A SERMON upon Job 29.15 Preached before the JUDGES at a General Assise in Hertford when that good and charitable Person Rowland Hales Esquire was High-Sheriff of that Shire By DAVID STOKES D. D. OXFORD Printed by William Hall for Richard Davis Anno Dom MDCLXVII Imprimatur JOHAN FELL Vice-Cancellarius Oxon. Febr. 1. 1666 7. Job 29.15 I was the eyes to the blind and the feet to the lame IN this chapter we have a brief story of one that was in his time so absolute a Magistrate so compleat a Judge that he may well be the pattern and myrrour of all that come after him And this way of pattern iter per exempla you know it is our surest and our shortest way we can not better read our own duties then in the lives of others We can not better see the true face of virtues and vices then we may do it in their actions I might have said in their actions and in them only we need not enquire much after their persons For vice we must imitate in no man be his person never so great But for his virtue be he in himself never so mean we may safely propound that to our imitation It is neither his nor ours it carries no mark of any owner but of God himself from whom it was first taken as the Author of every good and perfect gift Yet because we rather love virtue where we like the person and we had rather frame our selves to the example of those that were of some esteem and place and authority therefore who it is that speaks this that would first be known who it is that saith here I was the eyes to the blind and the feet to the lame They are the words of a great man every way great And. if that may any thing move your attention whether soever you cast your eyes round about my text you may spie out some arguments of his greatness That he was great in wealth Ver. 6 the 6. verse tells us He washed his paths with butter and the rock poured him out rivers of oil That he was great in Authority it is plain by the next words Ver. 7 He had his chair in the publick gates and streets of the City which were in those times the ordinary places of judgement The 8. verse shows him as great in Honor The young men saw him and hid themjelves the aged arose and stood up Will you add unto all these a rare gift an excellent power in learning and eloquence It is the next thing in the sequele of the words The Princes refrained talking Ver. 9 and laid their hands on their mouths Ver. 10 The Nobles held their peace and their tongues cleaved to the roof of their mouth When the ear heard him it blessed him and when the eye saw him Ver. 11 it gave witness unto him And thus we see him great in Wealth in Authority in Honour in Learning and in Eloquence But was he also as great in virtue Did not his preferments outrun his deserts No if that may add any thing more to your attention for the two main virtues of so great a Magistrate Justice and Mercy the next verse speaks his greatness in them Ver. 12 He delivered the poor that cried the fatherless and him that had none to help him The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him he caused the widows heart to sing for joy Ver. 13 He put on Righteousness Ver. 14 and it clothed him his Judgement was his robe and his diadem All these usher the way to my text and may easily persuade us that they are the words of a great Man of a great Magistrate and of a great Judge For that is specially aimed at in this so large a description and that you may know it is so his Mercy and Justice are repeated again in the next words after my Text. Ver. 16 I was a father to the poor and the cause which I knew not I searched it out Ver. 17 I brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth You see then how my Text is hedged in every way with honorable testimonies of this Judge And as it is in the midst so it is indeed the life and virtue of all the rest It is the true embleme of a good Magistrate and perfect character of a good Judge I had almost said the very Idea of true Greatness and Justice it self But I must not say so It is not here in the abstract Job is the man that had it I was the eyes to the blind and the feet to the lame saith he that is he was ready to become any thing for their sakes and willing to apply himself to any necessity of their wants For in these two in oculo pede if they be well considered we shall find all that is requirable in a good Judge Shall I fetch them out of their natural method and first take them both together If he be both the eye and the foot Nay if he be either oculus or pes we are sure he is a part of the body politick That is the first thing that follows out of this ground a near reference of his to all that are under his authority specially to the blind and the lame that is to the weakest of them I am their eye saith Job or if that be too little I will go as low as their feet any thing for a nearer claim and challenge unto them So saith Job And the greatest Magistrates and Judges should say the like for any of us their poor fellow-members A double interest we have in them as the parts of our body politick They are the eyes they are the feet and therefore we do no more then we should do to rely upon them for their help And they have done no more than they should do what good soever they have done to the weal publick For the conservation and good of the whole body is the language which every particular member doth naturally speak But I will dwell no longer in these Generals I will come now to consider these two parts asunder And first the eye Oculus eram Parts of the body they are our greatest Judges and Magistrates But this name of the Eye gives them an eminent place in the body seats them aloft where they have the command of the inferiour parts and allows them an honorable place in the Common-wealth If you ask Cui bono To what end are the eyes mounted aloft Is it only for the eyes sake or is it not still for for the good of the whole body Surely in vain were so much care taken for them as there is by the other parts if their requital were not answerable For to see it in the natural eye first Why doth nature wall the eyes about with those bones that frame their orb Why doth she arch them above with the eye-brows Why doth she fence them on either side with hair in such manner
shot out of the skin that no motes nor any other annoyance shall fall into them Why are they by the prominence of the cheeks every way so secured that if any thing rush against them they may be still unoffended Why all this for the eyes that they may skulk in a den be nuzled in security and rocked asleep in a strong fort When we have asked this of the natural Eye then come to such an Eye as Job was here Why was Job and why are other great Ministers of State the Rulers and Iudges of other men Why are they seated so strongly above others Is it only that they may be safe and overtop the rest in honor and dignity Holy Iob is none of them that would have said so he would rather have told us that these eyes are placed there like Watchmen in the highest towers that upon the hope of their vigilancy they which are under them may be the more secure and that from thence like higher lights they may better derive their influence to the inferiour orbs The height of their place is not the ground of their honor they begin at a wrong and that build there For be the place never so high it is but the place of a high office and the daily execution of that to the good of the body that makes it a place of Honor. Gloria Regum investigare rem saith the wisest King Prov. 25.1 and we may say in the language of my Text Gloria oculorum investigare rem It is the glory of all that are in eminent places to be searching further with the eye of their wisdome then the capacity of ordinary persons can either pierce into or comprehend That is the right use of such an Eye But if they be Eyes of an infectious nature like the Crocodiles eyes able to kill whom they list and none shall know who hurt them If they be windows ever open to let in mischief and ready to betray the other senses were it not far better they were somewhere else For to little purpose are they set in the highest places that do not there carefully efpie what is good and as providently foresee and give warning of what is hurtfull to the other members I have done with the Place with the Srength and with the Height of it A second thing that we may observe by way of Analogie is the natural beauty of the Eye in it self without reference to the place And indeed all the beauty that is in the place is from that derived unto it Non domus Dominum sed Dominus domum we use to say it is not the place that graceth the eye but it is the eye that beautifies the place nay that beatifies the whole body Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes saith our blessed Lord in the Canticles What are those Eyes think you that did so ravish the holiest Bridegroom What else but the Ministers of the State and of the Church For these are the parts that of all other must be without blemish that so they may be enabled to punish the faults of others without any check to themselves He that here calls himself the Eye will you see how beautifull he was in himself Look again upon the next words before my Text and tell me if ever there was a Statesman of greater beauty The Eye it self is not lapt in more curious and dainty tunicles Ver. 14 then he lapt himself He put on Righteousness and it clothed him His Judgement was his Robe and his Diademe Here is a Judge in his best robes of honor clad with Righteousness And Righteousness is such a beauteous and amiable thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle that is the Sun in all his glory comes short of that Now as the Eye is the seat of beauty so also having the variety of many objects it should not chuse any but those that are beautifull They must not be given to filthy lucre saith the Apostle of the Eyes of the Church And so may we say of those that are the Eyes of the Common-wealth What should they do with filthie lucre That word filthy is able to turn away any eye from it theirs especially Some rare beauty is befitting such Eyes Some glorious virtue sutes them best For as black and white colours are to the eyes of the body so is virtue and vice to the eye of Judgement in ordinary men Black vice gathers the beams of the sight in one that the eye may see and be intent upon it Fair virtue scatters them abroad and therefore hardly admits of a perfect apprehension Whence it is that in ordinary Judgements that partake with sense we are quicker to espie and censure a man for one vice then to love and reward him for many virtues So it is in ordinary judgements But I hope it is not so in the most judicious eye of him that more strictly bears the name of a Judge His eye is not so ready to see and censure the worst of a man as it is to see and love the best He is most earnest in the best cause and most affected to the best Lawyer that pleads before him For he knows that it matters much whom the eye of the Judge doth most favour And this be said of that beauty that either should be in the eye or should draw the eye unto it There is yet a third thing in the eye by which nature hath made it more usefull to the body That it is the only fountain of pity The dore where we send out our love The passage of our tears and the best Interpreter of our inward mercy and compassion I speak not for too much pity of Malefactors but just pity of the Innocent And this of all other must not be left out if we proportion a Judge to the Eye For we shall get little by the two former without this To tell him that he is in the highest place is to make him proud and that he is the most glorious and beautifull part is to make him yet more proud but to make him the tendrest part and that from which of all other we chiefly look for love and pity that is it that cannot but move him And this I know not whether it may be more urged from the eye or from the feet So tender are both of them the feet no less then the eye the veins meeting all there and making them also easily affected to the quick with the least touch And therefore for this my Lords having two wayes to urge it I may presume we are sure to speed apud tam aequos rerum Judices And so we should do though it were not urged at all To pity the Innocent to commiserate the distressed estate of the poor it needs no persuasion all good natures bring it with them from their Cradles Only this is our misery Great fortunes they say use to alter our dispositions and many when they are come to be
own case I know it cannot but much affect you The like you have in Demosthenes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is Put on the same affection in my cause which you would do if it were yours I know not how any may be moved by these arguments without them me thinks it were motive enough from their own satisfaction For there may come a time when old Age may rank the greatest Potentates and Judges of the earth and best of men in the number of blind and decrepit and lame rob'd of all their health and outward contentment And then there will be no pleasure to the meditation of their former good deeds They are only valerous then that are not afraid to think of themselves that dare ask account of their own lives as Job did here and can answer themselves in his words I was once the eye to the blind and the feet to the lame That puts me in mind of another Argument left in my Text and with that I will conclude I was saith Job I was the eye He took opportunity of doing good while he had those high places In which though a man would have thought him strangely seated yet the event proved that height unable to secure him from that danger He was once the eye to the blind yet now the blind and the lame were in a farre better case then he who so poor as Job And it is meet indeed that all of us especially great men should stand thus tickle This jogs them as much as pleasure lulls them asleep This whispers in their ears not to pass the fair opportunity of doing good to others lest when the stroke comes upon themselves they have cause to expect as little For greatness hath no other circuit nor ought any man to dream of any other then that for which all power honor and wealth is given to him to support the weakness of other mens fortunes and to be as Job was in his greatest glory the eyes to the blind and the feet to the lame And now my good Lords I shall trespass no more upon your patience then to put you in mind that this text is only your text and the application must be yours by keeping the same Pronoun to it that Job doth here I was the eyes I was the feet They are not words for any of us to speak in such a compleat sense as you can And so ever account them as the best priviledge that you have St. Paul would not communicate his bonds to any except these bonds saith he Be you as dainty of these titles keep the verse still in the same number and make it good in your own persons And though you be two commonly joyned together in your Circuits so that a man would think it were language good enough to say We two were the eyes to the blind and the feet to the lame Yet if you be rul'd by my Text that is not enough you must keep the number as strictly as Job did in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I was their two eyes and their two feet saith he in the duall number Nor did he keep it in the tongue only but in his practise He never blinkt to the Rich with one eye while he cast the other upon the poor While he set one foot forward to help the poor he never kept the other backward to secure the rich His two eyes were for the blind and his two feet for the lame All this to be sure on he ever did in his own person ego oculus I was the two eyes He did not put it off to others in hope they would do it for him And that is the surest way for every man that looks for the reward in his own person too For there will come a day at the great Assise of the whole world when this Text will be thought none of the weakest pleas for the Kingdome of heaven Receive the Kingdome saith the great Judge of all why so because you visited the poor fed them clothed them c. But none have such visitations as you have in your Circuits none have such opportunities to makes this plea good ego eram oculus coeco Wonder not that Job said so confidently I know that my Redeemer lives and that I shall see him with these eyes Here is some ground of his confidence himself had been the eyes to the blind and could not but be so rewarded Which happy reward we humbly beseech that great Judge of all Jesus Christ the righteous out of the riches of his mercy to bestow upon you in the last day To whom as you do we all desire to ascribe all Honour and Glory now and for ever FINIS