when a fixt though most sedate and calm Resolution to Punish hath the same Effect this most different Cause is call'd by the same Name In this Allusion is Wrath ascrib'd to God the most serene and dispassionate of all Beings And hence they who represent him among Men in Authority ought in this respect to be God-like too Magistratus non debet irasci Judges as Cicero most aptly speaks ought to be Legum similes like the Laws themselves which are moved by no Passion are angry with no Man but keep one steady Tenor so as neither to despite an Enemy nor indulge a Friend To this Temper it well agrees to design good as in lancing a Tumor where one does a present Hurt Two ways may Punishment be a proper and apt tho it be not always an effectual means of doing good 1. AS it may work the good of the Offenders themselves To which it hath in it self a tendency if the Disease be not so strong and stubborn as to defie the Remedy As it puts them upon reflecting and should awaken in them their considering Power AS in the Matter of Treason against a Rightful Power Deliberasse est descivisse to deliberate whether to be Loyal or no is to Revolt So it is in the Just and Glorious Rupture that is to be made of the Bonds of Vice whereby Men are held as Slaves under the Vsurped Power of the Devils Kingdom If once they come duly to consider they will disdain so vile a Servitude When they meet with a Check in their way it may occasion them to check themselves and consider their ways No external means do any good to the Minds of Men otherwise than as they themselves are engag'd drawn in and made Parties in some sense against but as we are compounded in an higher and nobler sense for our selves This comes in as one among external Means of that kind as do give some present Vneasiness but in order to after Advantage It afflicts 't is true and no Affliction is for the present Joyous but Grievous but yields afterwards a peaceable Fruit. When the Magistrates Power is call'd a Sword it signifies its business is to wound but as Wounds are generally painful some are Sanative healing Wounds and so are these designed and apt to be They vex a while but vexatio dat intellectum It rouzes the Understanding and is most apt to do so to good purpose in plain and undisputed Cases And where there is no pretence for Conscience in the Cause one suffers for WHERE indeed a formed and fixed Judgment of Conscience once hath place for the practice which exposes a Man to suffering Mulcts and Prisons Gibbets and Faggots are very improper means of Illumination or of publick Vtility if the Civil Peace and the Substance of Religion be not hurt by such practice And the Sincerity of that Conscience is much to be suspected that is ever altered by such Methods But no Man will pretend it is against his Conscience not to be Drunk not to Debauch or to be Sober Chaste and Vertuous Therefore a Man's Way lies open to that Consideration which is most immediately to influence his Practice to correct a lewd and begin a regular good Course He needs not be detain'd with any subtle Disputes or be put to solve perplext Doubts or answer specious Arguments and Objections It is obvious to him to bethink himself What a strange sort of anomalous Creature am I become whom the Law of mine own Nature remonstrates against How degenerate a thing that have forsaken my own Noble Order of intelligent Creatures to herd with Brutes That have made my self unfit for humane Society otherwise than as one that must bear a Mark wear a disgraceful Scar from the wound of a Sword not that of a Publick Enemy or my own but a Sword drawn in defence of the Sacred Rights of God and to vindicate the Honour of Mankind AND hereupon if the Crime be not Capital with the concurrent use of other appointed Means and the Blessing of God upon all from whence only the good Issue can be hoped for may a vicious Person be so reclaimed as to become of great Use in the World Yea and if the Crime be Capital such as that the Criminal survives not the Punishment but the Sword of Justice must cut him off from the Land of the Living our Charity will not let us doubt but there have been Instances wherein a Prison and Arraignment and the Sentence of Death have been the blest effectual means to the Offendors of their escaping the more terrible Sentence and of obtaining Eternal Life But however tho the Ministry of Civil Justice doth often fail of its most desirable effects as to the particular Persons that suffer it as even the Ministration of the Gospel of Grace proves also ineffectual to many Yet 2. IT is not only apt but effectual to do much Good to others and generally to the Community Punishment is justly said To be in its proper Design Medicinal to the Delinquents Yet not always in the event But the Common Good it may serve when Contumacious Offendors perish under the deserved infliction of it This was the thing design'd by the Righteous Judge of all the Earth when he gave so particular Directions how to punish Offendors in such and such kinds that Others might hear and fear and do no more so wickedly And in all equal Government 't is the Design of Poenal Laws that The Terror might reach to all the Punishment it self but to a few And when the utmost Endeavours that can be used shall have had that Happy Success to reduce a vast number of Offenders to a Paucity we should rejoyce to see that there needed to be but few Examples made in such kinds IN the mean time where this Sword of the Lord in the hands of His Ministers of Justice is unsheathed and used according to the exigency of the Case it is an apt and likely Means to have an Happy Effect for the good of the Community both as it MAY put a stop to the prevailing Wickedness of Men and MAY avert from a Nation the provoked Wrath of God 1. AS it may give some Check to the Daringness and Triumph of Vnrebuked Wickedness which indeed naturally carries in it a Pusillanimous Meanness and a vile abjection of Mind so as no where to insult but where it meets in those who should oppose it a timorous fainting and succumbency It so far resembles the Devil whose Off-spring it is that being resisted it flees When Men find that while they dare to affront the Universal Ruler and offer Indignities to His Throne there are those that cloathed with His Authority and bearing His Character dare to vindicate the Injury When they feel the smart and cost of open Wickedness it will no doubt become at least less open and seek closer corners They will not long hold up the head in so hopeless and deplorate a Cause that can afford them
no support no relief to their abject sinking Spirits in suffering for it What encouraging Testimony of Conscience can they have that not only act from No Direction of Conscience but in Defiance of it What God can they hope will reward their Sufferings which they incur by highest Contempt of God AND if such gross Immoralities be somewhat generally Redrest as more directly fall under the Magistrates Animadversion how great a Common Good must it infer inasmuch as those Evils in their own nature tend to the detriment decay and ruine of a People where they prevail THEY darken the Glory of a Nation which how great a Lustre hath it cast abroad in the World from the Romans and Spartans and other civilized People when their Sumptuary and other Laws were strictly observed that represt undue Excesses And when Temperance Frugality Industry Justice Fidelity and consequently Fortitude and all other Vertues excell'd and were conspicuous among them It were a great thing we should have to transmit to Posterity might we see England recover its former or arrive to the further Glory which it is to be hoped it may acquire in these kinds YEA and the Vices which are endeavoured to be redrest are such as not only prejudice the Reputation but the real Welfare of any Nation PROFANE Swearing tends gradually to take away the Reverence of an Oath which where it is lost what becomes of Humane Society AND more Sensual Vices tend to make us an Effeminate Mean-spirited a Desident Lazy Slothful Unhealthful People useless to the Glorious Prince and excellent Government we live under neither fit to endure the Hardships or encounter the Hazards of War nor apply our selves to the Business or undergo the Labours that belong to a State of Peace and do consequently tend to infer upon us a deplorable but unpitied Poverty and which all will pretend to abhor Slavery at length For they are most unfit for an Ingenuous Free sort of Government or to be otherwise governed than as Slaves or Brutes who have learnt nothing of Self-Government and are at the next step of being Slaves to other Men who have first made themselves Slaves to their own Vitious Inclinations Thus are such liable to all sorts of Temporal Calamities and Miseries in this World BESIDES what is of so far more tremendous import that the same vile and stupifying Lusts tend to infer an utter Indisposition to comport with or attend to the Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God and so to ruine Mens hopes for the other World and make their Case unconceivably worse in the Judgment of the Great Day than theirs of Tyre or Sidon Sodom or Gomorrha BUT how much may a Just Prudent Well-tempered Vigilancy and Severity do towards the prevention of all this And so much the more by how much Publick Animadversions shall render the things Men incur Punishment for not only in common Estimate Vnrighteous but Ignominious things THAT Principle of Shame in the Nature of Man if by proper Applications it were endeavoured to be wrought upon would contribute more to the reforming a Vitious World than most other Methods that have ever been tried to that purpose 'T is a tender Passion of quick and most acute sense Things that are thought Opprobrious have so sensible a pungency with them that tho all Tempers are not herein alike many that can feel little else reckon a Disgrace an unsufferable thing And I little doubt but if Punishments for grosser Vices were more attempered to this Principle they would have much more effect THIS hath been too much apprehended by the Vsurping God of this World This Engine he hath made it his business to turn and manage to the contrary purpose to drive or keep serious Religion out of the World yea to make Men asham'd of being Sober Temperate and Regular in their Conversation lest they should also be thought Religious and to have any thing of the Fear of God in them and make them Debauch to save their Reputation A plain Document to such as covet to see a Reformation of Manners in our Days what Course ought to be endeavoured in order thereto A great apprehension to this purpose that Noble Pagan seems to have had who enquiring whence Legislation had its rise from some Man or from God and determining from God if we will give the most Righteous Judgment that can be given doth elsewhere write to this effect That Jupiter pitying the Miseries of Men by their Indulgence to Vice lest Mankind should utterly perish sent Mercury to implant in them together with Justice Shame as the most effectual means to prevent the total Ruine of the World And so inseparable is the connexion between being Wicked and being Miserable that whatsoever molestation and uneasiness tends to extinguish Dispositions to Wickedness ought to be reckoned given with very Merciful Intentions IT is no improbable Discourse which an Ingenious Modern Writer hath to this purpose for I pretend not to give his words not having the Book now at hand that tho the Drowning of the World was great Severity to them who did then Inhabit it yet it was an act of Mercy to Mankind For hereby he reckon'd the former more Luxuriant Fertility of the Earth was so far reduc'd and check'd as not so spontaneously to afford Nutriment to Vice that Men in after time must hereby be more constrain'd to Labour and Industry and made more considerate and capable of serious Thoughts and that when also they should find their time by this Change of the State of the World naturally contracted within narrower limits they would be more awakened to consider and mind any Overtures should be in following time made to them in order to their attaining a better State in another World and consequently the more susceptible of the Gospel in the proper season thereof IF God were severe with so merciful Intentions what lies within the compass of these Ministers of his Justice appointed for Common Good ought certainly to be endeavoured in imitation of him whom they represent 2. THE Administration of Punitive Justice when the Occasion requires it tends also to the Common Good as it may contribute towards the appeasing of God's Anger against a Sinful People and the turning it away from them WHAT may be collected from that Noble Instance of Phinehas's Heroical Zeal upon which a raging Plague was stay'd compar'd with the Effect which Ahab's Humiliation and Nineveh's Repentance had in averting Temporal Judgments would signifie not a little to this purpose BUT I must pass to the SECOND Head of Discourse proposed viz. To argue and enforce from hence the Duty incumbent upon all under Government as their several Stations and Capacities can admit to be in due Subordination assisting and serviceable to the Magistrate as in executing Punitive Justice he is the Minister of God for good AND this as hath been said is to be the Vse of the former part of the Discourse which will answer
signifying his Will concerning all Material Things that concern'd their Government WHAT the Form of it should be WHAT Persons should govern or in what way the Power and Right to govern should descend and be convey'd to them WHAT Laws they should be govern'd by WHAT the Methods should be of governing according to those Laws SINCE it is very evident much is left to the prudence of Men always to be directed by general Rules of Equity and as these allow by immediate Interpositions of his own Providence I resolve this Discourse shall be involv'd in no Controversies And therefore shall not determine nor go about to dispute as to what is so left how much or how little that may be But it is plain and indisputable that the Governing Power he reserves and claims to himself i. e. not to exercise it himself immediately in a Political way but to communicate and transmit it to them that shall So that in what way soever it is deriv'd to this or that Person or under whatsoever form the conferring of it he makes his own Act as we find it said to Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 2.37 The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom And he is told c. 4.32 The most High ruleth in the Kingdoms of Men and giveth them to whomsoever he will AND so much you see is in this Context asserted to him over and over TWO Things are plain in this Matter THAT it is the Mind of God there should be such a thing as Magistracy and Government in this World AND again That Men shall be governed by Men by some of other of themselves who shall be as the Text speaks God's Ministers As he is the Original of the Governing Power the Administration shall be in them AND of the Mind of God in both these there is sufficient Indication by the very Law of Nature How is it conceivable such Sentiments should be so common if they were not from a common Cause He seems to me to have determin'd well if it be considered in what way the Course of Nature is now continued and by whom all things consist that makes the Governing Power to be from God as the Author of Nature And that tho Government as it is such and such be juris humani it is juris divini absolutely consider'd or as it is Government IT was most apparently a thing worthy of God when he Peopled this World with such a sort of Creatures as Man to provide for the maintaining of common Order among them who without Government were but a Turba a Colluvies as a noted Heathen speaks on a different account a Rout of Men. Had Man continued in unstained Innocency 't is concluded on all Hands there must have been a Government among them i. e. not Punitive or Coercive for which there could have been no occasion but directive and conservative of Superiority and Inferiority as it is also even among the Angels of Heaven where are no inordinate Dispositions to be represt Much more is Government in the severer Parts of it necessary for lapsed Man on Earth the making of restrictive Laws and Governing by them And THAT God should design the Governing of Men By Men was also most agreeable to the Perfections of his Nature especially his Wisdom and his Goodness considered in Comparison to the Imperfection of this our present State When the Government over Israel was a Theocracy God used the Ministry of Men in the Management of it THAT it should be his ordinary stated Course to govern by Voices or Visions or by frightful Appearances such as those on Mount Sinai had been very little suitable to this our State of Probation as his accurate Wisdom we find hath determin'd And was less agreeable to his Benignity and Goodness which would not amazingly terrifie where he design'd more gently to admonish and instruct Hence had he regard to their frailty who so passionately supplicated Let not God speak to us lest we die And this his compassionate goodness we are led to consider being next to treat of the End of this his Constitution viz. 2. THAT the Magistrate is God's Minister to Men for their Good Next to the sweet Airs and Breathings of the Gospel it self Where have we a kinder or more significant discovery of God's good Will to Men Here we are to stay and wonder not to Assent only but Admire To behold the World in a Revolt The Dwellers on Earth in Arms against Heaven And the Counsels that are taken above are how to do them good How God-like is this How suitable to magnificent Goodness Or beneficent Greatness Being secure from hurt by their impotent Attempts and when Revenge was so easie to study not only not to Harm them nor also how they might less harm and mischief themselves but how to do them good This was every way Great and most suitable to the greatness of God wherein it falls into Conjunction with so immense and absolute Goodness as doth beyond what any Created Mind would ask or think This imports not implacableness or destructive Design towards the generality of Mankind but great Benignity even to every Soul in as full extent as the Command runs to be subject to the higher Powers This is we find another Medium by which God testifies or leaves not himself without witness besides what we have elsewhere that he gives Men Rain from Heaven and fruitful Seasons THE most compassionate Eye of God beholds Men under the Power of vicious Inclination bent upon destructive Ways whereas by the course of Nature which he hath fix't he should give them ordinarily competent Time as he hath given them Breath and Being and all Things Acts 17. That they might seek after him and labour to feel and find him out They live in a contemptuous neglect of him and are Cruel to themselves oft shorten their own Time live too fast and make too much haste to dig their own Graves and turn their Habitation into a Charnel-house yea even bury themselves alive in stupifying Sensuality and Vice He though provok't hastens not their Destruction more by sudden Revenge He animadverts not upon them by Flames and Thunderbolts nor amazes them by astonishing appeaances His Terrors make them not afraid He only cloths some from among themselves with his Authority who shall appear on the Stage with them as Gods among Men resembling themselves in humane Nature and God in Power as they should in other Godlike Excellencies if Men would so far co-operate towards their own welfare as they ought that by such gentler Methods some stop might be put to the Stream and Flood of Miseries wherewith otherwise unrestrained Wickedness is continually ready to deluge the World THE Magistrate is herein an Instrument of Good and of Wrath at once These two Things disagree not to be a Minister for Good and to execute Wrath. This latter is said in Conformity to vulgar Apprehension Because when Men afflict one another 't is usually the Effect of Wrath