remember them without shame and horrour 33. Great cause then had David to pray so earnestly as we see here he doth against them and as great cause have the best of us to use our best care and endeavour to avoid them being they spring from such a cursed root and are both so grievous to the holy Spirit of God and of such bitter consequence to the guilty offender Our next business will be the sin and danger being so great to learn what is best to be done on our part for the avoiding and preventing both of sin and danger Now the means of prevention our third discovery are First to seek help from the hand of God by praying with David here that the Lord would keep us back and then to put to our own helping hand by seconding our prayers with our best endeavours to keep our selves back from these presumptuous sins 34. A Iove Principium We have no stay nor command of our selves so masterful are our Wills and head-strong but that if God should leave us wholly to the wildness of our unruly nature and to take our own course we should soon run our selves upon our own ruin Like unto the horse and mule that have no understanding to guide themselves in a right and safe way but they must be holden in with bit and bridle put into their mouths else they will either do or find mischief If we be not kept back with strong hand and no other hand but the hand of God is strong enough to keep us back we shall soon run into all extremities of evil with the greatest impetuousness that can be as the horse rusheth into the battle running into every excess of riot as fast as any temptation is set before us and committing all manner of wickedness with all kind of greediness David knew it full well and therefore durst not trust his own heart too far but being jealous over himself with a Godly jealousie evermore he made God his refuge If at any time he had been kept back from sinning when some opportunity did seem to tempt or provoke him thereunto he blessed God for it for he saw it was Gods doing more than his own Blessed be the Lord that hath kept his servant from evil in the case of Nabal 1 Sam. 25. If at any time he desired to be kept back from sinning when Satan had laid a bait for him without suitable to some lust stirring within he sought to God for it for he knew that he must do it himself could not keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins here in the Text. Without his help and blessing all endeavours are in vain his help and blessing therefore must be sought for in the first place by prayer 35. But we may not think when we have so done that we have done all that lieth upon us to do and so an end of the business It is Gods blessing I confess that doth the deed not our endeavours but we are vain if we expect Gods blessing without doing our endeavours Can we be so sensless as to imagine it should serve our turn to say Lord keep us back and yet our selves in the mean time thrust forward as fast as we can No if we will have our prayers effectual and in their efficacy is our chiefest hope and comfort we must second our faithful prayers with our faithful endeavours Oculus ad Coelum manus ad clavum Then may we with confidence expect that God should do his part in keeping us back when we are duly careful to do our part also towards the keeping our selves back from presumptuous sins Against which sins the best and most sovereign preservatives I am yet able to prescribe are these fouâ— following It is every mans concernment and therefore I hope it shall be without offence if after the example of God himself in delivering the Law I speak to every mans soul as it were in particular 36. For the avoiding then of Presumptuous sins First be sure never to do any thing against the clear light of thine own Conscience Every known sin hath a spice of wilfulness and presumption in it The very composure of Davids Prayer in the present passage implieth as much in passing immediately after the mention of his secret and unknown sins to the mentioning of these presumptuous Sins as if there were scarce any medium at all between them And every sin against Conscience is a known sin A man hath not a heavier Foe than his own Conscience after he hath sinned nor before he sin a faster Friend Oh take heed of losing such a Friend or of making it of a Friend an Accuser If I should see one that I loved well fall into the company of a â—heater or other crafty Companion that would be sure to inveigle him in some ill bargain or draw him into some hurtful inconvenience if he should close with him of whom yet he had no suspicion I should do but the part of a Friend to take him aside tell him who had him in hand and bid him look well to himself and beware a cheat But if he should after such warning given grow into farther familiarity with him and I should still give him signs one after another to break off speech and to quit the company of such a dangerous fellow and all to no purpose Who could either pity him or blame me if I should leave him at last to be gulled and fooled that set so little by the wholsom and timely admonitions of his friend Much greater than his is thy folly if thou neglectest the warnings and despisest the murmurings of thine own conscience Thou sufferest it but deservedly if thy Conscience having so often warned thee in vain at length grow weary of that office and leave thee
the stuff or fashion so it were but raiment to cover nakedness and to keep off heat and cold Neither doth St. Paul speak of any choicer or costlier matters Having food and raiment saith he let us be therewith content 1 Tim. 6. He saith not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delicates but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 food nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ornaments but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 raiment coverings Any filling for the belly any hilling for the back would serve his turn 47. Thirdly since it is a point of the same skill to do both to want and to abound we should do well whilst the Lord lendeth us peace and plenty to exercise our selves duly in the Art of abounding that we be the better able to manage the Art of wanting if ever it shall please him to put us to it For therefore especially are we so much to seek and so puzled that we know not which way to turn us when want or afflictions come upon us because we will not keep within any reasonable compass nor frame ourselves to industrious thrifty and charitable courses when we enjoy abundance It is our extreme insolency and unthankfulness when we are full that maketh our impatience and discontentedness break forth with the greater extremity when the Lord beginneth to empty us Quem res plus nimio delectavere secundae Mutatae quatient As in a Feaver he that burneth most in his hot fit shaketh most in his cold so no man beareth want with less patience than he that beareth plenty with least moderation if we would once perfectly learn to abound and not riot we should the sooner learn to want and not repine 48. But how am I on the sudden whilst I am discoursing of the Nature fallen upon some of the Rules of the Art of Contentment And yet not besides the Text neither the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 containeth that too Yet because to lay down the grounds and method of that Art and to do it to purpose another hours work would be but little enough I shall therefore forbear to proceed any further at this time Now to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost c. AD AULAM. The Sixth Sermon OTELANDS JULY 1637. Philip. 4. 11. for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content 1. TO omit what was observed from the Apostles Protestation in those first words of the verse not that I speak in respect of want from these words in the latter part of the verse we have proposed formerly to speak of two things concerning Christian Contentment first of the Nature of it and wherein it consisteth and then of the Art of it and how it may be attained The Nature of it hath been not long since somewhat opened according to the intimations given in the Text in three particulars Wherein was shewn that man only liveth truly contented that can suffice himself first with his own estate secondly with the present estate thirdly being his own and the present with any estate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content I am now by the Laws of good Order and the tie of a former promise to proceed to the like discovery of the Art of contentment by occasion of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have learned in whatsoever state I am to be therewith content 2. St. Paul was not framed unto it by the common instinct of nature neither had he hammered it out by his own industry or by any wise improvement of nature from the Precepts of Philosophy and Morality nor did it spring from the abundance of outward things as either an effect or an appurtenance thereof It was the Lord alone that had wrought it in his heart by his saving and sanctifying Spirit and trained him up thereunto in the School of Experience and Afflictions The sum is that true contentedness of mind is a point of high and holy learning whereunto no man can attain unless it be taught him from above What the Apostle saith of Faith is true also generally of every other Grace and of this in particular as an especial and infallible effect of Faith Not of your selves it is the gift of God And of this in particular the Preacher so affirmeth in Eccles. 5 Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth and hath given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoyce in his labour this is the gift of God 3. Neither is it a common gift like that of the Rain and Sun the comforts whereof are indifferently afforded to good and bad to the thankless as well as the thankful but it is a special favour which God vouchsafeth to none but to those that are his special favorites his beloved ones he giveth his beloved sleep Psal. 127. whiles others rise up early and go to bed late and eat the bread of sorrows restlesly wearing out their bodies with toyl and their minds with care they lay them down in peace and their minds are at rest They sleep But it is the Lord only that maketh their rest so soft and safe he giveth them sleep And the bestowing of such a gift is an argument of his special love towards them that partake it He giveth his beloved sleep It is indeed Gods good blessing if he give to any man bare riches but if he be pleased to second that common blessing with a farther blessing and to give contentment withal then it is to be acknowledged a singular and most excellent blessing as Solomon saith The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it In Eccles. 2. the same Solomon telleth us that contentment cometh from none but God and is given to none but the Godly For saith he God giveth to a man that is good in his sight and that is the godly only wisdom and knowledge and joy But as for the sinner none of all this is given to him What is his portion then Even as it there followeth But to the sinner he giveth travel to gather and to heap up The sinner possibly may gather as much together as the godly or more and raise to himself more and greater heaps of worldly treasure but when he hath done he hath but his travel for his pains He hath not wisdom and knowledge to understand the just valuation and the right use of that which he hath gathered together he taketh no joy he taketh no comfort in those heaps he findeth nothing in them but cares and disquietness and vexation of spirit All his days are sorrows and his travel grief yet his heart taketh not rest in the night It is not therefore without cause that our Apostle so speaketh of contentment as of the hand maid unto godliness But Godliness with contentment is great Gain 1 Tim. 6. 4. The truth whereof will yet farther appear unto us if we
together Thirdly for the order why Patience first and before Consolation Five in all somewhat of each 11. The former Title is the God of Patience Which may be understood either Formaliter or Causaliter either subjectively or effectively as they use to distinguish Or if these School-terms be too obscure then in plain terms thus either of Gods patience or Ours That is to say either of that patience which God useth towards us or of that patience which God by his grace and holy Spirit worketh in us Of Gods patience and long-suffering to us-ward besides pregnant testimony of Scripture we have daily and plentiful experience How slowly he proceedeth to Vengeance being so unworthily provoked how he beareth with our Infirmities Infirmities yea and Negligences too yea and yet higher our very Presumptions and Rebellions how he spreadeth out his hand all the day long waiting day after day year after year for our conversion and amendment that he may have mercy upon us And even thus understood Subjectivè the Text would bear a fair construction and not altogether impertinent to the Apostles scope It might at least intimate to us this that finding so much patience from him it would well become us also to shew some patience to our brethren But yet I conceive it more proper here to understand it effectivè of that Patience which is indeed from God as the Cause but yet in us as the Subject Even as a little after Verse 13. he is called the God of Hope because it is he that maketh us to abound in Hope as the reason is there expressed And as here in the Text he is stiled the God of Consolation for no other reason but that it is he that putteth comfort and chearfulness into our hearts 12. It giveth us clearly to see what we are of our selves and without God nothing but heat and impatience ready to vex our selves and to fly in the faces of our brethren for every trifle You have need of Patience saith the Apostle Heb. 10. We have indeed God help us 1. We live here in a vale of misery where we meet with a thousand petty crosses and vexations quotidianarum molestiarum minutiae in the common road of our lives poor things in themselves and as rationally considered very trifles and Vanity yet able to bring Vexation upon our impatient spirits we had need of patience to digest them 2. We are beset surrounded with a world of temptations assaulting us within and without and on every side and on every turn we had need of Patience to withstand them 3. We are exposed to manifold Injuries Obloquies and Sufferings many times without cause it may be sometimes for a good cause we had need of Patience to bear them 4. We have many rich and precious Promises made us in the Word of Grace of Glory of Outward things of some of which we find as yet but slender performance and of other some but that we are sure the anchor of our hope is so well fixt that it cannot fail no visible probability of their future performance we had need of patience to expect them 5. We have many good duties required to be done of us in our Christian Callings and in our particular vocations for the honour of God and the service of our brethren we had need of patience to go through with them 6. We have to converse with men of different Spirits and Tempers some hot fiery and furious others flat fullen and sluggish some unruly some ignorant some proud and scornful some peevish and obstinate some toyish fickle and humorous all subject to passions and infirmities in one kind or other we had need of patience to frame our conversations to the weaknesses of our brethren and to tolerate what we cannot remedy that by helping to bear each others burdens we may so fulfil the Law of Christ. 13. Great need we have of Patience you see and my Text letteth us see where we have to serve our need God is the God of patience in him and from him it is to be had but not elsewhere Whenever then we find our selves ready to fret at any cross occurent to revenge every injury to rage at every light provocation to droop at the delay of any promise to slugg in our own performances to skew at the infirmities of others take we notice first of the impatience of our own spirits and condemn it then hie we to the fountain of grace there beg for patience and meekness and he that is the God of patience will not deny it us That is the former Title the God of Patience 14. The other is The God of Consolation And the reason is for this can be understood no otherwise than Effective because sound comfort is from God alone I even I am he that comforteth you saith he himself Isa. 51. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me saith David Psal. 23. And the Prophets often The Lord shall comfort Sion The Holy Ghost is therefore called as by his proper Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Comforter Yea perhaps as one among many others or allowing the Greek Article his Emphasis as the chiefest of all the rest which hindereth not but there may be other Comforters besides though haply of less Excellency If there were no more in it but so and the whole allegation should be granted it should be enough in wisdom to make us overlook all them that we might partake of his comforts as the best But in truth the Scriptures so speak of God not as the chiefest but as the only Comforter admitting no partnership in this prerogative Blessed be God c. The Father of Mercies and the God of Consolation 15. May we not then seek for comfort may some say nay do we not sometimes find comfort in Friends Riches Reputation and such other regular pleasures and delights as the creatures afford Verily under God we may always and do sometimes reap comfort from the creatures But those Comforts issue still from him as from the first and only sufficient cause Who is pleased to make use of his Creatures as his instruments either for comfort correction or destruction as seemeth good in his own Eyes When they do supply us with any comfort it is but as the conduit-pipes which serve the offices in a great house with water which yet springeth not from them but is only by them conveyed thither from the foundation or spring-head Set them onc◠against God or do but take them without God you may as soon squeeze water out of a flint-stone or suck nourishment out of a dry breast as gain a drop of comfort from any of the Creatures Those supposed comforts that men seek for or think they have sometimes found in the Creatures are but titular and imaginary not substantial and real Comforts And such however we esteem of them onward they will appear to be at the last for they will certainly fail us in the Evil day
for every of us to have a right judgment concerning indifferent things and their lawfulness I shall endeavour to shew you both how unrighteous a thing it is in it self and of how noysom and perilous Consequence many ways to condemn any thing as simply unlawful without very clear evidence to lead us thereunto 11. First it is a very unrighteous thing For as in Civil Judicatories the Iudge that should make no more ado but presently adjudge to death all such persons as should be brought before him upon light surmises and slender presumptions without any due enquiry into the cause or expecting clearer evidence must needs pass many an unjust Sentence and be in great jeopardy at some time or other of shedding innocent blood so he that is very forward when the lawfulness of any thing is called in question upon some colourable exceptions there-against straightways to cry it down and to pronounce it unlawful can hardly avoid the falling oftentimes into Error and sometimes into Uncharitableness Pilate though he did Iesus much wrong afterward yet he did him some right onward when the Jews cryed out â—â—ucifige Away with him crucifie him in replying for him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why what evil hath he done Doth our Law judge a man before it hear him and know what he doth Was Nicodemus his Plea Ioh. 7. I wonder then by what Law those men proceed who judge so deeply and yet examine so overly speaking evil of those things they know not as St. Iude and answering a matter before they hear it as Solomon speaketh Which in his judgment is both folly and shame to them as who say there is neither Wit nor Honesty in it The Prophet Isaiah to shew the righteousness and equity of Christ in the exercise of his Kingly Office describeth it thus Isa. 11. He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes neither reprove after the hearing of his ears but with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity Implying that where there is had a just regard of righteousness and equity there will be had also a due care not to proceed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to our first apprehension of things as they are suddenly represented to our eyes or ears without further examination A fault which our Saviour reproveth in the Jews as an unrighteous thing when they censured him as a Sabbath-breaker without cause Iudge not according to the outward appearance but judge righteous Judgment Ioh. 7. 12. All this will easily be granted may some say where the case is plain But suppose when the Lawfulness of something is called in question that there be probable Arguments on both sides so as it is not easie to resolve whether way rather to encline Is it not at leastwise in that case better to suspect it may be unlawful than to presume it to be lawful For in doubtful cases via tutior it is best ever to take the safer way Now because there is in most men a wondrous aptness to stretch their liberty to the utmost extent many times even to a licentiousness and so there may be more danger in the enlargement than there can be in the restraint of our liberty it seemeth therefore to be the safer error in doubtful cases to judge the things unlawful say that should prove an error rather than to allow them lawful and yet that prove an error 13. True it is that in hypothesi and in point of practice and in things not enjoyned by Superiour Authority either Divine or Humane it is the saferway if we have any doubts that trouble us to forbear the doing of them for fear they should prove unlawful rather than to adventure to do them before we be well satisfied that they are lawful As for example if any man should doubt of the lawfulness of playing at Cards or of Dancing either single or mixt although I know no just cause why any man should doubt of either severed from the abuses and accidental consequents yet if any man shall think he hath just cause so todo that man ought by all means to forbear such playing or dancing till he can be satisfied in his own mind that he may lawfully use the same The Apostle hath clearly resolved the case Rom. 14. that be the thing what it can be in it self yet his very doubting maketh it unlawful to him so long as he remaineth doubtful because it cannot be of faith and whatsoever is not of faith is sin Thus far therefore the former allegation may hold good so long as we consider things but in hypothesi that is to say only so far forth as concerneth our own particular in point of practice that in these doubtful cases it is safer to be too scrupulous than too adventurous 14. But then if we will speak of things in thesi that is to say taken in their general nature and considered in themselves and as they stand devested of all circumstances and in point of judgment so as to give a positive and determinate Sentence either with them or against them there I take it the former allegation of Via tutior is so far from being of force that it holdeth rather the clean contrary way For in bivio dextra in doubtful cases it is safer erring the more charitable way As a Iudge upon the Bench had better acquit ten Malefactors if there be no full proof brought against them than condemn but one innocent person upon mere presumptions And this seemeth to be very reasonable For as in the Courts of Civil Iustice men are not ordinarily put to prove themselves honest men but the proof lyeth on the accusers part and it is sufficient for the acquitting of any man in foro externo that there is nothing of moment proved against him for in the construction of the Law every man is presumed to be an honest man till he be proved otherwise But to the condemning of a man there is more requisite than so bare suspicions are not enough no nor strong presumptions neither but there must be a clear and full evidence especially if the trial concern life So in these moral trials also in foro interno when enquiry is made into the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Humane Acts in their several kinds it is sufficient to warrant any Act in the kind to be lawful that there can be nothing produced from Scripture or sound Reason to prove it unlawful For so much the words of my Text do manifestly import All things are lawful for me But to condemn any act as simply and utterly unlawful in the kind remote consequences and weak deductions from Scripture-Text should not serve the turn neither yet reasons of inconveniency or inexpediency though carrying with them great shews of probablity But it is requisite that the unlawfulness thereof should be sufficiently demonstrated either from express and undeniable testimony of Scripture or from the clear
light of natural reason or at leastwise from some Conclusions properly directly and evidently deduced therefrom If we condemn it before this be done our judgment therein is rash and unrighteous 15. Nor is that all I told you besides the unrighteousness of it in it self that it is also of very noisom and perilous consequence many ways Sundry the evil and pernicious effects whereof I desire you to take notice of being many I shall do little more than name them howbeit they well deserve a larger discovery And first it produceth much Uncharitableness For although difference of judgment should not alienate our affections one from another yet daily experience sheweth it doth By reason of that self-love and envy and other corruptions that abound in us it is rarely seen that those men are of one heart that are of two minds St. Paul found it so with the Romans in his time whilest some condemned that as unlawful which others practised as lawful they judged one another and despised one another perpetually And I doubt not but any of us that is any-whit-like acquainted with the wretched deceitfulness of mans heart may easily conclude how hard a thing it is if at all possible not to think somewhat hardly of those men that take the liberty to do such things as we judge unlawful As for example If we shall judg all walking into the fields discoursing occasionally on the occurrency of the times dressing of meat for dinner or supper or even moderate recreations on the Lords day to be greivous prophanations of the Sabbath how can we chuse but judg those men that use them to be grievous prophaners of Gods Sabbath And if such our judgment concerning the things should after prove to be erroneous then can it not be avoided but that such our judgment also concerning the persons must needs be uncharitable 16. Secondly this mis-judging of things filleth the world with endless niceties and disputes to the great disturbance of the Churches peace which to every good man ought to be precious The multiplying of Books and Writings pro and con and pursuing of Arguments with heat and opposition doth rather lengthen than decide Controversies and instead of destroying the old begetteth new ones whiles they that are in the wrong out of obstinacy will not and they that stand for the truth out of conscience dare not may not yield and so still the War goeth on 17. And as to the publick peace of the Church so is there also thirdly by this means great prejudice done to the peace and tranquility of private mens consciences when by the peremptory Dostrines of some strict and rigid Masters the souls of many a well-meaning man are miserably disquieted with a thousand unnecessary scruples and driven sometimes into very woful perplexities Surely it can be no light matter thus to lay heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders and to cast a snare upon their consciences by making the narrow way to heaven narrower than ever God meant it 18. Fourthly hereby Christian Governours come to be robbed of a great part of that honour that is due unto them from their people both in their Affections and Subjection For when they shall see cause to exercise over us that power that God hath left them in indifferent things by commanding such or such things to be done as namely wearing of a Surplice kneeling at the Communion and the like if now we in our own thoughts have already prejudged any of the things so commanded to be unlawful it cannot be but our hearts will be sowred towards our Superiours in whom we ought to rejoyce and instead of blessing God for them as we are bound to do and that with hearty chearfulness we shall be ready to speak evil of them even with open mouth so far as we dare for fear of being shent Or if out of that fear we do it but indirectly and obliquely yet we will be sure to do it in such a manner as if we were willing to be understood with as much reflection upon authority as may be But then as for our Obedience we think our selves clearly discharged of that it being granted on all hands as it ought that Superiours commanding unlawful things are not therein to be obeyed 19. And then as ever one evil bringeth on another since it is against all reason that our Error should deprive our Superiours of that right they have to our obedience for why should any man reap or challenge benefit from his own act we do by this means fifthly exasperate those that are in authority and make the spirit of the Ruler rise against us which may hap to fall right heavy on us in the end All power we know whether Natural or Civil striveth to maintain it self at the height for the better preserving of it self the Natural from decay and the Civil from contempt When we therefore withdraw from the higher powers our due obedience what do we other than pull upon our selves their just displeasure and put into their hands the opportunity if they shall but be as ready to take it as we are to give it rather to extend their power Whereby if we suffer in the conclusion as not unlike we may a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom may we thank for it but our selves 20. Sixthly by this means we cast our selves upon such sufferings as the cause being naught we can have no sound comfort in Causa non passio we know it is the cause maketh a true Martyr or Confessor and not barely the suffering He that suffereth for the Truth and a good cause suffereth as a Christian and he need not be ashamed but may exult in the midst of his greatest sufferings chearing up his own heart and glorifying God on that behalf But he that suffereth for his Error or Disobedience or other rashness buildeth his comfort upon a sandy foundation and cannot better glorifie God and discharge a good conscience than by being ashamed of his fault and retracting it 21. Seventhly hereby we expose not our selves only which yet is something but sometimes also which is a far greater matter the whole Reformed Religion by our default to the insolent jeers of Atheists and Papists and other prophane and scornful spirits For men that have Wit enough and to spare but no more Religion than will serve to keep them out of the reach of the Laws when they see such men as pretend most to holiness to run into such extravagant opinions and practices as in the judgment of any understanding man are manifestly ridiculous they cannot hold but their Wits will be working and whilst they play upon them and make themselves sport enough therewithal it shall go hard but they will have one fling among even at the power of Religion too Even as the Stoicks of old though they stood mainly for vertue yet because they did it in such an uncouth and rigid way as seemed to be repugnant not
wrestings of holy Scripture wherewith such books are infinitely stuff'd he shall find that little poor remainder that is left behind to contain nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain words and empty arguments For when these great undertakers have snatcht up the bucklers as if they would make it good against all comers that such and such things are utterly unlawful and therefore ought in all reason and conscience to bring such proofs as will come up to that conclusion Quid dignum tanto Very seldom shall you hear from them any other arguments than such as will conclude but an Inexpediency at the most As that they are apt to give Scandal that they carry with them an appearance of evil that they are often occasions of sin that they are not commanded in the Word and such like Which Objections even where they are just are not of force no not taken all together much less any of them singly to prove a thing to be utterly unlawful And yet are they glad many times rather than sit out to play very small game and to make use of Arguments yet weaker than these and such as will not reach so far as to prove a bare inexpediency As that they are invented by Heathens that they have been abused in Popery and other such like Which to my understanding is a very strong presumption that they have taken a very weak cause in hand and such as is holy destitute of sound proof For if they had any better Arguments think ye we should not besure to hear of them 27. Marvel not therefore if I charge them with Ignorance although in their Writings some of them may shew much variety of reading and other pieces of learning and knowledge For if their knowledge were even much more than it is yet if it should not hold pace with their zeal but suffer that to out-run it there should be still in them that disproportion that before I spake of and they might so far forth be ranked with those silly women our Apostle speaketh of for such disproportion is very incident to the weaker Sex that are ever learning but are never able to come to the knowledge of the truth And this kind of ignorance is evermore very troublesome and hath been the raiser of most of those stirs that so much disquiet either whole Churches or particular Congregations as the lame horse ever raiseth the most dust and the faster he putteth on still the more dust Have you observed any men to be fuller of molestation in the places where they live than those that have been somewhat towards the Law or having some little smattering therein think themselves for that a great deal wiser than the rest of their Neighbours Although such busie spirits for the most part make it appear to the World before they have done that they had but just so much Law as would serve them to vex their neighbours withal in the mean time and undo themselves in the end Zeal is a kind of fire An excellent creature Fire as it may be used but yet may do a great deal of mischief too as it may be used as we use to say of it that it is a good Servant but an ill Master A right zeal grounded upon certain knowledge and guided with godly discretion like fire on the hearth is very comfortable and serviceable but blind or undiscreet zeal like fire in the thatch will soon set all the house in a combustion 28. So much for Ignorance the first great Fountain of Error the other is Partiality And this is causa causarum much of that ignorance and ill-governed zeal from which so many other errors spring doth it self spring from this corrupt Fountain of Partiality Which maketh the Error so much the worse and the judgment so much the more unrighteous For where an Error proceedeth merely from weakness though it cannot be therefore excused much less ought to be therefore cherished yet may it be even therefore pitied horum simplicitas miserabilis and the rather born with for a time But if it shall once appear that partiality runneth along with it or especially that it proceedeth from partiality this renders it odious both to God and Man St. Paul therefore well knowing what mischiefs would come of it if Church Governours in the administration of their weighty callings should be swayed with partial affections either for or against any layeth a great charge upon Timothy whom he had ordained Bishop of Ephesus and that with a most deep and solemn obtestation by all means to beware of Partiality I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ and the elect Angels that thou observe these things without preferring one before another doing nothing by partiality 1 Tim. 5. 29. And reason good there being scarce any thing more directly contrarious to the Rules of Charity Equity and Iustice than Partiality is as might be easily shewn if we had time for it And yet as unjust unequal and uncharitable as it is the world aboundeth with it for all that Not to instance in the writing of Histories handling of Controversies distribution of Rewards and Punishments and other particulars Take but a general view of the ordinary passages of most mens lives either in the carriage of their own or in the censuring of other mens actions and you shall find partiality to bear no little sway in most of the things that are done under the Sun The truth is we are all partial and shall be as long as we live here more or less For Partiality is the Daughter of Pride and Hypocrisie both which are as universally spread and as deeply and inseparably rooted in our nature as any other corruptions whatsoever Pride ever maketh a man to look at himself and his own party with favour and at the opposites either with envy if they be above him or if below him with scorn and how can such a man chuse but be partial And Hypocrisie ever leaneth on a nail it will make a man halt before his best friends and when fainest he would be thought to go upright The spying of motes in our brothers eye and baulking of beams in our own which is Partiality our Saviour therefore chargeth with Hypocrisie Thou Hypocrite first cast the beam out of thine own eye Luk. 6. And St. Iames coupleth them together as things that seldom go asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without partiality and without Hypocrisie 30. Besides these two internal causes Pride and Hypocrisie from within which first breed it there are sundry other external causes of Partiality from without which after it is bred help to feed it and increase it One whereof is the great force of Education and Custom which commonly layeth such strong anticipations upon the judgment that it is a matter of great difficulty to work out those first impressions afterwards by any strength of reason or but so much as to bring us to
destroyed many of his own Sons Sometimes out of the extremity and impatience of hunger As in the sad story of the two mothers who in the great Famine at the siege of Samaria had covenanted to dress their Children by turns and to eat them so fulfilling even to the letter that heavy curse which God had long before threatned against Israel in case of their disobedience Sometimes out of voluptuousness and sensuality As do thousands of prodigal ding-thrifts every where in the World who by gaming drinking luxury and other riot and intemperance vainly wasting their estate out of which by St. Pauls rule they ought to provide and lay up for their Children bring themselves to penury and leave their children to beggery 8. And if by all these and sundry other ways besides it may happen fathers and mothers so often to forsake their children the less are we to marvel if our brethren kinsfolks and neighbours if our familiar acquaintance companions and friends prove unfaithful and shrink from us when we stand in need of them dealing deceitfully as a Brook It is Iobs comparison Iob 6. The Brooks in Winter when the Springs below are open and the bottles of heaven pour down water from above overflow the banks and the meadows all about and look like a little Sea but when the heat of Summer is come and the season dry vanish so as the weary Traveller can find no refreshing nor the Cattel quench their thirst thereat Such is the common friendship of the World Whilst we are full and stand in no need of them they are also full of kindness and overflow with protestations of love and service Amici divitis multi every friend will say I am his friend also Yet they talk but vanity all this while every one with his neighbour they do but flatter with their lips and dissemble with their double heart When we seek to them in our need they look upon us stightly and at a distance at the most let fall some overly expressions that they wish us well and pity our case Good words are good cheap but do little or nothing for us It may be while we are up and aloft they will crouch under us apply themselves to us lend a shoulder yea and sweat to lift us up yet higher But if we be going down then at the best as the Priest and Levite in the Parable they will see and not see but pass by without so much as offering a hand to help us up nay it is well if they lift not up the heel against us and help to tread us yet lower 9. As then first Natural Parents many times want natural affection so common friends many times want common honesty and fail those that trust to them And as they secondly sometimes withdraw their love from their Children upon slender dislikes so these many times take toy at a trifle actum est de amicitia and pick quarrels to desert us when we have not done any thing that may justly deserve it at their hands And as they lastly too much forget their Children whilst they too eagerly pursue their own lusts so these to serve their own ends lay aside all relations and break through all obligations of friendship and if our occasions require something should be done for us that may chance put them to some little trouble hazard or charge or otherwise standeth not with their liking put us off as they did their fellow-virgins Ne non sufficiat Provide for yourselves we cannot help you This is the first kind a voluntary forsaking wherein the fault is theirs when our fathers and mothers and friends might help us but do not 10. The other kind is an enforced forsaking and without their fault when they cannot help us if they would Which also ariseth from three other causes Ignorance Impotency Mortality First there is in the understandings of men a great deal of darkness for the discerning of Truth and falshood even in speculativis matters which stand at a certain stay and alter not but much more for the discerning of Good and Evil in Practicis matters which by reason of the multiplicity of uncertain and mutable Circumstances are infinitely various Whereby it becometh a matter of greater difficulty to avoid folly in practice than Error in judgment No wonder then if the carefullest Parents and faithfullest Friends be many times wanting in their help to those they wish well to when either can find no way at all whereby to to do them good or else pitch upon a wrong one whereby unawares they do them harm Sedulitas autem stultè quem diligit urget Nil moror officium quod me gravat The body of a Patient may be in such a condition of distemper that the learnedst Doctor may be at a stand not knowing perfectly what to make of it and so must either let it alone and do nothing or else adventure upon such probabilities as may lead him to mistake the Cause and so the Disease and so the Cure and so in fine to destroy the Patient by those very means whereby he intended his recovery So Parents and others that love their children or friends well and desire nothing more than to do them good may be so puzled sometimes by the unhappy conjunctures of some cross Circumstances as that they cannot resolve upon any certain course how to dispose of them deal with them or undertake for them with any assurance or but likely hope of a good effect but they must either leave them to wrestle with their own burdens as well as they can or else fall upon some course at all adventure intending their good thereby which may perhaps in the event turn to their undoing 11. And as we may fail of needful help from our best friend for lack of skill so may we also secondly for want of Power Verily all sufficiency is not to be found but in the Almighty Creator alone No Creature can yield out of his own sufficiency a salve for every sore a supply for every want a help for every defect but there is some impotency some vacuity some deficiency in the best Agar loved her Infant well enough and knew too well enough what would save his life for that time if she could tell how to get it But all the water in the bottle being spent and no more to be had in that dry wilderness no help but she must forsake him and for ought she knew and relating but to ordinary means he must perish All she could do was to cast the poor child under a shrub and get her a good way off that she might not see him die and to lift up her own voice that she might not hear his Gen. 21. And Moses his Parents when they had hid him as long as they could or durst at last forsook him and left him in the flags by the brink of the River Nilus Exod. 2. The widdow of Sarepta also
and consent and by reason of union though not immediately and directly work even upon the soul also As we see the fancy quick and roving when the blood iâ— inâ—lamed with choler the memory and apprehension dull in a Lethargy and other notable changes and effects in the faculties of the soul very easily disceâ—nâ—ble upon any sudden change or distemper in the body David often conâ—esseth that the troubles he met withal went sometimes to the very heart and soul of him The sorrows of my heart are enlarged In the multitude of the troubles or sorrows that I have in my heart My heart is disquieted within me Why art thou so vexed O my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me c Take but that one in Psal 143 The enemy hath persecuted my soul c. Therefore is my spirit vexed within me and my heart within me is dâ—solate 15. For the Soul then or Mind to be affected with such things as happen to the body is natural and such affections if not vitiated with excess or other inordinaâ—y blameless and without sin But experience sheweth us farther too oftâ—n God knoweth that persecutions â—fflictions and such other sad casualties as befal the body nay the very shadowâ— thereof the bare fears of such things and apâ—rehensions of their approach yea even many times when it is causeless may produce worse effects in the souls and be the causes of such vicious weariness and faintness of miâ—d as the Apostle here forewarneth the Hebrews to beware of Noâ— to speak of the Lapsâ— and Traditores and others that we read of in former times and of whom there is such mention in the ancient Councils and in the writings of the Fathers of the first Ages and the Histories of the Church How many have we seen even in our times who having â—eemed to stand fast in the profession of Truth and in the performance of the offices of Vertue and duties of Piâ—ty Allegiaâ—ce and Iustice before trial have yet when they have been hard put to it yea and sometimes not very hard neither fallen away starting aside like a broken â—oâ— and by flinching at the last discovered themselves to have been but very weak Christiens at the best if not rather very deep Hypocrites 16. It will sufficiently answer the doubt to tell you That persecutions and all occurrences from without are not the chief causes nor indeed in true propriety of speech any causes at all but the occasions only of the souls fainting under them Temptations they are I grant yet are they but temptation and it is not the temptation but the consenting to the temptation that induceth guilt If at any time any temptation either on the one hand or the other prevail against us St. Iames teacheth us where to lay the fault Not upon God by any means for God tempteth no man No nor upon the Devil neither let me add that too it were a sin to belie the Devil in this for though he be a tempter and that a busie one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tempter yet that is the worse he can do he can but tempt us he cannot compel us When he hath plied us with all his utmost strength and tried us with all the engines and artifices he can devise the will hath its natural liberty still and it is at our choice whether we will yield or no. But every man when he is tempted saith he tempted cum affectu that is his meaning so tempted as to be overcome by the temptation is tempted of his own lâ—st 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draâ—n away and enticed Drawn away by injuries and affrightments from doing good or enticed by delights and allurements to do evil It is with temptations on the left hand for such are those of which we now speak even as it is with those on the right yield not and good enough My Son saith Solomon if sinners intice thee consent not Prov. 1. It may be said also proportionably and by the same reason My Son if sinners affright thee comply not The Common saying if in any other holdeth most true in the case of Temptations No man taketh harm but from himself 17. And verily in the particular we are now upon of fainting under the Cross it is nothing but our own fears and the falseness of a misgiving heart that betrayeth us to the Tempter and undoeth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as he said It is not any reality in the things themselves so much that troubleth the mind as our over-deep apprehensions of them All passions of the mind if immoderate are perturbations and may bring a snare but none more or sooner than fear The fear of man bringeth a snare saith Solomon And our Saviour Let not your hearts be troubled neither fear as if fear were the greatest troubler of the heart And truly so it is No passion not Love no nor yet Anger if self though great obstructers of Reason both being so irrational as Fear is It maketh us many times do things quite otherwise than our own reason telleth us we should do It is an excellent description that a wise man hath given of it Wisdom 17. Fear saith he is nothing else but the betraying of the succours which reason offereth He that letteth go his courage forfeiteth his reason withal and what good can you reasonably expect from an unreasonable man 18. Seest thou then a man faint-hearted Suspect him I had almost said Conclude him false-hearted too It is certainly a very hard thing if at all possible for a Coward to be an honest man or a true friend either to God or man He is at the best but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a double-minded man but God requireth simplicity and singleness of heart He hath a good mind perhaps to be honest and to serve God and the King and to love his neighbour and his friend and if he would hold him there and be of that mind always all would be well But his double mind will not suffer him so to do He hath a mind withal to sleep in a whole skin and to save his estate if he can howsoever And so he becometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fickle and unstable in his ways turneth as the tide turneth There is no relying upon him no trusting of him Iethro well considered this when he advised Moses to make choice of such for Magistrates as he knew to be men of courage they that were otherwise he knew could not discharge their duty as they ought nor continue upright And when our Saviour said to his Disciples Luke 12. Isay unto you my friends Fear not them which kill the body He doth more than intimate that such base worldly fear cannot well consist with the Laws of true friendship 19. I insist somewhat the more upon this point because men are generally so apt to pretend to their own failings in this kind the outward force
know not what you may be If you be not in some measure prepared even for that also and resolved by Gods assistance to strive against sin and to withstand all sinful temptations even to the shedding of the last drop of blood in your bodies if God call you to it you have done nothing He that hateth not his life as well as his House and Lands for Christ and his Kingdom is not worthy of either Sharp or long assaults may tire out him that hath endured shorter and easier But he that setteth forth for the goal if he will obtain must resolve to devour all difficulties and to run it out and not to faint or slug till he have finished his course to the end though he should meet with never so many Lions in the way 26. Secondly so great is the natural frailty of man so utterly averse from conforming it self entirely to the good will or pleasure of Almighty God either in doing or suffering that if he be not the better principled within strengthned with grace in the inner man he will not be able to hold out in either but every sorry temptation from without will foil him and beat him off Be not weary of well-doing saith the Apostle Gal. 6. for in due time we shall reap if we faint not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same word again Weariness and faintness of mind we are subject to you see in the point of well-doing But how much more then in the point of suffering which is of the two much the sorer trial 27. Marvel not if ordinary Christians such as these Hebrews were might be in danger of fainting under the Cross when the most holy and eminent of Gods servants whose Faith and Patience and Piety are recorded in the Scriptures as exemplary to all posterity have in their failings in this kind bewrayed themselves to be but men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to passions of fear and distrust even as others Abraham the Father of the Faithful of so strong Faith and Obedience that he neither staggered at the promise of having a Son though it were a very unlikely one at that age through unbelief nor stumbled at the command of sacrificing that Son though it were a very hard one having no more through disobedience yet coming among strangers upon some apprehensions that his life might be endangered if he should own Sarah to be his wife his heart so far misgave him through humane frailty that he shewed some distrustfulness of God by his doubting and dissimulation with Pharoah first and after with Abimelech Gen. 13. and 20. 28. And David also so full of courage sometimes that he would not fear though ten thousands of people whole Armies of men should rise up against him and encompass him round about though the opposers were so strong and numerous that the earth should be moved and the mountains shake at the noise thereof yet at some other times when he saw no end of his troubles but that he was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains day after day and chased from place to place perpetually that he could rest no where his heart began to melt and to faint within him And although he had a promise from God of succeeding in the Kingdom and an anointing also as an earnest to confirm the promise yet it ran strongly in his thoughts nevertheless that he should perish one day by the hands of Saul Insomuch that in a kind of distrust of Gods truth and protection he ventured so far upon his own head never so much as asking counsel at the mouth of God as to expose himself to great inconveniencies hazards and temptations in the midst of an hostile and idolatrous people The good man was sensible of the imperfection acknowledgeth it an infirmity and striveth against it Psal. 77. 29. But of all the rest St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom often stileth him a man of great boldness and fervency of spirit betrayed the greatest weakness Who after so fair warning so lately given him and his own so confident profession of laying down his life in his Masters quarrel yet within not many hours after when he began to be questioned about his Master and saw by the malicious and partial proceedings against the Master how it was like to go with him if he were known to have such a near dependance upon him became so faint-hearted that contrary to his former resolutions and engagement he not only disowned him but with Oaths and Imprecations forswore him Such weakness is there in the flesh where there is yet left some willingness in the spirit that without a continual supply of grace and actual influence of strength from above there is no absolute stedfastness to be found in the best of the Sons of men 30. Yet is not our natural inability to resist temptations though very great the cause of our actual faintings so much because of the ready assistance of Gods grace to relieve us if we would but be as ready to make use of it as a third thing is To wit our supine negligence that we do not stand upon our guard as it concerneth us to do nor provide for the encounter in time but have our Arms to seek when the Enemy is upon us As Ioseph in the years of plenty laid in Provision against the years of dearth so should we whilst it is Calm provide for a Storm and whilst we are at ease against the evil day It is such an ordinary point of wisdom in the common affairs of life for men to be provided of all necessaries befitting their several occasions before the time they should use them that he is rather derided than pitied that having time and means for it neglecteth so to do The Grashopper in the Fable had the merry Summer but the Pismire fared better in Winter If in our prosperity we grow secure flattering our selves in our own thoughts as if our hill were so strong that we should never be removed if then God do but turn his face from us yea but a little and send any little change upon us we shall be so much the more troubled at the affliction when it cometh by how much the less we expected it before Our unpreparedness maketh a very little affliction sometimes fall very heavy upon us and then it foileth us miserably and soon tireth us out and so we suffer by our own negligence 31. To which add in the fourth place that which many times followeth upon such our neglect Gods deserting of us and withdrawing the ordinary support of his grace from us And then as the Philistines over-mastered Samson when his strength was departed from him so will temptations us when we are left to wrestle with them by our own strength alone without the special grace of God to assist It is by Faith that we stand if we do stand This is the victory that overcometh the world even
of any great weight for altering the meaning of the words Nor is it my purpose to insist upon such inferior observations as might be raised from some expressions or circumstances in the Text otherwise than as they shall occasionally fall in our way in the prosecution of those main points which to the apprehension of evâ—râ— understanding hearer do at the very first view appear to have been chiefly intended therein 2. And they but two First The supposal of a duty tho for the most part and by most Men very slackly regarded and that is the delivering of the oppressed In the two former verses If thou faint in the day of adversity If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain Secondly The removal of the common pretensions which Men usually plead by way of excuse or extenuation at least when they have failed in the former duty In the last verse If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it c. So that if we will speak any thing to the purpose of the Text we must of necessity speak to those two points that do therefrom so readily offer themselves to our consideration to wit the necessity of the Duty first and then the vanity of the Excuses 3. The Duty is contained and the necessity of it gathered in and from the tenth and eleventh verses in these words If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain Wherein the particulars considerable are First The persons to whom the duty is to be performed as the proper object of our justice and charity Them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain They especially but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also all others that are in their condition in any kind or degree those that are injured or oppressed or in danger to be injured or oppressed by any manner way or means 2ly An act of Charity and Justice to be performed towards those that are in such a condition by such as by reason of the power and opportunities and other advantages that God hath put into their hands are in a capacity to do it which is the very duty it self viz. to look upon them in the day of their adversity and to deliver them out of the hand of their oppressors 3ly A possibility of the neglect or non-performance of this so just and charitable a duty by those that might and therefore ought to do it expressed here by the name of forbearance If thou forbear to deliver 4ly The true immediate cause of that neglect wheresoever it is found viz. the want of spirit and courage in the heart faint-heartedness from whatsoever former or remoter cause thht faintness may proceed whether a pusillanimous fear of the displeasure or a desire to wind himself into the favour of some great person or the expectation of a reward or a lothness to interpose in other Mens affairs or meer sloth and a kind of unwillingness of putting himself to so much trouble or whatever other reason or inducement can be supposed If thou faint in the day of adversity Lastly The censure of that neglect it is an evident demonstration à posteriori and as all other visible effects are of their more inward and secret causes a certain Token and Argument of a sinful weakness of mind If thou faintest c. thy strength is small 4. The result of these particulars amount in the whole to this Every Man according to his place and power but especially those that being in place of Magistracy and Iudicature are armed with publick authority for it are both in Charity and Iustice obliged to use the utmost of their power and to lay hold on all fit opportunities by all lawful means to help those to right that suffer wrong to stand by their poorer Brethren and Neighbours in the day of calamity and distress and to set in for them throughly and stoutly in their righteous causes to protect them from injuries and to deliver them out of the hands of such as are too mighty or too crafty for them and as seek either by violence or cunning to deprive them either of their lives or livelihoods Briefly thus and according to the language of the Text It is our duty every one of us to use our best strength to deliver the oppressed but our sin if we faint and forbear so to do And the making good and the pressing of this duty is like to be all our business at this time 5. A point of such clear and certain truth that the very Heathen Philosophers and Law givers have owned it as a beam of the light of Nature insomuch as even in their account he that abstaineth from doing injuries hath done but the one half of that which is required to compleat Iustice if he do not withal defend others from injuries when it is in his power so to do But of all other Men our Solomon could least be ignorant of this truth not only for that reason because God had filled his heart with a large measure of wisdom beyond other Men but even for this reason also that being born of wise and godly Parents and born to a Kingdom too in which high calling he should be sure to meet with occasions enough whereon to exercise all the strength he had he had this truth considering the great usefulness of it to him in the whole time of his future Government early distilled into him by both his Parents and was seasoned thereinto from his childhood in his education His father David in Psal. 72. which he penned of purpose as a prophetical benediction and instruction for his Son as appeareth by the Inscription it beareth in the Title of it a Psalm for Solomon beginneth the Psalm with a Prayer to God both for himself and him Give the King thy judgments O God and thy righteousness unto the King's Son And then after sheweth for what end he made that Prayer and what should be the effect in order to the Publick if God should be pleased to grant it Then shall he judg the people according unto right and defend the poor vers 2. He shall keep the simple folk by their right defend the children of the poor and punish the wrong doer or as it is in the last Translation break in pieces the oppressor vers 4. and after at the 12 13 and 14 verses altho perhaps the passages there might principally look at Christ the true Solomon and Prince of Peace a greater than Solomon and of whom Solomon was but a Figure yet I believe they were also literally intended for Solomon himself He shall deliver the poor when he crieth the needy also and him that hath no helper He shall be favourable to the simple and needy and shall preserve the souls of the
blood by Man shall his blood be shed And that Iudges should be very shy and tender how they grant Pardons or Reprievals in that case he established it afterwards among his own people by a most severe sanction Num. 35. Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a Murderer which is guilty of death but he shall surely be put to death And there is a reason of it there given also For blood saith he defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed from the blood that is shed therein but by he blood of him that shed it Read that passage with attention and if both forehead and conscience be not harder than the neither milstone thou canst not have either the heart or the face to glory in it as a brave exploit whoever thou art that hast been the instrument to save the life of a Murderer 20. Indeed all offences are not of that hanious nature that Murder is nor do they cry so loud for vengeance as Murder doth And therefore to procure undeserved favour for a smaller offender is not so great a sin as to do it for a Murderer But yet so far as the proportion holdeth it is a sin still Especially where favour cannot be shewn to one Man but to the wrong and grievance of some other as it hapneth usually in those judicial controversies that are betwixt party and party for trial of right Or where favour cannot be shewn to an offender but with wrong and grievance to the publick as it most times falleth out in criminal causes wherein the King and Commonwealth are parties Solomon hath taught us that as well he that justifieth the wicked as he that condemneth the just are an abomination to the Lord. Yea and that for any thing that appeareth to the contrary from the Text and in thesi for circumstances may make a difference either way in hypothesi they are both equally abominable In doubtful cases it is doubtlesly better and safer to encline to Mercy than to Severity Better ten offenders should escape than one innocent person suffer But that is to be conceived only when things are doubtful so as the truth cannot be made appear but where things are notorious and evident there to justifie the guilty and to condemn the innocent are still equal abominations 21. That which you are to do then in the behalf of the poor is this First to be rightly informed and so far as morally you can well assured that their cause be just For mean and poor people are nothing less but ordinarily much more unreasonable than the great ones are and if they find the ear of the Magistrate open to hear their grievances as is very meet it should be they will be often clamorous and importunate without either cause or measure And if the Magistrate be not very wary and wise in receiving informations the Country swain may chance prove too cunning for him and make him but a stale whereby for himself to get the start of his Adversary and so the Magistrate may in fine and unwares become the instrument of oppression even then when his intention was to vindicate another from it The Truth of the matter therefore is to be first throughly sifted out the circumstances duly weighed and as well as the legal the equitable right examined and compared and this to be done with all requisite diligence and prudence before you engage in the poor Man's behalf 22. But if when this is done you then find that there is much right and equity on his side and that yet for want of skill or friends or means to manage his affairs he is in danger to be foiled in his righteous cause Or if you find that his Adversary hath a legal advantage of him or that he hath de rigore incurred the penalty of some dis-used statute yet did not offend wilfully out of the neglect of his known duty or a greedy covetous mind or other sinister and evil intention but meerly out of his ignorance and inexperience and in the simplicity of his heart as those two hundred Israelites that followed after Absalom when he called them not knowing any thing of his conspiracy had done an act of treason yet were not formally traitors In either of these cases I say you may not forsake the poor Man or despise him because he is poor or simple But you ought so much the rather to stick by him and to stand his friend to the utmost of your power You ought to give him your counsel and your countenance to speak for him and write for him and ride for him and do for him to procure him right against his Adversary in the former case and in the latter case favour from the Iudge In either case to hold back your hand to draw back your help from him if it be in the power of your hand to do him any help is that sin for which in the judgment of Solomon in the Text the Lord will admit no excuse 23. Come we now in the last place to some reasons or motives taken from the effects of the duty it self If carefully and conscionably performed it will gain honour and estimation both to our persons and places purchase for us the prayers and blessings of the poor yea and bring down a blessing from God not upon us and ours only but upon the State and Commonwealth also But where the duty is neglected the effects are quite contrary First do you know any other thing that will bring a Man more glory and renown in the common opinion of the World than to shew forth at once both justice and mercy by doing good and protecting the Innocent Let not mercy and truth forsake thee bind them about thy neck write them upon the table of thine heart so shalt thou find favour and good understanding or acceptance in the sight of God and Man Prov. 3. As a rich sparkling Diamond addeth both value and lustre to a golden Ring so do these vertues of justice and mercy well attempered bring a rich addition of glory to the Crowns of the greatest Monarchs Hoc reges habent magnificum ingens Prodesse miseris supplices fido lare Protegere c. Every Man is bound by the Law of God and of Charity as to give to every other Man his due honour so to preserve the honour that belongeth to his own person and place for Charity in performing the duties of every Commandment beginneth at home Now here is a fair and honest and sure way for all you that are in place of authority and judicature or sustain the persons of Magistrates to hold up the reputation both of your Persons and Places and to preserve them from scorn and contempt Execute judgment and justice with wisdom and diligence take knowledge of the vexations of those that are brought into the Courts or otherwise troubled without cause be sensible of the groans and pressures of poor Men in the
Man from whom the provocation cometh Such curses as they proceed from the bitterness of the soul of the grieved person in the mean time so they will be in the end bitterness to the soul of him that gave cause of grievance And if there were not on the other side some comfort in the deserved blessings of the poor it had been no wisdom for Iob to comfort himself with it as we see he did in the day of his great distress The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widows heart to sing for joy Job 29. 28. But say these poor ones should be so charitable as very seldom they be as not to curse us when we have despised them or so unthankful as seldom they are otherwise as not to bless us when we have relieved them yet the Lord who hath given every Man a charge concerning his brother and committed the distresses of the poor to our care and trust will take district knowledge how we deal with them and impartially recompense us thereafter Doth not he consider And shall not he render to every Man according to his works The last words of the Text. If therefore you have done your duty faithfully let it never discourage you that unrighteous and unthankful Men forget it They do but their kind the comfort is that yet God will both remember it and requite it God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love saith the Apostle Heb. 5. He will remember it you see And then saith David Psal. 41. Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble He will requite it too He that for God's sake helpeth his poor brother to right that suffereth wrong he doth therein at once first an act of mercy because it is done in the behalf of a distressed Man and an act secondly of Iustice because it is done in a righteous cause and thirdly being done for the Lord's sake an act of Religion also Pure Religion and undefiled before God even the father is this to visit the fatherless and widow in their afflictions Jam. 1. And is it possible that God who delighteth in the exercise of every one of them singly should suffer an act to pass unrewarded wherein there is a happy concurrence of three such excellent vertues together as are Iustice Mercy and Religion The Prophet Ieremy to reprove Iehoiachin's tyranny and oppression upbraideth him with his good father Iosiah's care and conscience to do justice and to shew mercy after this manner Did not thy father eat and drink and do judgment and justice and then it was well with him He judged the cause of the poor and needy then it was well with him was not this to know me saith the Lord But now on the contrary He shall have judment without mercy that sheweth no mercy He that stoppeth his ears against the cry of the poor he shall also cry himself but shall not he heard c. Many other like passages there are in the Scriptures to the same effect 29. Nay moreover the general neglect of this duty pulleth down the wrath of God not only upon those particular persons that neglect it but also upon the whole nation where it is in such general sort neglected O house of David thus saith the Lord execute judgment in the morning and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor lest my fury go out like fire and burn that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings Jer. 21. Brethren we of this nation have cause to look to it in time against whom the Lord hath of late manifested his just wrath though tempered as we must all confess with much clemency yea and his hand is streched out against us still in the heavy plagues both of dearth and death Though the Land be full of all manner of sins and lewdness and so the Lord might have a controversie with us for any of them yet I am verily persuaded there are no other kinds of sins that have overspread the face of the whole Land with such an universal contagion as it were of a Leprosy as the sins of Riot and Oppression have done Which two sins are not only the provoking causes as any kind of sins may be in regard of the justice of God but also the sensible instrumental causes in the eye of reason and experience of much penury and mortality among us 30. Surely then as to quench the fire we use to withdraw the fewel so to turn away the heavy wrath of God from us we should all put to our helping-hands each in his place and calling but especially the Minister and the Magistrate the one to cry down the other to beat down as all sins in general so especially these of Riot and Oppression Never think it will be well with us or that it will be much better with us than now it is or that it will not be rather every day much worse with us than it is never look that disorders in the Church distempers in the State distractions in our judgments diseases in our bodies should be remedied or removed and not rather more and more encreased if we hold on as we do in pampering every Man his own Flesh and despising every Man his poor brother So long as we think no pleasures too much for our selves no pressures too heavy for our brethren stretch our selves along and at ease upon our Couches eat of the fat and drink of the sweet without any touch of compassion in our bowels for the afflictions of others we can expect no other but that the rod of God should abide upon us either in dearths of pestilences or if they be removed for God loveth sometimes to shift his rods in greater and heavier judgments in some other kind 31. But as to the particular of Oppression for that of Riot and Intemperance being beside the Text I shall no farther press my humble request to those that are in place of authority and all others that have any office or attendance about the Courts is this For the love of God and of your selves and your Country be not so indulgent to your own appetites and affections either of Ease as to reject the complaints or of Partiality as to despise the persons or of filthy Lucre as to betray the cause of the fatherless and friendless Suffer not when his cause is good a simple Man to be circumvented by the wiliness or a mean Man to be over powred by the greatness of a crafty or mighty Adversary Favour not a known Sycophant nor open your lips to speak in a cause to pervert judgment or to procure favour for a mischievous person Turn not judgment into wormwood by making him that meant no hurt an offender for a word Wrangle not in the behalf of a contentious person to the prejudice
grievousness of their pressures secondly the paucity of their friends but especially and thirdly the equity and righteousness of their cause when they are in danger to be spoiled by the cruelty potency and iniquity of their Adversaries Some in respect of the duty it self the fruits and effects whereof ordinarily are first honour and renown in the World secondly the blessings and prayers of the poor thirdly the blessing of God upon us and ours fourthly the continuance of God's Mercies unto and the reversing of God's Iudgments from the Land 34. In the opening of which reasons I have purposely pressed the duty all along somewhat the more largely that I might not trouble you with any farther application at the close and therefore I hope it will not be expected I presume you would rather expect if we had time for it that I should proceed to examine the usual excuses and pretensions that are made in this case when the duty hath been neglected which Solomon hath comprehended in those few words in verse 12. Behold we knew it not and withal referred them over for the trial of what validity they are to the judgment of every Man 's own heart as the deputy-Iudg under God but because that may be faulty and partial in subordination to a higher tribunal even that of God himself from whose sentence there lieth no farther appeal This I aimed at in the choice of the Text as well as the pressing of the duty But having enlarged my self already upon the former point beyond my first intention I may not proceed any farther at this time nor will it be much needful I should if what hath been already delivered be well laid to heart Which God of his Mercy vouchsafe c. AD MAGISTRATUM The Second Sermon At the Assizes at Lincoln in the Year 1630. at the Request of Sir WILLIAM THOROLD Knight then High-Sheriff of that County Prov. 24. 10 12. 10. If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain 12. If thou sayest Behold we know it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works 1. WE want Charity but abound with Self-love Our defect in that appeareth by our backwardness to perform our duties to our brethren and our excess in this by our readiness to frame excuses for our selves Solomon intending in that particular whereat the Text aimeth to meet with us in both these corruptions frameth his speech in such sort as may serve best both to set on the Duty and to take off the Excuses And so the words consist of two main parts The supposal of a Duty which all Men ought to perform in the 10 and 11 Verses and the removal of those Excuses which most Men pretend for non-performance in the 12th Verse Our Duty is to stand by our distressed Brethren in the day of their adversity and to do our best endeavour by all lawful ways to protect them from oppressions and wrongs and to rescue them out of the hands of those that go about either by might or cunning to take from them either their lives or livelihoods If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small If thou forbear to deliver those that are drawn to death and those that are ready to be slain From which words I have heretofore upon occasion of the like meeting as this is spoken of the Duty in this place shewing the necessity and enforcing the performance of it from sundry important considerations both in respect of God and of our selves and of our poor brethren and of the Thing it self in the blessed effects thereof which I shall not trouble my self or you to repeat 2. Taking that therefore now for granted which was then proved to wit that it is our bounden duty to do as hath been said but our great sin if it be neglected I shall at this time by God's assistance and with your patience proceed as the Text leadeth me to consider of the Excuses in the remaining words vers 12. If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it And he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it And shall not he reward every Man according to his works For the better understanding and wore fruitful applying of which words we are to enquire of two things first what the Excuses are which Solomon here pointeth at and then of what value and sufficiency they are 3. Many Excuses Men have to put by this and every other duty whereof some are apparently frivolous and carry their confutation with them Solomon striketh at the fairest whereof three the most principal and the most usual of all he seems to have comprehended in these few words 1. Behold we knew it not As thus Either first we knew it not that is we never heard of their matters they never made their grievances known to us Or secondly we knew it not that is we had no clear evidence to give us full assurance that their cause was right and good Or thirdly we knew it not that is tho to our apprehension they had wrong done them yet as the case stood with them we saw not by what ways we could possibly relieve them we knew not how to help it 4. These are the main Excuses which of what value they are is our next Enquiry Wherein Solomon's manner of rejecting them will be our best guide Who neither absolutely condemneth them because they may be sometimes just nor yet promiscuously alloweth of them because they are many times pretended without cause but referreth them over for their more particular and due trial to a double judicature that is to say to the judgment of every man's heart and conscience first as a deputy Iudg under God and if that fail in giving sentence as being subject to so many errors and so much partiality like enough it may then to the judgment of God himself as the supreme unerring and impartial Iudg from whose Sentence there lieth no appeal Which judgment of God is in the Text amplified by three several degrees or as it were steps of his proceeding therein grounded upon so many divine attributes or properties and each fitted to other in so many several Propositions Yet those not delivered Categorically and positively but to add the greater strength and Emphasis to them put into the form of Negative Interrogations or Questions Doth not he consider Doth not he know And shall not he render That is most certainly and without all peradventure he doth consider and he doth know and he will render 5. The first step of God's judicial proceedings is for Inquisition and that grounded upon his Wisdom 1. Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it As if he had said The Lord is a
and punisheth it wheresoever he findeth it with severe chastisements in his own dearest servants and children but with fiery vengeance and fury poured out upon his Adversaries Where he enjoineth a duty he looketh for obedience and therefore where the duty is unperformed the disobedience is sure to be punished let the offender pretend and alledge never so largely to excuse it Quid verba audiam factacum videam It is the work he looketh at in all his retributions and where the work is not done vain words will not ward off the blows that are to be inflicted for the neglect nor any whit lessen them either in their number or weight Will they not rather provoke the Lord in his just indignation to lay on both more and heavier strokes For where a Duty is ill neglected and the neglect ill excused the Offender deserveth to be doubly punished once for the omission of the Duty and once more for the vanity of the Excuse 36. Let me beseech you therefore dearly beloved brethren for the love of God and your own safety to deal clearly and impartially betwixt God and your own Souls in this Affair without shuffling or dawbing and to make straight paths to your feet lest that which is lame be turned out of the way Remember that they that trust to lying vanities and false pretences are no better forsake their own mercy And that feigned excuses are but as a staff of Reed a very weak stay for a heavy body to trust to for support which will not only crack under the weight but the sharp splinters thereof will also run up into the hand of him that leaneth upon it You see what God looketh at It is the heart that he pondereth and the Soul that he observeth and the work that he recompenseth Look therefore that your hearts be true and your souls upright and your works perfect that you may never stand in need of such poor and beggarly shifts as forged pretences are nor be driven to fly for refuge to that which will nothing at all profit you in the day of wrath and of trial Let your desires be unfeigned and your endeavours faithful to the utmost of your power to do Iustice and to shew Mercy to your Brethren and to discharge a good Conscience in the performance of all those duties that lie upon you by virtue either of your general Callings as Christians or of your particular Vocations whatever they be with all diligence and godly wisdom that you may be able to stand before the Iudgment-seat of the great God with comfort and out of an humble and well-grounded confidence of his gracious acceptance of your imperfect but sincere desires and endeavours in Christ not fear to put your selves upon the trial each of you in the words of holy David Psal. 139. Try me O God and seek the ground of my heart prove me and examine my thoughts Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me and lead me in the way everlasting in the way that leadeth to everlasting life Which great Mercy the Lord of his infinite goodness vouchsafe unto us all for his dear Son's sake Iesus Christ our blessed Saviour To whom c. AD MAGISTRATUM The Third Sermon At the Assizes at Notingham in the Year 1634. at the Request of ROBERT MELLISH Esq then High-Sheriff of that County 1 Sam. 12. 3. Behold here I am witness against me before the Lord and before his Anointed Whose Oxe have I taken or whose Ass have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith And I will restore it you 1. ABold and just challenge of an old Iudg made before all the People upon his resignal of the Government into the hands of a new King Samuel was the Man Who having continued whilst Eli lived in the Service of the Tabernacle as a Levite and a private Man was after his death to undergo a new business in the exercise of Publick Iudicature For that phanatical Opinion which hath possessed some in these later times That no Ecclesiastical Person might lawfully exercise any Secular Power was in those days unheard of in the World Eli though a a Priest was a Iudg also and so was Samuel though a Levite after him And we find not that either the People made any question at all or that themselves made any scruple at all of the lawfulness of those concurrent Powers Samuel was now as it is collected by those that have travelled in the Chronology aged about five and thirty Years and so in his full strength when he was first Iudg Which so long as it continued in any measure he little respected his own case in comparison of the common Good but took his yearly Circuits about the Country keeping Courts in the most convenient places abroad besides his constant sittings at Rama where his dwelling was for the hearing and determining of Causes to the great ease of all and content no doubt of the most or best 2. But by that he had spent about 30 years more in his Countries Service he could not but find such decays in his Body as would call upon him in his now declining Age to provide for some ease under that great burden of Years and Business Which that he might so do as that yet the publick Service should not be neglected he thought good to joyn his two Sons in commission with him He therefore maketh them Iudges in Israel in hope that they would frame themselves by his example to judg the people with such-like diligence and uprightness as himself had done But the young Men as they had far other aims than the good old Father had so they took quite other ways than he did Their care was not to advance Iustice but to fill their own Coffers which made them soon to turn aside after lucre to take bribes and to pervert judgment This fell out right for the Elders of Israel who now had by their miscarriage a fair opportunity opened to move at length for that they had long thirsted after viz. the change of the Government They gather themselves therefore together that the cry might be the fuller and to Ramah they come to Samuel with many complaints and alledgments in their mouths But the short of the business was a King they must have and a King they will have or they will not rest satisfied It troubled Samuel not a little both to hear of the misdemeanour of his sons of whom he had hoped better and to see the wilfulness of a discontented people bent upon an Innovation Yet he would consult with God before he would give them their answer And then he answereth them not by peremptorily denying them the thing they so much desired but by earnestly dissuading them from so inordinate a desire But they persisting obstinately in their first resolution by
farther direction from the Lord Samuel condescendeth to them and dismisseth them with a promise that it should be done to them as they desired and a King they should have ere it were long 3. And within a while he made good his promise The Lord had designed Saul to be their King and had secretly revealed the same to Samuel Who did also by God's appointment first anoint him very privately no Man being by but they two alone and after in a full Assembly of the people at Mispeth evidenced him to be the Man whom God had chosen by the determination of a Lot Whereupon the most part of the people accepted Saul for their King elect testifying their acceptance by their joyful acclamations and by sending him Presents Yet did not Saul then immediatly enter upon his full Regalities whether by reason of some contradiction made to his Election or for whatsoever other cause but that Samuel still continued in the Government till upon occasion of the Ammonites invading the Land and laying siege against Iabesh Gilead Saul made such proof of his valour by relieving the Town and destroying the enemy that no Man had the forehead to oppose against him any more Samuel therefore took the hint of that Victory to establish Saul compleatly in the Kingdom by calling the people to Gilgal where the Tabernacle then was where he once more anointed Saul before the Lord and in a full Congregation investing him into the Kingdom with great solemnity Sacrifices of Peace-offerings and all manner of rejoycings 4. Now had the people according to their desire a King and now was Samuel who had long governed in chief again become a private Man Yet was he still the Lord's Prophet and by virtue of that Calling took himself bound to make the people sensible of the greatness of their sin in being so forward to ask a King before they had first asked to know the Lord's pleasure therein And this is in a manner the business of the whole Chapter Yet before he begin to fall upon them he doth wisely first to clear himself and for the purpose he challengeth all and every of them if they could accuse him of any injustice or corruption in the whole time of his Government then and there to speak it out and they should receive satisfaction or else for ever after to hold their tongues in the three first verses of this Chapter but especially in this third verse Behold here I am witness against me before the Lord c. 5. In which words are observable both the Matter and Form of Samuel's Challenge The Matter of it to wit the thing whereof he would clear himself is set down first in general terms that he had not wrongfully taken to himself that which was anothers Whose Oxe have I taken or whose Ass have I taken And then more particularly by a perfect enumeration of the several species or kinds thereof which being but three in all are all expressed in this Challenge All wrongful taking of any thing from another Man is done either with or without the parties consent If without the parties consent then either by cunning or violence fraud or oppression over-reaching another by wit or over-bearing him by might If with the parties consent then it is by contracting with him for some Fee Reward or Gratification Samuel here disclaimeth them all Whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received a bribe to blind mine eyes therewith That is the matter of the Challenge 6. In the form we may observe concerning Samuel three other things First his great forwardness in the business in putting himself upon the trial by his own voluntary offer before he was called thereunto by others Behold here I am Secondly his great Confidence upon the conscience of his own integrity in that he durst put himself upon his trial before God and the World Witness against me before the Lord and before his Anointed Thirdly his great Equity in offering to make real satisfaction to the full in case any thing should be justly proved against him in any of the premisses Whose Oxe or whose Ass c. and I will restore it you 7. The particulars are many and I may not take time to give them all their due enlargements We will therefore pass through them lightly insisting perhaps somewhat more upon those things that shall seem more material or useful for this Assembly than upon some of the rest yet not much upon any Neither do I mean in the handling thereof to tie my self precisely to the method of my former division but following the course of the Text to take the words in the same order as I find them here laid to my hand Behold here I am witness against me c. 8. Behold here I am More haste than needeth may some say It savoureth not well that Samuel is so forward to justify himself before any Man accuse him Voluntary purgations commonly carry with them strong suspicions of guilt We presume there is a fault when a Man sweareth to put off a crime before it be laid to his charge True and well we may presume it where there appeareth not some reasonable cause otherwise for so doing But there occur sundry reasons some apparent and the rest at least probable why Samuel should here do as he did 9. First He was presently to convince the people of their great sin in asking a King and to chastise them for it with a severe reprehension It might therefore seem to him expedient before he did charge them with innovating the Government to discharge himself first from having abused it He that is either to rebuke or to punish others for their faults had need stand clear both in his own conscience and in the eye of the World of those faults he should censure and of all other crimes as foul as they lest he be choaked with that bitter Proverb retorted upon him to his great reproach Physician heal thy self Vitia ultima fictos contemnunt Scauros castigata remordent How unequal a thing is it and incongruous that he who wanteth no ill conditions himself should bind his neighbour to the good behaviour That a sacrilegious Church-robber should make a Mittimus for a poor Sheep-stealer Or as he complained of old that great Thieves should hang up little ones How canst thou say to thy brother Brother let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye when behold there is a beam in thine own eye That is with what conscience nay with what face canst thou offer it Turpe est doctori every School-boy can tell you See to it all you who by the condition of your Callings are bound to take notice of the actions aud demeanors of others and to censure them that you walk orderly and unreproveably your selves It is only the sincerity and unblameableness of your conversations that will best add weight to your words win
a fair trial upon it Yet cometh that Challenge far short of this Protestation Samuel speaketh only of not taking St. Paul also of not coveting according to the express letter of the prohibition in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt not covet saith the Law his Conscience answereth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have not coveied So good a Proficient was he so perfect a Scholar in this holy learning that he con'd it Verbatim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might he well say and truly for he had indeed learned to be content with his own 20. And might not we learn it too think ye as well as he Sure we might for what should hinder Only if we would but tie our selves strictly to those Rules those I mean of Iustice and Charity which are the first Elements of this learning For Iustice first the Rule is Suum cuique That every man have what of right to him appertaineth Now every mans right unto any of the things of this World ariseth from Gods disposal thereof by such ways and means ordinarily as by the general Law and common consent of all civil Nations or by the positive Laws of particular Kingdoms and Common-wealths not repugnant thereunto are allowed for that end as Descent Gift Purchase Industry c. Whose distributions however unequal they may seem to us are yet evermore just in themselves and as they come from him So that every man is by us to be accounted the just owner and proprietary of that whereof he is the legal possessor yea though it do appear to us to have been very unjustly gotten either by himself or by any of those from whom he had it His very possession I say although without a justifiable Title is yet sufficient to make it his as to the intendment of the Law in that behalf that is to say so far forth as to render our desiring of it from him unlawful in foro interno unless in that one Case only when the right is in us though he be in possession In all other Cases possession is a good plea the Title of Possession being in all reason to be esteemed good against him that is not able to shew a better 21. If then we be at any time carried with a restless and immoderate desire after that which the hand of Providence hath been pleased to dispose otherwhere and our selves have no Antecedent right whereby to entitle it Ours do we not take upon us after a sort to controll the holy and wise Appointments of our good God For if it were indeed fitter for us than him and not in opinion only could not the Lord by his Almighty power and would he not in the dispensation of his good providence have by some honest means or other disposed it upon us rather than upon him By this extreme partiality to our selves we become unjust Iudges of evil thoughts in setling that upon our selves in our own thoughts as fittest for us which God hath thought fit to settle rather upon another The Story in Xenophon how young Cyrus was corrected by his Tutor for bestowing the Two Coats upon Two of his School-fellows according to the fitness thereof to their Two Bodies in his own discretion without enquiring first as he should have done who was the right owner of either is so well known and withall pertinent to our present purpose that I shall not need either to relate it or apply it When Almighty God then by disposing of these outward things hath manifested his pleasure to give our neighbour a property in them it is an unjust desire in us to covet them from him and to wish them transferred upon our selves 22. The other Rule I told you of is that of Charity Which binding us to love our neighbour as our selves must needs bind us consequently to rejoyce in his good as in our own and not wish any thing to his prejudice no more than to our own and consequently to these to be content that he should enjoy that which God hath allotted him with our good wills as we desire to hold that which is in like manner allotted us with his good will There is no such Enemy to Brotherly love as is Self-love For look how much we bestow upon our selves more than we should we must needs leave to our brother so much less than we should And it is nothing but this overmuch love of our selves that maketh us so much covet to have to our selves that which belongeth not to us If ye fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self ye do well saith St. Iames Very well this But if ye have respect to Persons especially if ye become partial once to your own persons that is not well then you commit sin saith he and are convinced of the Law as transgressors 23. But this is Durus sermo may some say It were hard so to confine mens minds to that which is their own as not to allow any desire at all of that which is anothers If we should conceive the Law thus strict it would destroy not only all Humane Ordinances that concern Trading and Commerce as buying selling exchanging c. without which publick Societies cannot subsist but even the Divine Ordinance also of earning our livings by labour and industry Then might no man endeavour by honourable and vertuous atchievements to raise himself a fortune or make way for his future advancement or do any thing whatsoever whereby to acquire or derive upon himself a property in any thing that were not his own already Since none of all this can be done without a desire in some degree or other of that which is anothers 24. This Objection need not much trouble us Nor justice nor Charity nor the holy Law of God which giveth rules to both condemn all desire of that which is anothers but an inordinate desire only that which is orderly and rightly qualified they all allow All the difficulty in this matter will be and that will make us some business how to discern between an orderly and an inordinate desire that so we may be able to judge rightly concerning our own desires at all times whether they be such as are allowed and may consist with contentment or such as are forbiden and cannot consist therewith Which is to be done by duly considering of those three especial Qualifications which are all requisite the concurrence I mean of the whole three to the making up of an orderly desire in any of which if there be a failure the desire becometh inordinate and sinful These three are in respect First of the Object Secondly of the Act Thirdly of the Effect of the desire 25. For the Object first If I desire but that from my neighbour say it be his House Land Beast or other Commodity which I find him willing or may reasonably presume he will not be unwilling for that I see no cause why he should be
so to part withal especially if the having thereof be visibly so much greater advantage or convenience to me than the parting therewith could be loss or inconvenience to him that I should be as ready to pleasure him with mine were my case his as I am now desirous he should pleasure me with his If all this be done and meant by me bonâ fide and that I am willing withal to make him a valuable compensation to the full for whatsoever loss or inconvenience he shall sustain thereby and according to the worth of the thing my desire is thus far regular In this manner Abraham desired of Ephron the Hittite a spare portion in one end of his field for a burying-place for Sarah when as being a stranger he had no possession among them wherein to bury his dead Gen. 23. 26. But if I should desire to have that from him which probably is as useful and expedient for him as it can be for me or which he taketh some pleasure or content in or is very unwilling howsoever though for no great reason perhaps but for his minds sake only to part withal or which if it were mine own case I should be loth to forego to another that should in the like kind desire it from me If yet when all this appeareth to me I persist in my former desire notwithstanding and thirst after it still this is an uncharitable and so an inordinate desire in me Ahabs desire was such After he saw Naboths heart so set upon his ancient inheritance that he would not part with it upon any terms For he had given him a flat denial and rejected all Motions for an alienation with an Absit the Lord forbid it me that I should part with the Inheritance of my Ancestors yet he must have it tho nothing will content him without it That for the Object 27. Secondly For the Act or more imediate Effect of the Desire If I desire any thing that is my neighbours with a moderate and sober desire so as I can set my heart at rest fall out as it will and compose my affections to an indifferent temper whether I obtain my desire or no If I may have it well and good if not no great harm done I am but where I was my desire is also thus far regular and hindreth not but that I may be well enough content notwithstanding 28. But if my desire raise mud and perturbations in me and breed troubled and confused thoughts so as to disquiet me in my sleep distract me in my devotions disturb me that I cannot walk in the ways of my Calling or perform the common offices of life with any chearfulness or any other way distemper the calm tranquility of my mind and soul then is my desire so far forth ān inordinate and covetous desire and inconsistent with true Contentation And such again was Ahabs When he could not have his longing Nec manus nec pes He could neither eat nor drink nor sleep nor enjoy any thing he had nor do any thing he should for thinking of it nothing but lowre and tumble and fret for grief and despight have it he must or he should never be well 29. There are thousands that would loth be reputed Covetous yet have a grudging of his disease and it is an evil disease For tell me to close a little with thee thou that scornest the name of Covetous whence is it that thou either pinest away with envy at the Greatness of thy neighbours or repinest with murmuring at the scantness of thy own portion These are parlous symptoms Why art thou ever and anon maundering that his Farm is better than thine his Meadows greener than thine his Corn ranker than thine his cattle fatter than thine his Ware-house fuller than thine his Office gainfuller than thine his service better rewarded than thine his trading quicker than thine and I know not how many things more Quodque capella aliena gerat distentius uber Tabescas Must thine eyes needs be evil towards him because the hand of God hath been good to him Tolle quod tuum vade Take that is thine and go thy way and rest quiet with it Be thankful to him that gave it it was more I ween then he owed thee and in Gods name make the best of it Spartam quam nactus es hanc orna But do not desire that inordinately which thou canst not compass honestly and which if dishonestly gotten thou shouldest have little joy of when thou hadst it Say thy lot be not all out as thou couldst wish indeed what mans almost is so yet take comfort in it onward till better come Better may come when God seeth thee fit for better but fit thou art not so long as thou art not contented with what thou hast 30. Lastly for the consequents or remoter effects of the Desire Desire looketh ever at the end carrying the mind and thoughts thither with some eagerness and therefore stirreth endeavour in the use of such means as are likely to bring men to the desired end the soonest and so putteth them upon Action Whence commonly such as the desire is such is the endeavour also and that both for Quantity and Quality According to the strength of the desire is the bent also of the endeavour and according as the Desire is qualified Morally qualified I mean that is either good or bad the endeavour also is conditioned much what like it If then I can so bound my desire of something which another hath as to resolve and hold not at any hand to attempt the obtaining thereof by any other than by fair and warrantable and conscionable means my desire is also thus far a regular and lawful desire So David though he could not but desire the accomplishment of Gods gracious promise of advancing him to the Kingdom which was not his yet otherwise than in Gods designation but anothers yet when he was urged by his followers to lay hold of a fair opportunity which as they thought God had put into his hand for the effecting thereof his soul did so much abhor the very mention of such a fact that at two several times he would not so much as take the advice into the least deliberation but rejected it with an Absit too Shall I lay these hands upon the Lords Anointed God forbid No saith he I will not do it for a Kingdom Such wicked facts I leave for wicked men to act God can and will I know in his due time make good his own promise without my sin I shall be content to wait his leisure and to remain in the sad condition I am now in till it shall please him to bring me out of it rather than clog my conscience with the guilt of such a horrid crime 31. But if my desire shall prompt me to that resolution so common in the World rem si possis rectè si non quocunque modo rem I would
friends acquaintance or indeed more generally yet all wordly comforts stays and helps whatsoever 2. But then why these named the rarest and the rest to be included in these Because we promise to our selves more help from them than from any of the other We have a nearer relation to and a greater interest in them than any other and they of all other are the unlikest to forsake us The very brute Creatures forsake not their young ones A Hen will not desert her Chickens nor a Bear indure to be robbed of her Whelps 3. But then Thirdly why both named Father and Mother too Partly because it can hardly be imagined that both of them should forsake their child though one should hap to be unkind Partly because the Fathers love being commonly with more providence the Mothers with more tenderness both together do better express than alone either would do the abundant love of God towards us who is infinitely dear over us beyond the care of the most provident Father beyond the affection of the tenderest Mother 4. But then Fourthly When may they be said to forsake us When at any time they leave us destitute of such help as we stand in need of Whether it be out of Choice when they list not to help us though they might if they would or out of necessity when they cannot help us though they would if they could 4. The meaning of the words in the former part of the verse thus opened the result thereof is that There is a possibility of failing in all inferiour helps Fathers and Mothers our nearest and dearest friends all earthly visible helps and comforts always may fail us sometimes will fail us and at last must fail us leaving us destitute and succourless The truth whereof will the better appear if instancing especially in our natural Parents as the Text leadeth us we take a view of sundry particular causes of their so failing us under the two general heads but now mentioned to wit Choice and Necessity Under either kind three Sometimes they forsake us voluntarily aad of their own accord and through their own default when it is in their power to help us if they were so pleased which kind of forsaking may arise from three several Causes 5. First Natural Parents may prove unnatural meerly out of the naughtiness of their own hard and incompassionate hearts For although God hath imprinted this natural affection towards their own off-spring in the hearts of men in as deep and indelible characters as almost any other branch of the Law of Nature O nimiùm potens Quanto parentes sanguinis vinculo tenes Natura yet so desperately wicked is the heart of man that if it should be left to the wildness of its own corruption without any other bridle than the light of natural principles only it would eftsoons shake off that also and quite raze out all impressions of the Law of Nature at least so blur and confound the Characters that the Conscience should be able to spell very little or nothing at all of Duty out of them Else what needed the Apostle among other sins to have listed this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this want of natural affection in two several Catalogues Rom. 1. and 2 Tim. 3. Or to have charged Titus that young women should be taught among other things to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to love their Children If he had not observed some to have neglected their duty in that particular whereof Histories and experience afford us many examples Can a woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion of the Son of her womb Saith the Lord by the Prophet He speaketh of it as of a monstrous thing and scarce credible of any Can she forget she in the single number But withal in the same words implyedly confessing it possible in more than one Yea they may forget They in the plural number Isa. 49. 15. 6. Secondly Parents not altogether void of natural affection may yet have their affections so alienated from their children upon some personal dislike as to forsake them Of which dislike I deny not but there may be just cause As among the Hebrews in the case of Blasphemy the Fathers hand was to be first in the execution of his Son Deut. 13. And both Civilians and Casuists allow the Father jus abdicationis a right of abdication in some cases But such cases are not much pertinent here or considerable as to our purpose For they that give their earthly Parents just cause to forsake them can have little confidence that God as their heavenly Father should take them up But when Parents shall withdraw their love and help from their Children upon some small oversights or venial miscarriages or take distaste at them either without cause or more than there is cause upon some wrong either surmise of their own or suggestion of others as Saul reviled Ionathan and threw a Iavelin at him to smite him interpreting his friendship with David as it had been a plotted Conspiracy between his Son and his Servant to take his Crown and his life from him Or when they shall disinherit their Children for some deformity of Body or defect of parts or the like As reason sheweth it to be a great sin and not to be excused by any pretence so it is an observation grounded upon manifold experience that where the right heirs have been disinherited upon almost whatsoever pretence the blessing of God hath not usually followed upon the persons and seldom hath the estate prospered in the hands of those that have succeeded in their rooms 7. Thirdly Parents whose affection towards their Children hath not been sowred by any personal dislike may yet have their affection so over-powered by some stronger lust as to become cruel to their children and forsake them For as in the World Might oftentimes over-beareth Right so in the soul of man the violence of a stronger passion or affection which in the case in hand may happen sundry ways beareth down the weaker It may happen as sometimes it hath done out of Superstition So Agamemnon sacrificed his Daughter Iphigenia The Heathens generally deceived by their cheating Oracles and some of the Iews led by their example sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils and caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch Sometimes out of revenge As Medea to be revenged of Iason for leaving her and placing his affection elsewhere slew her own two Sons begotten by him in his sight Saevus amor docuit natorum sanguine matres Commaculâsse manus Sometimes out of fear So the Parents of the blind man owned their Son indeed Ioh. 9. but for fear of being cast out of the Synagogue durst not speak a word in his just defence but left him to shift as well as he could for himself And Herod the great for no other cause than his own causeless fears and jealousies
of those that desire to live quiet in the land Devise not dilatory shifts to tug men on along in a tedious course of Law to their great charge and vexation but ripen their causes with all seasonable expedition for a speedy hearing In a word do what lieth in your power to the utmost for the curbing of Sycophants and Oppressors and the protecting of the peaceable and innocent use the Sword that God by his Deputy hath put into your hands for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise and safety of those that do well So shall the hearts of every good Man be enlarged towards you and their tongues to honour you and to bless you and to pray for you Then shall God pour out his blessings abundantly upon you and yours yea it may be upon others too upon the whole Land by your means and for your sakes The Lord by his Prophet more than once hath given us some comfortable assurance of such blessed effects to follow upon such premisses The words are worthy to be taken notice of If thou throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour if thou oppress not the stranger the fatherless and the widow and shed not innocent blood in this place Then will I cause you to dwell in this place for ever and ever Jer. 7. And in Ier. 22. Execute ye judgment and righteousness and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor and do no wrong do no violence to the stranger the fatherless nor the widow neither shed innocent blood in this place For if ye do this thing indeed then shall there enter in by the gates of this house Kings sitting upon the throne c. But if ye will not hear these words I swear by my self faith the Lord c. 32. Concerning which and other-like passages frequent in the holy Prophets I see what may be readily opposed True it is will some say where these things are constantly and generally performed a national Iudgment may thereby be removed or a Blessing procured But what are two or three of us if we should set our selves to it with all our strength able to do towards the turning away of God's Iudgments if there be otherwise a general neglect of the Duty in the Land There is something of truth I confess in this Objection for doubtless those passages in the Prophets aim at a general reformation But yet consider first we have to deal with a wonderful gracious and merciful God slow to anger and of great kindness and such a one as will easily be induced to repent him of the evil And who can tell but he may return and repent and leave a blessing behind him where but two or three in a whole Nation do in conscience of their duty and in compassion of the State set themselves unfeignedly to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God though the generality should be corrupt Especially since we have in the second place such excellent precedents of the riches of his Grace and Goodness in this kind upon record that we might not be without hope if we do our part tho we were left even alone God was ready to have spared the five Cities of old Gen. 18. if there had been in them to be found but twice so many righteous Men. But he did actually spare Israel by instantly calling in a great plague which he had a little before sent among them for their sin upon one single act of Iustice done by one single Man Phineas moved with an holy zeal did but stand up and execute judgment upon two shameless offenders and the plague was stayed Psal. 106. Add hereunto that most gracious Proclamation published Ier. 5. and you cannot want encouragement to do every Man his own part whatsoever the rest do Run to and fro through the streets of Ierusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if you can find a Man if there be any that executeth Iudgment that seeketh the Truth and I will pardon it Or say thirdly that the sins of a Nation should be grown to that ripeness that the few righteous that are in it could not any longer adjourn the Iudgment for as there is a time of Mercy wherein the righteousness of one or a few may reprieve a whole Nation from destruction so when the appointed time of their fatal stroke is come tho Noah Job and Daniel should be in the midst of it they could prevail no farther than the delivery of their own souls yet even there those that have been faithful shall have this benefit that they shall be able to say with comfort either in the one sense or in the other Liberavi animam meam That is They shall either be preserved from being overwhelmed in the common destruction having their life given them for a prey and as a brand snatched out of the fire as Noah escaped when all the World was drowned and Lot from the deflagration of Sodom or if God suffer them to be involved in the publick calamities have this comfort to sustain their Souls withal that they were not wanting to do their part toward the preventing thereof But howsoever why should any Man fourthly to shift off his duty unseasonably obtrude upon us a new piece of Metaphysicks which our Philosophers hitherto never owned in abstracting the general reformation from the particulars For what is the general other than the particulars together And if ever there be a general reformation wrought the particulars must make it up Do not thou then vainly talk of Castles in the air and of I know not what general reformation but if thou truly desirest such a thing put to thy hand and lay the first stone in thine own particular and see what thy example can do If other particulars move with thee and so a general reformation follow in some good mediocrity thou hast whereof to rejoice that thou hadst thy part a leading part in so good a work But if others will not come on end chearfully so as the work do not rise to any perfection thou hast yet wherewithal to comfort thee that the fault was not thine 33. Thus have you heard sundry reasons and inducements to stir you up to the chearful performance of the duty contained in the Text of doing justice and shewing mercy in delivering the oppressed Some in respect of God who hath given us first his express command to which our obedience and secondly his own blessed example to which our conformity is expected Some in respect of our selves because first whatsoever power we have for the present it was given us for this end that we might therewithal be helpful to others and we know not secondly in what need we may stand hereafter of like help from others Some in respect of our poor distressed brethren who deserve our pity and best furtherance considering first the