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
body only these two are peculiarly attributed unto the soul The Understanding is the Eye the Affections are the Feet and these two make up the whole soul And again these Eyes in my text though in some sense they may be understood of the body politick yet in no sense can they be understood of the body of a man For though it be against reason that the greater light should be extinguished by the lesser Yet so it falls out that corporal eyes rather trouble the understanding in the course of Justice Therefore we use to paint Justice rather blinded then having the liberty of such eyes And those famous Judges among the Graecians in Areiopago were wont to sit at midnight that they might not discern the difference of any man's person And thirdly If we search what may be the meaning of it which is the surest way by the law of Opposition then we shall both confirme this sense of the words and gain somewhat else unto it For what do you take to be meant by the blind and the lame in this reference to a Judge Sure If we referre it to the under-officers of Justice which his eye must chiefly observe and guide What is Blindness in the Informers in the Witnesses in the Jury in the Pleaders but only Ignorance And what is Lameness on their parts but the tedious protraction of poor mens Suits or what else of that nature offends the currat lex the swift course of Justice Now then to build upon this if Blindess and Lameness be Ignorance and Slowness in those that are to be guided by the Judge what must his Eye be in reference to them but the Eye of Understanding the eye of Wisdome And thus it referres to such Officers of Justice as are not worthy of that name Then in a second place If these blind and lame referre to them that are to be judged to the rei that is to them whose cause is in hand Then must blindness and lameness in them be nothing else but impotency inability to help themselves which should move the Judge like God himself to incline rather to the weaker side not to look upon the greatest through the optique-glass of his own affections and so to make them seem greater and nearer to him then they should be but to be the eye to the blind and the feet to the lame rather to help them that cannot otherwise help themselves You see the ground of what we are to say Now to set upon it in particular The first ranck of our blind men are such in the Courts of Justice as should be the eyes to the Judge but some way or other are so blinded that he is fain to find eyes for them And that we may discover them the better their ignorance will teach us to make them of two kinds according to the cause of their blindness some of them being blinded by gross ignorance which we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others by affected ignorance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And of the two the latter are the more dangerous and call for a greater caveat from the Judge For they can indeed but they will not pierce any further then to the scum and top of things wherein to say truth we are apt to offend most of us It may well pass for an epidemical disease for it is not our ignorance but our hope and fear and love and anger and hate that is commonly suffered to bind up our sight in darkness and lead us blindfolded into all error All which are so ordinary that Solomon accounted them for wise men that had their eyes in their heads For many have found out new devices by placing their eyes where they should not be in the hand rather then in the head by that means seeing more where they have some feeling of the cause then where their heads might better direct them If there be any such that hear me this day it is likely they do not see any such things in themselves For what sight can we expect in blind men yet perhaps in a Sermon by the help of the Preachers candle they may begin to see a glimmering light of what they should But when they come to their old places of gain their old thoughts meet them afresh as familiarly as if they had left them there till their return And this I would it were their fault alone There we erre too all of us whatsoever we think of our worst affections in Gods house when their ugliness is ript up we shall easily come to our old former opinions when we come to the former places of our practise unless with the Lamiae we could leave our old eyes at home and carry new and better along with us I have been the larger in this discovery of their blindness as being the cause of another vice that follows after it For in that method my Text brings them in first the blind and then the lame A lame pace must needs proceed from that blindness And when we have found the cause of the one we may safely presume that to be the cause of the other also If their blindness proceed from gross ignorance that is it that makes their delayes If it grow from affected ignorance if gain or passion stand between them and wisdome then they are lame they go slowly in the course of law for the same cause That is it that makes the Tryal creep so slowly or rather so slily forward that it carrieth with it no witness of any proficiency That is it that makes them crie with the sluggard yet a little and yet a little while the poor man's cause turns about like the dore on her hinges and is never the nearer to what it should be after all their delayes But here I would be understood with some caution for I know the use and the need of just demurres The Romans had it in their law under the terme of Ampliare as appears by more then one place in Tullies Orations In the Greek we find it under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apostle Pauls case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 24.22 Faelix put them off for a while and took an amplius deliberandum a demorari that is a demurre This was a good piece of wisdome and justice in Faelix and if Faelix had staid here he had done well and been like his name But go along with him to the 26. verse of this chapter And there is such a delay of justice as makes little for Faelix his credit The words go thus Acts 24 26. Faelix hoped that mony would have been given him of Paul that he might loose him Faelix his first demurre verse 22. was fit to be used for justice sake But such as his last and tedious delayes for base ends of his own that is it I would not have and that is the fault which puts these delayers of Justice into the number of lame men whose feet seem
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