conscience bound to use our best endeavours towards the effecting thereof We do indeed but mock God and prevaricate in our Prayers if we be not in some measure careful to second them with our Endeavours 38. Christ biddeth us deny our selves and take up the Cross. True deny our selves rather than deny him and take up the Cross when he layeth it before us so as we cannot step beside it without sin But he doth not bid us undo our selves when his service requireth it not nor make our selves Crosses when we need not 39. Afflictions are useful things and many ways beneficial to Gods children True blessed be God but no thanks to them that they are so That much good sometimes cometh from them it is but meerly by accident as to them the true cause of those blessed effects is that over-ruling power wisdom and goodness of God whereby he is able to bring light out of darkness and can turn any evil even sin it self to the good of his Children But take afflictions precisely as they are in themselves and in their pure naturals as we say and there is no such loveliness in them that any man should court them Nor are they productive of any the least good by any proper inherent virtue of their own Nor are therefore such desirable things as that any man can reasonably promise to himself any good effect from them or any sound comfort under them that shall wilfully draw them upon himself when he might without sin avoid them 40. We must not count life liberty or livelyhood dear to us but despise them all yea even hate them for Christs sake and the Gospels True where any of those stand in opposition against or but in competition with Christ or his Gospel or any duty therein contained In case of competition despise them in case of opposition hate them Do so and spare not But otherwise and out of those cases these are the good blessings of God wherewith he hath entrusted us and for the expence whereof we are to be responsible and ought not therefore to be so vile in our eyes as that we should think we may trifle them away as we list no necessity so requiring 41. It is the most proper act of Fortitude to endure hardship True To endure it but not to provoke it We shall be like to find in the world hardship enough whereon to exercise our manhood without seeking It is a fool-hardy madness better beseeming such a Knight-Errant as is described in the Romances than a true Souldier of Christ such as the Gospel setteth forth to roam abroad to seek adventures Afflictions are Temptations as was said and it is a presumption both rash and absurd having prayed to God not to lead us into temptations to go and cast our selves into them when we have done Fortitude is an excellent vertue doubtless but so is Prudence too as well as it and Iustice no less than either And therefore the offices of different Virtues are so to be exercised as not to hinder or destroy one another for between vertuous acts there must be there can be no clashing a man may without disparagement to his Fortitude decline dangers according to the dictates of Prudence provided withal that nothing be done but what is according to the rules of Iustice. 42. St. Paul saith of some that he had to deal with that they were unreasonable men Possibly it may be our case to have to do with such men Reason will not satisfie them and it is not lawful for us to do or to consent to the doing of any thing but what is agreeable to reason True but this very thing is agreeable to reason that to live at quiet among unreasonable men we should sometimes yield to their unreasonable demands But usque ad aras still that must evermore be understood In the pursuance of peace with our neighbours where it is not to be had upon better terms we may and ought by all seasonable Compliances and condescensions to become omnia omnibus all things to all men even as Christ to make peace for us condescended to be made like unto us in all things And as his condescension for us had yet one and but one exception made like unto us in all things yet without sin so should our condescension to them be likewise sin and sin only excepted though upon conditions otherwise hard and unequal enough 43. The sum is For the obtaining of peace the preventing of mischiefs the ridding of our selves and others from troubles we may with a good conscience and without sin yield to the doing of any thing that may stand with a good conscience and be done without sin Nor is it to be interpreted either as an effect of faint-heartedness or as a defect of Christian patience and courage so to do but is rather to be esteemed an act of Christian Wisdom and duty But so to faint under the Cross as to deny the Faith to forsake our Religion to violate the dictates of natural Conscience to do any thing contrary to any of the rules of Iustice or Charity or which we either know or suspect to be a sin though it be for the shunning of any danger or under the pretension of any necessity whatsoever cannot consist with that nobleness of spirit and magnanimity which becometh a worthy Disciple of Christ. 44. I should have proceeded according to my first intendment when I pitched upon this Scripture had their been room for it to have discoursed somewhat also from the other part of the Text concerning that which is therein prescribed as an especial Remedy of or rather Preservative against this faint-heartedness we have been all this while in hand with to wit the Meditation of Christ and his sufferings But all I shall have time now to do will be to give you the heads of those most useful and observable points which I conceive to arise without much enforcement from the words 45. First the act in the Verb here used discovereth an excellent piece of Art a rare secret in this Mystery a short and compendious but withal a very effectual way how to lighten such afflictions as lie sad upon us to our apprehensions thereby to make them the more portable for afflictions are lighter or heavier according to our apprehensions of them leve fit quod bene fertur onus The original word is of more pregnant signification to this purpose than Translators can render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It importeth not the bare consideration of a thing by it self alone but the considering of it by weighing and comparing it with some other things of like kind or nature and observing the analogies and proportions between it and them Certainly it would be of marvellous use to us for the rectifying our judgments concerning those pressures which at any time are upon us to render them less ponderous in our estimation of them if we would duly compare them either first
consciences direct our lives mortifie our corruptions encrease our graces strengthen our comforts save our souls Hoc opus hoc studium there is no study to this none so well worth the labour as this none that can bring so much profit to others nor therefore so much glory to God nor therefore so much comfort to our own hearts as this This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly saith S. Paul to Titus that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works these things are good and profitable unto men You cannot do more good unto the Church of God you cannot more profit the people of God by your gifts than by pressing effectually these two great points Faith and good Works These are good and profitable unto men I might here add other Inferences from this point as namely since the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one of us chiefly for this end that we may profit the people with it that therefore fourthly in our preaching we should rather seek to profit our hearers though perhaps with sharp and unwelcome reproofs than to please them by flattering them in evil and that Fifthly we should more desire to bring profit unto them than to gain applause unto our selves and sundry other more besides these But I will neither add any more nor prosecute these any farther at this time but give place to other business God the Father of Lights and of Spirits endow every one of us in our Places and Callings with a competent measure of such Graces as in his wisdom and goodness he shall see needful and expedient for us and so direct our hearts and tongues and endeavours in the exercise and manifestation thereof that by his good blessing upon our labours we may be enabled to advance his Glory propagate his Truth benefit his Church discharge a good Conscience in the mean time and at the last make our account with comfort at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. To whom c. AD CLERUM The Fourth Sermon At a Metropolitical Visitation at Grantham Lincoln August 22 d. 1634. ROM XIV 23. For whatsoever is not of Faith is sin ONE remarkable difference among many other between Good and Evil is this That there must be a concurrence of all requisite conditions to make a thing good whereas to make a thing evil a single defect in any one condition alone will suffice Bonum ex causa integra Malum ex partiali If we propose not to our selves a right end or if we pitch not upon proper and convenient means for the attaining of that end or if we pursue not these means in a due manner or if we observe not exactly every material circumstance in the whole pursuit if we fail but in any one point the action though it should be in every other respect such as it ought to be by that one defect becometh wholly sinful Nay more not only a true and real but even a supposed and imaginary defect the bare opinion of unlawfulness is able to vitiate the most justifiable act and to turn it into sin I know there is nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean to him it is unclean at the 14. verse of this Chapter Nay yet more not only a setled opinion that the thing we do is unlawful but the very suspension of our judgment and the doubtfulness of our minds whether we may lawfully do it or no maketh it sometimes unlawful to be done of us and if we do it sinful He that but doubteth is damned if he eat Because he eateth not of faith in the former part of this verse The ground whereof the Apostle delivereth in a short and full Aphorism and concludeth the whole Chapter with it in the words of the Text For whatsoever is not of Faith is sin Many excellent Instructions there are scattered throughout the whole Chapter most of them concerning the right use of that Liberty we have unto things of indifferent nature well worthy our Christian Consideration if we had time and leisure for them But this last Rule alone will find us work enough and therefore omitting the rest we will by Gods assistance with your patience presently fall in hand with this and intend it wholly in the Explication first and then in the Application of it For by how much it is of more profitable and universal use for the regulating of the common offices of life by so much is the mischief greater if it be and accordingly our care ought to be so much the greater that it be not either misunderstood or misapplyed Quod non ex fide peccatum that is the rule Whatsoever is not of faith is sin In the Explication of which words there would be little difficulty had not the ambiguity of the word Faith occasioned difference of interpretations and so left a way open to some misapprehensions Faith is verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most other words are There be that have reckoned up more than twenty several significations of it in the Scriptures But I find three especially looked at by those who either purposely or occasionally have had to do with this Text each of which we shall examine in their Order First and most usually especially in the Apostolical writings the word Faith is used to signifie that Theological vertue or gracious habit whereby we embrace with our minds and affections the Lord Iesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God and alone Saviour of the World casting our selves wholly upon the mercy of God through his merits for remission and everlasting Salvation It is that which is commonly called a lively or justifying Faith whereunto are ascribed in holy Writ those many gracious effects of purifying the heart adoption justification life joy peace salvation c. Not as to their proper and primary cause but as to the instrument whereby we apprehend and apply Christ whose merits and spirit are the true causes of all those blessed effects And in this notion many of our later Divines seem to understand it in our present Text whilst they alledge it for the confirmation of this Position that All the works even the best works of Unbelievers are sins A position condemned indeed by the Trent Council and that under a curse taking it as I suppose in a wrong construction but not worthy of so heavy a censure if it be rightly understood according to the doctrine of our Church in the thirteenth Article of her Confession and according to the tenour of those Scriptures whereon that doctrine is grounded viz. Matth. 12. 33. Rom. 8. 8. Tit. 1. 15. Heb. 11. 6 c. Howbeit I take it with subjection of judgment that that Conclusion what truth soever it may have in it self hath yet no direct foundation in this Text. The Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
everlasting punishments are they wherein Gods Iustice shall be manifested to every eye in due time at that last day which is therefore called by Saint Paul Rom. 2. The day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Implying that howsoever God is just in all his Judgments and acts of providence even upon earth yet the Counsels and Purposes of God in these things are often secret and past finding out but at the last great day when He shall render to every man according to his works his everlasting recompence then his vengeance shall manifest his wrath and the righteousness of his judgment shall be revealed to every eye in the condign punishment of unreconciled sinners This is the Second Certainty Temporal evils are not always nor simply nor properly the punishments for sin If any man shall be yet unsatisfied and desire to have Gods justice somewhat farther cleared even in the disposing of these temporal things although it be neither safe nor possible for us to search far into particulars yet some general satisfaction we may have from a third Certainty and that is this Every evil of pain whatsoever it be or howsoever considered which is brought upon any man is brought upon him evermore for sin yea and that also for his own personal sin Every branch of this assertion would be well marked I say first Every evil of pain whatsoever it be whether natural defects and infirmities in soul or body or outward afflictions in goods friends or good name whether inward distresses of an afflicted or terrors of an affrighted Conscience whether temporal or eternal Death whether evils of this life or after it or whatsoever other evil it be that is any way grievous to any man every such evil is for sin I say secondly every evil of pain howsoever considered whether formally and sub ratione poenae as the proper effect of Gods vengeance and wrath against sin or as a fatherly correction chastisement to nurture us from some past sin or as a medicinal preservative to strengthen us against some future sin or as a clogging chain to keep under disable us from some outward work of sin or as a fit matter and object whereon to exercise our Christian graces of faith charity patience humility and the rest or as an occasion given and taken by Almighty God for the greater manifestation of the glory of his Wisdom and Power and Goodness in the removal of it or as an act of Exemplary Iustice for the Admonition and Terror of others or for whatsoever other end purpose or respect it be inflicted I say thirdly Every such evil of pain is brought upon us for sin There may be other Ends there may be other Occasions there may be other Vses of such Evils but still the Original Cause of them all is sin When thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin It was not for any extraordinary notorious sins either of the blind man himself or of his Parents above other men that he was born blind Our Savious Christ acquitteth them of that Iohn 9. in answer to his Disciples who were but too forward as God knoweth most men are to judge the worst Our Saviour's Answer there never intended other but that still the true Cause deserving that blindness was his and his parents sin but his purpose was to instruct his Disciples that that infirmity was not laid upon him rather than upon another man meerly for that reason because he or his Parents had deserved it more than other men but for some farther Ends which God had in it in his secret and everlasting purpose and namely this among the rest That the works of God might be manifest in him and the Godhead of the Son made glorious in his miraculous Cure As in Nature the intention of the End doth not overthrow but rather suppose the Necessity of the Matter so is it in the works of God and the dispensations of his wonderful Providence It is from Gods Mercy ordering them to those Ends he hath purposed that his punishments are good but it is withal from our sins deserving them as the Cause that they are just Even as the Rain that falleth upon the Earth whether it moisten it kindly and make it fruitful or whether it choak and slocken and drown it yet still had its beginning from the Vapours which the Earth it self sent up All those Evils which fall so daily and thick upon us from Heaven whether to warn us or to plague us are but Arrows which our selves first shot up against Heaven and now drop down again with doubled force upon our heads Omnis poena propter culpam all evils of pain are for the evils of sin I say fourthly All such evils are for our own sins The Scriptures are plain God judgeth every man according to his own works Every man shall bear his own burden c. God hath enjoyned it as a Law for Magistrates wherein they have also his Example to lead them that not the fathers for the children nor the children for the fathers but every man should be put to death for his own sin Deut. 24. If Israel take up a Proverb of their own heads The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge they do it without cause and they are checked for it The soul that sinneth it shall die and if any man eat sowre grapes his own teeth and not anothers for him shall be set on èdge thereby For indeed how can it be otherwise or who can reasonably think that our most gracious God who is so ready to take from us the guilt of our own should yet lay upon us the guilt of other mens sins The only exception to be made in this kind is that alone satisfactory Punishment of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ not at all for his own sins far be the impiety from us so to imagine for He did no sin neither was there any guilt found in his mouth but for ours He payed that which he never took it was for our transgressions that he was wounded and the chastisement of our Peace was laid upon him Yet even those meritorious sufferings of his may be said in a qualified sence to have been for his own sins although in my judgment it be far better to abstain from such like speeches as are of ill and suspicious sound though they may be in some sort defended But how for his own sins his own by Commission by no means God forbid any man should teach any man should conceive so the least thought of this were Blasphemy but his own by Imputation Not that he had sinned and so deserved punishment but that he had taken upon him our sins which deserved that punishment As he that undertaketh for another mans debt maketh it his own and standeth Chargeable
other person that should but touch them So not only our Fathers Sins if we touch them by imitation but even their Lands and Goods and Houses and other things that were theirs are sufficient to derive God's Curse upon us if we do but hold them in possession What is gotten by any evil and unjust and unwarrantable means is in God's sight and estimation no better than stollen Now stollen Goods we know though they have passed through never so many hands before that man is answerable in whose Hands they are found and in whose Custody and Possession they are God hateth not Sin only but the very Monuments of Sin too and his Curse fasteneth not only upon the Agent but upon the brute and dead Materials too And where theft or oppression or Perjury or Sacrilege have laid the foundation and reared the house there the Curse of God creepeth in between the walls and ceilings and lurketh close within the stones and the timber and as a fretting moth or canker insensibly gnaweth asunder the pins and the joynts of the building till it have unframed it and resolved it into a ruinous heap for which mischief there is no remedy no preservation from it but one and that is free and speedy restitution For any thing we know what Ahab the Father got without justice Iehoram the Son held without scruple We do not find that ever he made restitution of Naboth's vineyard to the right heir and it is like enough he did not and then between him and his Father there was but this difference the Father was the theif and he the receiver which two the Law severeth not either in guilt or punishment but wrappeth them equally in the same guilt and in the same punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And who knoweth whether the very holding of that vineyard might not bring upon him the curse of his father's oppression It is plain that vineyard was the place where the heaviest part of that Curse overtook him But that which is the upshot of all and untieth all the knots both of this and of all other doubts that can be made against God's justice in punishing one for another ariseth from a third consideration which is this That the children are punished for the fathers sins or indefinitely any one man for the sins of any other man it ought to be imputed to those sins of the Fathers or others not as to the causes properly deserving them but only as occasioning those punishments It pleaseth God to take occasion from the sins of the fathers or of some others to bring upon their children or those that otherwise belong unto them in some kind of relation those evils which by their own corruptions and sins they have justly deserved This distinction of the Cause and Occasion if well heeded both fully acquitteth God's justice and abundantly reconcileth the seeming Contradictions of Scripture in this Argument and therefore it will be worth the while a little to open it There is a kind of Cause de numero efficientium which the learned for distinctions sake call the Impulsive Cause and it is such a cause as moveth and induceth the principal Agent to do that which it doth For example a Schoolmaster correcteth a Boy with a rod for neglecting his Book Of this correction here are three dictinct causes all in the rank of Efficients viz. the Master the Rod and the Boys neglect but each hath its proper causality in a different kind and manner from other The Master is the Cause as the principal Agent that doth it the Rod is the Cause as the Instrument wherewith he doth it and the Boy 's neglect the impulsive Cause for which he doth it Semblably in this judgment which befel Iehoram the principal efficient Cause and Agent was God as he is in all other punishments and judgments Shall there be evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it Amos 3. and here he taketh it to himself I will bring the evil upon his house The Instrumental Cause under God was Iehu whom God raised up and endued with zeal and power for the execution of that vengeance which he had determined against Ahab and against his house as appeareth in 4 Kings 9. and 10. But now what the true proper Impulsive Cause should be for which he was so punished and which moved God at that time and in that sort to punish him that is the point wherein consisteth the chiefest difficulty in this matter and into which therefore we are now to enquire viz. Whether that were rather his own sin or his Father Ahab's sin Whether we answer for this or for that we say but the truth in both for both sayings are true God punished him for his own and God punished him for his fathers sin The difference only this His own sins were the impulsive cause that deserved the punishment his fathers sin the impulsive cause that occasioned it and so indeed upon the point and respectively to the justice of God rather his own sins were the cause of it than his fathers both because justice doth especially look at the desert and also because that which deserveth the punishment is more effectually and primarily and properly the impulsive cause of punishing than that which only occasioneth it The terms whereby Artists express these two different kinds of impulsive causes borrowed from Galen and the Physicians of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would be excellent and full of satisfaction if they were of easie understanding But for that they are not so especially to such as are not acquainted with the terms and learning of the Schools I forbear to use them and rather than to take the shortest cut over hedge and ditch chuse to lead you an easier and plainer way though it 's something about and that by a familiar Example A man hath lived for some good space in reasonable state of health yet by gross feeding and through continuance of time his Body the whilst hath contracted many vicious noisom and malignant humours It happeneth he had occasion to ride abroad in bad weather taketh wet on his feet or neck getteth cold with it cometh home findeth himself not well falleth a shaking first and anon after into a dangerous and lasting Fever Here is a Fever and here are two different causes of it an antecedent cause within the abundance of noisom and crude humours that is Causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the evident cause ab extra his riding in the wet and taking cold upon it and that is Galen's causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us go on a little and compare these causes The Physician is sent for the sick man's friends they stand about him and in cometh the Physician among them and enquireth of him and them how he got his Fever They presently give him such Information as they can and the Information
is both true and sufficient so far as it reacheth they tell him the one cause the occasional cause the outward evident cause Alas Sir he rode such a journey such a time got wet on his feet and took cold upon it and that hath brought him to all this That is all they are able to say to it for other cause they know none But by and by after some surview of the state of the body he is able to inform them in the other cause the inward and original cause whereof they were as ignorant before as he was of that other outward one and he telleth them The cause of the Malady is superfluity of crude and noisom humours rankness of blood abundance of melancholy tough flegm or some other like thing within Now if it be demanded Which of these two is rather the cause of his sickness The truth is that inward antecedent cause within is the very cause thereof although perhaps it had not bred a Fever at that time if that other outward occasion had not been For by that inward hidden cause the body was prepared for an Ague only there wanted some outward fit accident to stir and provoke the humours within and to set them on working And the Party's body being so prepared might have fallen into the same sickness by some other accident as well as that as overheating himself with exercise immoderate watching some distemper or surfeit in diet or the like But neither that nor any of these nor any other such accident could have cast him into such a fit if the humours had not been ripe and the body thereby prepared to entertain such a disease So as the bad humours within may rather be said to be the true cause and that cold-taking but the occasion of the Ague the disease it self issuing from the hidden cause within and the outward accident being the cause not so much of the disease it self why the Ague should take him as why it should take him at that time rather than at another and hold him in that part or in that manner rather than in another From this example we may see in some proportion how our own sins and other mens concur as joynt impulsive Causes of those Punishments which God bringeth upon us Our own sins they are the true hidden antecedent causes which deserve the punishments our Fathers sins or our Governours sins or our Neighbours sins or whatsoever other mans sins that are visited upon us are only the outward evident causes or rather occasions why we should be punished at this time and in this thing and in this manner and in this measure and with these circumstances And as in the former Example the Patient's friends considered one cause and the Physician another they the evident and outward he the inward and antecedent cause so respectively to God's Iustice our own sins only are the causes of our punishments but in respect of his Providence and Wisdom our Fathers sins also or other mens For Iustice looketh upon the desert only and so the punishments are ever and only from our own personal sins as we learned from our third Certainty but it is Providence that ordereth the occasions and the seasons and the other circumstances of God's punishments Hence may we learn to reconcile those places of Scripture which seem to cross one another in this Argument In Ezekiel and Ieremiah it is said that every man shall be punished for his own sins and that the children shall not bear the iniquity of the fathers and yet the same Ieremiah complaineth as if it were otherwise Lam. 5. Our fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their iniquities Yea God himself proclaimeth otherwise I am a jealous God visiting the sins of the Fathers upon the Children Nor only doth he visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children but he visiteth also the sins of Princes upon their Subjects as David's people were wasted for his Sin in numbring them yea and he visiteth sometimes the sins even of ordinary private men upon publick societies Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing and wrath fell upon all the Congregation of Israel and that man perished not alone in his iniquity Now how can all this stand together Yes very well even as well as in the act of punishing God's Iustice and his Wisdom can stand together Mark then wheresoever the Scripture ascribeth one mans Punishment to another mans Sin it pointeth us to God's Wisdom and Providence who for good and just ends maketh choice of these occasions rather than other sometimes to inflict those punishments upon men which their own sins have otherwise abundantly deserved On the contrary wheresoever the Scripture giveth all punishments unto the personal Sins of the Sufferer it pointeth us to God's Iustice which looketh still to the desert and doth not upon any occasion whatsoever inflict punishments but where there are personal Sins to deserve them so that every man that is punished in any kind or upon any occasion may joyn with David in that confession of his Psal. 51. Against thee have I sinned and done evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and clear when thou judgest Say then an unconscionable great one by cruel oppression wring as Ahab did here his poorer neighbours Vineyard from him or by countenanced sacrilege geld a Bishoprick of a fair Lordship or Manor and when he hath done his prodigal Heir run one end of it away in matches drown another end of it in Taverns and Tap-houses melt away the rest in Lust and beastly sensuality who doth not here see both God's Iustice in turning him out of that which was so foully abused by his own Sins and his Providence withal in fastning the Curse upon that portion which was so unjustly gotten by his fathers sins Every man is ready to say It was never like to prosper it was so ill gotten and so acknowledge the Covetous fathers sin as occasioning it and yet every man can say withal It was never likely to continue long it was so vainly lavished out and so acknowledge the prodigal Son's sin as sufficiently deserving it Thus have we heard the main doubt solved The summ of all is this God punisheth the Son for the Father's sin but with temporal punishments not eternal and with those perhaps so as to redound to the Father's punishment in the Son perhaps because the Son treadeth in his father's steps perhaps because he possesseth that from his father to which God's curse adhereth perhaps for other reasons best known to God himself wherewith he hath not thought meet to acquaint us but whatever the occasion be or the ends evermore for the Sons own personal Sins abundantly deserving them And the same resolution is to be given to the other two doubts proposed in the beginning to that Why God should punish
less of the two viz. to say there were two Gods a good God the Author of all good things and an evil God the Author of all evil things If then we acknowledge that there is but one God and that one God good and we do all so acknowledge unless we will be more absurd than those most absurd Hereticks we must withal acknowledge all the Creatures of that one and good God to be also good He is so the causer of all that is good for Every good gift and every perfect giving descendeth from above from the Father of lights as that he is the causer only of what is good for with him is no variableness neither shadow of turning saith St. Iames. As the Sun who is Pater luminum the fountain and Father of lights whereunto St. Iames in that passage doth apparently allude giveth light to the Moon and Stars and all the lights of Heaven and causeth light wheresoever he shineth but no where causeth darkness so God the Father fountain of all goodness so communicateth goodness to every thing he produceth as that he cannot produce any thing at all but that which is good Every Creature of God then is good Which being so certainly then first to raise some Inferences from the Premisses for our farther instruction and use certainly I say Sin and Death and such things as are evil and not good are not of Gods making they are none of his Creatures for all his Creatures are good Let no man therefore say when he is tempted and overcome of sin I am tempted of God neither let any man say when he hath done evil It was God's doing God indeed preserveth the Man actuateth the Power and ordereth the Action to the glory of his Mercy or Iustice but he hath no hand at all in the sinful defect and obliquity of a wicked action There is a natural or rather transcendental Goodness Bonit as Entis as they call it in every Action even in that whereto the greatest sin adhereth and that Goodness is from God as that Action is his Creature But the Evil that cleaveth unto it is wholly from the default of the Person that committeth it and not at all from God And as for the Evils of Pain also neither are they of Gods making Deus mortem non fecit saith the Author of the Book of Wisdom God made not death neither doth he take pleasure in the destruction of the living but wicked men by their words and works have brought it upon themselves Perditio tua ex te Israel Hosea 13. O Israel thy destruction is from thy self that is both thy sin whereby thou destroyest thy self and thy Misery whereby thou art destroyed is only and wholly from thy self Certainly God is not the cause of any Evil either of Sin or Punishment Conceive it thus not the Cause of it formally and so far forth as it is Evil. For otherwise we must know that materially considered all Evils of Punishment are from God for Shall there be evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it Amos 3. 6. In Evils of sin there is no other but only that Natural or Transcendental goodness whereof we spake in the Action which goodness though it be from God yet because the Action is morally bad God is not said to do it But in Evils of Punishment there is over and besides that Natural Goodness whereby they exist a kind of Moral Goodness as we may call it after a sort improperly and by way of reduction as they are Instruments of the Iustice of God and whatsoever may be referred to Iustice may so far forth be called good and for that very goodness God may be said in some sort to be the Author of these evils of Punishment though not also of those other evils of Sin In both we must distinguish the Good from the Evil and ascribe all the Good wheresoever it be Transcendental Natural Moral or if there be any other to God alone but by no means any of the Evil. We are unthankful if we impute any good but to him and we are unjust if we impute to him any thing but good Secondly from the goodness of the least Creature guess we at the excellent goodness of the great Creator Ex pede Herculem God hath imprinted as before I said some steps and footings of his goodness in the Creatures from which we must take the best scantling we are capable of of those admirable and inexpressible and unconceivable perfections that are in him There is no beholding of the body of this Sun who dwelleth in such a a Glorious light as none can attain unto that glory would dazle with blindness the sharpest and most Eagly eye that should dare to fix it self upon it with any stedfastness enough it is for us from those rays and glimmering beams which he hath scattered upon the Creatures to gather how infinitely he exceedeth them in brightness and glory De ipso vides sed non ipsum We see his but not Him His Creatures they are our best indeed our only instructers For though his revealed Word teach us that we should never have learned from the Creatures without it yet fitted to our capacity it teacheth no otherwise than by resemblances taken from the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul calleth it Rom. 1. the whole Latitude of that which may be known of God is manifest in the Creatures and the invisible things of God not to be understood but by things that are made St. Basil therefore calleth the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very School where the knowledge of God is to be learned And there is a double way of teaching a twofold method of training us up into that knowledge in that school that is to say Per viam Negationis and per viam Eminentiae First Viâ Negationis look whatsoever thou findest in the Creature which savoureth of defect or imperfection and know God is not such Are they limited subject to change composition decay c Remove these from God and learn that he is infinite simple unchangeable eternal Then Viâ Eminentiae look whatsoever perfection there is in the Creature in any degree and know that the same but infinitely and incomparably more eminently is in God Is there Wisdom or Knowledge or Power or Beauty or Greatness or Goodness in any kind or in any measure in any of the Creatures Affirm the same but without measure of Godâ—â— and learn that he is infinitely wiser and skilfuller and stronger and fairer and greater and better In every good thing so differently excellent above and beyond the Creatures as that though yet they be good yet compared with him they deserve not the name of good There is none good but one that is God Mar. 10. None good as he simply and absolutely and essentially and of himself such The creatures
and without forsaking his old Principles to justifie the Church of England from all imputations of Heresie or Schism and the Religion thereof as it stood by Law established from the like imputation of Novelty and to apply proper and pertinent answers to all the Objections of those whether Papists or others that are contrary minded to the full satisfaction of all such as have not by some partial affection or other rendred themselves uncapable to receive them 12. I confess I had no purpose as may appear by the beginning of my Preface when I set pen to paper to have said much if any thing at all of these matters But I had so very much more to say for the pressing of each of these three considerations and the business withal seemed to me of so much importance that after I had once begun I had much ado to repress my self from drawing this Preface into a yet far greater length But since I had thus adventured to unbowel my self and to lay open the yery inmost thoughts of my heart in this sad business before God and the world I shall hope to find so much charity from all my Christan Brethren as to shew me my Error if in any thing I have now said I be mistaken that I may retract it and to pardon those excesses in modo loquendi if they can observe any such which might possibly whilst I was passionately intent upon the matter unawares drop from my Pen. Civilities which we mutually owe one to another damus hanc veniam petimúsque vicissim Considering how hard a thing it is amidst so many passions and infirmities as our corrupt nature is subject to to do or say all that is needful in a weighty business and not in some thing or other to over-say or over-do Yet this I can say in sincerity of my heart and with Comfort that my desire was the nature of the business considered both to speak as plain and to offend as little as might be If I can approve my carriage herein to the judgment and consciences of sober and charitable men it will be some rejoycing to me but I am not hereby justified I must finally stand or fall to my own Master who is the only infallible Iudge of all mens hearts and ways Humbly I beseech him to look well if there be any way of wickedness or hypocrisie in me timely to cover it himself and discover it to me that it may be by his grace repented of and pardoned by his mercy by the same mercy and grace to guide my feet into the ways of Peace and Truth and to lead me in the way everlasting Decemb. 31. 1655. O be favourable and gracious unto Sion build thou the Walls of Ierusalem Repair the breaches thereof and make no long tarrying O Lord our Helper and our Redeemer ETIAM VENI DOMINE JESU The Reader is desired to take notice That the Eighteenth Sermon one of those mentioned by the Author in his Preface to have been formerly omitted is in this Impression added THE CONTENTS or SUMMARY Of the several ensuing SERMONS Sermon I. Ad Aulam on ECCLES vii 1. Sect. 1 FCclesiastes the Preachers Sermon 2 or Solomons Paradoxes 3-6 The use of Rhetorical Exornations in Sermons 7-10 THE WORDS OF THE TEXT severally explained 11-12 A good Name to be preferred before the most precious Oyntments As 13-14 -1. being a more peculiar blessing 15-16 -2. yielding more solid content 17-18 -3. enabling to worthier performances 19-22 -4. being of larger extention both for Place and Time 23-25 Yet not to be preferred before a good Conscience 26-27 THE INFERENCES 1. The sin of those that rob others of their good Names 28-29 -2. The folly of those that value any outward things above a good Name 30-31 -3. That it is not enough for a man that he can satisfie his own Conscience in what he doth But 32 -4. There ought to be a great care had also of preserving a good Name And that upon these 33 CONSIDERATIONS I. That it is our bounden Duty 34-5 -2. That by our care much may be done in it 36 -3. That a good name lost is of hard recovery 37 c. Some RULES OF DIRECTION tending as helps thereunto Sermon II. Ad Aulam on PROV xvi 7. Sect. 1. THe Sum and Division of THE TEXT 2 6 The Words in the former part of the Text explained 7 POINT I. The necessity of seeking to PLEASE God 8 9. both in point of Duty and Relations 10 11 and in point of Wisdom and Benefit 12 14 POINT II. God is pleased with our ways wherein he findeth 1. Conformity to his ways 15 16 2. and Obedience to his Will 17 notwithstanding their imperfection 18 1. as being his own work in us and 19 2. beholding them as in the face of Christ. 20 The Inference for comfort 21 The Words in the latter part of the Text explained 22 24 POINT III. God procureth the peace of those that please him 25 Their own endeavour subordinately concurring 26 8 A grand Objection removed 29 FOUR INFERENCES briefly touched 30 A FIFTH INFERENCE farther considered for the preventing of a double fallacy to wit 31 2 1. that of imputing our sufferings wholly to the injustice of others 32 4 2. that of thinking the better of our selves and our own ways because we have Enemies 35 The Conclusion Sermon III. Ad Aulam on 1 PET. ii 17. Sect 1 3. THe Scope and Division of THE TEXT 4 8 The Duty of HONOURING ALL MEN explained 9 10 and enforced by Reasons taken 1. from Justice 11 2. from Equity 12 14 3. from Religion 15 A REPROOF 1. of those that honour none but themselves 16 17 2. of those that honour none but their Superiors 18 c. 3. of those that limit the duty with a condition Si meruerint 24 26 Who are meant by THE BROTHERHOOD 37 c. and what by loving the brotherhood 30 Two grounds of this duty viz. 1. Their Goodness in themselves 31 c. their Nearness to us in sundry relations 36 c. We may in loving the Brethren prefer some 39 c. But not exclude any Sermon IV. Ad Aulam on PSALM xix 13. Sect. 1 3. A General view of the xix PSALM 4 6 The Scope and Division of the Text. 7 The reading considered and cleared 8 Of Presumption in General 9 11 Of the Sin of Presumption materially taken 12 14 From the distinction of Sins of Ignorance Infirmity and Presumption 15 18 Severally Exemplified 19 The nature of Presumptuous Sins declared 20 24 The heinousness of Presumptuous Sins declared by sundry Intimations in the Text 25 and by Reasons drawn partly from their Cause 26 27 partly from their evil Effects 1. before Repentance 28 2. at the time of Repentance 29 32 3. after Repentance 33 For the avoiding of Presumptuous Sins 34 with our Prayers to God 35 we are to joyn our own Endeavours Four Particular Rules for direction herein viz. 36 1. Do
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
so much wisdom as they have neither if we do not and even hereby justifie our Saviours doom in the comparison and yield The children of this world wiser in their generations than we are Which is the next Point 17. The justice of the sentence cannot be questioned where the Iudge that giveth it is beyond exception Here he is so so wise that he cannot be deceived so good that he will not deceive Mistaken he cannot be through ignorance or mis-information in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge If Solomon were able in a very intricate case to judge between the two mothers shall not a greater than Soloman be able in a case of less difficulty to give a clear judgment between these two sorts of Children Nor was there any such correspondence between our blessed Saviour the Iudge that pronounceth sentence in the Text and the world that we should suspect him at all inclinable to favour that side The world hated him and a great part of the business he came about was to condemn the world If it could have stood with the integrity of so righteous a Iudge to have favoured either side he that pronounced of himself Ego sum lux I am the light would sure have leaned rather towards his own side than towards the contrary party and so have pronounced sentence for the children of light and not against them And that he should be awed with fear as Iudges too often are to transgress in judgment there is of all other the least fear of that since he hath not only vanquished the world in his own person Ego vici mundum Joh. 16. but hath also enabled the meanest person that belongeth to him and believeth in him to do so too This is the victory that overcometh the world even your faith 1 Joh. 5. 18. It was not then either ignorance or favour or fear or any thing else imaginable other than the truth and evidence of the thing it self that could induce him to give sentence on that side Of the truth whereof every days experience ministreth proof enough For do we not see daily how worldly men in temporal matters shew their wisdom infinitely beyond what Christians usually do in spiritual things Very many ways handling their affairs such as they are for the compassing of their own ends such as they are to omit other particulars with greater sagacity greater industry greater cunning greater unity ordinarily than these do Which particulars when we shall have a little considered for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew the truth of the observation and that so it is we shall for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enquire into the reasons thereof and how it cometh to be so 19. First they are very sagacious and provident to forethink what they have to do and to forecast how it may be done very wary and circumspect in their projects and contrivances to weigh all probable as far as is possible all possible inconveniences or whatsoever might impede or obstruct their designs and to provide remedies there-against All Histories afford us strange examples in their several kinds of voluptuous beasts who for the satisfying of their raging lusts of ambitious spirits who for the grasping of a vast and unjust power of malicious and cruel men who to glut themselves with blood and revenge have adventured upon very desperate and almost impossible attempts and yet by the strength of their wits have so laid the Scene before-hand and so carried on the design all along that they have very many times either wholly accomplished what they intended or brought their conceptions so near to the birth that nothing but a visible hand of an over-ruling providence from above could render them abortive But omitting these because I have yet much to go through I chose rather to instance in the worldling of the lowest sphere indeed but best known by the name of a worldling I mean the covetous wretch It were almost a wonder to consider but that by common experience we find it so that a man otherwise of very mean parts and breeding is of so thick a nostril that he can hardly be brought by any discourse to be sensible of any thing that savoureth of Religion Reason or Ingenuity should yet be so quick scented where there is a likelihood of gain towards to smell it as speedily and at as great a distance as a Vultur doth a piece of Carrion Strange to see what strange fetches and devices he can have the eagerness of his desires after the world sharpning his wits and quickning his invention to hook in a good bargain to enveigle and entangle his necessitous neighbour by some seeming kindness towards him in supplying his present needs till he have got a hank over his estate to watch the opportunities for the taking up and putting off commodities to the most advantage to trench so near upon the Laws by engrossing enhaunsings extortions depopulations and I know not how many other frauds and oppressions and yet to keep himself so out of reach that the Law cannot take hold of him 20. Secondly the children of this world as they are very provident and subtile in forecasting so are they very industrious and diligent in pursuing what they have designed Wicked men are therefore in the Scriptures usually called Operarii iniquitatis Workers of iniquity because they do hoc agere make it their work and their business and follow it as their trade Ut jugulent homines surgunt de nocte Whilst honest men lay them down in peace and take their rest suspecting no harm because they mean none thieves and robbers are up and abroad spreading their nets for the prey and watching to do mischievously They that were against Christ were stirring in the dead time of the night and marched with Swords and staves to apprehend him when they that were about him though bidden and chidden too could not hold from sleeping two or three hours before Martyres Diaboli How slack we are to do God any service how backward to suffer any thing for him and how they on the other side can bestir them to serve the Devil and be content to suffer a kind of martyrdom in his service The way sure is broad enough â—nd easie enough that leadeth to destruction yet so much pains is there taken to find it that I verily believe half the pains many a man taketh to go to Hell if it had been well bestowed would have brought him to Heaven 21. Thirdly the children of this world are marvellous cunning and close to carry things fair in outward shew so far as to hold up their credit with the abused multitude and to give a colour to the cause they manage be it never so bad Partly by aspersing those that are otherwise minded than themselves are and dare not partake with them in their sins in what reproachful manner they please wresting their most innocent speeches and
we too severely censure the Persons either for the future as Reprobates and Cast-aways and such as shall be certainly damned or at leastwise for the present as Hypocriâ—es and unsanctified and profane and such as are in the state of Damnation not considering into what fearful sins it may please God to suffer not only his chosen ones before Calling but even his holy ones too after Calling sometimes to fall for ends most times unknown to us but ever just and gracious in him Or thirdly when for want either of Charity oâ— Knowledge as in the present case of this Chapter we interpret things for the worst to our Brethren and condemn them of sin for such actions as are not directly and in themselves necessarily sinful but may with due circumstances be performed with a good conscience and without sin Now all judging and condemning of our Brethren in any of these kinds is sinful and damnable and that in very many respects especially these four which may serve as so many weighty reasons why we ought not to judge one another The usurpation the rashness the uncharitableness and the scandal of it First it is an Usurpation He that is of right to judge must have a Calling and Commission for it Quis constituit te sharply replied upon Moses Exod. 2. Who made thee a Iudge and Quis constituit me reasonably alledged by our Saviour Luke 12. Who made me a Iudge Thou takest too much upon thee then thou son of man whosoever thou art that judgest thus saucily to thrust thy self into God's seat and to invade his Throne Remember thy self well and learn to know thine own rank Quis tu Who art thou that judgest another Iames 4. Or Who art thou that judgest anothers Servant in the next following Verse to my Text. As if the Apostle had said What art thou Or what hast thou to do to judge him that standeth or falleth to his own Master Thou art his fellow-Servant not his Lord. He hath another Lord that can and will judge him who is thy Lord too and can and will judge thee for so he argueth anon at Verse 10. Why dost thou judge thy brother We shall all stand before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ. God hath reserved three Prerogatives Royal to himself Vengeance Glory and Iudgment As it is not safe for us then to encroach upon God's Royalties in either of the other two Glory or Vengeance so neither in this of Judgment Dominus judicabit The Lord himself will judge his people Heb. 10. It is flat Usurpation in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Secondly it is rashness in us A Judge must understand the truth both for matter of fact and for point of Law and he must be sure he is in the right for both before he proceed to sentence or else he will give rash judgment How then dare any of us undertake to sit as Iudges upon other mens Consciences wherewith we are so little acquainted that we are indeed but too much unacquainted with our own We are not able to search the depth of our own wicked and deceitful hearts and to ran sack throughly the many secret windings and turnings therein how much less then are we able to fathome the bottoms of other mens hearts with any certainty to pronounce of them either good or evil We must then leave the judgments of other mens Spirits and hearts and reins to him that is the Father of Spirits and alone searcheth the hearts and reins before whose eyes all things are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word is most Emphatical Heb. 4. Wherefore our Apostles precept elsewhere is good to this purpose 1 Cor. 4. Iudge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts Unless we be able to bring these hidden things to light and to make manifest these counsels it is rashness in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Thirdly this judging is uncharitable Charity is not easily suspicious but upon just cause much less then censorious and peremptory Indeed when we are to judge of Things it is wisdom to judge of them Secundùm quod sunt as near as we can to judge of them just as they are without any sway or partial inclination either to the right hand or to the left But when we are to judge of Men and their Actions it is not altogether so there the rule of charity must take place dubia in meliorem partem sunt interpretanda Unless we see manifest cause to the contrary we ought ever to interpret what is done by others with as much favour as may be To err thus is better than to hit right the other way because this course is safe and secureth us as from injuring others so from endangering our selves whereas in judging ill though right we are still unjust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the event only and not our choice freeing us from wrong judgment True Charity is ingenuous it thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13. How far then are they from Charity that are ever suspicious and think nothing well For us let it be our care to maintain Charity and to avoid as far as humane frailty will give leave even sinister suspicions of our brethrens actions or if through frailty we cannot that yet let us not from light suspicions fall into uncharitable censures let us at leastwise suspend our definitive judgment and not determine too peremptorily against such as do not in every respect just as we do or as we would have them do or as we think they should do It is uncharitable for us to judge and therefore we must not judge Lastly There is Scandal in judging Possibly he that is judged may have that strength of Faith and Charity that though rash and uncharitable censures lye thick in his way he can lightly skip over all those stumbling-blocks and scape a fall Saint Paul had such a measure of strength with me it is a very small thing saith he that I should be judged of you or of humane judgment 1 Cor. 4. If our judging light upon such an Object it is indeed no scandal to him but that 's no thanks to us We are to esteem things by their natures not events and therefore we give a scandal if we judge notwithstanding he that is judged take it not as a scandal For that judging is in itself a scandal is clear from Vers. 13. of this Chapter Let us not therefore saith S. Paul judge one another any more but judge this rather That no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall into his brothers way And thus we see four main Reasons against this judging of our brethren 1. We have no right to judge and so our
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
the power of the Church to ordain any Rites or Ceremonies in the Service of God which the People are bound to observe other than such as God hath commanded in his Word 3. That Rites and Usages devised or abused either by Heathens or Idolaters may not be lawfully used by Christians in the Service of God 4. That it is unlawful or superstitious to kneel at the Holy Communion in the act of receiving the Sacrament 5. That Instrumental Musick may not be used in the Service of God as well as Vocal 6. That Episcopacy is Antichristian or repugnant to the word of God 7. That the Presbyterian Discipline is the very Scepter of Christs Kingdom or the order appointed by Christ himself for the perpetual Government of his Church which ought of all particular Congregations to be inviolably observed unto the worlds end 8. That it is simply unlawful for a Minister to be possessed of two Benefices 9. That Ecclesiastical persons may not meddle in secular affairs nor can with a good Conscience exercise any Civil office or Iurisdiction although by humane Authority Law or custom allowed them 10. That it is not lawful in preaching Gods word to recite sentences out of the Fathers much less from the writings of Heathen Writers 11. That the Election or consent of the people is of necessity required either to the ordaining of the Ministers or to the appointing of them to their particular charges 12. Lastly which though I find not positively delivered in terminis nor is the danger thereof so generally observed as of sundry of the former yet for that I find it often touched upon in these late Treatises and conceive it to be an error of no less dangerous consequence than many of the former I thought meet not to omit it That the examples of Christ and of his Apostles ought to be observed of all Christians as a perpetual Rule binding them to Conformity even as their Precepts do unto obedience 23. Concerning which Positions I do here in the face of this Congregation take God to witness who shall judge us all at the last day that I do verily believe and in my conscience am perswaded That all and every of them are the vain and superstitious inventions of men wholly destitute of all sound warrant from the written word of God rightly understood and applied and till they shall be better proved ought to be so esteemed of every man that desireth to make Gods Holy Word the rule of his opinions and actions Many and great are the mischiefs otherwise that come to the Church and People of God by the teaching of these and other like groundless Positions As amongst others these three following First great scandal is hereby given to Atheists Papists Separatists and other the enemies of our Religion especially to the Papists who will not only take occasion thence to speak evil of us and of the way of truth and holiness which we profess but will be themselves also the more confirmed in their own wicked errors by objecting to us that since we left them we cannot tell where to stay Secondly many sober and godly men both Ministers and other who chearfully submit to the established Laws and Government as they take themselves by the Law of God bound to do in things which they believe not to be repugnant to his word are by this means unworthily exposed to contempt and mis-censure as if they were time-servers or inclined to Popery or Superstition at the least But if they shall farther endeavour in their Sermons or otherwise to shew their just dislike and to hinder the growth of these unlawful impositions and to hold the people in their good belief by instructing them better they shall be sure to be forthwith branded as opposers of the Gospel As if there were such a spirit of infallibility annexed to some mens Pulpits as some have said there is to the Pope's Chair that whatsoever they shall deliver thence must needs be Gospel Thirdly hereby many an honest-hearted and well meaning Christian is wonderfully abused by being mis-led into Error Superstition and disobedience by having his Conscience brought into bondage in those things whereunto it was the good pleasure of God to leave him free and by being disposed to much uncharitableness in judging evil of his Brother that hath given him no just cause so to do 24. Besides these and sundry other mischiefs of dangerous consequence too long now to repeat the thing that I am presently to affirm concerning all and every of the positions aforesaid and other like them pertinently to the Text and business in hand is this That whosoever shall doctrinally and positively teach any of the same doth ipso facto become guilty of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour and so far forth symbolizeth with the Pharisees in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men And I doubt not but there are in the Church of England sundry learned judicious and Orthodox Divines no way suspected of favouring Popery or Popish Innovations that by Gods help and the advantage of Truth will be ready to maintain what I now affirm in a fair Christian and Scholar-like trial against whosoever are otherwise minded whensoever by Authority they shall be thereunto required 25. I have now finished what I had to say from this Scripture by way of Application From the whole premisses would arise sundry Inferences as Corollaries and by way of Use. In the prosecution whereof had we time for it I should have occasion to fall upon some things that might be of right good use for the setling of mens Iudgments and Consciences in a way of Truth and Peace And truly my aim lay chiefly here when my thoughts fixt upon this Text. But having enlarged my self so far beyond my first purpose already I shall only give you a short touch of each of them and it may be hereafter as I shall see cause and as God shall dispose I may take some other occasion here or elsewhere to enlarge them further 26. The first should be an earnest request to such of my Brethren as through inconsideratian zeal against Popery or profaneness or any other cause have been a little too forward and faulty this way That they would in the fear of God review their own dictates and all partiality and self-seeking laid aside bestow a little pains to examine throughly the soundness of those principles from which they draw their Conclusions whether they be the very true word of God indeed or but the fancies and devices of the wit of man I know how lothly men are induced to suspect themselves to be in an Error and that it is with our Brethren herein as with other men may sufficiently appear in this that few of them will so much as bestow the reading of those Books that might give them satisfaction But beloved better try your own work your selves and if it prove but Hay or Stubble burn it your selves by acknowledging your
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 not much better now nay God grant it be not generally even much worse Receive now in the last place and as the third and last inference a word of Exhortation and it shall be but a word You whom God hath called to any honour or office appertaining to justice as you tender the glory of God and the good of the Commonwealth as you tender the honour of the King and the prosperity of the Kingdom as you tender the peace and tranquillity of your selves and neighbours as you tender the comfort of your own consciences and the salvation of your own souls set your selves throughly and cheerfully and constantly and conscionably to discharge with faithfulness all those duties which belong unto you in your several stations and callings and to advance to the utmost of your power the due administration and execution of justice Do not decline those burdens which cleave to the honours you sustain Do not post off those businesses from your selves to others which you should rather do than they or at least may as well do as they Stand up with the zeal of Phinees and by executing judgment help to turn away those heavy plagues which God hath already begun to bring upon us and to prevent those yet heavier ones which having so rightly deserved we have all just cause to fear Breathe fresh life into the languishing laws by mature and severe and discreet execution Put on righteousness as a Garment and cloath your selves with Iudgment as with a Robe and Diadem Among so many Oppressions as in these evil days are done under the Sun to whom should the fatherless and the Widow and the wronged complain but to you whence seek for relief but from you Be not you wanting to their necessities Let your eyes be open unto their miseries and your ears open unto their cries and your hands open unto their wants Give friendly Counsel to those that stand need of your Direction afford convenient help to those that stand need of your assistance carry a Fatherly affection to all those that stand in need of any comfort protection or relief from you Be eyes to the Blind and feet to the lame and be you instead of Fathers to the poor But yet do not countenance no not a poor man in his cause farther than he hath equity on his side Remember one point of wisdom not to be too credulous of every suggestion and information But do your best to spie out the chinks and starting holes and secret conveyances and packings of cunning and crafty companions and when you have found them out bring them to light and do exemplary justice upon them Sell not your ears to your servants nor tie your selves to the informations of some one or a few or of him that cometh first but let every party have a fair and an equal hearing Examine proofs Consider circumstances be content to hear simple men tell their tales in such language as they have think no pains no patience too much to sift out the truth Neither by inconsiderate haste prejudice any mans right nor weary him out of it by torturing delays The cause which you know not use all diligence and covenient both care and speed to search it out But ever withal remember your standing is slippery and you shall have many and sore assaultâ— and very shrewd temptations so that unless you arm your selves with invincible resolution you are gone The wicked ones of this world will conjure you by your old friendship and acquaintance and by all the bonds of Neighbourhood and kindness bribe your Wives and Children and Servants to corrupt you procure great mens Letters or Favorites as engines to move you convey a bribe into your own bosoms but under a handsomer name and in some other shape so cunningly and secretly sometimes that your selves shall not know it to be a bribe when you receive it Harden your faces and strengthen your resolution with a holy obstinacy against these and all other like temptations Count him an enemy that will alledge friendship to pervert justice When you sit in the place of justice think you are not now Husbands or Parents or Neighbours but Iudges Contemn the frowns and the favours and the Letters of great ones in comparison of that trust which greater ones than they the King and State and a yet Greater than they the great God of heaven and earth hath reposed in you and expecteth from you Chastise him with severe indignation if he begin and if he continue spit defiance in his face who ere he be that shall think you so base as to sell your freedom for a bribe Gird your sword upon your thigh and keeping your selves ever within the compass of your Commissions and Callings as the Sun in the Zodiack go through stitch right on in the course of Iustice as the Sun in the firmament with unresisted violence and as a Giant that rejoyceth to run his race and who can stop him Bear not the sword in vain but let your right hand teach you terrible things Defend the poor and fatherless and deliver the oppressed from them that are mightier than he Smite through the loyns of those that rise up to do wrong that they rise not again Break the jaws of the wicked and pluck the spoil out of his teeth Thus if you do the wicked shall fear you the good shall bless you the poor shall pray for you posterity shall praise you your own hearts shall â—hear you and the great God of Heaven shall reward you This that you may do in some good measure the same God of Heaven enable you and give you and every of us grace in our several places and callings to seek his glory and to endeavour the discharge of a good conscience To which God blessed for ever Fathers Son and Holy Ghost three Persons and one eternal invisible and only wise God be ascribed all the Kingdom Power and Glory for ever and ever Amen AD MAGISTRATUM The Second Sermon At the Assises at Lincoln 7 March 1624. at the request of William Lister Esq then high Sheriff of the County EXOD. XXIII ver 1 2 3. 1. Thou shalt not raise a false report â—ut not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness 2. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment 3. Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause THere is no one thing Religion ever excepted that more secureth and adorneth the State than Iustice doth It is both Columna and Corona Reipublicae as a Prop to make it subsist firm in it self and as a Crown to render it glorious in the eyes of others As the Cement in a building that holdeth all together so is justice to the publick Body as whereunto it oweth a great part both of its strength for by it
but a defamed person no Acquittal from the Iudg no satisfaction from the Accuser no following Endeavours in himself can so restore in integrum but that when the Wound is healed he shall yet carry the marks and the scars of it to his dying day Great also are the mischiefs that hence redound to the Commonwealth When no innocency can protect an honest quiet man but every busie base fellow that oweth him a spite shall be able to fetch him into the Courts draw him from the necessary charge of his family and duties of his calling to an unnecessary expence of money and time torture him with endless delays and expose him to the pillage of every hungry Officer It is one of the grievances God had against Ierusalem and as he calleth them Abominations for which he threatneth to judge her Viri detractores in te In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood Beware then all you whose business or lot it is at this Assizes or hereafter may be to be Plaintiffs Accusers Informers or any way Parties in any Court of Justice this or other Civil or Ecclesiastical that you suffer not the guilt of this Prohibition to cleave unto your Consciences If you shall hereafter be raisers of false Reports the words you have heard this day shall make you inexcusable another You are by what hath been presently spoken disabled everlastingly from pleading any Ignorance either Facti or Iuris as having been instructed both what it is and how great a Fault it is to raise a false Report Resolve therefore if you be free never to enter into any Action or Suit wherein you cannot proceed with Comfort nor come off without Injustice or if already engaged to make as good and speedy an end as you can of a bad matter and to desist from farther prosecution Let that Golden Rule commended by the wisest Heathens as a fundamental Principle of Moral and Civil Iustice yea and proposed by our blessed Saviour himself as a full abridgment of the Law and Prophets be ever in your eye and ever before your thoughts to measure out all your Actions and Accusations and Proceedings thereby even to do so to other men and no otherwise than as you could be content or in right reason should be content they should do to you and yours if their case were yours Could any of you take it well at your Neighbours hand should he seek your life or livelihood by suggesting against you things which you never had so much as the thought to do or bring you into a peck of Troubles by wresting your Words and Actions wherein you meant nothing but well to a dangerous construction or follow the Law upon you as if he would not leave you worth a groat for every petty Trespass scarce worth half the money or fetch you over the hip upon a branch of some blind uncouth and pretermitted Statute He that should deal thus with you and yours I know not what would be said and thought Griper Knave Villain Devil incarnate all this and much more would be too little for him Well I say no more but this Quod tibi fieri non vis c. Do as you would be done to There is your general rule But for more particular direction if any man desire it since in every evil one good step to soundness is to have discovered the right Cause thereof â— know not what better course to prescribe for the preventing of this sin of Sycophancy and false accusation than for every man carefully to avoid the inducing Causes thereof and the Occasions of those Causes There are God knoweth in this present wicked World to every kind of evil inducements but too too many To this of false Accusation therefore it is not unlikely but there may be more yet we may observe that there are four things which are the most ordinary and frequent Causes thereof viz. Malice Obsequiousness Coverture and Covetousness The first is Malice Which in some men if I may be allowed to call them men being indeed rather Monsters is universal They love no body glad when they can do any man any mischief in any matter never at so good quiet as when they are most unquiet It seemed David met with some such men that were Enemies to peace when he spake to them of peace they made themselves ready to battel Take one of these men it is meat and drink to him which to a well-minded Christian is as Gall and Wormwood to be in continual sutes Et si non aliqua nocuisset mortuus esset he could not have kept himself in breath but by keeping Terms nor have lived to this hour if he had not been in Law Such cankered dispositions as these without the more than ordinary mercy of God there is little hope to reclaim unless very want when they have spent and undone themselves with wrangling for that is commonly their end and the reward of all their toyl make them hold off and give over But there are besides these others also in whom although this malice reigneth not so universally yet are they so far carried with private spleen and hatred against some particular men for some personal respect or other as to seek their undoing by all means they can Out of which hatred and envy they raise false reports of them that being in their judgments as it is indeed the most speedy and the most speeding way to do mischief with safety This made the Presidents and Princes of Persia to seek an Accusation against Daniel whom they envied because the King had preferred him above them And in all Ages of the World wicked and prophane men have been busie to suggest the worst they could against those that have been faithful in their Callings especially in the callings of the Magistracy or Ministry that very faithfulness of theirs being to the other a sufficient ground of malice To remedy this take the Apostles rule Heb. 12. Look diligently lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled Submit your selves to the Word and Will of God in the Ministry submit your selves to the Power and Ordinance of God in the Magistracy submit your selves to the good pleasure and Providence of God in disposing of yours and other mens Estates and you shall have no cause by the grace of God out of Malice or Envy to any of your brethren to raise false Reports of them The second Inducement is Obsequiousness When either out of a base fear of displeasing some that have power to do us a displeasure or out of a baser Ambition to scrue our selves into the service or favour of those that may advance us we are content though we owe them no private grudge otherwise yet to become officious Accusers of those they hate but would not be seen so to do so making our selves as it were bawds unto their lust and open
rest as I have done in this my Meditations would swell to the proportion rather of a Treatise than a Sermon and what patience were able to sit them out therefore I must not do it And indeed if what I have spoken to this first point were duly considered and conscionably practised I should the less need to do it For it is the Accuser that layeth the first stone the rest do but build upon his Foundation And if there were no false reports raised or received there would be the less use of and the less work for false and suborned Witnesses ignorant or pack'd Iuries crafty and sly Pleaders cogging and extorting Officers but unto these I have no more to say at this time but only to desire each of them to lay that portion of my Text to their hearts which in the first division was allotted them as their proper share and withal to make application mutatis mutandis unto themselves of whatsoever hath been presently spoken to the Accuser and to the Magistrate from this first Rulē Whereof for the better furtherance of their Application and relief of our memories the summ in brief is thus First concerning the Accuser and that is every party in a Cause or Trial he must take heed he do not raise a false report which is done first by forging a meer untruth and secondly by perverting or aggravating a truth and thirdly by taking advantage of strict Law against Equity any of which whoever doth he first committeth a heinous sin himself and secondly grievously wrongeth his neighbour and thirdly bringeth a great deal of mischief to the Commonwealth All which evils are best avoided first by considering how we would others should deal with us and resolving so to deal with them and secondly by avoiding as all other inducements and occasions so especially those four things which ordinarily engage men in unjust quarrels Malice Obsequiousness Coverture and Greediness Next concerning the Iudge or Magistrate he must take heed he do not receive a false report which he shall hardly avoid unless he beware first of taking private informations secondly of passing over Causes slightly without mature disquisition and thirdly of countenancing accusers more than is meet For whose discountenancing and deterring he may consider whether or no these five may not be good helps so far as it lyeth in his power and the Laws will permit first to reject informations tendered without Oath secondly to give such Interpretations as may stand with Equity as well as Law thirdly to chastise Informers that use partiality or collusion fourthly to allow the wronged party a liberal Satisfaction from his Adversary fifthly to carry a sharp Eye and a strait Hand over his own Servants Followers and Officers Now what remaineth but that the several Premises be earnestly recommended to the godly consideration and conscionable practice of every one of you whom they may concern and all your persons and affairs both in the present weighty businesses and ever hereafter to the good guidance and providence of Almighty God we should humbly beseech him of his gracious goodness to give a Blessing to that which hath been spoken agreeably to his Word that it may bring forth in us the fruits of Godliness Charity and Iustice to the Glory of his Grace the Good of our Brethren and the Comfort of our own Souls even for his blessed Son's sake our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ To whom with c. AD MAGISTRATUM The Third Sermon At the Assises at Lincoln August 4th 1625. at the Request of the High-Sheriff aforesaid William Lister Esquire Psal. CVI. 30. Then stood up Phinees and executed Iudgment and the Plague was stayed THE Abridgment is short which some have made of the whole Book of Psalms but into two words Hosannah and Hallelujah most of the Psalms spending themselves as in their proper Arguments either in Supplication praying unto God for his Blessings and that is Hosannah or in Thanksgiving blessing God for his goodness and that is Hallelujah This Psalm is of the latter sort The word Hallelujah both prefixed in the Title and repeated in the close of it sufficiently giveth it to be a Psalm of Thanksgiving as are also the three next before it and the next after it All which five Psalms together as they agree in the same general Argument the magnifying of God's holy Name so they differ one from another in choice of those special and topical Arguments whereby the Praises of God are set forth therein In the rest the Psalmist draweth his Argument from other Considerations in this from the Consideration of God's merciful removal of those Iudgments he had in his just wrath brought upon his own People Israel for their Sins upon their Repentance For this purpose there are sundry instances given in the Psalm taken out of the Histories of former times out of which there is framed as it were a Catalogue though not of all yet of sundry the most famous rebellions of that people against their God and of Gods both Iustice and Mercy abundantly manifested in his proceedings with them thereupon In all which we may observe the passages betwixt God and them in the ordinary course of things ever to have stood in this order First he preventeth them with undeserved favours they unmindful of his benefits provoke him by their rebellions he in his just wrath chastiseth them with heavy Plagues they humbled under the rod seek to him for ease he upon their submission withdraweth his judgments from them The Psalmist hath wrapped all these five together in Vers. 43 44. Many times did he deliver them but they provoked him with their Counsels and were brought low for their iniquity the three first Nevertheless he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry the other two The particular rebellions of the people in this Psalm instanced in are many some before and some after the verse of my Text. For brevity sake those that are in the following verses I wholly omit and but name the rest which are their wretched Infidelity and Cowardice upon the first approach of danger at the Red Sea vers 7. Their tempting of God in the desert when loathing Manna they lusted for flesh vers 13. Their seditious conspiracy under Corah and his confederates against Moses vers 16. Their gross Idolatry at Horeb in making and worshipping the golden Calf ver 19. Their distrustful murmuring at their portion in thinking scorn of the promised pleasant land ver 24. Their fornicating both bodily with the daughters and spiritually with the Idols of Moab and of Midian ver 28. To the prosecution of which last mentioned story the words of my Text do appertain The original story it self whereto this part of the Psalm referreth is written at full by Moses in Numb 25. and here by David but briefly touched as the present purpose and occasion led him yet so as that the most
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
on your own time and suspendeth the judgments your sins have deserved for a space as here he did Ahab's upon his humiliation but be assured sooner or later vengeance will overtake you or yours for it You have Coveted an evil covetousness to your house and there hangeth a judgment over your house for it as rain in the clouds which perhaps in your sons perhaps in your grand-childs days sometime or other will come dashing down upon it and overwhelm it Think not the vision is for many descents to come De malè quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres seldom doth the third scarce ever the fourth generation pass before God visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children if he do not in the very next generation In his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house Secondly if not only our own but our Fathers sins too may be shall be visited upon us how concerneth it us as to repent for our own so to lament also the sins of our forefathers and in our confessions and supplications to God sometimes to remember them that he may forget them and to set them before his face that he may cast them behind his back We have a good president for it in our publick Letany Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers A good and a profitable and a needful prayer it is and those men have not done well nor justly that have cavilled at it O that men would be wise according to sobriety and allow but just interpretations to things advisedly established rather than busie themselves nodum in scirpo to pick needless quarrels where they should not What unity would it bring to brethren what peace to the Church what joy to all good and wise men As to this particular God requireth of the Israelites in Lev. 26. that they should confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their Fathers David did so and Ieremy did so and Daniel did so in Psal. 106. in Ierem 3. in Dan. 9. And if David thought it a fit curse to pronounce against Iudas and such as he was in Psal. 109. Let the wickedness of his fathers be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord and let not the sin of his mother be done away why may we not nay how ought we not to pray for the removal of this very curse from us as well as of any other curses The present age is rise of many enormous crying sins which call loud for a judgment upon the land and if God should bring upon us a right heavy one whereat all ears should tingle could we say other but that it were most just even for the sins of this present generation But if unto our own so many so great God should also add the sins of our forefathers the bloodshed and tyranny and grievous unnatural butcheries in the long times of the Civil wars and the universal Idolatries and superstitions covering the whole land in the longer and darker times of Popery and if as he sometimes threatned to bring upon the Iews of that one generation all the righteous blood that ever was shed upon the earth from the blood of the righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias so he should bring the sins of our Ancestors for many generations past upon this generation of ours who could be able to abide it Now when the security of the times give us but too much cause to fear it and regions begin to look white towards the harvest is it not time for us with all humiliation of Soul and Body to cast down our selves and with all contention of voice and spirit to lift up our prayers and to say Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins Spare us good Lord spare the people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood and be not angry with us for ever Spare us good Lord Thirdly Since not only our fathers sins and our own but our Neighbours sins too aliquid malum propter vicinum malum but especially the sins of Princes and Governours delirant reges plectuntur Achivi may bring judgments upon us and enwrap us in their punishments it should teach every one of us to seek his own private in the common and publick good and to endeavour if but for our own security from punishment to awaken others from their security in sin How should we send up Supplications and prayers and intercessions for Kings and for all that are in authority that God would incline their hearts unto righteous courses and open their ears to wholesom counsels and strengthen their hands to just actions when but a sinful oversight in one of them may prove the overthrow of many thousands of us as David but by once numbring his people in the pride of his heart lessened their number at one clap threescore and ten thousand If Israel turn their backs upon their enemies up Ioshua and make search for the troubler of Israel firret out the thief and do execution upon him one Achan if but suffered is able to undo the whole host of Israel what mischief might he do if countenanced if allowed The hour I see hath overtaken me and I must end To wrap up all in a word then and conclude Thou that hast power over others suffer no sin in them by base connivence but punish it thou that hast charge of others suffer no sin in them by dull silence but rebuke it thou that hast any interest in or dealing with others suffer no sin upon them by easie allowance but distaste it thou that hast nothing else yet by thy charitable prayers for them and by constant example to them stop the course of sin in others further the growth of grace in others labour by all means as much as in thee lieth to draw others unto God lest their sins draw God's judgments upon themselves and thee This that thou mayest do and that I may do and that every one of us that feareth God and wisheth well to the Israel of God may do faithfully and discreetly in our several stations and callings let us all humbly beseech the Lord the God of all grace and wisdom for his Son Iesus sake by his holy Spirit to enable us To which blessed Trinity one only Wise Immortal Invisible Almighty most gracious and most glorious Lord and God be ascribed by every one of us the kingdom the power and the glory both now and for ever AD POPULUM The Fourth Sermon In St. Paul's Church London Nov. 4. 1621. 1 COR. VII 24. Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God IF flesh and blood be suffered to make the Gloss it is able to corrupt a right good Text. It easily turneth the doctrine of Gods grace into wantonness and as easily the doctrine of Christian liberty into
in or to keep back Retinui or Cohibui or as the Latine hath it Custodivi te implying Abimelech's forwardness to that sin certainly he had been gone if God had not kept him in and held him back The Greek word rendreth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I spared thee and so the Latin Parcere is sometimes used for impedire or prohibere to hinder or not to suffer as in that of Virgil Parcite oves nimium procedere Or taking parcere in the most usual signification for sparing it may very well stand with the purpose of the place for indeed God spareth us no less indeed he spareth us much more when he maketh us forbear sin than when having sinned he forbeareth to punish and as much cause have we to acknowledge his mercy and rejoyce in it when he holdeth our hands that we sin not as when he holdeth his own hands that he strike not For I also with-held thee from sinning against me How Did not Abimelech sin in taking Sarah or was not that as every other sin is a sin against God Certainly had not Abimelech sinned in so doing and that against God God would not have so plagued him as he did for that deed The meaning then is not that God with held him wholly from sinning at all therein but that God with held him from sinning against him in that foul kind and in that high degree as to defile himself by actual filthiness with Sarah which but for Gods restnaint he had done therefore suffered I thee not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non demisi te that is I did not let thee go I did not leave thee to thy self or most agreeable to the letter of the Text in the Hebrew non dedi or non tradidi I did not deliver or give That may be non dedi potestatem I did not give thee leave or power and so giving is sometimes used for suffering as Psal. 16. Non dabis sanctum tuum Thou wilt not suffer c. and elsewhere Or non dedi te tibi I gave thee not to thy self A man cannot be put more desperately into the hands of any enemy than to be left in manu consilii sui delivered into his own hands and given over to the lust of his own heart Or as it is here translated I suffered thee not We should not draw in God as a party when we commit any sin as if he joyned with us in it or lent us his helping hand for it we do it so alone without his help that we never do it but when he letteth us alone and leaveth us destitute of his help For the kind and manner and measure and circumstances and events and other the appurtenances of sin God ordereth them by his Almighty power and providence so as to become serviceable to his most wise most just most holy purposes but as for the very formality it self of the sin God is to make the most of it but a sufferer Therefore suffered I thee not To Touch her Signifying that God had so far restrained Abimelech from the accomplishment of his wicked and unclean purposes that Sarah was preserved free by his good providence not only from actual adultery but from all unchaste and wanton dalliance also with Abimelech It was Gods great mercy to all the three Parties that he did not suffer this evil to be done for by this means he graciously preserved Abimelech from the sin Abraham from the wrong and Sarah from both And it is to be acknowledged the great mercy of God when at any time he doth and he doth ever and anon more or less by his gracious and powerful restraint with-hold any man from running into those extremities of sin and mischief whereinto his own corruption would carry him headlong especially when it is agog by the cunning perswasions of Satan and the manifold temptations that are in the world through lust The points then that arise from this part of my Text are these 1. Men do not always commit those evils their own desires or outward temptations prompt them unto 2. That they do it not it is from Gods restraint 3. That God restraineth them it is of his own gracious goodness and mercy The common subject matter of the whole three points being one viz. Gods restraint of mans sin we will therefore wrap them up all three together and so handle them in this one entire Observation as the total of all three God in his mercy oftentimes restraineth men from committing those evils which if that restraint were not they would otherwise have committed This Restraint whether we consider the Measure or the Means which God useth therein is of great variety For the Measure God sometimes restraineth men à toto from the whole sin whereunto they are tempted as he withheld Ioseph from consenting to the perswasions of his Mistress sometimes only à tanto and that more or less as in his infinite wisdom he seeth expedient suffering them perhaps but only to desire the evil perhaps to resolve upon it perhaps to prepare for it perhaps to begin to Act it perhaps to proceed far in it and yet keeping them back from falling into the extremity of the sin or accomplishing their whole desire in the full and final consummation thereof as here he dealt with Abimelech Abimelech sinned against the eighth Commandment in taking Sarah injuriously from Abraham say he had been but her brother and he sinned against the seventh Commandment in a foul degree in harbouring such wanton and unchaste thoughts concerning Sarah and making such way as he did by taking her into his house for the satisfying of his lust therein but yet God with-held him from plunging himself into the extremity of those sins not suffering him to fall into the act of uncleanness And as for the Means whereby God with-holdeth men from sinning they are also of wonderful variety Sometimes he taketh them off by diverting the course of the corruption and turning the affections another way Sometimes he awaketh natural Conscience which is a very tender and tickle thing when it is once stirred and will boggle now and then at a very small matter in comparison over it will do at some other times Sometimes he affrighteth them with apprehensions of outward Evils as shame infamy charge envy loss of a friend danger of humane Laws and sundry other such like discouragements Sometimes he cooleth their resolutions by presenting unto their thoughts the terrors of the Law the strictness of the last Account and the endless unsufferable torments of Hell-fire Sometimes when all things are ripe for execution he denieth them opportunity or casteth in some unexpected impediment in the way that quasheth all Sometimes he disableth them and weakneth the arm of flesh wherein they trusted so as they want power to their will as here he dealth with Abimelech And sundry other ways he hath more than
seeth expedient and useful for the forwarding of other his secret and just and holy appointments and so order the sinful fierceness of man by his wonderful providence as to make it serviceable to his ends and to turn it to his glory but look whatsoever wrath and fierceness there is in the heart of a man over and above so much as will serve for those his eternal purposes all that surplusage that overplus and remainder whatsoever it be he will gird he will so bind and hamper and restrain him that he shall not be able to go an inch beyond his tedder though he would fret his heart out The fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise so much of it as he doth execute and the remainder of their fierceness thou shalt restrain that they execute it not Be he never so great a Prince or have he never so great a spirit all is one he must come under No difference with God in this betwixt him that sitteth on the Throne and her that grindeth at the Mill He shall refrain the spirit of Princes and is wonderful among the Kings of the earth in the last verse of that Psalm Now of the truth of all that hath been hitherto spoken in both these branches of the Observation viz. that first there is a restraint of evil and then secondly that this restraint is from God I know not any thing can give us better assurance taking them both together than to consider the generality and strength of our Natural corruption General it is first in regard of the persons overspreading the whole lump of our nature there is not a child of Adam free from the common infection They are all corrupt they are altogether abominable there is none that doth good no not one General secondly in regard of the subject over-running the whole man soul and body with all the parts and powers of either so as from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no whole part Whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh and To them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled and All the imaginations of the thoughts of their hearts are only evil continually General thirdly in regard of the object averse from all kind of good In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing and prone to all kind of evil He hath set himself in no good way neither doth he abhor any thing that is evil Add to this generality the strength also of our corruption how vigorous and stirring and active it is and how it carrieth us headlongly with full speed into all manner of evil As the horse rusheth into the battel so as we have no hold of our selves neither power to stay our selves till we have run as far as we can and without the mercy of God plunged our selves into the bottom of the bottomless pit Lay all this together and there can be no other sufficient reason given than this restraint whereof we now speak why any one man should at any one time refrain from any one sin being tempted thereunto whereinto any other man at any other time hath fallen being alike tempted Every man would kill his brother as Cain did Abel and every man defile his sister as Amnon did Thamar and every man oppress his inferiour as Ahab did Naboth and every man supplant his betters as Zibah did Mephibosheth and ever man betray his Master as Iudas did Christ every man being as deep in the loyns of Adam as either Cain or Iudas or any of the rest Their nature was not more corrupt than ours neither ours less corrupt than theirs and therefore every one of us should have done those things as well as any one of them if there had not been something without and above nature to withhold us and keep us back therefrom when we were tempted which was not in that measure afforded them when they were tempted And from whom can we think that restraiut to come but from that God who is the Author and the Lord of nature and hath the power and command and rule of Nature by whose grace and goodness we are whatsoever we are and to whose powerful assistance we owe it if we do any good for it is he that setteth us on and to his powerful restraint if we eschew any evil for it is he that keepeth us off Therefore I also with-held thee from sinning against me And as to the third point in the Observation it is not much less evident than the two former namely that this Restraint as it is from God so it is from the Mercy of God Hence it is that Divines usually bestow upon it the name of Grace distinguishing between a twofold Grace a special renewing Grace and a Common restraining Grace The special and renewing Grace is indeed and so incomparably more excellent that in comparison thereof the other is not worthy to be called by the name of Grace if we would speak properly and exactly but yet the word Grace may not unfitly be so extended as to reach to every act of Gods providence whereby at any time he restraineth men from doing those evils which otherwise they would do and that in a threefold respect of God of themselves of others First in respect of God every restraint from sin may be called Grace inasmuch as it proceedeth ex mero motu from the meer good will and pleasure of God without any cause motive or inducement in the man that is so restrained For take a man in the state of corrupt nature and leave him to himself and think how it is possible for him to forbear any sin whereunto he is tempted There is no power in nature to work a restraint nay there is not so much as any proneness in nature to desire a restraint much less then is there any worth in Nature to deserve a restraint Issuing therefore not at all from the powers of Nature but from the free pleasure of God as a beam of his merciful providence this Restraint may well be called Grace And so it may be secondly in respect of the Persons themselves because though it be not available to them for their everlasting salvation yet it is some favour to them more than they have deserved that by this means their sins what in number what in weight are so much lesser than otherwise they would have been whereby also their account shall be so much the easier and their stripes so many the fewer St. Chrysostom often observeth it as an effect of the mercy of God upon them when he cutteth off great offenders betimes with some speedy destruction and he doth it out of this very consideration that they are thereby prevented from committing many sins which if God should have lent them a longer time they would have committed If
because he hath not so full and absolute command of some of his subjects as before he had or seemed to have Fifthly much of the hurt that might come by evil example is hereby prevented Sixthly the people of God are preserved from many injuries and contumelies which they would receive from evil men if their barbarous manners were not thus civilized as a fierce Mastiff doth least hurt when he is chained and muzled Seventhly and lastly and which should be the strongest motive of all the rest to make us industrious to repress vicious affections in others it may please God these sorry beginnings may be the fore-runners of more blessed and more solid graces My meaning is not that these Moral restraints of our wild corruption can either actually or but vertually prepare dispose or qualifie any man for the grace of Conversion and Renovation or have in them Virtutem seminalem any natural power which by ordinary help may be cherished and improved so far as an Egg may be hatched into a Bird and a kernel sprout and grow into a tree far be it from us to harbour any such Pelagian conceits but this I say that God being a God of Order doth not ordinarily work but in order and by degrees bringing men from the one extreme to the other by middle courses and therefore seldom bringeth a man from the wretchedness of forlorn nature to the blessed estate of saving grace but where first by his restraining grace in some good measure he doth correct nature and moralize it Do you then that are Magistrates do we that are Ministers let all Fathers Masters and others whatsoever by wholsom severity if fairer courses will not reclaim them deter audacious persons from offending break those that are under our charge of their wills and wilfulness restrain them from lewd and licentious practices and company not suffer sin upon them for want of reproving them in due and seasonable sort snatch them out of the fire and bring them as far as we can out of the snare of the Devil to God-ward and leave the rest to him Possibly when we have faithfully done our part to the utmost of our power he will set in graciously and begin to do his part in their perfect conversion If by our good care they may be made to forbear swearing and â—ursing and blaspheming they may in time by his good grace be brought to fear an Oath If we restrain them from gross prophanations upon his holy-day in the mean time they may come at length to think his Sabbath a delight If we keep them from swilling and gaming and revelling and rioting and roaring the while God may frame them ere long to a sober and sanctified use of the Creatures and so it may be said of other sins and duties I could willingly inlarge all these points of Inferences but that there are yet behind sundry other good Uses to be made of this restraining Grace of God considered as it may lye upon our selves and therefore I now pass on to them First There is a root of Pride in us all whereby we are apt to think better of our selves than there is cause and every infirmity in our Brother which should rather be an item to us of our frailty serveth as fuel to nourish this vanity and to swell us up with a Pharisaical conceit that forsooth we are not like other men Now if at any time when we see any of our brethren fall into some sin from which by the good hand of God upon us we have been hitherto preserved we then feel this swelling begin to rise in us as sometimes it will do the point already delivered may stand us in good stead to prick the bladder of our pride and to let out some of that windy vanity by considering that this our forbearance of evil wherein we seem to excel our brother it not from nature but from grace not from our selves but from God And here a little let me close with thee whosoever thou art that pleasest thy self with odious comparisons and standest so much upon terms of betterness Thou art neither extortioner nor adulterer drunkard nor swearer thief slanderer nor murtherer as such and such are It may be thou art none of these but I can tell thee what thou art and that is as odious in the sight of God as any of these Thou art a proud Pharisee which perhaps they are not To let thee see thou art a Pharisee do but give me a direct answer without shifting or mincing to that Question of St. Paul Quis te discrevit Who hath made thee to differ from another Was it God or thy self or both together If thou sayest It was God thou art a dissembler and thy boasting hath already confuted thee for what hast thou to do to glory in that which is not thine If thou hadst received it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it If thou sayest it was from thy self what Pharisee could have assumed more All the shift thou hast is to say it was God indeed that made the difference but he saw something in thee for which he made thee to differ thou acknowledgest his restraint in part but thine own good nature did something If this be all thou art a very Pharisee still without all escape That Pharisee never denied God a part no nor the chiefest part neither he began his vaunting prayer with an acknowledgment of Gods work I thank thee O God that I am not like other men It was not the denial of all unto God but the assuming of any thing unto himself that made him a right Pharisee Go thy way then and if thou wilt do God and thy self right deny thy self altogether and give God the whole Glory of it if thou hast been preserved from any evil And from thy brothers fall besides compassioning forlorn Nature in him make a quite contrary use unto thy self even to humble thee thereby with such like thoughts as these Considering thy self lest thou also be tempted Am I any better than he Of better mold than he Or better tempered than he Am not I a Child of the same Adam a vessel of the same clay a chip of the same block with him Why then should I be high-minded when I see him fallen before me Why should I not rather fear lest my foot slip as well as his hath done I have much cause with all thankfulness to bless God for his good Providence over me in not suffering me to fall into this sin hitherto and with all humility to implore the continuance of his gracious assistance for the future without which I am not able to avoid this or any other evil Secondly since all restraints from sin by what second means soever they are conveyed unto us or forwarded are from the merciful providence of God whensoever we observe that God hath vouchsafed
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
ween is another-gates matter than to make the face to shine This for material Oil. Then for those other outward things which for some respects I told you might be also comprehended under the name of Ointments Riches Honours and worldly Pleasures alas how poor and sorry comforts are they to a man that hath forfeited his good Name that liveth in no credit not reputation that groaneth under the contempt and reproach and infamy of every honest or but sober man Whereas he that by godly and vertuous Actions by doing Iustice and exercising Mercy and ordering himself and his affairs discreetly holdeth up his good Name and reputation hath that yet to comfort himself withal and to fill his bones as with marrow and fatness though encompassed otherwise with many outward wants and calamities Without which even life it self would be unpleasant I say not to a perfect Christian only but even to every ingenuous moral man The worthier â—ort of men among the Heathens would have chosen rather to have died the most cruel deaths than to have lived infamous under shame and disgrace And do not those words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 9. shew that he was not much otherwise minded It were better for me to dye than that any man should make my glorying void Thus a good Name is better than any precious Ointment take it as you will properly or tropically because it yieldeth more solid content and satisfaction to him that enjoyeth it than the other doth 17. Compare them thirdly in those performances whereunto they enable us Oils and Ointments by a certain penetrative faculty that they have being well chaâ—ed in do supple the joynts and strengthen the sinews very much and thereby greatly enable the body for action making it more nimble and vigorous than otherwise it would be Whence it was that among the Greeks and from their example among the Romans and in other Nations those that were to exercise Arms or other feats of Activity in their solemn Games especially Wrestlers did usually by frictions and anointings prepare and fit their bodies for those Athletick performances to do them with more agility and less weariness Insomuch as Chrysostom and other Greek Fathers almost every where use the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only when they speak of those preparatory advantages such as are prayer fasting meditation of Christs Sufferings or of the Joys of Heaven and the like wherewith Christians may fortifie and secure themselves when they are to enter the combate with their spiritual enemies but more generally to signifie any preparing or fitting of a person for any manner of action whatsoever 18. But how much more excellent then is a good name Which is of such mighty consequence advantage for the expediting of any honest enterprise that we take in hand either in our Christian course or civil life in this World It is an old saying taken up indeed in relation to another matter somewhat distant from that we are now treating of but it holdeth no less true in this than in that other respect Duo cum faciunt idem non est idem Let two men speak the same words give the same advice pursue the same business drive the same design with equal right equal means equal diligence every other thing equal yet commonly the success is strangely different if the one be well thought of and the other labour of an ill name So singular an advantage is it for the crowning of our endeavours with good success to be in a good name If there be a good opinion held of us and our names once up whether we deserve it or no whatsoever we do is well taken whatsoever we propose is readily entertained our counsels yea and rebukes too carry weight and authority with them By which means we are enabled if we have but grace to make that good use thereof to do the more good to bring the more glory to God to give better countenance to his truth and to good causes and things Whereas on the other side if we be in an ill name whether we deserve it or no all our speeches and actions are ill-interpreted no man regardeth much what we say or do our proposals are suspected our counsels and rebukes though wholsom and just scorned and kickt at so as those men we speak for that side we adhere to those causes we defend those businesses we manage shall lie under some prejudice and be like to speed the worse for the evil opinion that is held of us We know well it should be otherwise Non quis sed quid As the Magistrate that exerciseth publick judgment should lay aside all respect of the person and look at the cause only so should we all in our private judgings of other mens speeches and actions look barely upon the truth of what they say and the goodness of what they do and accordingly esteem of both neither better nor worse more or less for whatsoever fore-conceits we may have of the person Otherwise how can we avoid the charge of having the faith of our Lord Iesus Christ the Lord of Glory with respect of persons But yet since men are corrupt and will be partial this way do we what we can and that the World and the affairs thereof are so much steered by Opinion it will be a point of godly wisdom in us so far to make use of this common corruption as not to disadvantage our selves for want of a good name and good Opinion for the doing of that good whilst we live here among men subject to such frailties which we should set our desires and bend our endeavours to do And so a good Name is better than a good Ointment in that it enableth us to better and worthier performances 19. Compare them Fourthly in their Extensions and that both for Place and Time For place first That Quality of the three before-mentioned which especially setteth a value upon Ointments advancing their price and esteem more eminently than any other consideration is their smell those being ever held most precious and of greatest delicacy that excel that way And herein is the excellency of the choicest Aromatical Ointments that they do not only please the sence if they be held near to the Organ but they do also disperse the fragrance of their scent round about them to a great distance Of the sweetest herbs and flowers the smell is not much perceived unless they be held somewhat near to the Nostril But the smell of a precious Ointment will instantly diffuse it self into every corner though of a very spacious room as you heard but now of the Spikenard poured on our Saviours feet Ioh. 12. But see how in that very thing wherein the excellency of precious Ointments consisteth a good Name still goeth beyond it It is more diffusive and spreadeth farther Of King Uzziah so long as he did well and
confident that friend will not fail to assist him therein to his utmost power Now if a man be bold to do but what he may and should do and that withal he have some good ground for his confidence from the consideration of his friends ability the experience of his love some former promises on his friends or merit on his own part or other like so as every man would be ready to say he had reason to presume so far of his friend this is a good reasonable and warrantable presumption But if he fail in either respect as if he presume either to do unlawful unworthy or unbefitting things or to do even lawful things when there appeareth no great cause why any man should think his friend obliged by the laws of friendship to assist him therein then is such his presumption a faulty and an evil presumption And whatsoever may bear the name of a Presumptuous sin in any respect is some way or other tainted with such an evil irrational presumption 9. But we are further to note that presumption in the worser sence and as applied to sin may be taken either Materially or Formally If these terms seem obscure with a little opening I hope the difference between these two will be easily understood Taken materially the sin of presumption is a special kind of sin distinguished from other species of sins by its proper Object or Matter when the very matter wherein we sin and whereby we offend God is Presumption and so it is a branch of Pride When a man presuming either upon his own strength or upon Gods assisting him undertaketh to do something of himself not having in himself by the ordinary course of nature and the common aid which God affordeth to the actions of his creatures in the ordinary ways of his providence sufficient strength to go through therewithal or expecteth to receive some extraordinary assistance from the Mercy Power c. of God not having any sufficient ground either from the general Promises contained in the Scriptures or by particular immediate revelation that God will certainly so assist him therein 10. All those men that over-value themselves or out of an overweening conceit of their own abilities attempt things beyond their power That lean to their own understandings as Solomon That mind high things and are wise in their own conceits as St. Paul That exercise themselves in great matters and such as are too high for them as David expresseth it All those that perswade themselves they can persist in an holy course without a continual supply of Grace or that think they can continue in their sins so long as they think good and then repent of them and forsake them at their leisure whensoever they list or that doubt not but to be able by their own strength to stand out against any temptation All these I say and all other like by presuming too much upon themselves are guilty of the sin of Presumption ' 'To omit the Poets who have set forth the folly of this kind of Presumption in the Fables of Phaethon and Icarus A notable example we have of it in the Apostle Peter and therein a fair warning for others not to be high-minded but to fear who in the great confidence of his own strength could not believe his Master though he knew him to be the God of truth when he foretold him he would yield but still protested that if all the world should forsake him yet he would never do it 11. Nor only may a man offend in this kind by presuming upon himself too much but also by presuming even upon God himself without warrant He that repenteth truly of his sins presuming of Gods mercy in the forgiveness thereof or that walketh uprightly and conscionably in the ways of his Calling presuming of Gods Power for his protection therein sinneth not in so presuming Such a presumption is a fruit of Faith and a good presumption because it hath a sure ground a double sure ground for failing first in the Nature and then in the Promise of God As a man may with good reason presume upon his Friend that he will not be wanting to him in any good Office that by the just Laws of true friendship one friend ought to do for another But as he presumeth too much upon his friend that careth not into what desperate exigents and dangers he casteth himself in hope his friend will perpetually redeem him and relieve him at every turn So whosoever trusteth to the Mercy or to the Power of God without the warrant of a Promise presumeth farther than he hath cause And though he may flatter himself and call it by some better name as Faith or Hope or Affiance in God yet is it in truth no better than a groundless and a wicked Presumption Such was the Presumption of those Sons of Sceva who took upon them but to their shame and sorrow to call over them that had evil spirits the name of the Lord Iesus in a form of adjuration Acts 19. when they had no calling or warrant from God so to do And all those men that going on in a wretched course of life do yet hope they shall find mercy at the hour of death All those that cast themselves into unnecessary either dangers or temptations with expectance that God should manifest his extraordinary Power in their preservation All those that promise to themselves the End without applying themselves to the means that God hath appointed thereunto as to have Learning without Study Wealth without Industry Comfort from Children without careful Education c. forasmuch as they presume upon Gods help without sufficient Warrant are guilty of the sin of Presumption taken in the former notion and Materially 12. But I conceive the Presumptuous sins here in the Text to belong clearly to the other notion of the word Presumption taken formally and as it importeth not a distinct kind of sin in it self as that Groundless Presumption whereof we have hitherto spoken doth but a common accidental difference that may adhere to sins of any kind even as Ignorance and Infirmity whereunto it is opposed also may Theft and Murther which are sins of special kinds distinguished either from other by their special and proper Objects are yet both of them capable of these common differences inasmuch as either of them may be committed as sometimes through Ignorance and sometimes through Infirmity so also sometimes through Wilfulness or Presumption 13. The distribution of Sins into sins of Ignorance of Infirmity and of Presumption is very usual and very useful and compleat enough without the addition which some make of a fourth sort to wit Sins of Negligence or Inadvertency all such sins being easily reducible to some of the former three The ground of the distinction is laid in the Soul of man wherein there are three distinct prime faculties from which all our actions flow the Understanding the Will and the sensual
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
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
or his own Mother-wit that it may appear to whom he was beholding for it the Story saith the Devil put it into the heart of Iudas to betray his Master And the infusion of that spirit of Satan was so strong in him that it did after a sort transform him into the same image insomuch as he is called by his name Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil Let all Iudas-like traitors know lest they be too proud and sacrifice to their own wits to whom they owe their wisdom 25. But perhaps you will say this consideration can weigh but little For as Satan by his spirit infuseth wisdom into the children of this world so God by his Spirit infuseth wisdom into the children of light and then since the spirit of God is stronger than the spirit of Satan it should rather follow on the contrary that the wisdom of the children of light should exceed the wisdom of the children of this world The fullest answer hereunto would depend upon the prosecution of the next point the limitation which I shall have occasion to speak something unto anon to wit that the wisdom of the children of this world being but of a very base metal in comparison though it be more in bulk is yet far less in value as a little Diamond may be more worth than a whole quarry of ragge 26. But I answer rather which is sufficient for the present because it leadeth us also to a second reason of the difference That the spirit of God in the children of light doth not act ad ultimum sui posse according to the utmost of his Almighty power but according to the condition of the subject in whom he worketh leaving him as rational Creature to the freedom of his will and as a child of Adam obnoxious to the carnal motions of original concupiscence and after the good pleasure of his own will withal When Satan therefore infuseth of his spirit into a man he hath this advantage that he hath all the wisdom of the flesh to joyn with him readily and to assist him without any thing within to make opposition there-against and to counter-work the working of that spirit that it should not take effect and so the work meeting with some help and no resistance is soon done Facilis descensus as a stone when it is set a going tumbleth down the hill apace or as a Boat that having wind and tide with it runneth glib and merrily down the stream But when God infuseth his spirit into a man though that spirit once entred maketh him partly Willing yet is there in every child of Adam so long as he liveth here another inward principle still which the Scripture use to call by the name of flesh which lusteth against the good Spirit of God and opposeth it and much weakneth the working of it From whence it cometh to pass that the Spirit of God worketh so slowly and so imperfectly in us like a ship adverso flumine much ado to tug it along against the current or the stone which made Sisyphus sweat to roll up the hill although it tumbled down again always of it self 27. Thirdly since it is natural to most men out of self-love to make their own dispositions and thoughts the measure whereby to judge of other mens hence it cometh to pass that honest plain-dealing men are not very apt unless they see apparent reason for it to suspect ill of others Because they mean well themselves they are inclinable to believe that all other men do so too But men that have little truth or honesty themselves think all men to have as little and so are full of fears and jealousies and suspicions of every body Mala mens malus animus Now this maketh them stir up their own wits the more and bestir themselves with the greater endeavours because they dare trust no body else and so they become the more cautelous and circumspect the more vigilant industrious and active in all their enterprises and worldly concernments and consequently do the seldomer miscarry Whereas on the contrary those that out of the simplicity of their own heart suspect no double-dealing by others are the more secure and credulous by so much less solicitous to prevent dangers and injuries by how much less they fear them and consequently are often deceived by those they did not mistrust Which very thing the world being apt withal to judge well or ill of mens counsels by their events hath brought simplicity it self though a most commendable vertue under the reproach of folly we call those simple fellows whom we count fools and hath won to craft and dissimulation the reputation of wisdom 28. Lastly the consciousness of an ill cause unable to support it self by the strength of its own goodness driveth the worldling to seek to hold it up by his wit industry and such like other assistances like a ruinous house ready to drop down if it be not shored up with props or stayed with buttresses You may observe it in Law-suits the worse cause ever the better solicited An honest man that defireth but to keep his own trusteth to the equity of his cause hopeth that will carry when it cometh to hearing and so he retaineth counsel giveth them information and instructions in the case getteth his witnesses ready and then thinketh he need trouble himself no farther But a crafty companion that thinketh to put another beside his right will not rest so content but he will be dealing with the Iury perhaps get one packt for his turn tampering with the witnesses tempting the Iudge himself it may be with a Letter or a Bribe he will leave no stone unmoved no likely means how indirect soever unattempted to get the better of the day and to cast his Adversary You may observe it likewise in Church affairs A regular Minister sitteth quietly at home followeth his study doth his duty in his own Cure and teacheth his people truly and faithfully to do theirs keepeth himself within his own station and medleth no further But schismatical spirits are more pragmatical they will not be contained within their own Circle but must be flying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they must have an Oar in every Boat offering yea thrusting themselves into every Pulpit before they be sent for running from Town to Town from House to House that they may scatter the seeds of Sedition and Superstition at every table and in every corner And all this so wise are they in their generation to serve their own belly and to make a prey of their poor seduced Proselytes for by this means the people fall unto them and thereout suck they no small advantage You may observe it also in most other things but these instances may suffice 29. The point thus proved and cleared that the children of this world are wiser than the children of light that we may make some use
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
day of their adversity protect the innocent from such as are too mighty or too crafty for him hew in pieces the snares and break the jaws of the cunning and cruel oppressor and deliver those that are drawn either to death or undoing 24. The course is preposterous and vain which some Men ambitious of honour and reputation take to get themselves put into the place of Magistracy and Authority having neither head nor heart for it I mean when they have neither knowledge and experience in any measure of competency to understand what belongeth to such places nor yet any care or purpose at all to do God their King and Country good service therein The wise Son of Sirac checketh such ambitious spirits for their unseasonable forwardness that way Sirac 7. Seek not of the Lord preeminence neither of the King the seat of honour Think not he hath any meaning to dissuade or dishearten Men of quality and parts for medling with such employments for then the service should be neglected No Men that are gifted for it although the service cannot be attended without some both trouble and charge yet should not for the avoiding either of charge or trouble indeed they cannot without sin seek either to keep themselves out of the Commission or to get themselves off again being on His meaning clearly is only to repress the ambition of those that look after the Title because they think it would be some glory to them but are not able for want either of skill or spirit or through sloth nor willing to perform the duties And so he declareth himself a little after there Seek not to be a Iudge being not able to take away iniquity lest at any time thou fear the person of the mighty and lay a stumbling-block in the way of thy uprightness 25. Did honour indeed consist which is the ambitious Man's error either only or chiefly in the empty Title we might well wish him good luck with his honour But since true Honour hath a dependence upon vertue being the wages as some or as others have rather chosen to call it the shadow of it it is a very vanity to expect the one without some care had of the other Would any Man not forsaken of his senses look for a shadow where there is no solid body to cast it Or not of his reason demand wages where he hath done no service Yet such is the perversness of our corrupt nature through sloth and self-love that what God would have go together the Honour and the Burden we would willingly put asunder Every Man almost would draw to himself as much of the honour as he can if it be a matter of credit or gain then Why should not I be respected in my place as well as another But yet withal would every Man almost put off from himself as much of the burden as he can If it be a matter of business and trouble then Why may not another Man do it as well as I Like lazy servants so are we that love to be before-hand with their wages and behind-hand with their work 26. The truth is there is an Outward and there is an Inward Honour The Outward honour belongeth immediately to the Place and the place casteth it up on the Person so that whatsoever person holdeth the place it is meet he should have the honour due to the place whether he deserve it or not But the Inward honour pitcheth immediately upon the Person and but reflecteth upon the Place and that Honour will never be had without desert What the Apostle said of the Ministry is in some sense also true of the Migistracy they that labour faithfully in either are worthy of double Honour Labour or labour not there is a single honour due to them and yet not so much to them as to their Places and Callings but yet to them too for the places sake and we are unjust if we with-hold it from them though they should be most unworthy of it But the double Honour that inward Honour of the heart to accompany the outward will not be had where there is not worth and industry in some tolerable measure to deserve it The knee-worship and the cap-worship and the lip-worship they may have that are in worshipful places and callings though they do little good in them but the Heart-worship they shall never have unless they be ready to do Iustice and to shew Mercy and be diligent and faithful in their Callings 27. Another fruit and effect of this duty where it is honestly performed are the hearty prayers and blessings of the poor as on the contrary their bitter curses and imprecations where it is slighted or neglected We need not look so far to find the truth hereof asserted in both the branches we have a Text for it in this very Chapter Prov. 24. He that saith unto the wicked Thou art righteous him shall the people curse nations shall abhor him But to them that rebuke him shall be delight and a good blessing shall come upon them Every Man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer As he that with-holdeth corn in the time of dearth having his Garners full pulleth upon himself deservedly the curses of the poor but they will pour out blessings abundantly upon the head of him that in compassion to them will let them have it for their mony Prov. 11. So he that by his place having power and means to succour those that are distressed and to free them from wrongs and oppressions will seasonably put forth himself and his power to do them right shall have many a blessing from their mouths and many a good wish from their hearts but many more bitter curses both from the mouth and heart by how much men are more sensible of discourtesies than of benefits and readier to curse than to bless if they find themselves neglected And the blessings and cursings of the poor are things not to be wholly disregarded Indeed the curse causless shall not come neither is the Magistrate to regard the curses of bad people so far as either to be deterred thereby from punishing them according to their desert or to think he shall fare ever the worse doing but his duty for such curses For such words are but wind and as Solomon saith elsewhere He that observeth the wind shall not sow so he that regardeth the speeches of vain persons shall never do his duty as he ought to do In such cases that of David must be their meditation and comfort Though they curse yet bless thou And as there is little terrour in the causless curses so there is as little comfort in the causless blessings of vain evil Men. But yet where there is cause given although he cannot be excused from sin that curseth for we ought to bless and to pray for not to curse even those that wrong us and persecute us yet vae homini withal woe to 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
with vain pretentions 28. But the more apt we are by nature to justifie our selves by causeless excuses the greater ought to be the care of every good man the only use I shall now make of this point to examine the truth and the weight of those excuses which he pretendeth in his own defence Whether they have justae excusationis instar and will bear a good and sufficient plea or be but rather shifts devised to serve a present turn more for outward shew than real satisfaction within Which is that judicium cordis the judgment of the heart whereunto Solomon as I told you referreth over this pretention Behold we knew it not to receive its first and most immediate trial Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it What the tongue pleadeth is not a thing so considerable with God as how the heart standeth affected 29. For the approving his heart therefore in this business before him that knoweth it perfectly and is able to ponder it exactly let every Magistrate and other Officer of justice consider in the fear of God First Whether he hath been willing so far as his leisure amidst the throng of other his weighty imployments would permit to receive the petitions and with patience to hear the complaints of those poor Men that have fled to him as to a Sanctuary for refuge and succour Iob professeth himself to have been a father to the poor and he is a very unnatural father that stoppeth his ears against the cries of his children or so terrifieth them with his angry countenance that they dare not speak to him Solomon in the twenty ninth of this book distinguisheth a righteous Man from a wicked by this that the righteous considereth the cause of the poor but the wicked regardeth not to know it He that rejecteth their complaints or beateth them off with bug-words and terrour in his looks either out of the hardness of his heart or the love of ease or for whatsoever other respect when he might have liesture to give them audience if he were so minded and to take notice of their grievances cannot justly excuse himself by pleading Behold we knew it not But I must hasten Let him consider secondly Whether he have kept his ear and his affection equally free to both parties without suffering himself to be possessed with prejudices against or to be carried away with favourable inclinations towards the one side more than the other He is too little a judge that is too much either a friend or an enemy Thirdly Whether he hath used all requisite diligence patience and wisdom in the examination of those causes that have been brought before him for the better finding out of the truth as Iob searched out the cause which he knew not without shuffling over business in post-haste not caring which way causes go so he can but dispatch them out of the way quickly and rid his hands of them Fourthly Whether he hath indeed endeavoured to his power to repress or discountenance those that do ill offices in any kind tending to the perverting of justice as namely Those that lay traps for honest Men to fetch them into trouble without desert Those that sow discord among neighbours and stir up suits for petty trespasses and trifles of no value Those that abet contentious persons by opening their mouths in their behalf in evil causes Those that devise new shifts to elude good Laws Lastly whether he hath gone on stoutly in a righteous way to break the jaw-bones of the Lyons in their mouths and to pluck the spoil from between their teeth by delivering them that were ready to be slain or destinated to utter undoing by their powerful oppressors without fearing the faces of Men or fainting in the day of their brothers adversity He that hath done all this in a good mediocrity so far as his understanding upon power would serve tho he have not been able to remedy all the evils and to do all the good he desired may yet say with a good Conscience and with comfort Behold we knew it not and his excuse will be taken in the judgment both of his own heart and of God who knoweth his heart whatsoever other Men think of him or howsoever they censure him But if he have failed in all or any the premisses though he may blear the eyes of Men with colourable pretences he cannot so secure his own conscience much less escape the judgment of God before whose eyes causeless excuses are of no avail Which is the last of the three points proposed whereunto I now proceed 30. The judgment of a Man 's own heart is of greater regard in utramque partem than the censures of all the Men in the world besides Better the world should condemn us if our own hearts acquit us than that our hearts should condemn us and all the world acquit us This is our rejoycing the testimony of our Conscience saith St. Paul The approbation of Men may give some accession to the rejoycing the other being first supposed but the main of it lieth in the testimony of the Conscience This is the biggest Tribunal under Heaven but not absolutely the highest there is one in Heaven above it St. Paul who thought it safe for him to appeal hither from the unjust censures of Men yet durst not think it safe for him to rest here but appealeth from it to a higher Court and to the judgment of the great God 1 Cor. 4. It was a very small thing with him to be judged of man's judgment So long as he knew nothing by himself so long as his own heart condemned him not he passed not much for the censures of Men. Yet durst not justifie himself upon the acquittal of his own heart He knew there was much blindness and deceitfulness in the heart of every sinful Man and it were no wisdom to trust to that that might fail He would up therefore to a higher and an unerring Iudge that neither would deceive nor could be deceived and that was the Lord. I judge not mine own self saith he but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Even so here Solomon remitteth us over for the trial of our pretended excuses from our mouths to our hearts and from our hearts unto God If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it c. As if he had said No matter for the words look to thy heart If thou pretendest one thing without and thy conscience tell thee another thing within thou art 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast and condemned by the sentence of thine own heart But if thy heart condemn thee not the more indeed is thy comfort and the stronger thy hope yet be not too confident upon it There is an abyssus a depth in thy heart which thou canst not fathom with all the line thou hast Thou hast not a just ballance wherein to weigh and to ponder thy own
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