Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A85021
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The just mans funeral. Lately delivered in a sermon at Chelsey, before several persons of honour and worship. By Thomas Fuller.
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Fuller, Thomas, 1608-1661.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing F2449; Thomason E582_5; ESTC R202168
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14,976
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34
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eminent person who hath got the speed of them and dispairing fairly to overtake Him resolve foully to overturn Him by all means possible contriving his destruction Hence comes those many millions of devises and strategems contrived for his ruin endeavouring either to Divert him from his righteousness or Destroy him in his righteousness If the first takes no effect and if his constancie appears such as without regreet he will persist in pietie leaving them no hope to byass him to base ends then dispairing to bow him from they contrive to break him in his righteousness Thus whilest he hath many enemies which conspire his destruction seeking with power to suppress or policie to supplant him The wicked man on the other side hath the generalitie of men the most being bad as himself to befriend him a main cause of his prolonging himself successfull in his wickedness Secondly Righteous men perish in their righteousness because not so warie and watchfull to defend themselves in danger being deaf to all jealousies and suspitions over-confident of other men measuring all others by the integritie of their own intentions This makes them lie at an open guard not fencing and fortifying themselves against any sudden surprisal but presuming that deserving no hurt none shall be done unto them Thus Gedaliah governor of the remnant of the Jews after the captivitie twice received he express intelligence of a conspiracie to kill him yet was so far from giving credit that he gave a sharp reproof to the first discoverer thereof Yea when Johanan the son of Kareah tendered his service to kill Ishmael sent as he said from Baalis king of Ammon to slay Gedaliah Gedaliah rejoyned * Jer. 40. 16. Thou shalt not do this thing for thou speakest falsly of Ishmael His noble nature gave no entertainment to the report till he found it too late to prevent it Whilest wicked men partly out of policie more out of guiltiness sleep like Hercules with their club in their hand stand always on their guard are jealous of their very shadows and appearances of danger a great cause of their safety and success prolonging themselves in their wickedness Thirdly They perish because of a lazie principle which hath possessed the heads and hearts even of the best men who are unexcusable herein namely that God in due time will defend their innocence which makes them more negligent and remiss in defending themselves as the Prophet makes mention of * Dan. 2. 34. a stone cut out without hands they conceive their cause will without mans help hew its own way through the rocks of all resistance as if their cause would stand Centinel for them though they slept themselves as if their cause would fix their Muskets though they did it not themselves Thus the Christians in their battels against the Turks having wonne the day by their valour have lost the night by their negligence which principally proceeded from their confidence that God interested as a Second in every just cause was in that quarrel concerned as a Principle and it could not stand in his justice to suffer it to miscarrie Whereas on the other side wicked men use double diligence in promoting their designs If their lame cause lack leggs of its own they will give it wings from their carefull soliciting thereof and will soulder up their crackt title with their own industrie They watch for all tides and wait for all times and work by all wayes and sail by all winds each golden opportunity they cunningly court and greedily catch and carefully keep and thriftily use in a word they are wiser in their generation than the children of light This may be perceived by the paralel betwixt the wife and the harlot many wives though herein they cannot be defended knowing their husbands obliged in conscience to love them by virtue of their solemn promise made before God and the congregation at their marriage are therefore the less carefull to studie compliance to their husbands desires they know their husbands if wronging them wrong themselves therein and presuming themselves to deserve love as due unto them for their honesty and loyalty of affections are the less sollicitous to gain that which they count their own already Whilst the harlot conscious to her self of her usurpation that she hath no lawful right to the embraces of her parramour tunes her self to the criticalness of all complacencie to humour him in all his desires And thus always those men whose cause have the weakest foundation in pietie getteth the strongest buttress in policie to support it Lastly the righteous man by the principles of his profession is tied up and confined onely to the use of such means for his preservation as are consonant to Gods will conformable to his word preferring rather to die many times than to save himself once by unwarrantable ways Propound unto him a project for his safetie and as Solomon promised to favour Adonijah so long as he * 1 kings 1. 52. shewed himself worthie otherwise if wickedness were found in him he should surely die So our righteous man onely accepts and embraceth such plots to secure himself thereby as acquit themselves honest and honourable such as appear otherwise he presently dispatches with detestation destroying the very motion mention thereof from entering into his heart On the otherside the wicked man is left at large allowing himself libertie and latitude to doe any thing in his own defence making a constant practice of doing evil that good may come thereof Yea we may observe in all ages that wicked men make bold with religion and those who count the practice of pietie a burthen find the pretending thereof an advantage and therefore be the matter they manage never so bad if possible they will intitle it to be Gods cause Much was the substance in the very shadow of S. Peter which made the people so desirous thereof as he passed by the streets And the very umbrage of Religion hath a sovereign virtue in it No better cordial for a dying cause than to overshadow it with the pretence that it is Gods cause for first this is the way to make and keep a great and strong partie No sooner the watch-word is given out For Gods cause but instantly GAD Behold a troop cometh of many honest but ignorant men who press to be listed in so pious an employment These may be kild but cannot be conquered for till their judgements be otherwise informed they will triumph in being overcome as confident the deeper their wounds got in Gods cause gape in their bodies the wider the gates of heaven stand open to receive their souls Besides the pretending their cause is Gods cause will in a manner legitimate the basest means in pursuance and prosecution thereof for though it be against Gods word to do evil that good may come thereof yet this old error wil hardly be beaten out of the heads and hearts of many men that crooked ways are made direct
will be abated for to day I suffer as an offender for the punnishment justly imposed by God on our sex for our disobedience and breach of his law but to morrow I shall die for the testimony of the truth in the defence of Gods glory and his true Religion Thus it is strange to see what alacrity a good cause infuseth into a righteous man deriving comfort into his heart by insensible conveiances so that he embraceth even death it self with a smiling countenance feeding his soul on the continual feast of a clear conscience Besides this it clears divine Justice and comforts the righteous man perishing temporally in his righteousness that his Cause shall be heard over again and rejudged in an other world If one conceive himself wronged in the Hundred or any inferiour Court he may by a certiorari or an accedas ad curiam remove it to the Kings-Bench or Common-Pleas as he is advised best for his own advantage If he apprehendeth himself injured in these Courts he may with a Writ of Error remove it to have it argued by all the Judges in the Exchequer-chamber If here also he conceiveth himself to find no justice he may with an Injunction out of the Chancery stop their proceedings But if in the Chancery he reputeth himself agreeved he may thence appeal to the God of heaven and earth who in another world will vindicate his right and severely punish such as have wilfully offered wrong unto him And so much to assert Gods justice in suffering the righteous man to perish in his righteousness Now on the other side God may without any prejudice to his justice suffer wicked men for a time to thrive in this world and not suddenly surprise them with punishment so giving them a * Rev. 2. 21. space to repent if they would but make use thereof Indeed David saith * Psal 140. 11. Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him But God is a fair hunter he might in the rigour of his justice knock wicked men down as he finds them sitting in their forms But God will give them fair law they shall for a time run yea sport themselves before his judgements ere they are pleased to overtake them Know also to the farther clearing of his justice that wicked men notwithstanding their thriving in badness for a time are partly punished in this world with a constant corrosive of a guiltie conscience which they carrie about them The Probationer-Disciple said to our Saviour * Mat. 8. 19 Master I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest what is promised by him is performed by a guiltie conscience that Squire of the bodie alwayes officious to attend a malefactour Fast and I will follow thee and thy emptie bodie shall not be so full of wind as thy mind of dismal apprehensions feast and I will follow thee and as the * Dan. 5. 5. hand on the wall bring in the sad reckoning for thy large bill of fare stay at home and I will follow thee ride abroad and I will follow thee or else meet thee in the way with my naked sword as the Angel did * Num. 22. 23. Balaam wake and I will follow thee sleep and I will follow thee and affright thee with hideous fancies and terrible dreams as I did King Richard the third the night before his death I have read of one who undertook in few dayes to make a fat sheep lean and yet was to allow him a daily and large provision of meat soft and easie lodging with securitie from all danger that nothing should hurt him This he effected by putting him into an iron-grate and placing a ravenous wolf hard by in another alwaies howling fighting senting scratching at the poor sheep which affrighted with this sad sound and worse sight had little joy to eat less to sleep whereby his flesh was suddenly abated But wicked men have the terrors of an affrighted conscience constantly not onely barking at them but biting of them which dissweetens their most delicious mirth with the sad consideration of the sins they have committed and punishment they must undergo when in another world they shall be called to account This thought alone makes their souls lean how fat soever their bodies may appear And as sores and wounds commonly smart ake and throb most the nearer it is to night so the anguish and torture of a guiltie conscience increaseth the nearer men apprehend themselves to the day of their death Now not onely wicked men but even the children of God because of the corruption of their hearts too often make bad uses to themselves of the righteous mans perishing in his righteousness These may be divided into three ranks 1. Such as fret at Gods proceedings herein 2. Such as droop under Gods proceedings herein 3. Such as argue with Gods proceedings herein The first are the fretters for if the perishing of the righteous cometh to the serious observation of a high-spirited man one of a stout and valiant heart he will scarce brook it without some anger and indignation fuming and chafing thereat Thus David we know was a man of valour of a martial and warlike spirit and he confesseth of himself that beholding the prosperitie of the wicked * Psal 73. 21. his heart was grived and he was pricked in his reins Nor was it meer grief possessed him but a mixture of much impatience as appears by that counsel which in like case in one Psalm he gave himself three several times * Psal 37. 1 7 8. Fret not thy self because of evil doers and again fret not thy self because of him who prospereth in his way and the third time fret not thy self in any wise Our Saviour observeth that there are a sturdie kind of devils that will not be cast out save * Matt. 17. 21. by fasting and prayer But this humour of fretting and repining at Gods proceedings herein which he understood not could not be ejected out of David but by prayer no doubt and that very solemnly not at home but in Gods temple * Psal 73. 16. When I thought to know all this it was too painful for me until I went into the Sanctuarie of God there understood I their end O let men of high spirits and stout hearts not lavish their valour and misspend their courage to chafe and fume at such accidents venting good spirits the wrong way but rather reserve their magnanimous resolutions for better services and besides their private devotions address themselves with David to Gods publick worship in his house who in his due time will unriddle unto him the equitie of his proceedings But if men be of low and mean spirits pusillanimous and heartless natures and if these narrow souls in them meet with melanchollie and heavie tempers such fall a drooping yea despairing at the perishing of the righteous they give all over for lost concluding there is no hope they rather languish than live walking up and down