and estate And it should in all reason secondly quicken the hearts of all loyal and well-affected Subjects by their prayers counsels services aids and chearful obedience respectively rather to afford Princes their best assistance for the comfortable support of that their weighty and troublesom charge than out of ambition discontent popularity envy or any other cross or peevish humour add unto their cares and create unto them more troubles 15. David you see had troubles as a man as a godly man as a King But who caused them Sure in those his first times when as I conjecture he wrote this Psalm Saul with his Princes and followers was the chiefest cause of most of his troubles and afterwards crafty Achitophel caused him much trouble and railing Shimei some and seditious Sheba not a little but his rebellious Son Absolon most of all He complaineth of many troubles raised by the means of that Son in Psal. 3. Domine quà m multiplicati Lord how are they encreased that trouble me Yet here you see he over-looketh them all and all other second causes and ascribeth his troubles wholly unto God So he did also afterwards in the particular of Shimei's railing Let him alone saith he to Abishai Let him curse on for God hath bidden him Even as Iob had done before him when the Sabeans and the Chaldeans had taken away his Cattle and Goods he scarce took notice of them he knew they were but Instruments but looked at the hand of God only as the chief and principal cause Dominus abstulit The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away Neither did David any injury at all to Almighty God in ascribing it to him for God also himself taketh it all upon himself I will raise him evil out of his own house and I will do it before the sun 2 Sam. 12. 16. How all those things wherein wicked men serving their own lusts only in their own purpose do yet unwittingly do service to God Almighty in furthering his wise and holy designs can have their efficiency from causes of such contrary quality and looking at such contrary ends to the producing of one and the same effect is a speculation more curious than profitable It is enough for us to know that it neither casteth any blemish at all upon him that he maketh such use of them nor giveth any excuse at all to them that they do such service to him but that all this notwithstanding he shall still have the whole glory of his own wisdom and holiness and they shall still bear the whole burthen of their own folly and wickedness But there is another and that a far better use to be made hereof than to trouble ourselves about a mystery that we shall never be able in this life to comprehend and that is this that seeing all the troubles that befal us in any kind whatsoever or by what instruments soever come yet from the hand of God we should not therefore when at any time we meet with trouble rage against the second causes or seek to vent our spleen upon them as of our selves we are very apt to do but laying our hands upon our hearts and upon our mouths compose our selves to a holy patience and silence considering it is his will and pleasure to have it so to whom it is both our duty and wisdom wholly to submit 17. We may learn it of holy Iob. His wife moved his patience not a little by moving him to impatience Thou talkest like a foolish woman saith he shall we receive good things at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil also Or we may learn it of good old Eli. When he received a message from the Lord by the mouth of young Samuel of a right heavy judgment shortly to fall upon him and his house for his fond indulgence to his ungracious Children he made no more reply but said only It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Or to go on further than our Prophet David we may learn it sufficiently from him I was dumb saith he and opened not my mouth Quoniam tu fecisti for it was thy doing This consideration alone Quoniam tu fecisti is enough to silence all tumultuous thoughts and to cut off all farther disputing and debating the matter that it is God that causeth us to be troubled All whose judgments are not only done in righteousness as we have hitherto heard but towards his children also out of much love and faithfulness as we are next to hear I know that of very faithfulness thou hast caused me to be troubled 18. In the former part of the verse where he spake of the righteousness of God he did it indefinitely without mentioning either himself or any other person not particularly Thy judgments upon me but indefinitely I know O Lord that thy judgments are right But now in this latter part of the verse where he cometh to speak of the faithfulness of God he nameth himself And that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled For as earthly Princes must do justice to all men for Iustice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every man may challenge it and there must be no respect had no difference made of Persons therein but their favours they may bestow upon whom they think good so God will have his justice to appear in all his dealings with all men generally be they good or bad that none of them all shall be able to say he hath done them the least wrong but yet his tender mercies and loving kindnesses those he reserveth for the Godly only who are in special favour with him and towards whom he beareth a special respect For by faithfulness here as in sundry other places of Scripture is meant nothing else but the speâ—ial love and favour of God towards those that love and fear him whereby he ordereth and disposeth all things so as may make most for their good 19. And it is not unfitly so called whether we respect the gracious promises that God hath made unto them or those sundry mutual relations that are between him and them First faithfulness relaâ—eth to a promise He is faithful that hath promised Heb. 10. Truly God is a debtor to no man that he doth for us any thing at all it is ex mero motu of his own grace and goodness merely we can challenge nothing at his hands But yet so desirous is he to manifest his gracious love to us that he hath freely bound himself and so made himself a voluntary debtor by his promises for promise is due debt insomuch as he giveth us the leave and alloweth us the boldness to remind him of his promises to urge him with them and as it were to adjure him by all his truth and faithfulness to make them good But what a kind of promise is this may some say to promise a man to trouble him It
utterly unlawful which yet indeed is indifferent and so lawful is guilty of superstition as well as he that enjoineth a thing as absolutely necessary which yet indeed is but indifferent and so arbitrary They of the Church of Rome and some in our Church as they go upon quite contrary grounds yet both false so they run into quite contrary errors and both superstitious They decline too much on the left hand denying to the holy Scripture that perfection which of right it ought to have of containing all things appertaining to that supernatural doctrine of faith and holiness which God hath revealed to his Church for the attainment of everlasting salvation whereupon they would impose upon Christian people and that with an opinion of necessity many things which the Scriptures require not and that is a Superstition These wry too much on the right hand ascribing to the holy Scripture such a kind of perfection as it cannot have of being the sole director of all humane actions whatsoever whereupon they forbid unto Christian people and that under the name of sin sundry things which the holy Scripture condemneth not and that is a superstition too From which Superstition proceedeth in the second place uncharitable censuring as evermore they that are the most superstitious are the most supercilious No such severe censures of our blessed Saviours person and actions as the Superstitious Scribes and Pharisees were In this Chapter the special fault which the Apostle blameth in the weak ones who were somewhat superstitiously affected was their rash and uncharitable judging of their brethren And common and daily experience among our selves sheweth how freely some men spend their censures upon so many of their brethren as without scruple do any of those things which they upon false grounds have superstitiously condemned as utterly unlawful And then thirdly as unjust censurers are commonly entertained with scorn and contumely they that so liberally condemn their brethren of prophaneness are by them again as freely flouted for their preciseness and so whiles both parties please themselves in their own ways they cease not mutually to provoke and scandalize and exasperate the one the other pursuing their private spleens so far till they break out into open contentions and oppositions Thus it stood in the Roman Church when this Epistle was written They judged one another and despised one another to the great disturbance of the Churches Peace which gave occasion to our Apostle's whole discourse in this Chapter And how far the like censurings and despisings have imbittered the spirits and whetted both the tongues and pens of learned men one against another in our own Church the stirs that have been long since raised and are still upheld by the factious Opposers against our Ecclesiastical Constitutions Government and Ceremonies will not suffer us to be ignorant Most of which stirs I verily perswade my self had been long ere this either wholly buried in silence or at leastwise prettily well quieted if the weakness and danger of the error whereof we now speak had been more timely discovered and more fully and frequently made known to the world than it hath been Fourthly let that doctrine be once admitted and all humane authority will soon be despised The command of Parents Masters and Princes which many times require both secrecy and expedition shall be taken into slow deliberation and the Equity of them sifted by those that are bound to obey though they know no cause why so long as they know no cause to the contrary Delicata est obedientia quae transit in causae genus deliberativum It is a nice obedience in S. Bernard's judgment yea rather troublesome and odious that is over-curious in discussing the commands of superiours boggling at every thing that is enjoyned requiring a why for every wherefore and unwilling to stir until the unlawfulness and expediency of the thing commanded shall be demonstrated by some manifest reason or undoubted authority from the Scriptures Lastly the admitting of this doctrine would cast such a snare upon men of weak judgments but tender consciences as they should never be able to unwind themselves thereout again Mens daily occasions for themselves or friends and the necessities of common life require the doing of a thousand things within the compass of a few days for which it would puzzle the best Textman that liveth readily to bethink himself of a sentence in the Bible clear enough to satisfie a scrupulous conscience of the lawfulness and expediency of what he is about to do for which by hearkening to the rules of reason and discretion he might receive easie and speedy resolution In which cases if he should be bound to suspend his resolution and delay to do that which his own reason would tell him were presently needful to be done until he could haply call to mind some Precept or Example of Scripture for his warrant what stops would it make in the course of his whole life what languishings in the duties of his calling how would it fill him with doubts and irresolutions lead him into a maze of uncertainties entangle him in a world of woful perplexities and without the great mercy of God and better instruction plunge him irrecoverably into the gulph of despair Since the chief end of the publication of the Gospel is to comfort the hearts and to revive and refresh the spirits of God's people with the glad tidings of liberty from the spirit of bondage and fear and of gracious acceptance with their God to anoint them with the oyl of gladness giving them beauty for ashes and instead of sackcloth girding them with joy we may well suspect that doctrine not to be Evangelical which thus setteth the consciences of men upon the rack tortureth them with continual fears and perplexities and prepareth them thereby unto hellish despair These are the grievous effects and pernicious consequents that will follow upon their Opinion who hold That we must have warrant from the Scripture for every thing whatsoever we do not only in spiritual things wherein alone it is absolutely true nor yet only in other matters of weight though they be not spiritual for which perhaps there might be some colour but also in the common affairs of life even in the most sleight and trivial things Yet for that the Patrons of this Opinion build themselves as much upon the authority of this present Text as upon any other passage of Scripture whatsoever which is the reason why we have stood thus long upon the examination of it we are therefore in the next place to clear the Text from that their mis-interpretation The force of their collection standeth thus as you heard already that faith is ever grounded upon the word of God and that therefore whatsoever action is not grounded upon the word being it is not of faith by the Apostles rules here must needs be a sin Which collection
the Church is Besides these that do it thus by open Assault I would there were not others also that did by secret underminings go about to deprive us of that liberty which we have in Christ Jesus even then when they most pretend the maintenance of it They inveigh against the Church Governors as if they lorded it over Gods Heritage and against the Church Orders and Constitutions as if they were contrary to Christian liberty Wherein besides that they do manifest wrong to the Church in both particulars they consider not that those very accusations which they thus irreverently dart at the face of their Mother to whom they owe better respect but miss it do recoil pat upon themselves and cannot be avoided For whereas these Constitutions of the Church are made for Order Decency and Uniformity sake and to serve unto Edification and not with any intention at all to lay a tye upon the consciences of men or to work their judgments to an opinion as if there were some necessity or inherent holiness in the things required thereby neither do our Governours neither ought they to press them any further which is sufficient to acquit both the Governours from that Lording and the Constitutions from that trenching upon Christian liberty wherewith they are charged Alas that our brethren who thus accuse them should suffer themselves to be so far blinded with prejudices and partial affections as not to see that themselves in the mean time do really exercise a spiritual Lordship over their disciples who depend in a manner wholly upon their judgments by imposing upon their consciences sundry Magisterial conclusions for which they have no sound warrant from the written Word of God Whereby besides the great injury done to their brethren in the impeachment of their Christian liberty and leading them into error they do withal exasperate against them the minds of those that being in authority look to be obeyed and engage them in such sufferings as they can have no just cause of rejoyceing in For beloved this we must know that as it is injustice to condemn the innocent as well as it is injustice to clear the guilty and both these are equally abominable to the Lord so it is superstition to forbid that as sinful which is in truth indifferent and therefore lawful as well as it is superstition to enjoyn that as necessary which is in truth indifferent and therefore arbitrary Doth that heavy woe in Isa. 5. appertain think ye to them only that out of prophaneness call evil good and nothing at all concern them that out of preciseness call good evil Doth not he decline out of the way that turneth aside on the right hand as well as he that turneth on the left They that positively make that to be sin which the Law of God never made so to be how can they be excused from symbolizing with the Pharisees and the Papists in making the narrow ways of God yet narrower than they are teaching for Doctrines mens Precepts and so casting a snare upon the consciences of their brethren If our Church should press things as far and upon such grounds the one way as some forward spirits do the other way if as they say it is a sin to kneel at the Communion and therefore we charge you upon your consciences not to do it so the Church should say it is a sin not to kneel and therefore we require you upon your consciences to do it and so in all other lawful yet arbitrary Ceremonies possibly then the Church could no more be able to acquit her self from encroaching upon Christian Liberty than they are that accuse her for it Which since they have done and she hath not she is therefore free and themselves only guilty It is our duty for the better securing of our selves as well against those open impugners as against these secret underminers to look heedfully to our trenches and fortifications and to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free lest by some device or other we be lifted out of it To those that seek to enthral us we should give place by subjection no not for an hour lest we be ensnared by our own default ere we be aware For indeed we cannot be ensnared in this kind but merely by our own default and therefore St. Paul often admonisheth us to take heed that none deceive spoil or beguile us as if it were in our power if we would but use requisite care thereunto to prevent it and as if it were our fault most if we did not prevent it And so in truth it is For we oftentimes betray away our own liberty when we might maintain it and so become servants unto men when we both might and ought to keep our selves free Which fault we shall be the better able to avoid when we shall know the true causes whence it springeth which are evermore one of these two an unsound head or an unsound heart Sometimes we esteem too highly of others so far as either to envassal our judgments to their opinions or to enthral our consciences to their precepts and that is our weakness there the fault is in the head Sometimes we apply our selves to the wills of others with an eye to our own benefit or satisfaction in some other carnal or worldly respect and that is our fleshliness there the fault is in the heart This latter is the worst and therefore in the first place to be avoided The most and worser sort unconscionable men do often transgress this way when for fear of a frown or worse displeasure or to curry favour with those they may have use of or in hope either of raising themselves to some advancement or of raising to themselves some advantage or for some other like respects they become officious instruments to others for the accomplishing of their lusts in such services as are evidently even to their own apprehensions sinful and wicked So Doeg did King Saul service in shedding the blood of fourscore and five innocent Priests and Absalom's Servants murdered their Masters brother upon his bare command and Pilate partly to gratifie the Iews but especially for fear of Caesar's displeasure gave sentence of death upon Iesus who in his own conscience he thought had not deserved it In such cases as these are when we are commanded by our superiors or required by our friends or any other way sollicited to do that which we know we cannot do without sin we are to maintain our liberty if we cannot otherwise fairly decline the service by a flat and peremptory denyal though it be to the greatest power upon earth As the three young men did to the great Nebuchadnezzar Be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy Gods nor worship the golden Image which thou hast set up And the ancient Christians to the heathen Emperours Daveniam Imperator tu
destroyed many of his own Sons Sometimes out of the extremity and impatience of hunger As in the sad story of the two mothers who in the great Famine at the siege of Samaria had covenanted to dress their Children by turns and to eat them so fulfilling even to the letter that heavy curse which God had long before threatned against Israel in case of their disobedience Sometimes out of voluptuousness and sensuality As do thousands of prodigal ding-thrifts every where in the World who by gaming drinking luxury and other riot and intemperance vainly wasting their estate out of which by St. Pauls rule they ought to provide and lay up for their Children bring themselves to penury and leave their children to beggery 8. And if by all these and sundry other ways besides it may happen fathers and mothers so often to forsake their children the less are we to marvel if our brethren kinsfolks and neighbours if our familiar acquaintance companions and friends prove unfaithful and shrink from us when we stand in need of them dealing deceitfully as a Brook It is Iobs comparison Iob 6. The Brooks in Winter when the Springs below are open and the bottles of heaven pour down water from above overflow the banks and the meadows all about and look like a little Sea but when the heat of Summer is come and the season dry vanish so as the weary Traveller can find no refreshing nor the Cattel quench their thirst thereat Such is the common friendship of the World Whilst we are full and stand in no need of them they are also full of kindness and overflow with protestations of love and service Amici divitis multi every friend will say I am his friend also Yet they talk but vanity all this while every one with his neighbour they do but flatter with their lips and dissemble with their double heart When we seek to them in our need they look upon us stightly and at a distance at the most let fall some overly expressions that they wish us well and pity our case Good words are good cheap but do little or nothing for us It may be while we are up and aloft they will crouch under us apply themselves to us lend a shoulder yea and sweat to lift us up yet higher But if we be going down then at the best as the Priest and Levite in the Parable they will see and not see but pass by without so much as offering a hand to help us up nay it is well if they lift not up the heel against us and help to tread us yet lower 9. As then first Natural Parents many times want natural affection so common friends many times want common honesty and fail those that trust to them And as they secondly sometimes withdraw their love from their Children upon slender dislikes so these many times take toy at a trifle actum est de amicitia and pick quarrels to desert us when we have not done any thing that may justly deserve it at their hands And as they lastly too much forget their Children whilst they too eagerly pursue their own lusts so these to serve their own ends lay aside all relations and break through all obligations of friendship and if our occasions require something should be done for us that may chance put them to some little trouble hazard or charge or otherwise standeth not with their liking put us off as they did their fellow-virgins Ne non sufficiat Provide for yourselves we cannot help you This is the first kind a voluntary forsaking wherein the fault is theirs when our fathers and mothers and friends might help us but do not 10. The other kind is an enforced forsaking and without their fault when they cannot help us if they would Which also ariseth from three other causes Ignorance Impotency Mortality First there is in the understandings of men a great deal of darkness for the discerning of Truth and falshood even in speculativis matters which stand at a certain stay and alter not but much more for the discerning of Good and Evil in Practicis matters which by reason of the multiplicity of uncertain and mutable Circumstances are infinitely various Whereby it becometh a matter of greater difficulty to avoid folly in practice than Error in judgment No wonder then if the carefullest Parents and faithfullest Friends be many times wanting in their help to those they wish well to when either can find no way at all whereby to to do them good or else pitch upon a wrong one whereby unawares they do them harm Sedulitas autem stultè quem diligit urget Nil moror officium quod me gravat The body of a Patient may be in such a condition of distemper that the learnedst Doctor may be at a stand not knowing perfectly what to make of it and so must either let it alone and do nothing or else adventure upon such probabilities as may lead him to mistake the Cause and so the Disease and so the Cure and so in fine to destroy the Patient by those very means whereby he intended his recovery So Parents and others that love their children or friends well and desire nothing more than to do them good may be so puzled sometimes by the unhappy conjunctures of some cross Circumstances as that they cannot resolve upon any certain course how to dispose of them deal with them or undertake for them with any assurance or but likely hope of a good effect but they must either leave them to wrestle with their own burdens as well as they can or else fall upon some course at all adventure intending their good thereby which may perhaps in the event turn to their undoing 11. And as we may fail of needful help from our best friend for lack of skill so may we also secondly for want of Power Verily all sufficiency is not to be found but in the Almighty Creator alone No Creature can yield out of his own sufficiency a salve for every sore a supply for every want a help for every defect but there is some impotency some vacuity some deficiency in the best Agar loved her Infant well enough and knew too well enough what would save his life for that time if she could tell how to get it But all the water in the bottle being spent and no more to be had in that dry wilderness no help but she must forsake him and for ought she knew and relating but to ordinary means he must perish All she could do was to cast the poor child under a shrub and get her a good way off that she might not see him die and to lift up her own voice that she might not hear his Gen. 21. And Moses his Parents when they had hid him as long as they could or durst at last forsook him and left him in the flags by the brink of the River Nilus Exod. 2. The widdow of Sarepta also
most which will be so long as the world lasteth it cannot be but oftentimes offences will come disorders and abuses will grow right will be overborn by might the plain-dealing will become a prey to the crafty wrongs and indignities will be offered which the wisest and greatest and godliest Magistrates shall never be able wholly either to prevent or remedy 24. Let it suffice thee for the possessing thine own soul in patience to know that all shall de righted one day God will set all streight at the last but that day is not yet It is thy duty in the mean time to pity thy Superiours rather than to envy them that have so much work to do and yet are exposed to censure and obloquy as if they did nothing because they do not that which never yet any mortal Man clould do in suppressing all opressions It is thy duty whatsoever actions of theirs may be capable of a just excuse or of a fair interpretation to allow it them and for what cannot be excused to mourn for them in secret but not to make a noise about them openly when neither thy calling will warrant thee nor the hope of any good effect to follow upon it can encourage thee so to do If they say Behold we knew it not whether they say it truly or untruly what is that to thee The judgment of that I find in my Text referred to God and to their own hearts but no where to thee Thou must take it for a good excuse however and rest content therewithal 25. Secondly It may be some comfort to the soul of every godly Man and Magistrate amidst all the oppressions and disorders that are done or suffered in the Land without redress if his heart can tell him that he hath not bin willingly accessary thereunto but that he can truly say Behold we knew it not that God will admit that his just excuse God is not and happy it is for us that he is not so hard in his righteous judgments as we are too often in our rash censures He looketh not to reap where he hath not sown nor will he demand an account of a talent where none was disbursed nor require of any Man above the proportion of that power wherewith he hath entrusted him and of those means and opportunities which he hath vouchsafed him If there be but a willing mind and a faithful endeavour according to power and as occasions serve to do his duty chearfully in this or any other kind the Lord will graciously accept it according to that a Man hath and not according to that he hath not Thrice blessed therefore is that Magistrate or other Man whoever he be that hath considered the poor and needy with a compassionate heart and bent himself with all his strength to deliver them out of their oppressions and troubles although he hath not been able to accomplish it to the full of his desires for he shall reap the reward of that which is done and that which is not done shall never be laid to his charge Only that he do not flatter himself with a false comfort let him be well assured first that his Excuse will hold water and that his heart condemn him not as a liar when he saith Behold we knew it not For this Excuse though sometimes just as we have now heard at large yet many times is pretended without cause which is our next point now to be considered with more brevity 26. If to pretend an excuse were sufficient to discharge a Man from a fault among so many offences as are in the world we should have much ado to find an offender Those Men that are almost ever behind with their work are yet seldom to seek for an excuse The disease is Epidemical I may say Oecumenical too We have it by kind derived in a perpetual line of succession from the loins of our first Parents As Adam and Eve were not without their excuse The woman gave me and The Serpent beguiled me so neither was bloody Cain their first-born without his Am I my brothers keeper Nor disobedient Saul without his The people took of the chief things to sacrifice to the Lord Nor churlish Nabal without his Shall I take my provision killed for my Shearers and give it to Men I know not whence they be Nor that I may spare the particulars and take a world of them together will the whole crew of cursed Reprobates be without their excuse too even then when the last sentence is ready to be pronounced upon them Lord we never saw thee hungry or thirsty c. From Adam the first sinner who was then presently turned out of Paradise unto the last damned wretches who shall be then presently turned into hell no sinful Man but hath at some time or other bewrayed the leaven of his natural hypocrisie by excusing his transgressions Such a proneness there is in all the Sons of Adam Ad excusandum excusationes in peccatis that it may be said of all mankind what is written of the guests that were bidden to the great Supper Luke 14. They all began with one consent to make excuses 27. The true Reason whereof is that wretched pride vain-glory and hypocrisie from which we had all need to pray Good Lord deliver us which cleaveth so fast and inseparably to our corrupt natures Whence it is that many Men who pass so little for their consciences yet stand so much upon their credit As Saul who using no diligence to regain the favour of God was yet very solicitous that his honour might be preserved in the opinion of the people Indeed we are neither careful to do well nor willing to hear ill Loth are we to leave our sins and we are as loth to own them And therefore we throw cloaks over them that the outside may look comely howsoever and the dishonesty that is underneath may not be seen Our Saviour speaketh of the Pharises cloak of hypocrisie and St. Paul of a cloak of covetousness and St. Peter of a cloak of maliciousness They write of Lucullus that out of his private wardrobe he furnished the Praetor his friend for the adorning of a popular Shew with more than two hundred Cloaks Horace playeth the Poet and maketh it up five thousand Every one of us hath the wardrobe of his heart plentifully furnished with these cloaks even beyond what the Poet could feign of him Cloaks of all sizes and for all purposes and to fit all occasions But as old Bartimaeus cast away his Cloak to follow Christ so must we if we will be Christ's Disciples cast away from about us all these cloaks of vain pretensions and excuses But that we shall never do to purpose unless we first cast out from within us that pride and self-love whose Liveries those Cloaks are The better we shall learn that first great lesson of self-denial the less will we seek to excuse our errors
write Cases of Conscience And let me here take occasion to tell the Reader this truth very fit but not commonly known that in one of these Conferences this Conscientious King was told by a faithful and private Intelligencer that if he assented not to the Parliaments Proposals the Treaty 'twixt him and them would break immediately and his life would then be in danger he was sure he knew it To which his answer was I have done what I can to bring my Conscience to a complyance with their Proposals and cannot and I will not lose my Conscience to save my Life and within a very short time after he told Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Morley or one of them that then waited with him That the remembrance of two Errors did much afflict him which were his assent to the Earl of Strafford's death and the abolishing Episcopacy in Scotland and that if God ever restored him to be in a peaceable possession of his Crown he would demonstrate his Repentance by a publick Confession and voluntary Pennance I think barefoot from the Tower of London or Whitehall to St. Paul's Church and desire the people to intercede with God for his pardon I am sure one of them that told it me lives still and will witness it And it ought to be observ'd that Dr. Sanderson's Lectures de Iuramento were so approv'd and valu'd by the King that in this time of his imprisonment and solitude he translated them into exact Enlish desiring Dr. Iuxson then Bishop of London Dr. Hammond and Sir Thomas Herbert who then attended him in his restraint to compare them with the Original The last still lives and has declared it with some other of that King's excellencies in a Letter under his own hand which was lately shew'd me by Sir William Dugdale King at Arms. The translation was design'd to be put into the King's Library at St. Iames's but I doubt not now to be found there I thought the honor of the Author and the Translator to be both so much concerned in this Relation that it ought not to be concealed from the Reader and 't is therefore here inserted I now return to Dr. Sanderson in the Chair in Oxford where they that comply'd not in taking the Covenant Negative Oath and Parliament Ordinance for Church Discipline and Worship were under a sad and daily apprehension of Expulsion for the Visiters were daily expected and both City and University full of Soldiers and a party of Presbyterian Divines that were as greedy and ready to possess as the ignorant and ill natur'd Visiters were to eject the Dissenters out of their Colledges and Livelyhoods But notwithstanding Dr. Sanderson did still continue to read his Lecture and did to the very faces of those Presbyterian Divines and Soldiers read with so much reason and with a calm fortitude make such applications as if they were not they ought to have been asham'd and beg'd pardon of God and him and forborn to do what follow'd But these thriving sinners were hard'ned and as the Visiters expell'd the Orthodox they without scruple or shame possest themselves immediately of their Colledges so that with the rest Dr. Sanderson was in Iune 1648 forc'd to pack up and be gone and thank God he was not imprison'd as Dr. Shelden Dr. Hammond and others then were I must now again look back to Oxford and tell my Reader that the year before this expulsion when the University had deny'd this Subscription and apprehended the danger of that Visitation which followed they sent Dr. Morley then Canon of Christ-Church now Lord Bishop of Winchester and others to petition the Parliament for re-calling the Injunction or a mitigation of it or to accept of their Reasons why they could not take the Oaths injoyn'd them and the Petition was by Parliament referr'd to a Committee to hear and report the Reasons to the House and a day set for hearing them This done Dr. Morley and the rest went to inform fee Counsel to plead their Cause on the day appointed but there had been so many committed for pleading that none durst be so bold as to undertake it cordially for at this time the priviledges of that part of the Parliament then sitting were become a Noli me tangere as sacred and useful to them as Traditions ever were or are now to the Church of Rome their number must never be known and therefore not without danger to be meddled with For which Reason Dr. Morley was forc'd for want of Counsel to plead the Universities Reasons for not complyance with the Parliaments injunctions and though this was done with great reason and a boldness equal to the Justice of his Cause yet the effect of it was but that he and the rest appearing with him were so fortunate as to return to Oxford without commitment This was some few days before the Visiters and more Soldiers were sent down to drive the Dissenters out of the University And one that was at this time of Dr. Morley's pleading a powerful man in the Parliament and of that Committee observing Dr. Morley's behaviour reason inquiring of him and hearing a good report of his Principles in Religion and of his Morals was therefore willing to afford him a peculiar favour and that he might express it sent for me that relate this Story and knew Dr. Morley well and told me He had such a love for Dr. Morley that knowing he would not take the Oaths and must therefore he ejected his Colledge and leave Oxford he desir'd I would therefore write to him to ride out of Oxford when the Visiters came into it and not return till they left it and he should be sure then to return in safety and that by so doing he should without taking any Oath or other molestation enjoy his Canons place in the Colledge I did receive this intended kindness with a sudden gladness because I was sure the party had a power to do what he profest and as sure he meant to perform it and did therefore write the Doctor word to which his Answer was That I must not fail to return my Friend who still lives his humble and undissembled thanks though he could not accept of his intended kindness for when Dr. Fell then the Dean Dr. Gardner Dr. Paine Dr. Hammond Dr. Sanderson and all the rest of the Colledge were turn'd out except Dr. Wall he should take it to be if not a sin yet a shame to be left behind with him only Dr. Wall I knew and will speak nothing of him for he is dead It may be easily imagined with what a joyful willingness these self-loving Reformers took possession of all vacant preferments and with what reluctance others parted with their beloved Colledges and Subsistance but their Consciences were dearer than both and out they went the Reformers possessing them without shame or scruple where I will leave these Scruple-Mongers and proceed to make an account of the then present Affairs of London
propriam actualem existentiam Yet confesseth 't is hard to make this intelligible In his fourth Book he endeavours to declare a twofold manner of God's working ad extra the one sub ordine Praedestinationis of which Eternity is the proper measure the other sub ordine Gratiae whereof Time is the measure And that God worketh fortiter in the one though not irresistibiliter as well as suaviter in the other wherein the Free-will hath his proper working also From the Result of his whole performance I was confirmed in this Opinion That we must acknowledge the work of both Grace and Freewill in the conversion of a sinner And so likewise in all other events the Consistency of the infallibility of God's fore-knowledge at least though not with any absolute but conditional Predestination with the liberty of man's will and the contingency of inferiour causes and effects These I say we must acknowledge for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thought it bootless for me to think of comprehending it And so came the two Acta Synodalia Dordrectana to stand in my Study only to fill up a room to this day And yet see the restless curiosity of man Not many years after to wit A. D. 1632. out cometh Dr. Twiss his Vindiciae Gratiae a large Volume purposely writ against Arminius And then notwithstanding my former resolution I must needs be medling again The respect I bore to his person and great learning and the long acquaintance I had â—ad with him in Oxford drew me to the reading of that whole Book But from the reading of it for I read it through to a syllable I went away with many and great dissatisfactions Sundry things in that Book I took notice of which brought me into a greater dislike of his Opinion than I had before But especially these three First that he bottometh very much of his Discourse upon a very erroneous Principle which yet he seemeth to be so deeply in love with that he hath repeated it I verily believe some hundreds of times in that work â—â— wit this That whatsoever is first in the intention is last in execution and è converso Which is an Error of that magnitude that I cannot but wonder how a person of such acuteness and subtilty of wit could possible be deceived with it All Logicians know there is no such universal Maxim as he buildeth upon The true Maxim is but this Finis qui primus est in Intentione est ultimus in Executione In the order of final Causes and the Means used for that end the Rule holdeth perpetually But in other things it holdeth not at all or but by chance or not as a rule and necessarily Secondly that foreseeing such Consequences would naturally and necessarily follow from his Opinion as would offend the ear of a sober Christian at the very first sound he would yet rather choose not only to admit the said harsh Consequences but professedly indeavour also to maintain them and plead hard for them in large Digressions than to recede in the least from that opinion which he had undertaken to defend Thirdly that seeing out of the sharpness of his wit a necessity of forsaking the ordinary Sublapsarian way and the Supralapsarian too as it had diversly been declared by all that had gone before him for the shunning of those Rocks which either of those ways must unavoidably cast him upon he was forc'd to seek out an untrodden Path and to frame out of his own brain a new way like a Spider's web wrought out of her own bowels hoping by that device to salve all Absurdities could be objected to wit by making the glory of God as it is indeed the chiefest so the only end of all other his Decrees and then making all those other Decrees to be but one entire co-ordinate Medium conducing to that one end and so the whole subordinate to it but not any one part thereof subordinate to any other of the same Dr. Twiss should have done well to have been more sparing in imputing the studium Paritum to others wherewith his own eyes though of eminent perspicacity were so strangely blindfolded that he could not discern how this his new Device and his old dearly beloved Principle like the Cadmean Sparti do mutually destroy the one the other This Relation of my pass'd thoughts having spun out to a far greater length than I intended I shall give a shorter accompt of what they now are concerning these points For which account I refer you to the following parts of Dr. Hammonds Book aforesaid where you may find them already printed And for another account at large of Bishop Sanderson's last Judgment concerning God's Concurrence or Non-concurrence with the Actions of Men and the positive entity of sins of commission I rèfer you to his Letters already printed by his consent in my large Appendix to my Impartial inquiry into the Nature of Sin § 68 p. 193. as far as p. 200. Sir I have rather made it my choice to transcribe all above out of the Letters of Dr. Sanderson which lie before me than venture the loss of my Originals by Post or Carrier which though not often yet sometimes fail Make use of as much or as little as you please of what I send you from himself because from his own Letters to me in the penning of his life as your own Prudence shall direct you using my name for your warranty in the account given of him as much or as little as you please too You have a performance of my promise and an obedience to your desires from North-Tidworth March 5. 1677 8 Your affectionate humble Servant Tho. Pierce THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S LETTER My Worthy Friend Mr. Walton IAm heartily glad that you have undertaken to write the Life of that excellent Person and both for Learning and Piety eminent Prelate Dr. Sanderson late Bishop of Lincoln because I know your ability to know and Integrity to write truth and sure I am that the life and actions of that pious and learned Prelate will afford you matter enough for his commendation and the imitation of Posterity In order to the carrying on your intended good work you desire my assistance that I would communicate to you such particular passages of his Life as were certainly known to me I confess I had the happiness to be particularly known to him for about the space of 20 years and in Oxon to enjoy his conversation and his learned and pious instructions while he was Regius Professor of Divinity there Afterwards when in the time of our late unhappy confusions he left Oxon and was retir'd into the Countrey I had the benefit of his Letters wherein with great candor and kindness he answered those doubts I propos'd and gave me that satisfaction which I neither had nor expected from some others of greater confidence but less judgment and humility Having in a Letter named two or three
thereof and handled the matter with so much cunning by fomenting their discontents under-hand till they had framed them and by their means some of the same party here to become the fittest Instruments for the carrying on of their great design And this I verily believe was the very Master-piece of the whole Plot. They could not but fore-see as the event hath also proved that if the old Government a main Piller in the Building were once dissolved the whole Fabrick would be â—ore shaken if not presently shattered in pieces and ruined things would presently run into confusion distractions and divisions would certainly follow And when the waters should be sufficiently troubled and muddied then would be their opportunity to cast in their Nets for a draught Some who have undertaken to discover to the World the great Plot the Papists had of late years for the introducing of Popery in the several parts of it might have done well to have taken some little notice of this also I wonder how they could look beside it being so visible and indeed the fundamental part of the Plot. Without which neither could the sparks of Errors and Heresies have been blown to that height nor that Libertinism and some other things therewith mentioned have so soon overspread the whole face of the Land as now we find they have done Secondly They promote the Interest of Rome by opposing it with more violence than reason Which ought not to seem any strange thing to us since we see by daily experience the like to happen in other matters also Many a man when he thought most to make it sure hath quite marred a good business by over-doing it The most prudent just and in all likelihood effectual way to win upon an adversary is by yielding him as much as with safety of truth can be yielded who if he shall find himself contradicted in that which he is sure is true as well as in that which is indeed false will by a kind of Antiperistasis be hardned into more obstinacy than before to defend all true and false with equal fierceness It hath been observed by some and I know no reason to question the truth of the observation that in those Counties Lancashire for one where there are the most and the most rigid Prebyterians there are also the most and the most zealous Roman Catholicks Thirdly they promote the Interest of Rome and betray the Protestant Cause partly by mistaking the Question a very common fault among them but especially through the necessity of some false Principle or other which having once imbibed they think themselves bound to maintain Some of them especially such as betook themselves to Preaching betimes and had not the leisure and opportunity to look much into Controversies understand very little as it is impossible they should much of the true state of the Question in many controverted points and yet to shew their zeal against Popery are forward enough to be medling therewithal in the Pulpit But with so much weakness and impertinency not seldom that they leave the Question worse than they found it and the Hearer if he brought any doubts with him to go from Sermon more dissatisfied than he came The rest of them that have better knowledge are yet so bound up by some false Principle or other they have received that they cannot without deserting the same and that they must not do whatsoever betideth them treat to the satisfaction of a rational and ingenuous adversary Among those false Principles it shall suffice for the present to have named but this one That the Church of Rome is no true Church The disadvantages of which assertion to our Cause in the dispute about the visibility of the Church besides the falseness and uncharitableness of it their Zeal or Prejudice rather will not suffer them to consider With what out-cries was Bishop Hall good man who little dreamt of any peace with Rome pursued by Burton and other Hot-spurs for yielding it a Church Who had made the same concession over and over again before he was Bishop as Iunius Reynolds and our best Controversie-Writers generally do and no notice taken no noise made of it You may perceive by this one instance where the shooe wringeth § XIX In their next that they may not appear so uncharitable as to suspect their Brethren without cause they tell us Upon what grounds they so do viz. these two The endeavours of Reconciliation in the Sixth and the pressing of Ceremonies in the Seventh Objection As to the former First All endeavours of Peace without loss of Truth are certainly commendable in the undertakers prove the event as it will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12. is every mans warrant for that If any particular private man have made overtures of peace in this kind upon other terms than he ought let him answer it as he can what is that to us Admit Secondly which I fear is too true that there is little hope scarce a possibility of reconcilement if we well preserve as we are in Conscience bound the truth and purity of our Religion yet ought not that fear to hinder any man fitted with abilities and opportunities for it from such Endeavours whereof whatsoever the success be otherwise these two good effects will follow It will be some comfort to him within his own bosom that he hath done what was his duty to do to his utmost power And it will appear to the world where the business stuck and through whose default most the Endeavour proved fruitless Thirdly though there be little hope and since the Trent Council less than before of bringing things to a perfect agreement yet methinks it should be thought worth the while Est quadam prodire tenus si non datur ultra to bring both sides to as near an agreement and reduce the differences to as small a number and as narrow a point as may be That if we cannot grow to be of the same belief in every thing we might at least be brought to shew more Charity either to other than to damn one another for every difference and more Ingenuity than to seek to render the one the other more odious to the World than we ought by representing each others opinions worse than they are § XX. The Seventh Objection containeth the other ground of their said former suspicion to wit the vehement pressing of the Ceremonies Wherein First they do not well in calling them Popish and Superstitious but that having already fully â—leared I shall not now insist upon Secondly by requiring to have some Command or Example of Scripture produced to warrant to their Consciences the use of the Ceremonies They offer occasion to consider of that point wherein the very Mystery of Puritanism consisteth viz. That no man may with a safe Conscience do any thing for which there may not be produced either Command or Example from the Scripture Which erroneous Principle being
be indifferent To their first grievance we answer That we have nothing to do with those that are Popishly affected If they wrong them as it is like enough they will for they will not stick to wrong their Betters we are not to be charged with that let them answer for themselves But by the way let our Brethren consider whether their stiff and unreasonable opposing against those lawful Ceremonies we retain may not be one principal means to confirm but so much the more in their darkness and superstition those that are wavering and might possibly by more ingenuous and seasonable insinuations be won over to embrace the truth which we profess And as for loose persons and profane ones that make it their sport upon their Ale-benches to rail and scoff at Puritans as if it were warrant enough for them to drink drunk talk bawdy swear and stare or do any thing without controul because forsooth they are no Puritans As we could wish our Brethren and their Lay followers by their uncouth and sometimes ridiculous behaviour had not given profane persons too much advantage to play upon them and through their sides to wound even Religion it self so we could wish also that some men by unreasonable and unjust other some by unseasonable and indiscreet scoffing at them had not given them advantage to triumph in their own innocency and persist in their affected obstinacy It cannot but be some confirmation to men in errour to see men of dissolute and loose behaviour with much eagerness and petulancy and virulence to speak against them We all know how much scandal and prejudice it is to a right good cause to be either followed by persons open to just exception or maintained with slender and unsufficient reasons or prosecuted with unseasonable and undiscreet violence And I am verily perswaded that as the increase of Papists in some parts of the Land hath occasionally sprung by a kind of Antiperistasis from the intemperate courses of their Neighbour Puritans so the increase of Puritans in many parts of the Land oweth not so much to any sufficiency themselves conceive in their own grounds as to the disadvantage of some profane or scandalous or idle or ignorant or indiscreet opposers But setting these aside I see not but that otherwise the Name of Puritan and the rest are justly given them For appropriating to themselves the Names of Brethren Professors Good men and other like as differences betwixt them and those they call Formalists Would they not have it thought that they have a Brotherhood and Profession of their own freer and purer from Superstition and Idolatry than others have that are not of the same stamp and doing so why may they not be called Puritans The Name I know is sometimes fastened upon those that deserve it not Rascal people will call any man that beareth but the face of honesty a Puritan but why should that hinder others from placing it where it is rightly due ' 'To their second Grievance I answer Publick means by Conferences Disputations and otherwise have been often used and private men not seldom afforded the favour of respite and liberty to bring in their Allegations And I think it can be hardly or but rarely instanced that ever Deprivation hath been used but where fatherly Admonitions have first been used and time given to the Delinquents to consider of it and inform themselves better This course usually hath been taken though every private particular man hath no reason to expect it The Reverend Fathers of our Church we may well think amid so much other imployment cannot be so unthrifty of their good hours as to lavish them out in hearing contentious persons eandem cantilenam sing the same note an hundred times over and require farther satisfaction after so many publick and unanswerable satisfactions already given Yet have the Bishops and other Church-Governours out of their religious Zeal for the peace of Gods Church been so far from despising our Brethren herein that they have dispensed sometimes with their other weighty occasions and taken pains to answer their Reasons and confute their Exceptions satisfie all their Doubts and discover the weakness of all their grounds in the points questioned And as to their third Grievance First for my own part I make no doubt neither dare I be so uncharitable as to think but that many of them have honest and upright and sincere hearts to God-ward and are unfeignedly zealous of Gods Truth and for Religion They that are such no doubt feel the comfort of it in their own souls and we see the fruits of it in their conversation and rejoyce at it But yet I cannot be so ignorant on the other side as not to know that the most sanctified and zealous men are men and subject to carnal and corrupt affections and may be so far swayed by them in their judgments as not to be able to discern without prejudice and partiality truth from errour Good men and Gods dear children may continue in some errour in Iudgment and consequently in a sinful practice arising thence and live and die in it as some of these have done in disobedience to lawful Authority and that unrepented of otherwise than as in the lump of their unknown sins It is not Honesty nor Sincerity that can privilege men from either erring or sinning Neither ought the unreproved conversation of men countenance out their opinions or their practices against light of Divine Scripture and right reason As we read Cyprian's errour in old time and we see in our days not only the suspected Tenents of Arminius but even the bold Heresies of Faustus Socinus have spread much the more for the reverend opinion men had of their personal endowments and sanctity Secondly though comparisons are ever harsh and most times odious yet since honesty and piety is alledged without disparagement be it spoken to the best of them there are as good and honest and religious and zealous men every way of them that willingly and chearfully conform as of them that do not In the times of Popish persecution how many godly Bishops and conformable Ministers laid down their lives for the testimony of Gods Truth and for the maintenance of his Gospel And if it should please God in his just judgment as our sins and amongst others our Schisms and Distractions most worthily deserve to put us once again to a fiery trial which the same God for his goodness and mercy defend I make no question but many thousands of Conformers would by the grace of God resist unto Blood embrace the Faggot and burn at a Stake in detestation of all Popish Antichristian Idolatry as readily and chearfully and constantly as the hottest and precisest and most scrupulous Non-conformer But Thirdly Let mens honesty and piety and gifts be what they can must not men of honesty and piety and gifts live under laws And what reason these or any other respects should
exempt any man from the just censure of the Church in case he will not obey her Laws and conform to her Ceremonies especially since such mens impunity would but encourage others to presume upon the like favour and experience teacheth us that no mens errors are so exemplary and pernicious as theirs who for their eminency of gifts or sanctity of life are most followed with popular applause and personal admiration We see their Grievances against us how unjust they are in the matter of Despising I would they did no more despise the Churches Authority than we do their infirmities But in matter of judging see if we have not a just grievance against them As might be declared at large in many instances out of their Printed Books and private Letters and common Discourses I will but give you a taste because I know I grow tedious and I long to be at an end First They judge our Church as half Popish and Antichristian for retaining some Ceremonies used in Popery though we have purged them from their Superstitions and restored them to their Primitive use Their great admired Opener of the Revelation maketh our Church the Linsey-Woolsey Laodicean Church neither hot nor cold And some of them have slovenly compared our late gracious Sovereign Queen Elizabeth of most Blessed Memory to a Sluttish Housewife that having swept the House yet left the dust and dirt behind the doors meaning thereby the Ceremonies If our Church were but half so ill as these men would make it I think every honest religious man should hold himself bound to separate from it as his most excellent Majesty hath observed the Brownists have done upon their very grounds accounting them as Luke-warm for not quite separating as they do us for no further reforming Secondly They judge our Bishops and other Church-governours as Limbs of Antichrist Locusts of the bottomless pit domineering Lords over Gods heritage Usurpers of temporal Jurisdiction Spiritual Tyrants over mens Consciences c. Seeking by all means to make the name of Lord-Bishop odious to the Gentry and Commons Witness their Mar-prelate and other infamous and scandalous Libels in that kind Having power in their hands if the Bishops should use more rigorous courses towards them than they have done could ye blame them Thirdly They judge those that subscribe and conform Machiavellian Time-servers formal Gospellers State Divines men that know no conscience but Law nor Religion but the Kings and such as would be as forward for the Mass as the Communion if the State should alter Fourthly All such Ministers as are not endowed with gifts for the Pulpit they damn as hirelings and not shepherds calling them Idol-Shepherds betrayers of Christs flock intruders into the Ministery without a Calling dumb Dogs and I know not how many Names besides Yea although they be such as are diligent according to their measure of Gifts to perform such duties as the Church requireth to present the prayers of the people to God to declare by reading the holy Bible and good Homilies for that purpose appointed the will of God to the people to instruct the younger sort in the points of Catechism to visit and comfort the sick and afflicted and to administer reverently and orderly the holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper Fifthly They judge all such as interpose for the Churches peace and oppose their Novelties as enemies to all goodness men of profane minds haters of Religion despisers of the Word persecutors of the Brethren Imps of Satan instruments of Hell and such as utterly abhor all godly and Christian courses Sixthly and lastly for I irk to rake longer in this Sink they bewray themselves to be manifest Iudges of all that are not of their stamp by singling out unto themselves and those that favour them certain proper Appellations of Brethren and Good men and Professors as if none had Brotherhood in Christ none had interest in goodness none made profession of the Gospel but themselves Whereas others have received the sign of their Profession in their foreheads after Baptism which perhaps they did not whereas others daily stand up in the Congregation to make profession of their Christian Belief which it may be they do not or if those things be not material whereas others by the grace of God are as stedfastly resolved in their hearts if need should be to seal the truth of their profession with their blood as any of them can be But they will say These peremptory Censures are but the faults of some few all are not so hot and fiery There be others that are more temperate in their speeches and moderate in their courses and desire only they may be spared for their own particular but they Preach not against any of these things nor intermeddle to make more stirs in the Church I answer first It were lamentable if this were not so If all were of that hot temper or distemper rather that many are they would quickly tire out themselves without spurring Far be it from us to judge mens hearts or to condemn men for what we know not by them Yet of some that carry themselves with tolerable moderation outwardly we have some cause to suspect that they do inwardly and in their hearts judge as deeply as the hottest spirited Railers And we gather it from their forwardness at every turn and upon every slender occasion obliquely to gird and indirectly to glance at our Church and the Discipline and the Ceremonies thereof as far as they well dare And if such men meddle no further we may reasonably think it is not for want of good will to do it but because they dare not Secondly Though they preach not against these things in the publick Congregations yet in their private Conventicles it is not unknown some do Though their Pulpits do not ring with it yet their Houses do though their ordinary Sermons ad Populum be more modest yet their set Conferences are sometimes but too free especially when they are required their Opinions by those that invite them And what themselves for fear of Censure thus Preach but in the ear their Lay-disciples openly preach on the house top Thirdly Although both their Pulpits and Tables should be silent yet their Practice sufficiently preacheth their dislike And who knoweth not that a Real and Exemplary seducement maketh the Author guilty as well as a Verbal and Oratory Saint Peter did not Preach Iudaism but only for offending the Iews forbare to eat with the Gentiles yet Saint Paul reproveth him for it to his face and interpreteth that fact of his as an effectual and almost compulsive seducement Cogis judaizare Gal. 2. Why compellest thou the Gentiles to Iudaize Lastly It is to be considered whether it may be enough for a Pastor not to meddle with these things and whether he be not in conscience bound especially in case he live among a people
in reproving sin should not allow those that come amongst them that liberty and plainness against themselves and their own sins I dare appeal to your selves Have you never been taught that it is the Ministers duty as to oppose against all errors and sins in the general so to bend himself as near as he can especially against the apparent errors and sins of his present auditory And do you not believe it is so Why then might I not nay how ought I not bend my speech both then against a common error of sundry in these parts in point of Ceremony and now against the late petulancy or at least oversight of some misguided ones The noise of these things abroad and the scandal taken thereat by such as hear of them and the ill â—ruits of them at home in breeding jealousies and cherishing contentions among Neighbours cannot but stir us up if we be sensible as every good member should be of the damage and loss the Church acquireth by them to put you in mind and admonishâ— you as opportunities invite us both privately and publickly Is it not time trow ye to thrust in the sickle when the fields look white unto the harvest Is it not time our Pulpit should a little echo of these things when all the Country far and near ringeth of them For my own part however others censure me I am sure my own heart telleth me I could not have discharged my conscience if being called to this place I should have balked what either then or now I have delivered My Conscience prompting me all circumstances considered that these things were pro hic nunc necessary to be delivered rather than any other If for any outward inferiour respect I should have passed them over with silence I think I should have much swerved from the Rule of my Text and have done a great evil that some small good might come of it But many thousand times better were it for me that all the world should censure me for speaking what they think I should not than that my own heart should condemn me for not speaking what it telleth me I should And thus much of things simply evil I should proceed to apply this Rule We must not do evil that good may come unto evils not simply but accidentally such and that both in the general and also in some few specials of greatest use namely unto evils which become such through Conscience Scandal or Comparison In my choice of the Scripture I aimed at all this and had gathered much of my provision for it But the Cases being many and weighty I foresaw I could not go onward with my first project without much wronging one or both either the things themselves if I should contract my speech to the scanting of time or you if I should lengthen it to the weight of the matter And therefore I resolved here to make an end and to give place as fit it is to the business whereabout we meet The Total of what I have said and should say is in effect but this No pretension of a good end of a good meaning of a good event of any good whatsoever either can sufficiently warrant any sinful action to be done or justifie it being done or sufficiently excuse the Omission of any necessary duty when it is necessary Consider what I say and the Lord give you understanding in all things Now to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit c. AD CLERUM The Third Sermon At a Visitation at Boston Lincoln March 13 th 1620. 1 COR. XII 7. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal IN the First Verse of this Chapter S. Paul proposeth to himself an Argument which he prosecuteth the whole Chapter through and after a profitable digression into the praise of Charity in the next Chapter resumeth again at the fourteenth Chapter spending also that whole Chapter therein and it is concerning spiritual gifts Now concerning spiritual gifts brethren I would not have you ignorant c. These gracious gifts of the holy Spirit of God bestowed on them for the edification of the Church the Corinthians by making them the fuel either of their pride in despising those that were inferiour to themselves or of their envy in malicing those that excelled therein abused to the maintenance of Schism and Faction and Emulation in the Church For the remedying of which evils the Apostle entreth upon the Argument discoursing fully of the variety of these spiritual gifts and who is the Author of them and for what end they were given and in what manner they should be imployed omitting nothing that was needful to be spoken anent this subject In this part of the Chapter entreating both before and after this verse of the wondrous great yet sweet and useful variety of these spiritual gifts he sheweth That howsoever manifold they are either for kind or degree so as they may differ in the material and formal yet they do all agree both in the same efficient and the same final cause In the same efficient cause which is God the Lord by his Spirit ver 6. Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit and there are differences of administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all And in the same final cause which is the advancement of Gods glory in the propagation of his Gospel and the edification of his Church in this verse But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal By occasion of which words we may inquire into the nature conveyance and use of these gifts First their nature in themselves and in their original what they are and whence they are the works of Gods Spirit in us the manifestation of the Spirit Secondly their conveyance unto us how we come to have them and to have propeâ—ty in them it is by gift it is given to every man Thirdly their use and end why they were given us and what we are to do with them they must be employed to the good of our Brethren and of the Church it is given to every man to profit withal Of these briefly and in their order and with special reference ever to us that are of the Clergy By manifestation of the Spirit here our Apostle understandeth none other thing than he doth by the adjective word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first and by the substantive word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the last verse of the Chapter Both which put together do signifie those spiritual gifts and graces whereby God enableth men and specially Church-men to the duties of their particular Callings for the general good Such as are those particulars which are named in the next following verses the word of Wisdom the word Knowledge Faith the gifts of healing working of miracles prophecy discerning
office is a certain evidence and manifestation of a Spirit of life within and that maketh it a living Organical body So those active gifts and graces and abilities which are to be found in the members of the mystical body of Christ I know not whether of greater variety or use are a strong manifestation that there is a powerful Spirit of God within that knitteth the whole body together and worketh all in all and all in every part of the body Secondly though we have just cause to lay it to heart when men of eminent gifts and place in the Church are taken from us and to lament in theirs our own and the Churches loss yet we should possess our Souls in patience and sustain our selves with this comfort that it is the same God that still hath care over his Church and it is the same Head Iesus Christ that still hath influence into his members and it is the same blessed Spirit of God and of Christ that still actuateth and animateth this great mystical Body And therefore we may not doubt but this Spirit as he hath hitherto done from the beginning so will still manifest himself from time to time unto the end of the world in raising up instruments for the service of his Church and furnishing them with gifts in some good measure meet for the same more or less according as he shall see it expedient for her in her several different estates and conditions giving some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all meet in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He hath promised long since who was never yet touched with breach of promise that he would be with his Apostles and their successors always unto the end of the World Thirdly where the Spirit of God hath manifested it self to any man by the distribution of gifts it is but reason that man should manifest the Spirit that is in him by exercising those gifts in some lawful Calling And so this manifestation of the Spirit in my Text imposeth upon every man the Necessity of a Calling Our Apostle in the seventh of this Epistle joineth these two together a Gift and a Calling as things that may not be severed As God hath dictributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one Where the end of a thing is the use there the difference cannot be great whether we abuse it or but conceal it The unprofitable Servant that wrapped up his Masters Talent in a napkin could not have received a much heavier doom had he mis-spent it O then up and be doing Why stand ye all the day Idle Do not say because you heard no voice that therefore no man hath called you those very gifts you have received are a Real Call pursuing you with continual restless importunity till you have disposed your selves in some honest course of life or other wherein you may be profitable to humane society by the exercising of some or other of those gifts All the members of the body have their proper and distinct offices according as they have their proper and distinct faculties and from those offices they have also their proper and distinct names As then in the body that is indeed no member which cannot call it self by any other name than by the common name of a member so in the Church he that cannot style himself by any other name than a Christian doth indeed but usurp that too If thou sayest thou art of the body I demand then What is thy office in the Body If thou hast no office in the Body then thou art at the best but Tumor praeter naturam as Physicians call them a Scab or Botch or Wenne or some other monstrous and unnatural excresâ—ency upon the body but certainly thou art no true part and member of the body And if thou art no part of the body how darest thou make challenge to the head by mis-calling thy self Christian If thou hast a Gift get a Calling Fourthly We of the Clergy though we may not ingross the Spirit unto our selves as if none were spiritual persons but our selves yet the voice of the World hath long given us the Name of Spiritualty after a peculiar sort as if we were spiritual persons in some different singular respect from other men And that not altogether without ground both for the name and thing The very name seemeth to be thus used by S. Paul in the 14. Chapter following where at ver 37. he maketh a Prophet and a Spiritual man all one and by Prophesying in that whole Chapter he most what meaneth Preaching If any man think himself to be a Prophet either spiritual let him acknowledge c. But howsoever it be for the Title the thing it self hath very sufficient ground from that form of speech which was used by our blessed Saviour when he conferred the ministerial power upon his Disciples and is still used in our Church at the collation of Holy Orders Accipite Spiritum Sanctum Receive the holy Ghost Since then at our admission into holy Orders we receive a spiritual power by the imposition of hands which others have not we may thenceforth be justly styled Spiritual persons The thing for which I note it is that we should therefore endeavour our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to stir up those spiritual gifts that are in us as that by the eminency thereof above that which is in ordinary temporal men we may shew our selves to be in deed what we are in name Spiritual persons If we be of the Spiritualty there should be in us anothergates manifestation of the Spirit than is ordinarily to be found in the Temporalty God forbid I should censure all them for intruders into the Ministry that are not gifted for the Pulpit The severest censurers of Non-preaching Ministers if they had livd in the beginning of the Reformation must have been content as the times then stood to have admitted of some thousands of Non-preaching Ministers or else have denied many Parishes and Congregations in England the benefit of so much as bare reading And I take this to be a safe Rule Whatsoever thing the help of any circumstances can make lawful at any time that thing may not be condemned as universally and de toto genere unlawful I judge no mans conscience then or calling who is in the Ministry be his gifts never so slender I dare not deny him the benefit of his Clergy if he can but read if his own heart condemn him not neither do I. But yet this I say As the times now are wherein learning aboundeth even unto wantonness and wherein the world is full of questions and controversies
〈◊〉 to believe and the Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faith or belief are both of them found sundry times in this Chapter yet seem not to signifie in any place thereof either the Verb the Act or the Noun the habit of this saving or justifying Faith of which we now speak But being opposed every where and namely in this last verse unto doubtfulness of judgment concerning the lawfulness of some indifferent things must therefore needs be understood of such a perswasion of judgment concerning such lawfulness as is opposite to such doubting Which kind of Faith may be found in a meer heathen man who never having heard the least syllable of the mystery of Salvation by Christ may yet be assured out of clear evidence of reason that many of the things he doth are such as he may and ought to do And as it may be found in a meer heathen man so it may be wanting in a true believer who stedfastly resting upon the blood of Christ for his eternal redemption may yet through the strength of temptation sway of passion or other distemper or subreption incident to humane frailty do some particular act or acts of the lawfulness whereof he is not sufficiently perswaded The Apostle then here speaking of such a Faith as may be both found in an unbeliever and also wanting in a true believer it appeareth that by Faith he meaneth not that justifying Faith which maketh a true believer to differ from an unbeleiver but the word must be understood in some other notion Yet thus much I may add withal in the behalf of those worthy men that have alledged this Scripture for the purpose aforesaid to excuse them from the imputation of having at least wilfully handled the Word of God deceitfully First that thing it self being true and the words also sounding so much that way might easily enduce them to conceive that to be the very meaning And common equity will not that men should be presently condemned if they should sometimes confirm a point from a place of Scripture not altogether pertinent if yet they think it to be so especially so long as the substance of what they write is according to the analogy of Faith and Godliness Secondly that albeit these words in their most proper and immediate sense will not necessarily enforce that Conclusion yet it may seem deducible there-from with the help of some topical arguments and by more remote inferences as some learned men have endeavoured to shew not altogether improbable And Thirdly that they who interpret this Text as aforesaid are neither singular nor novel therein but walk in the same path which some of the ancient Fathers have trod before them The Rhemists themselves confess it of S. Augustine to whom they might have added also S. Prosper and whose authority alone is enough to stop their mouths for ever Leo Bishop of Rome who have all cited these words for the self same purpose But we are content for the reasons already shewn to let it pass as a collection impertinent and that I suppose is the worst that can be made of it There is a second acception of the word Faith put either for the whole system of that truth which God hath been pleased to reveal to his Church in the Scriptures of the old and new Testament or some part thereof or else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the assent of the mind thereunto In which signification some conceiving the words of this Text to be meant do hence infer a false and dangerous conclusion which yet they would obtrude upon the Christian Church as an undoubted principle of truth That men are bound for every particular action they do to have direction and warrant from the written word of God or else they sin in the doing of it For say they faith must be grounded upon the word of God Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God Rom. 10. Where there is no Word then there can be no Faith and then by the Apostles doctrine that which is done without the Word to warrant it must needs be sin for whatsoever is not of Faith is sin This is their opinion and thus they would infer it I know not any piece of counterfeit Doctrine that hath passed so currently in the world with so little suspicion of falshood and so little open contradiction as this hath done One chief cause whereof I conjecture to be for that it seemeth to make very much for the honour and perfection of Gods sacred Law the fulness and sufficiency whereof none in the Christian Church but Papists or Atheists will deny In which respect the very questioning of it now will perhaps seem a strange novelty to many and occasion their mis-censures But as God himself so the Holy Word of God is so full of all requisite perfection that it needeth not to beg honour from an untruth Will you speak wickedly for God Or talk deceitfully for him I hold it very needful therefoe both for the vindicating of my Text from a common abuse and for the arming of all my brethren as well of the Clergy as Laity against a common and plausible errour that neither they teach it nor these receive it briefly and clearly to shew that the aforesaid opinion in such sort as some have proposed it and many have understood it for it is capable of a good interpretation wherein it may be allowed First is utterly devoid of Truth and Secondly draweth after it many dangerous consequents and evil effects and thirdly hath no good warrant from my present Text. The Opinion is that to do any thing at all without direction from the Scripture is unlawful and sinful Which if they would understand only of the substantials of Gods worship and of the exercises of spiritual and supernatural graces the assertion were true and sound but as they extend it to all the actions of common life whatsoever whether natural or civil even so far as to the taking up of a straw so it is altogether false and indefensible I marvel what warrant they that so teach have from the Scripture for that very doctrine or where they are commanded so to believe or teach One of their chiefest refuges is the Text we now have in hand but I shall anon drive them from this shelter The other places usually alledged speak only either of Divine and Supernatural truths to be believed or else of works of grace or worship to be performed as of necessity unto Salvation which is not to the point in issue For it is freely confessed that in things of such nature the holy Scripture is and so we are to account it a most absolute and sufficient direction Upon which ground we heartily reject all humane Traditions devised and intended as supplements to the Doctrine of Faith contained in the Bible and annexed as Codicils to the Holy Testament of Christ for to supply the
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
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
forestal the publick hearing by private informations even to the Iudg himself if the access be easie or at leastwise which indeed maketh less noise but is nothing less pernicious to his Servant or Favorite that hath his ear if he have any such noted Servant or Favorite He therefore that would resolve not to receive a false report and be sure to hold his Resolution let him resolve so far as he can avoid it to receive no Report in private for a thousand to one that is a false one or where he cannot well avoid it to be ready to receive the Information of the adverse part withal either both or neither but indeed rather neither to keep himself by all means equal and entire for a publick hearing Thus much he may assure himself there is no man offereth to possess him with a Cause before-hand be it right be it wrong who doth not either think him unjust or would have him so Secondly let him have the conscience first and then the patience too and yet if he have the s conscience certainly he will have the patience to make search into the truth of things and not be dainty of his pains herein though matters be intricate and the labour like to be long and irksom to find out if it be possible the bottom of a business and where indeed the fault lieth first or most It was a great oversight in a good King for David to give away Mephibosheth's living from him to his Accuser and that upon the bare credit of his accusation It had been more for his honour to have done as Iob did before him to have searched out the cause he knew not and as his son Solomon did after him in the cause of the two mothers Solomon well knew what he hath also taught us Prov. 25. that it was the honour of Kings to search out a matter God as he hath vouchsafed Princes and Magistrates his own name so he hath vouchsafed them his own example in this point An example in the story of the Law Gen. 18. where he did not presently give judgment against Sodom upon the cry of their sins that was come up before him but he would go down first and see whether they had done altogether according to that cry and if not that he might know it An example also in the Gospel story Luk. 16. under the Parable of the rich man whos 's first work when his Steward was accused to him for embezeling his good was not to turn him out of doors but to examine his accounts What through Malice Obsequiousness Coverture and Covetousness counterfeit reports are daily raised and there is much cunning used by those that raise them much odd shuffling and packing and combining to give them the colour and face of perfect truth As then a plain Country-man that would not willingly be cosened in his pay to take a slip for a currant piece or brass for silver leisurely turneth over every piece he receiveth and if he suspect any one more than the rest vieweth it and ringeth it and smelleth to it and bendeth it and rubbeth it so making up of all his senses as it were one natural touch stone whereby to try it such jealousie should the Magistrate use and such industry especially where there appeareth cause of suspicion by all means to sift and to bolt out the truth if he would not be cheated with a false report instead of a true Thirdly let him take heed he do not give countenance or encouragement more than right and reason requireth to contentious persons known Sycophants and common informers If there should be no Accusers to make complaints Offenders would be no offenders for want of due Correction and Laws would be no Laws for want of due Execution Informers then are necessary in a Common-wealth as Dogs are about your houses and yards If any man mislike the comparison let him know it it Cicero's simile and not mine It is not amiss saith that great and wise Orator there should be some store of Dogs about the house where many goods are laid up to be kept safe and many false knaves haunt to do mischief to guard those and to watch these the better But if those Dogs should make at the throat of every man that cometh near the house at honest mens hours and upon honest mens business it is but needful they of the house should sometimes rate them off and if that will not serve the turn well favouredly beat them off yea and if after all that they still continue mankeen knock out their teeth or break their legs to prevent a worse mischief Magistrates are petty Gods God hath lent them his name Dixi Dii I have said ye are Gods Psa. 82. and false Accusers are petty Devils the Devil hath borrowed their name Sathan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Accuser of his brethren For a Ruler then or Magistrate to countenance a Sycophant what is it else but as it were to pervert the course of nature and to make God take the Devils part And then besides where such things are done what is the common cry People as they are suspicious will be talking parlously and after their manner Sure say they the Magistrates are sharers with these fellows in the adventure these are but their setters to bring them in gain their Instruments and Emissaries to toll grist to their mills for the increasing of their moulter He then that in the place of magistracy would decline both the fault and suspicion of such unworthy Collusion it standeth him upon with all his best endeavours by chaining and muzling these beasts to prevent them from biting where they should not and if they have fastned already then by delivering the oppressed with Iob To pluck the prey from between their teeth and by exercising just severity upon them to break their jaws for doing farther harm I am not able to prescribe nor is it meet I should to my Betters by what means all this might best be done For I know not how far the subordinate Magistrates power which must be bounded by his Commission and by the Laws may extend this way Yet some few things there are which I cannot but propose as likely good Helps in all reason and in themselves for the discountenancing of false accusers and the lessening both of their number and insolency Let every good Magistrate take it into his proper consideration whether his Commission and the Laws give him power to use them all or no and how far And first for the avoiding of Malicious sutes and that men should not be brought into trouble upon slight informations I find that among the Romans the Accuser in most cases might not be admitted to put in his libel until he had first taken his corporal oath before the praetor that we was free from all malicious and Calumnious intent Certain
account him no wiser than he should be that sluggeth in his own business or goeth heartlesly about it It is the Kings business who hath entrusted you with it and he is scarce a good subject that slacketh the Kings business or doth it to the halves Nay it is the Lords business for Ye judge not for man but for the Lord who is with you in the cause and in the judgment and Cursed is he that doth the Lords business negligently That you may therefore do all under one your own business and the Kings business and the Lords business with that zeal and forwardness which becometh you in so weighty an affair lay this pattern before your eyes and hearts See what Phinees did and thereby both examine what hitherto you have done and learn what henceforth you should do First Phinees doth not post off the matter to others the fervency of his zeal made him willing to be himself the Actor He harboured no such cool thoughts as too many Magistrates do Here is a shameful crime committed by a shameless person and in a shameless manner pity such an audacious offender should go unpunished My heart riseth against him and much ado I have to refrain from being my self his executioner rather than he should carry it away thus But why should I derive the envy of the fact upon my self and but gain the imputation of a busie officious fellow in being more forward than others A thousand more saw it as well as I whom it concerneth as nearly as it doth me and if none of them will stir in it why should I Doubtless my Uncle Moses and my father Eleazer and they that are in place of Authority will not let it pass so but will call him to an account for it and give him condign punishment If I should do it it would be thought but the attempt of a rash young fellow It will be better discretion therefore to forbear and to give my betters leave to go before me Such pretensions as these would have kept off Phinees from this noble Exploit if he had been of the temper of some of ours who owe it to nothing so much as their lukewarmness that they have at least some reputation of being moderate and discreet men But true zeal is more forward than mannerly and will not lose the opportunity of doing what it ought for waiting till others begin Alas if every man should be so squeamish as many are nothing at all would be done And therefore the good Magistrate must consider not what others do but what both he and they are in conscience bound to do and though there should be many more joyned with him in the same common care and with equal power yet he must resolve to take that common affair no otherwise into his special care than if he were left alone therein and the whole burden lay upon his shoulders As when sundry persons are so bound in one common bond for the payment of one entire sum conjunctim divisim every one per se in toto in solidum that every particular person by himself is as well liable to the payment of the whole as they all together are Admit loose or idle people for who can hold their tongues shall for thy diligence say thou art an hard and austere man or busiest thy self more than thou hast thank for thy labour First that man never cared to do well that is afraid to hear ill He that observeth the wind saith Solomon shall not sow and the words especially of idle people are no better Secondly He maketh an ill purchace that fore-goeth the least part of his duty to gain a little popularity the breath of the people being but a sorry plaster for a wounded conscience Thirdly what a man by strict and severe execution of Iustice loseth in the breadth he commonly gaineth it all and more in the weight and in the length of his Credit A kind quiet man that carrieth it for the present and in the voice of the multitude but it is more solid and the more lasting praise to be reputed in the opinion of the better and the wiser sort a Iust man and a good Patriot or Commonwealths-man Fourthly if all should condemn thee for that wherein thou hast done but well thy comfort is thine own conscience shall bestead thee more than a thousand witnesses and stand for thee against ten thousand tongues at that last day when the hearts of all men shall be made manifest and every man that hath deserved well shall have praise of God and not of man Secondly Phinees as he did not post off this execution to other men so he did not put it off to another day Phinees might have thought thus We are now in a religious work humbling our selves in a publick solemn and frequent assembly before the face of God to appease his just wrath against us for our sins Et quod nunc instat agamus It would be unseasonable leaving this work now another time may serve as well to inflict deserved punishment upon that wicked miscreant But zeal will admit no put offs it is all upon the spur till it be doing what it conceiveth fit to be done There are no passions of the mind so impetuous and so impatient of delay as Love and Anger and these two are the prime ingredients of true zeal If any man should have interposed for Zimri and taken upon him to have mediated with Phinees for his reprival I verily think in that heat he might sooner have provoked his own than have prorogued Zimri's exécution Delays in any thing that is good are ill and in the best things worst As Wax when it is chafed and Iron when it is hot will take impressions but if the Seal or Stamp be not speedily put to the hear abateth and they return to their former hardness so the best affections of the best men if they be not taken in the heat abate and lessen and die In the administration then of Iustice and the execution of Iudgment where there is Zeal there will be Expedition and the best way to preserve Zeal where it is is to use Expedition I am not able to say where the want is or where specially but certainly a great want there is generally in this Kingdom of Zeal to Iustice in some that should have it if that complaint be as just as it is common among men that have had sutes in the Courts that they have been wronged with far less damage than they have been righted there have been so many frustratoriae and venatoriae dilationes as St. Bernard in his time called them so many lingring and costly delays used And for Executing Iudgment upon Malefactors if Phinees had suffered Zimri to have lived but a day longer for any thing we know the plague might have lasted also a day longer and why might
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
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
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
saith Chrysostome there When our turn is served and we have what we would have by and by all our devotion is at an end we never think of thanks All the ten Lepers begged hard of Christ for a cleansing the Text saith They lift up their voices they were all loud enough whilst they were Suitors Sed ubi novem There returned not to give God thanks for their cleansing of the whole ten any more than barely one single man It is our case just When we want any of the good Creatures of God for our necessities we open our mouths wide till he open his hand and fill them with plenteousness but after as if the filling of our Mouths were the stopping of our Throats so are we speechless and heartless Shame we to be so clamorous when we crave from him and so dumb when we should give him thanks Consider lastly how freely God hath given thee what he hath given thee Dupliciter gratis saith Bernard sine merito sine labore Freely both ways freely without thy desert and freely without so much as thy pains Freely first without thy desert Iacob a man as well deserving as thou yet confessed himself Not worthy of the least of all God's Mercies And St. Paul cutteth off all challenge of desert by that Interrogatory Who hath first given him and it shall be recompensed him As who should say No man can challenge God as if he owed him ought If he have made himself a Debtor to us by his Promise and indeed he hath so made himself a debtor to us yet that is still gratis and for nothing because the Promise it self was free without either Debt in him or Desert in us Nay more God hath been good to us not only when we had not deserved it but which still more magnifieth his bounty and bindeth us the stronger to be thankful when we had deserved the quite contrary And how is it possible we should forget such his unspeakable kindness in giving us much good when we had done none nay in giving us much good when we had done much ill And as he gave it sine merito so sine labore too the Creature being freely bestowed on us as on the one side not by way of reward for any desert of ours so neither on the other side by way of wages for any labour of ours To shew that God giveth not his Blessings for our labour meerly he sometimes giveth them not where they are laboured for and again he giveth them sometimes where they are not laboured for If in the ordinary dispensation of his Providence he bestowed them upon them that labour as Solomon saith The diligent hand maketh rich and seldom otherwise for He that will not labour it is fit he should not eat yet that labour is to be accounted but as the means not as a sufficient cause thereof And if we dig to the root we shall still find it was gratis for even that power to labour was the gift of God It is God that giveth thee power to get wealth Yea in this sence nature it self is grace because given gratis and freely without any labour preparation disposition desert or any thing at all in us All these considerations the excellency of the Duty the continuance of God's Blessings our future necessity our Misery in wanting our Importunity in craving his free Liberality in bestowing should quicken us to a more conscionable performance of this so necessary so just so religious a Duty And thus having seen our Unthankfulness discovered in six points and heard many Considerations to provoke us to thankfulness it may be we have seen enough in that to make us hate the fault and we would fain amend it and it may be we have heard enough in this to make us affect the Duty and we would fain practise it may some say but we are yet to learn how The Duty being hard and our backwardness great what good course might be taken effectually to reform this our so great backwardness and to perform that so hard a Duty And so you see my second Inference for Exhortation breedeth a third and that is for direction which for satisfaction of those men that pretend willingness but plead ignorance I should also prosecute if I had so much time to spare wherein should be discovered what be the principal causes of our so great Unthankfulness which taken away the effect will instantly and of it self cease Now those Causes are especially as I conceive these five viz. 1. Pride and Self-love 2. Envy and Discontentment 3. Riotousness and Epicurism 4. Worldly Carefulness and immoderate Desires 5. Carnal Security and foreslowing the time Now then besides the application of that which hath already been spoken in the former Discoveries and Motives for every Discovery of a fault doth virtually contain some means for the correcting of it and every true Motive to a duty doth virtually contain some helps unto the practice of it besides these I say I know not how to prescribe any better remedies against unthankfulness or helps unto thankfulness than faithfully to strive for the casting out of those sins and the subduing of those Corruptions in us which cause the one and hinder the other But because the time and my strength are near spent I am content to ease both my self and you by cutting off so much of my provision as concerneth this Inference for Direction and desire you that it may suffice for the present but thus to have pointed at these Impediments and once more to name them They are Pride Envy Epicurism Carefulness Security I place Pride where it would be the foremost because it is of all other the Impediment of Thankfulness Certainly there is no one thing in the World so much as Pride that maketh men unthankful He that would be truly thankful must have his eyes upon both the one eye upon the Gift and the other upon the Giver and this the proud man never hath Either through self-love he is stark blind and seeth neither or else through Partiality he winketh on one eye and will not look at both Sometimes he seeth the Gift but too much and boasteth of it but then he forgetteth the Giver he boasteth as if he had not received it Sometimes again he over-looketh the Gift as not good enough for him and so repineth at the Giver as if he had not given him according to his worth Either he undervalueth the Gift or else he overvalueth himself as if he were himself the Giver or at least the Deserver and is in both unthankful To remove this impediment whoever desireth to be thankful let him humble himself nay empty himself nay deny himself and all his desert confess himself with Iacob less than the least of God's mercies and condemn his own heart of much sinful sacrilege if it dare but think the least thought tending to rob God of the
least part of his honour Envy followeth Pride the daughter the Mother a second great Impediment of thankfulness The fault is That men not content only to look upon their own things and the present but comparing these with the things of other men or times instead of giving thanks for what they have repine that others have more or better or for what they now have complain that it is not with them as it hath been These thoughts are enemies to the tranquillity of the mind breeding many discontents and much unthankfulness whilst our eyes are evil because God is good to others or hath been so to us To remove this impediment whoever desireth to be truly thankful let him look upon his own things and not on the things of other men and therein consider not so much what he wanteth and fain would have as what he hath and could not well want Let him think that what God hath given him came from his free bounty he owed it not and what he hath denied him he withholdeth it either in his Iustice for his former sins or in his Mercy for his farther good that God giveth to no man all the desire of his heart in these outwardly things to teach him not to look for absolute contentment in this life least of all in these things If he will needs look upon other mens things let him compare himself rather with them that have less than those that have more and therein withal consider not so much what himself wanteth which some others have as what he hath which many others want If a few that enjoy God's Blessings in these outward things in a greater measure than he be an eye-sore to him let those many others that have a scanter Portion make him acknowledge that God hath dealt liberally and bountifully with him We should do well to understand that saying of Christ not barely as a Prediction but as a kind of Promise too as I have partly intimated before The poor you shall always have with you and to think that every Beggar that seeketh to us is sent of God to be as well a Glass wherein to represent God's bounty to us as an Object whereon for us to exercise ours And as for former times let us not so much think how much better we have been as how well we are that we are not so well now impute it to our former unthankfulness and fear unless we be more thankful for what we have it will be yet and every day worse and worse with us Counsel very needful for us in these declining times which are not God knoweth and we all know as the times we have seen the leprous humour of Popery secretly stealing in upon us and as a Leprosie spreading apace under the skin and penury and poverty as an ulcerous sore openly breaking out in the very face of the Land Should we murmur at this or repiningly complain that it is not with us as it hath been God forbid that is the way to have it yet and yet worse Rather let us humble our selves for our former Unthankfulness whereby we have provoked God to withdraw himself in some measure from us and bless him for his great mercy who yet continueth his goodness in a comfortable and gracious measure unto us not withstanding our so great unworthiness and unthankfulness Thousands of our Brethren in the world as good as our selves how glad would they be how thankful to God how would they rejoice and sing if they enjoyed but a small part of that peace and prosperity in outward things and of that liberty of treading in God's Courts and partaking of his Ordinances which we make so little account of because it is not every way as we have known it heretofore The third Impediment of Thankfulness is Riot and Epicurism that which the Prophet reckoneth in the Catalogue of Sodom's sins Fulness of Bread and abundance of Idleness This is both a Cause and a Sign of much unthankfulness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fulness and Forgetfulness they are not more near in the sound of the words than they are in the sequel of the things When thou hast eaten and art full Then beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God Deut. 8. It much argueth that we make small account of the good Creatures of God if we will not so much as take a little pains to get them but much more if lavishly and like prodigal fools we make waste and havock of them He that hath received some Token from a dear Friend though perhaps of little value in it self and of less use to him yet if he retain any grateful memory of his friend he will value it the more and set greater store by it and be the more careful to preserve it for his Friend's sake but if he should make it away-causelesly and the rather because it came so easily as the Ding-thrift's Proverb is Lightly come lightly go every man would interpret it as an evidence of his unfriendly and unthankful heart But Riot is not only a Sign it is also a Cause of unthankfulness in as much as it maketh us value the good things of God at too low a rate For we usually value the worth of things proportionably to their use judging them more or less good according to the good they do us be it more or less And how then can the Prodigal or Riotous Epicure that consumeth the good Creatures of God in so short a space and to so little purpose set a just price upon them seeing he reapeth so little good from them A pound that would do a Poor man that taketh pains for his living a great deal of good maintain him and his Family for some weeks together perhaps put him into fresh trading set him upon his legs and make him a man for ever what good doth it to a prodigal Gallant that will set scores and hundreds of them flying at one Afternoons sitting in a Gaming-House Shall any man make me believe he valueth these good gifts of God as he should do and as every truly thankful Christian man would desire to do that in the powdering and perfuming of an Excrement that never grew from his own scalp in the furnishing of a Table for the pomp and luxury of a few hours in making up a rich Suit to case a rotten Carcass in in the pursuit of any other lustful vanity or delight expendeth beyond the proportion of his revenue or condition and the exigence of just occasions To remedy this whoever would be truly thankful let him live in some honest Vocation and therein bestow himself faithfully and painfully bind himself to sober discreet and moderate use of God's Creatures remember that Christ would not have the very broken meats lost think that if for every word idlely spoken then by the same proportion for every penny idlely spent we shall be
my Brother in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this That is his Plea Now God replieth of which Reply letting pass the remainder in the next Verse which concerneth the time to come so much of it as is contained in this Verse hath reference to what was already done and past and it meeteth right with Abimelech's Answer Something he had done and something he had not done he had indeed taken Sarah into his House but he had not yet come near her For that which he had done in taking her he thought he had a just excuse and he pleadeth it he did not know her to be another mans Wife and therefore as to any intent of doing wrong to the Husband he was altogether innocent But for that which he had not done in not touching her because he took her into his house with an unchast purpose he passeth that over in silence and not so much as mentioneth it So that his Answer so far as it reached was just but because it reached not home it was not full And now Almighty God fitteth it with a Reply most convenient for such an Answer admitting his Plea so far as he alledged it for what he had done in taking Abraham's Wife having done it simply out of ignorance Yea I know thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart and withal supplying that which Abimelech had omitted for what he had not done in not touching her by assigning the true cause thereof viz. his powerful restraint For I also withheld thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her In the whole Verse we may observe First the manner of the Revelation namely by what means it pleased God to convey to Abimelech the knowledge of so much of his Will as he thought good to acquaint him withal it was even the same whereby he had given him the first information at Verse 3. it was by a dream And God said unto him in a dream and then after the substance of the Reply whereof again the general parts are two The former an Admission of Abimelech's Plea or an Acknowledgment of the integrity of his heart so far as he alledged it in that which he had done Yea I know that thou didst it in the integrity of thine heart The latter an Instruction or Advertisement to Abimelech to take knowledge of Gods goodness unto and providence with him in that which he had not done it was God that over-held him from doing it For I also withheld thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her By occasion of those first words of the Text And God said unto him in a dream if we should enter into some Enquiries concerning the nature and use of Divine Revelations in general and in particular of Dreams the Discourse as it would not be wholly impertinent so neither altogether unprofitable Concerning all which these several Conclusions might be easily made good First that God revealed himself and his Will frequently in old times especially before the sealing of the Scriptures-Canon in sundry manners as by Visions Prophecies Extasies Oracles and other supernatural means and namely and amongst the rest by Dreams Secondly that God imparted his Will by such kind of supernatural Revelations not only to the godly and faithful though to them most frequently and especially but sometimes also to Hypocrites within the Church as to Saul and others yea and sometimes even to Infidels too out of the Church as to Pharaoh Balaam Nebuchadnezzar c. and here to Abimelech Thirdly that since the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles were made up the Scripture-Canon sealed and the Christian Church by the preaching of the Gospel become Oecomenical Dreams and other supernatural Revelations as also other things of like nature as Miracles and whatsoever more immediate and extraordinary manifestations of the Will and Power of God have ceased to be of ordinary and familiar use so as now we ought rather to suspect delusion in them than to expect direction from them Fourthly that although God have now tied us to his holy written Word as unto a perpetual infallible Rule beyond which we may not expect and against which we may not admit any other direction as from God yet he hath no where abridged himself of the power and liberty even still to intimate unto the Sons of men the knowledge of his Will and the glory of his Might by Dreams Miracles or other like supernatural manifestations if at any time either in the want of the ordinary means of the Word Sacraments and Ministry or for the present necessities of his Church or of some part thereof on for some other just cause perhaps unknown to us he shall see it expedient so to do He hath prescribed us but he hath not limited himself Fifthly that because the Devil and wicked Spirits may suggest Dreams probably foretel future events foreseen in their causes and work many strange effects in Nature applicando activa passivis which because they are without the sphere of our comprehension may to our seeming have fair appearances of Divine Revelations or Miracles when they are nothing less for the avoiding of strong delusions in this kind it is not safe for us to give easie credit to Dreams Prophecies or Miracles as Divine until upon due trial there shall appear both in the End whereto they point us a direct tendance to the advancement of Gods Glory and in the Means also they propose us a conformity unto the revealed will of God in his written Word Sixthly that so to observe our ordinary Dreams as thereby to divine or foretâ—l of future contingents or to forecast therefrom good or ill-luck as we call it in the success of our affairs is a silly and groundless but withal an unwarranted and therefore an unlawful and therefore also a damnable Superstition Seventhly that there is yet to be made a lawful yea and a very profitable use even of our ordinary Dreams and of the observing thereof and that both in Physick and Divinity Not at all by foretelling particulars of things to come but by taking from them among other things some reasonable conjectures in the general of the present estate both of our Bodies and Souls Of our Bodies first For since the predominancy of Choler Blood Flegm and Melancholy as also the differences of strength and health and diseases and distempers either by diet or passion or otherwise do cause impressions of different forms in the fancy our ordinary dreams may be a good help to lead us into those discoveries both in time of health what our natural constitution complexion and temperature is and in times of sickness from the rankness and tyranny of which of the humours the malady springeth And as of our Bodies so of our Souls too For since our Dreams for the
are indeed that not which they shew themselves in some passages but what they are in the more general and constant tenor of their lives If we should compare Abimelech and David together by their different behaviour in the same kind of temptation in two particulars of the sacred History and look no farther we could not but give Sentence upon them quite contrary to right and truth We should see Abimelech on the one side though allured with Sarah's beauty yet free from the least injurious thought to her husband or adulterous intent in himself We should behold David on the other side inflamed with lust after Bathsheba whom he knew to be another mans Wife plotting first how to compass his filthy desires with the Wife and then after how to conceal it from the Husband by many wicked and politick fetches and when none of those would take at last to have him murthered being one of his principal Worthies in a most base and unworthy fashion with the loss of the lives of a number of innocent persons more besides the betraying of Gods cause the disheartning of his People and the incouragement of his and their enemies When we should see and consider all this on both sides and lay the one against the other what could we think but that Abimelech were the Saint and David the Infidel Abimelech the man after Gods own heart and David a stranger to the Covenant of God Yet was David all this while within that Covenant and for any thing we know or is likely Abimelech not Particular actions then are not good evidences either way as wherein both an unbeliever awed sometimes by the Law of natural Conscience may manifest much simplicity and integrity of heart and the true Child of God swayed sometimes with the law of sinful concupiscence may bewray much foul Hypocrisie and infidelity But look into the more constant course of both their lives and then may you find the Hypocrite and the unbeliever wholly distinguished from the godly by the want of those right marks of sincerity that are in the godly no zeal of Gods glory no sense of original corruption no bemoaning of his privy Hypocrisie and secret Atheism no suspicion of the deceitfulness of his own heart no tenderness of Conscience in smaller duties no faithful dependance upon the providence or promises of God for outward things no self-denial or poverty of spirit no thirst after the salvation of his brethren and the like none of these I say to be found in any constant manner in the general course of his life although there may be some sudden light flashes of some of them now and then in some particular Actions Measure no mans heart then especially not thine own by those rarer discoveries of moral integrity in particular actions but by the powerful manifestations of habitual grace in the more constant tenor of life and practice We may learn hence thirdly not to flatter our selves too much upon every integrity of heart or to think our selves discharged from sin in the sight of God upon every acquital of our own Consciences when as all this may befall an Hypocrite an Unbeliever a Reprobate When men accuse us of hypocrisie or unfaithfulness or lay to our charge things we never did it is I confess a very comfortable and blessed thing if we can find protection against their accusations in our own hearts and be able to plead the integrity thereof in bar against their calumniations Our integrity though it be but Moral and though but only in those actions wherein they charge us wrongfully and the testimony of our own consciences may be of very serviceable use to us thus far to make us regardless of the accusations of unjust men that one testimony within shall relieve us more than a thousand false witnesses without can injure us With me it is a very small thing saith St. Paul that I should be judged of you or of mans judgment as if he should have said I know my self better than you do and therefore so long as I know nothing by my self of those things wherein you consure me I little reckon what either you or any others shall think or say by me We may by his example make use of this the inward testimony of our hearts being sufficient to Iustifie us against the accusations of men but we may not rest upon this as if the acquital of our hearts were sufficient to justifie us in the sight of God St. Paul knew it who durst not rest thereupon but therefore addeth in the very next following words Yea I judge not mine own self for I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Our hearts are close and false and nothing so deceitful as they and who can know them perfectly but he that made them and can search into them Other men can know very little of them our selves something more but God alone all If therefore when other men condemn us we find our selves aggrieved we may remove our cause into an Higher Court appeal from them to our own Consciences and be releived there But that is not the Highest Court of all there lieth yet an appeal further and higher than it even to the Iudgment seat or rather to the Mercy-seat of God who both can find just matter in us to condemn us even in those things wherein our own hearts have acquitted us and yet can withal find a gracious mean to justifie us even from those things wherein our own hearts condemn us Whether therefore our hearts condemn us or condemn us not God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things To conclude all this Point and therewithal the first general part of my Text Let no Excusations of our own Consciences on the one side or confidence of any integrity in our selves make us presume we shall be able to stand just in the sight of God if he should enter into judgment with us but let us rather make sute unto him that since we cannot understand all our own errors he would be pleased to cleanse us from our secret sins And on the other side let no accusations of our own Consciences or guiltiness of our own manifold frailties and secret hypocrisies make us despair of obtaining his favour and righteousness if denying our selves and renouncing all integrity in our selves as our selves we cast our selves wholly at the footstool of his mercy and seek his favour in the face of his only begotten Son Iesus Christ the righteous Of the former branch of Gods reply to Abimelech in those former words of the Text Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart hiherto I now proceed to the latter branch thereof in those remaining words For I also with-held thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word signifieth properly to hold
comparitve degree express by the Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prefixed must here be understood agreeably to the subject matter and with reference to Bonum jucundum Better that is to say more pleasant more contentful or as Solomon saith elsewhere comparing a good Name with Gold and Silver Desiderabilius more to be wished or desired than a precious Oyntment or Eligibilius in the choice to be preferred before it 11. From the Words thus opened the whole result is briefly this A good Name is a thing very worthy to be of every good man highly esteemed and to be held much more valuable than Riches pleasures honours or whatsoever other outward things the men of this World can place their utmost felicity in Wise Solomon hath elsewhere delivered his judgment as positively as may be in this matter concerning one of these and that the chiefest of all the rest in most mens account the Worldlings Summum bonum Riches Prov. 22. A good name is rather to be chosen than great Riches and loving favour rather than silver and gold And the wise Son of Sirach also preferreth a good name before a thousand great Treasures of Gold Observe the gradation Before gold Treasures of Gold great treasures of gold thousands of great treasures of gold yea and put life it self in to boot Sirach 41. Compare we a little the most esteemed delights of the sons of men those Ointments that are most precious in their esteem with a good Name and see if it do not in very many respects go beyond them all 12. If we should take an exact Inventory of all the particulars the World affords which worldly men hunt after with such eagerness that they not only spend all their strength and travel but adventure their healths also and lives in the pursuit not so only but for the obtaining whereof they truck away their precious souls too We shall find them all to come under one of these three heads whereunto St. Iohn hath reduced them summing them up as it were in the gross 1 Ioh. 2. The lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life Haec tria pro trino numine mundus habet These are the things so much magnified and adored in the World with one or other of these baits Satan tricketh up all his temptations when he layeth wait for our souls Riches Honours and Pleasures And to each of these may the word Ointment in the Text either by way of Metaphor or Metonymie of the adjunct be very well extended For Riches first it appeareth that Ointments were of ancient time accounted and are so taken notice of by Historians as a special part of the Royal treasure of Kings and Princes And therefore are the spices and precious Ointments reckoned amongst the things which Hezekiah shewed to the Babylonish Ambassadors when with vain ostentation he desired they should see the royal wealth magnificence of his Treasures Ointments also secondly were the Ensigns Symbols of the greatest honours as being used in the solemn consecration and inauguration of men into the Kingly and Priestly dignities Among the Heathens indeed in imitation of the Hebrews as many other of their rites came in upon that account but among the Hebrews by special appointment from God himself Insomuch as some Interpreters conceive it not improbable that Solomon in this place might have respect to those Regal and Sâ—câ—rdotal anointings But above all thirdly Ointments were the special emblems and expressions of mirth and jollity and therefore were used in entertainments and at feasts Testimonies hereof from the Writings of Poets and Historiâ—ns both Greek and Latin in great abundance besides that I find them ready collected by sundry learned men are of themselves obvious every where But finding store enough also in the holy Scripture I need not recite any other There we read of the Oil of joy and the Oil of gladness When thou fastest saith our saviour do not by an affected sullenness and sadness make ostentation of thy fasting â—â— hypocrites do but unge caput c. make semblance rather by anointing thy head and washing thy face as if thou wert going to a feast that so thou maiest be out of the reach of all temptation to vain glory that way while thou dost not appear to men to fast When David recordeth in Psal. 23. how â—ountifully God had dealt with him and shewed him his goodness plenteously he setteth it forth in this manner Tho hast prepared a table before me thou â—ust anointed my head with Oil and my cup runneth over To omit other places hitherto tendeth that ironical speech of our Preacher to the Epicure Chap. 9. Go thy way eat thy bread with joy and drink thy drink with a merry heart Let thy garments â—e always white another sign of rejoycing that and let thy head lack â—o ointment Riches Honours Pleasures you see Ointment hath somewhat to do with them all and so the word may well comprehend them all 13. Now then to enter into the Comparison First all these Ointments even the most precious of them are equally common to the Good and Bad. The worst of men may have as large a share in them as the best the most notorious vicious liver as the most â—minently vertuous person For though they be in truth secretly disposed by the most wise and just hand of a divine providence yet to the outward appearance and farther our eye will not pierce the dispensation of them seemeth to come from Chance rather than Iustice and Fortune rather than Merit This the Preacher took into his consideration and complaineth of it Chap. 9. as one of the great evils and vanities among those that are done under the Sun that all outward things come aliâ—e to all that there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked thence inferreth that no man can know so as to pronounce thereof with any certainty whether he be in the love or hatred of God by all that is before him If in respect of these outward things there be any difference between the Good and the Bad the advantage is rather on the worse side bad men oftentimes having a larger portion thereof than good men have Why the holy and wise God the first cause of all things that happen suffereth it so to be as to particulars that is counsel to us and we may not search into those secrets only we are assured in the general that he doth it for just gracious ends best known to himself But as to second causes we see evidently reason enough to satisfie us why it should be likely to fall out thus rather than otherwise if but in this that wicked men what worldly ends they propose to themselves they pursue to the utmost not boggling at any thing that they think may conduce to the obtaining of the same be it right or wrong whereas godly
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
which he suffereth their enmity to continue But it is more certain thirdly that we please him but imperfectly and in part even as those Graces wherewith we please him are in us but imperfectly and in part And therefore no marvel if our peace also be but imperfect and in part Possibly he will procure our peace more when we please him better 28. But where none of these or the like Considerations will reach home it will sufficiently clear the whole difficulty to consider but thus much and it is a plain and true answer that generally all Scriptures that run upon temporal promises are to be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as universally but as commonly true Or as some Divines express it cum exceptione crucis not absolutely and without all exception but evermore with this reservation unless the Lord in his infinite Wisdom see cause why it should be good for us to have it otherwise But this you shall ever observe withal and it infinitely magnifieth the goodness of our gracious Lord and God towards us that where he seeth it not good to give us that blessing in specie which the Letter of the Promise seemeth to import he yet giveth it us eminenter that is to say if not that yet some other thing fully as good as that and which he well knoweth though perhaps we cannot yet apprehend it so to be presently far better for us than that Say he do not give us Wealth or Advancement yet if he give us a contented mind without them is it not better Say he do not speedily remove a temptation from us whereunder we groan which was St. Paul's Case yet if he supply us with a sufficiency of grace to encounter with it is it not better So in the present Case if he do not presently make our Enemies to be at peace with us yet if he teach us to profit by their Enmity in exercising our faith and patience in quickning us unto prayer in furthering our humiliations or encreasing any other grace in us is it not every way and incomparably better Now will any wise man tax him with breach of Promise who having promised a Pound of Silver giveth a Talent of Gold Or who can truly say that that man is not so good as his Word that is apparently much better than his Word 29. From the Words thus cleared may be deduced many profitable Inferences for our further instruction but that the time will not suffer us to enlarge them As first We may hence know what a blessed and desirable thing Peace is not only that inward peace with God and in our own breasts which passeth all understanding but even this outward peace with men When the Holy Spirit of God here in the Text useth it as an especial strong inducement to quicken us up the rather to the performance of that with chearfulness which we are in Duty bound to perform howsoever in seeking to please the Lord. We may learn hence secondly if at any time we unfeignedly desire peace by what course we may be likeliest to procure it Preposterous is the course which yet most of men take when to make their Peace with mortal men they hazard the disfavour of the Eternal God The right and ready way is chalked out in the Text First to make our peace with God by ordering our Ways so as to please him and then to commit our Ways to his ordering by leaving the whole success to him and so doing it is not possible we should miscarry Those that are now our Enemies either he will turn their hearts towards us so as to become our Friends if he seeth that good for us or else he will so curb and restrain them that with all their Enmity they shall not be able to do us any harm if he see that better for us or if by his just sufferance they do us harm one way and yet he will not suffer that neither unless he see that absolutely best for us it shall be recompensed to us by his good providence in a far greater comfort another way We may learn hence Thirdly how hateful the practice is and how wretched the condition of Make-bates Tale-bearers Whisperers and all those that sow dissention among Brethren Light and Darkness are not more contrary than are Gods Ways and theirs He is the Author of Peace and lover of Concord they are the Authors of Strife and lovers of Discord It is his Work to make a mans enemies to be at peace with him It is their business to make a mans friends to be at odds with him We may learn hence Fourthly if at any time our Enemies grow to be at peace with us to whom we owe it Not to our selves it is a thing beyond our power or skill to win them Much less to them whose Malice is stiff and will not easily relent But it is principally the Lords own Work He is the God of Peace which maketh men to be of one mind in an house it is he that causeth wars to cease in all the Earth and that giveth unto his people the blessing of peace And therefore the glory of it and the thanks for it belong to him alone 30. But I willingly omit all further enlargement of these inferences that I may somewhat the longer insist upon one other inference only very needful to be considered of in these times which is this We may hence learn Fifthly if at any time we want peace probably to guess where the fault may partly be and that by arguing from the Text thus I read here that when a mans ways please the Lord he maketh his Enemies to be at peace with him I find in mine no relenting but an utter averseness from peace I am for peace but when I speak to them thereof they make them ready to battel I have cause therefore to fear that all is not right with me either my heart is not right or my ways are not right I will examine them both throughly and search if I can see any way of wickedness in me for which my God may be justly displeased with me and for which he thus stiffneth mine Enemies still against me 31. Thus to be jealous over our selves with a godly jealousie would not only work in us a due consideration of our ways that so we might amend them if there be cause but would be also of right use to prevent two notable pieces of Sophistry two egregious fallacies wherewith thousands of us deceive our selves The former fallacy is that we use many times especially when our Enemies do us manifest wrong to impute our sufferings wholly to their iniquity whereof we should do wiselier to take some of the blame upon our selves Not at all to excuse them whose proceedings are unjust and for which they shall bear their own burthens But to acquit the Lords proceedings who still is just even in those
perfection from Peace And then but not before shall Ierusalem be built as a City that is at unity in it self when they that build Ierusalem are at unity first among themselves 31. Consider fourthly what heartning is given and what advantage to the Enemy abroad whilst there are fractions and distractions at home Per discordias civiles externi tollunt animos said the Historian once of old Rome And it was the complaint of our Countrey-man Gildas uttered long since with much grief concerning the state of this Island then embroiled in Civil Wars Fortis ad civilia bella infirma ad retundenda hostium tela That by how much more her valour and strength was spent upon her self in the managing of intestine and domestick broils the more she laid her self open to the incursions and out-rages of forreign Enemies The common Enemies to the truth of Religion are chiefly Atheism and Superstition Atheism opposing it in the fore-front and Superstition on both hands If either of which at any time get ground of us as whilst we wrangle God knoweth what they may do we may thank our own contentions for it most We may cherish causless jealousies and frame chimera's of other matters and causes out of our fancies or fears But the very truth is there is no such scandal to enemies of all sorts as are our home differences and chiefly those which make it the sadder business that are about indifferent things Alas whereto serveth all this ado about gestures and vestures and other outward rites and formalities that for such things as these are things in their own nature indifferent and never intended to be otherwise imposed than as matters of circumstance and order men should clamour against the times desert their ministerial functions and charges fly out of their own Country as out of Babylon stand at open defiance against lawful authority and sharpen their wits and tongues and pens with so much petulancy that I say not virulency as some have done to maintain their stiffness and obstinacy therein I say whereto sérveth all this but to give scandal to the Enemies of our Church and Religion 32. Scandal first to the Atheist Who till all men be of one Religion and agreed in every point thereof too which I doubt will never be whilst the world lasteth thinketh it the best wisdom to be of none and maketh it his best pastime to jeer at all Great scandal also secondly to the Romanist Who is not a little confirmed in his opinion of the Catholickness of the Roman Faith when he heareth so many of the things which have been and still are retained in the Church of England in common with the Church of Rome as they were transmitted both to them and us in a continued line of Succession from our godly and Orthodox forefathers who lived in the Ages next after Christ and his Apostles to be now inveighed against and decryed as Popish and Superstitious And when he seeth men pretending to piety purity and reformation more than others not contenting themselves with those just exceptions that had been formerly taken by the Church of England and her regular children against some erroneous Doctrines and forms of worship taught and practised in the Church of Rome and endeavoured to be unduly and by her sole Authority imposed upon other Churches to be so far transported with a spirit of Contradiction as that they care not so as they may but run far enough from Rome whither or how far they run although they should run themselves as too oft they do quite beyond the bounds of Truth Allegiance common reason and even common humanity too 33. But especially and thirdly great scandal to those of the separation Who must needs think very jollily of themselves and their own singular way when they shall find those very grounds whereon they have raised their Schism to be so stoutly pleaded for by some who are yet content to hold a kind of communion with us Truly I could wish it were sufficiently considered by those whom it so nearly concerneth for my own part I must confess I could never be able to comprehend it with what satisfaction to the conscience any man can hold those principles without the maintenance whereof there can be nothing colourably pretended for inconformity in point of Ceremony and Church-government and yet not admit of such conclusions naturally issuing thence as will necessarily enforce an utter separation Vae mundo saith our Saviour Woe unto the world because of offences It is one of the great trials wherewith it is the good pleasure of God to exercise the faith and patience of his servants whilst they live on the earth that there will be divisions and offences and they must abide it But vae homini though without repentance wo to the man by whom the occasion cometh Much have they to answer for the while that cannot keep themselves quiet when they ought and might but by restless provocations trouble both themselves and others to the great prejudice and grief of their brethren but advantage and rejoycing of the common Enemy 34. Thus much for the Thing it self Like-mindedness The conditions or Qualifications follow The former whereof concerneth the Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one toward another It noteth such an agreement as is both Universal and Mutual Universal first I doubt not but in the then Roman Church at the time when this Epistle was written the strong agreed well enough among themselves and were all alike-minded and so the weak among themselves all alike-minded too They all minded to despise these these all minded to judg them But that agreement was with those only of their own party and so a partial agreement which tended rather to the holding up of a Faction than to the making up of an Union It was an Universal agreement the Apostle desired and prayed for that the strong would be more compassionate to the Weak and the weak more charitable toward the Strong both Weak and Strong more patient and moderate and more respective either of other in all brotherly mutual condescensions 35. It is our fault too most an end We are partial to those on that side we take to beyond all reason ready to justifie those enterprises of theirs that look very suspiciously and to excuse or at least to extenuate their most palpable excesses and as ready on the other side to misconstrue the most justifiable actions of the adverse part but to aggravate to the utmost their smallest and most pardonable aberrations Thus do we sometimes both at once either of which alone is an abomination to the Lord justifie the guilty and condemn the innocent Whilst partial affections corrupt our judgments and will not suffer us to look upon the actions of our brethren with an equal and indifferent eye But let us beware of it by all means for so long as we give our selves to be carried away with partialities and prejudices we shall
man by the light of Nature or strength of humane discourse should have been able to have found out that way which Almighty God hath appointed for our salvation if it had not pleased him to have made it known to the world by supernatural revelation The wisest Philosophers and learnedst Rabbies nor did nor could ever have dreamt of any such thing till God revealed it to his Church by his Prophets and Apostles This mystery was hid from Ages and from Generations nor did any of the Princes of this world know it in any of those Ages or Generations as it is now made manifest to us since God revealed it to us by his Spirit As our Apostle elsewhere speaketh 11. The Philosophers indeed saw a little dimly some of those truths that are more clearly revealed to us in the Scriptures They found in all men a great proâ—livity to Evil and an indisposition to Good but knew nothing at all either of the true Causes or of the right Remedies thereof Some apprehensions also they had of a Deity of the Creation of the World of a divine Providence of the Immortality of the Soul of a final Retribution to be awarded to all men by a divine justice according to the merit of their works and some other truths But those more high and mysterious points especially those two that of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead and that of the Incarnation of the Son of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers use to call them together with those appendices of the latter the Redemption of the World the Iustification of a sinner the Resurrection of the body and the beatifical Vision of God and Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven not the least thought of any of these deep things of God ever came within them God not having revealed the same unto them 12. It is no thanks then to us that very children among us do believe and confess these high mysterious points whereof Plato and Aristotle and all the other grand Sophies among them were ignorant since we owe our whole knowledge herein not to our own natural sagacity or industry wherein they were beyond most of us but to divine and supernatural revelation For flesh and bloud hath not revealed them unto us but our Father which is in Heaven We see what they saw not not because our eyes are better than theirs but because God hath vouchsafed to us a better light than he did to them Which being an act of special grace ought therefore to be acknowledged with special thankfulness Our Saviour hath given us the example I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes Mat. 11. 25. 13. Truly much cause we have to bless the holy Name of God that he hath given us to be born of Christian Parents and to be bred up in the bosom of the Christian Church where we have been initiated into these Sacred Mysteries being catechised and instructed in the Doctrine of the Gospel out of the holy Scriptures even from our very Childhood as Timothy was But we are wretchedly unthankful to so good a God and extremely unworthy of so great a blessing if we murmur against our Governours and clamour against the Times because every thing is not point-wise just as we should have it or as we have fancied to our selves it should be Whereas were our hearts truly thankful although things should be really and in truth even ten times worse than now they are but in their conceit only yet so long as we may enjoy the Gospel in any though never so scant a measure and with any though never so hard conditions we should account it a benefit and mercy invaluable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so St. Paul esteemed it the very riches of the grace of God for he writeth According to the riches of his grace wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence having made known to us the mystery of his will Eph. 1. If he had not made it known to us we had never known it aad that is the second Reason why a Mystery 14. There is yet a Third even because we are not able perfectly to comprehend it now it is revealed And this Reason will seâ—ch in the Quantum too For herein especially it is that this Mystery doth so far transcend all other Mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great marvellous great Mystery In the search whereof Reason finding it self at a loss is forced to give it over in the plain field and to cry out O altitudo as being unable to reach the unfathomed depth thereof We believe and know and that with fulness of assurance that all these things are so as they are revealed in the holy Scriptures because the mouth of God who is Truth it self and cannot lie hath spoken them and our own Reason upon this ground teacheth us to submit ourselves and it to the obedience of Faith for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so it is But then for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nichodemus his question How can these things be it is no more possible for our weak understanding to comprehend that than it is for the eyes of Bats or Owls to look stedfastly upon the body of the Sun when he shineth forth in his greatest strength The very Angels those holy and heavenly spirits have a desire saith St. Peter it is but a desire not any perfect ability and that but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither to peep a little into those incomprehensible Mysteries and then cover their faces with their wings and peep again and cover again as being not able to endure the fulness of that glorious lustre that shineth therein 15. God hath revealed himself and his good pleasure towards us in his holy Word sufficient to save our souls if we will believe but not to solve all our doubts if we will dispute The Scriptures being written for our sakes it was needful they should be fitted to our capacities and therefore the mysteries contained therein are set forth by such resemblances as we are capable of but far short of the nature and excellency of the things themselves The best knowledge we can have of them here is but per speculum and in aenigmate 1 Cor. 13. as it were in a glass and by way of riddle darkly both God teacheth us by the eye in his Creatures That is per speculum as it were by a glass and that but a divine one neither where we may read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some of the invisible things of God but written in small and out-worn Characters scarce legible by us He teacheth us also by the Ear in the preaching of his holy Word but that in aenigmate altogether by riddles dark riddles That there should be three distinct Persons in one Essence and
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
light of natural reason or at leastwise from some Conclusions properly directly and evidently deduced therefrom If we condemn it before this be done our judgment therein is rash and unrighteous 15. Nor is that all I told you besides the unrighteousness of it in it self that it is also of very noisom and perilous consequence many ways Sundry the evil and pernicious effects whereof I desire you to take notice of being many I shall do little more than name them howbeit they well deserve a larger discovery And first it produceth much Uncharitableness For although difference of judgment should not alienate our affections one from another yet daily experience sheweth it doth By reason of that self-love and envy and other corruptions that abound in us it is rarely seen that those men are of one heart that are of two minds St. Paul found it so with the Romans in his time whilest some condemned that as unlawful which others practised as lawful they judged one another and despised one another perpetually And I doubt not but any of us that is any-whit-like acquainted with the wretched deceitfulness of mans heart may easily conclude how hard a thing it is if at all possible not to think somewhat hardly of those men that take the liberty to do such things as we judge unlawful As for example If we shall judg all walking into the fields discoursing occasionally on the occurrency of the times dressing of meat for dinner or supper or even moderate recreations on the Lords day to be greivous prophanations of the Sabbath how can we chuse but judg those men that use them to be grievous prophaners of Gods Sabbath And if such our judgment concerning the things should after prove to be erroneous then can it not be avoided but that such our judgment also concerning the persons must needs be uncharitable 16. Secondly this mis-judging of things filleth the world with endless niceties and disputes to the great disturbance of the Churches peace which to every good man ought to be precious The multiplying of Books and Writings pro and con and pursuing of Arguments with heat and opposition doth rather lengthen than decide Controversies and instead of destroying the old begetteth new ones whiles they that are in the wrong out of obstinacy will not and they that stand for the truth out of conscience dare not may not yield and so still the War goeth on 17. And as to the publick peace of the Church so is there also thirdly by this means great prejudice done to the peace and tranquility of private mens consciences when by the peremptory Dostrines of some strict and rigid Masters the souls of many a well-meaning man are miserably disquieted with a thousand unnecessary scruples and driven sometimes into very woful perplexities Surely it can be no light matter thus to lay heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders and to cast a snare upon their consciences by making the narrow way to heaven narrower than ever God meant it 18. Fourthly hereby Christian Governours come to be robbed of a great part of that honour that is due unto them from their people both in their Affections and Subjection For when they shall see cause to exercise over us that power that God hath left them in indifferent things by commanding such or such things to be done as namely wearing of a Surplice kneeling at the Communion and the like if now we in our own thoughts have already prejudged any of the things so commanded to be unlawful it cannot be but our hearts will be sowred towards our Superiours in whom we ought to rejoyce and instead of blessing God for them as we are bound to do and that with hearty chearfulness we shall be ready to speak evil of them even with open mouth so far as we dare for fear of being shent Or if out of that fear we do it but indirectly and obliquely yet we will be sure to do it in such a manner as if we were willing to be understood with as much reflection upon authority as may be But then as for our Obedience we think our selves clearly discharged of that it being granted on all hands as it ought that Superiours commanding unlawful things are not therein to be obeyed 19. And then as ever one evil bringeth on another since it is against all reason that our Error should deprive our Superiours of that right they have to our obedience for why should any man reap or challenge benefit from his own act we do by this means fifthly exasperate those that are in authority and make the spirit of the Ruler rise against us which may hap to fall right heavy on us in the end All power we know whether Natural or Civil striveth to maintain it self at the height for the better preserving of it self the Natural from decay and the Civil from contempt When we therefore withdraw from the higher powers our due obedience what do we other than pull upon our selves their just displeasure and put into their hands the opportunity if they shall but be as ready to take it as we are to give it rather to extend their power Whereby if we suffer in the conclusion as not unlike we may a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom may we thank for it but our selves 20. Sixthly by this means we cast our selves upon such sufferings as the cause being naught we can have no sound comfort in Causa non passio we know it is the cause maketh a true Martyr or Confessor and not barely the suffering He that suffereth for the Truth and a good cause suffereth as a Christian and he need not be ashamed but may exult in the midst of his greatest sufferings chearing up his own heart and glorifying God on that behalf But he that suffereth for his Error or Disobedience or other rashness buildeth his comfort upon a sandy foundation and cannot better glorifie God and discharge a good conscience than by being ashamed of his fault and retracting it 21. Seventhly hereby we expose not our selves only which yet is something but sometimes also which is a far greater matter the whole Reformed Religion by our default to the insolent jeers of Atheists and Papists and other prophane and scornful spirits For men that have Wit enough and to spare but no more Religion than will serve to keep them out of the reach of the Laws when they see such men as pretend most to holiness to run into such extravagant opinions and practices as in the judgment of any understanding man are manifestly ridiculous they cannot hold but their Wits will be working and whilst they play upon them and make themselves sport enough therewithal it shall go hard but they will have one fling among even at the power of Religion too Even as the Stoicks of old though they stood mainly for vertue yet because they did it in such an uncouth and rigid way as seemed to be repugnant not
only to the manners of men but almost to common sense also they gave occasion to the Wits of those times under a colour of making themselves merry with the Paradoxes of the Stoicks to laugh even true vertue it self out of countenance 22. Lastly for why should I trouble you with any more These are enow by condemning sundry indifferent things and namely Church Ceremonies as unlawful we give great scandal to those of the Separation to their farther confirming in that their unjust Schism For why should these men will they say and for ought I know they speak but reason why should they who agree so well with us in our Principles hold off from our Conclusions Why do they yet hold communion with or remain in the bosom of that Church that imposeth such unlawful things upon them How are they not guilty themselves of that luke-warm Laodicean temper wherewith they so often and so deeply charge others Why do they halt so shamefully between two opinions if Baal be God and the Ceremonies lawful why do not they yield obedience chearful obedience to their Governours so long as they command but lawful things But if Baal be an Idol and the Ceremonies unlawful as they and we consent Why do they not either set them packing or if they cannot get that done pack themselves away from them as fast as they can either to Amsterdam or to some other place The Objection is so strong that I must confess for my own part If I could see cause to admit of those principles whereon most of our Non-Conformers and such as favour them ground their dislike of our Church-Orders and Ceremonies I should hold my self in all conscience bound for any thing I yet ever read or heard to the contrary to forsake the Church of England and to fly out of Babylon before I were many weeks older 23. Truly Brethren if these unhappy fruits were but accidental events only occasioned rather than caused by such our opinions I should have thought the time mis-spent in but naming them since the very best things that are may by accident produce evil effects But being they do in very truth naturally and unavoidably issue therefrom as from their true and proper cause I cannot but earnestly beseech all such as are otherwise minded in the bowels and in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ and by all the love they bear to Gods holy truth which they seem so much to stand for to take these things into their due consideration and to lay them close to their consciences Aud as for those my brethren of the Clergy that have most authority in the hearts of such as byass too much that way for they only may have some hope to prevail with them the rest are shut out by prejudice if I were in place where I should require and charge them as they will answer the contrary to God the Church and their own Consciences that they would approve their faithfulness in their Ministry by giving their best diligence to inform the judgments of Gods people aright as concerning the nature and use of indifferent things and as in love to their souls they are bound that they would not humour them in these their pernicious errors nor suffer them to continue therein for want of their rebuke either in their publick teaching or otherwise as they shall have opportunity thereunto in private discourses 24. But you will say if these things were so how should it then come to pass that so many men pretending to Godliness and thousands of them doubtless such as they pretend for it were an uncharitable thing to charge them all with hypocrisie should so often and so grievously offend this way To omit those two more universal causes Almighty God's Permission first whose good pleasure it is for sundry wise and gracious ends to exercise his Church during her warfare here with Heresies and Schisms and Scandals And then the wiliness of Satan who cunningly observeth whether way our hearts incline most to looseness or to strictness and then frameth his Temptations thereafter So he can but put us cut of the way it is no great matter to him on whether hand it be he hath his end howsoever Nor to insist upon sundry more particular causes as namely a natural proneness in all men to superstition in many an affectation of singularity to go beyond the ordinary sort of people in something or other the difficulty of shunning one without running into the contrary extreme the great force of Education and Custom besides manifold abuses offences and provocations arising from the carriage of others and the rest I shall note but these two only as the two great fountains of Error to which also most of the other may be reduced Ignorance and Partiality from neither of which God 's dearest Servants and Children are in this life wholly exempted 25. Ignorance first is a fruitful mother of Errors Ye err not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. Yet not so much Gross Ignorance neither I mean not that For your mere Ignaro's what they err they err for company they judge not at all neither according to the appearance nor yet righteous judgment They only run on with the herd and follow as they are led be it right or wrong and never trouble themselves farther But by Ignorance I mean weakness of judgment which consisteth in a disproportion between the affections and the understanding when a man is very earnest but withall very shallow readeth much and heareth much and thinketh that he knoweth much but hath not the judgment to sever truth from falshood nor to discern between a sound Argument and a captious Fallacy And so for want of ability to examine the soundness and strength of those principles from whence he fetcheth his Conclusions he is easily carried away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Apostle elsewhere speaketh with vain words and empty arguments As St. Augustine said of Donatus Rationes irripuit he catcheth hold of some reasons as wranglers will catch at a small thing rather than yield from their opinions quas consider antes verisimiles esse potius quam veras invenimus which saith he we found to have more shew of probability at the first appearance than substance of truth after they were well considered of 26. And I dare say whosoever shall peruse with a judicious and unpartial eye most of those Pamphlets that in this daring age have been thrust into the World against the Ceremonies of the Church against Episcopal Government to pass by things of lesser regard and usefulness and more open to exception and abuse yet so far as I can understand unjustly condemned as things utterly unlawful such as are lusorious lots dancing Stage-plays and some other things of like nature When he shall have drained out the bitter invectives unmannerly jeers petulant girding at those that are in authority impertinent digressions but above all those most bold and perverse
eaten or not for neither if we eat nor if we eat not are we much either the better or the worse for that But the Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost It consisteth in the exercise of holy graces and the conscionble performance of unquestioned duties Sincere confession of sin proceeding from an humble and contrite heart constancy in professing the true faith of Christ patience in suffering adversity exemplary obedience to the holy Laws of God fruitfulness in good works these these are things wherein God expecteth to be glorified by us But as for meats and drinks and all other indifferent things inasmuch as they have no intrinsecal moral either good or evil in them but are good or evil only according as they are used well or ill the glory of God is not at all concerned in the using or not using of them otherwise than as our Faith or Temperance or Obedience or Charity or other like Christian grace or vertue is exercised or evidenced thereby 23. I have now done with the first thing and of the most important consideration proposed from the Text to wit the end it self the Glory of God The Amplifications follow the former whereof containeth a description of the party to be glorified That ye may glorifie God If it be demanded Which God For there be Gods many and Lords many It is answered in the Text God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Of which Title there may be sundry reasons given some more general why it is used at all some more special why it should be used here First this is Stilo novo never found in the Old Testament but very often in the New For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Eph. 3. The God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ knoweth that I lie not 2 Cor. 11. Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. As the Old Covenant ceased upon the bringing in of a new and better Covenant so there was cessation of the old Style upon the bringing in of this new and better Style The old ran thus The God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob proclaimed by God himself when he was about to deliver the posterity of those three godly Patriarchs from the Bondage of Aegypt But having now vouchsafed unto his people a far more glorious deliverance than that from a far more grievious Bondage than that from under Sin Satan Death Hell and the Law whereof that of Aegypt was but a shadow and type he hath quitted that Style and now expecteth to be glorified by this most sweet and blessed Name The Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Exchanging the name of God a name of greater distance and terror into the Name of Father a name of more nearness and indulgence And taking the additional title or denomination not from the parties delivered as before who were his faithful servants indeed yet but servants but from the person delivering his only begotten and only beloved Son It is first the evangelical Style 24. Secondly this Style putteth a difference between the true God of Heaven and Earth whom only we are to glorifie and all other false and imaginary titular Gods to whom we owe nothing but scorn and detestation The Pagans had scores hundreds some have reckoned thousands of Gods all of their own making Every Nation every City yea almost every House had their several Gods or Godlings Deos topicos Gods many and Lords many But to us saith our Apostle to us Christians there is but one God the Father and one Lord Iesus Christ his Son This is Deus Christianorum If either you hope as Christians to receive grace from that God that alone can give it or mean as Christians to give glory to that God that alone ought to have it this this is he and none other God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. It is a Style of distinction 25. These two Reasons are general There are two other more special for the use of it here in respect of some congruity it hath with the matter or method of the Apostles present discourse For First it might be done with reverence to that Argument which he had so lately pressed and whereof also he had given a touch immediately before in the next former verse and which he also resumed again in the next following verse drawn from the example of Christ. That since Christ in receiving us and condescending to our weaknesses did aim at his Fathers glory so we also should aim at the same end by treading in the same steps We cannot better glorifie God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ than by receiving one another into our charity care and mutual support as Iesus Christ also received us to the glory of his heavenly Father 26. Secondly since we cannot rightly glorifie God unless we so conceive him as our Father If I be a Father where is mine honour Mal. 1. That they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Mat. 5. it may be the Apostle would have us take knowledge how we came to have a right to our Son-ship and for that end might use the title here given to intimate to us upon what ground it is that we have leave to make so bold with our great Lord and Master as to call him our Father even no other but this because he is the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only Son of God by nature and generation and through him only it is that we are made the Sons of God by grace and adoption As many as received him to them he gave power to be made the Sons of God Joh. 1. If we be the Sons of God we are made so but he is the Son of God not made nor created but begotten I go to my Father and to your Father saith he himself Ioh. 20. mine first and then and therefore yours also He is medium unionis like the corner stone wherein both sides of the building unite or like the ladder whereon Iacob saw Angels ascending and descending All intercourse 'twixt Heaven and Earth God and Man is in and through him If any grace come from God to us it is by Christ If any glory come from us to God it is by Christ too Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus Eph. 3. And this shall suffice to have spoken concerning the former Amplification briefly because it seemeth not to conduce so much nor so nearly to the Apostles main scope here as doth that other which now followeth respecting the manner with one mind and with one mouth 27. Wherein omitting for brevities sake such advantages as from the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be raised for farther enlargement observe first that whereas he nameth two
and consent and by reason of union though not immediately and directly work even upon the soul also As we see the fancy quick and roving when the blood iâ— inâ—lamed with choler the memory and apprehension dull in a Lethargy and other notable changes and effects in the faculties of the soul very easily disceâ—nâ—ble upon any sudden change or distemper in the body David often conâ—esseth that the troubles he met withal went sometimes to the very heart and soul of him The sorrows of my heart are enlarged In the multitude of the troubles or sorrows that I have in my heart My heart is disquieted within me Why art thou so vexed O my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me c Take but that one in Psal 143 The enemy hath persecuted my soul c. Therefore is my spirit vexed within me and my heart within me is dâ—solate 15. For the Soul then or Mind to be affected with such things as happen to the body is natural and such affections if not vitiated with excess or other inordinaâ—y blameless and without sin But experience sheweth us farther too oftâ—n God knoweth that persecutions â—fflictions and such other sad casualties as befal the body nay the very shadowâ— thereof the bare fears of such things and apâ—rehensions of their approach yea even many times when it is causeless may produce worse effects in the souls and be the causes of such vicious weariness and faintness of miâ—d as the Apostle here forewarneth the Hebrews to beware of Noâ— to speak of the Lapsâ— and Traditores and others that we read of in former times and of whom there is such mention in the ancient Councils and in the writings of the Fathers of the first Ages and the Histories of the Church How many have we seen even in our times who having â—eemed to stand fast in the profession of Truth and in the performance of the offices of Vertue and duties of Piâ—ty Allegiaâ—ce and Iustice before trial have yet when they have been hard put to it yea and sometimes not very hard neither fallen away starting aside like a broken â—oâ— and by flinching at the last discovered themselves to have been but very weak Christiens at the best if not rather very deep Hypocrites 16. It will sufficiently answer the doubt to tell you That persecutions and all occurrences from without are not the chief causes nor indeed in true propriety of speech any causes at all but the occasions only of the souls fainting under them Temptations they are I grant yet are they but temptation and it is not the temptation but the consenting to the temptation that induceth guilt If at any time any temptation either on the one hand or the other prevail against us St. Iames teacheth us where to lay the fault Not upon God by any means for God tempteth no man No nor upon the Devil neither let me add that too it were a sin to belie the Devil in this for though he be a tempter and that a busie one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tempter yet that is the worse he can do he can but tempt us he cannot compel us When he hath plied us with all his utmost strength and tried us with all the engines and artifices he can devise the will hath its natural liberty still and it is at our choice whether we will yield or no. But every man when he is tempted saith he tempted cum affectu that is his meaning so tempted as to be overcome by the temptation is tempted of his own lâ—st 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draâ—n away and enticed Drawn away by injuries and affrightments from doing good or enticed by delights and allurements to do evil It is with temptations on the left hand for such are those of which we now speak even as it is with those on the right yield not and good enough My Son saith Solomon if sinners intice thee consent not Prov. 1. It may be said also proportionably and by the same reason My Son if sinners affright thee comply not The Common saying if in any other holdeth most true in the case of Temptations No man taketh harm but from himself 17. And verily in the particular we are now upon of fainting under the Cross it is nothing but our own fears and the falseness of a misgiving heart that betrayeth us to the Tempter and undoeth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as he said It is not any reality in the things themselves so much that troubleth the mind as our over-deep apprehensions of them All passions of the mind if immoderate are perturbations and may bring a snare but none more or sooner than fear The fear of man bringeth a snare saith Solomon And our Saviour Let not your hearts be troubled neither fear as if fear were the greatest troubler of the heart And truly so it is No passion not Love no nor yet Anger if self though great obstructers of Reason both being so irrational as Fear is It maketh us many times do things quite otherwise than our own reason telleth us we should do It is an excellent description that a wise man hath given of it Wisdom 17. Fear saith he is nothing else but the betraying of the succours which reason offereth He that letteth go his courage forfeiteth his reason withal and what good can you reasonably expect from an unreasonable man 18. Seest thou then a man faint-hearted Suspect him I had almost said Conclude him false-hearted too It is certainly a very hard thing if at all possible for a Coward to be an honest man or a true friend either to God or man He is at the best but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a double-minded man but God requireth simplicity and singleness of heart He hath a good mind perhaps to be honest and to serve God and the King and to love his neighbour and his friend and if he would hold him there and be of that mind always all would be well But his double mind will not suffer him so to do He hath a mind withal to sleep in a whole skin and to save his estate if he can howsoever And so he becometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fickle and unstable in his ways turneth as the tide turneth There is no relying upon him no trusting of him Iethro well considered this when he advised Moses to make choice of such for Magistrates as he knew to be men of courage they that were otherwise he knew could not discharge their duty as they ought nor continue upright And when our Saviour said to his Disciples Luke 12. Isay unto you my friends Fear not them which kill the body He doth more than intimate that such base worldly fear cannot well consist with the Laws of true friendship 19. I insist somewhat the more upon this point because men are generally so apt to pretend to their own failings in this kind the outward force
poor He shall deliver their souls from falshood and wrong and dear shall their blood be in his sight And the like instructions to those of his Father he received also from his Mother Bathsheba in the Prophecy which she taught him with much holy wisdom for the matter and with much tenderness of motherly affection for the manner What my Son and what the Son of my Womb and what the Son of my Vows Prov. 31. where she giveth him this in charge vers 8 9. Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction Open thy mouth judg righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy 6. For the further evidencing of the necessity of which Duty that so we may be the more effectually quickened to the chearful and conscionable performance of it there are sundry important whether reasons or inducements or both for we shall not now stand so much upon any nice distinguishing of the terms but take them togetherward the one sort with the other very well worthy our Christian consideration Some in respect of God some in respect of our selves some in respect of our Brethren and some in respect of the thing it self in the effects thereof 7. To being with the most High we have his Command first and then his Example to the same purpose First His Command and that very frequently repeated both in the Law of Moses and in the Psalms and in the Prophets I shall the less need to cite particular places since that general and fundamental Law which is the ground of them all is so well known to us even that which our Saviour maketh the second great Commandment that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Iames calleth it that Royal Law Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Oh how we can stickle in our own Cause◠and solicite our own business with unwearied diligence How active and provident and vigilant we can be in things wherein our selves are concerned or when our own lives or livelihoods are in jeopardy Not giving sleep to our eyes or slumber to our eye-lids till we have delivered our selves from the snare of the Oppressor As a Roe from the hand of the hunter or as the Bird from the snare of the fowler Now if we can be thus fiery and stirring when it is for our selves but frozen and remiss when we should help our neighbour how do we fulfil the royal Law according to the Scripture Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self 8. Let no Man think to put off this duty with the Lawyers question Luke 10. But who is my neighbour Or with the Pharisees evading Gloss Mat. 5. Thou shalt love thy neighbour My neighbour True but not mine enemy Or with Nabal's churlish reasoning 1 Sam. 25. Shall I put my self to pains and trouble for Men whom I know not whence they be For in all the cases wherein the offices whether of Iustice or Charity are to be exercised every Man is every other Man's neighbour All Men being by the Ordinance of God so linked together and concorporated one into another that they are not only all members of the same body of the same civil Body as they are Men and of the same mystical Body too if they be Christians but even members also one of another Eph. 4. yea even every one one anothers members Rom. 12. So that if any Man stand in need of thy help and it be in the power of thy hand to do him good whether he be known to thee or a stranger whether thy friend or thy foe he is a limb of thee and thou a limb of him He may challenge an interest and a propriety in thee as thy poor and thy needy Deut. 15. Yea more as thine own flesh Isa. 58. Thou mayest not therefore hide thy self from him because he is thine own flesh For thy flesh thou art bound tho not to pamper yet to nourish and to cherish it by affording all convenient succour and supply to the necessities of it 9. God then hath laid upon us his Royal Command in this behalf Nor so only but he hath also laid before us a Royal Precedent in his own blessed example Lord thou hast heard the desire of the poor to help the fatherless and poor unto their right that the Man of the earth be no more exalted against them Psal. 10. saith David for the time past and for the time to come Psal. 140. Sure I am that the Lord will avenge the poor and maintain the cause of the helpless If you would hear it rather from his own mouth take it from Psal. 12. Now for the comfortless troubles sake of the needy and because of the deep sighing of the poor I will up saith the Lord and will help every one from him that swelleth against him and will set them at rest You see which way your heavenly Father goeth before you Now be ye followers of God as dear children It is the hope of every good Christian that he shall hereafter be like unto God in glory and happiness it should therefore be his care in the mean time to be like unto God in grace and goodness in being merciful as his heavenly Father is merciful in caring for the strangers and defending the fatherless and widow in helping those to right that suffer wrong and in doing works of Piety and Charity and Mercy The duty concerneth all in general 10. But Princes Iudges Magistrates and all that are in authority are more specially engaged to follow the example of God herein sith God hath been pleased to set a special mark of honour upon them in vouchsafing to put his own Name upon them and so to make them a kind of Petty Gods upon earth Dixi Dii I have said ye are Gods Psal. 82. Not so much be sure for the exalting of their Power and to procure them due honour esteem and obedience from those that are under them though that also no doubt was intended thereby as to instruct them in their Duty and estsoons to remember them that they are very unworthy the glorious title they bear of being Gods if they do not imitate the great and true God by exercising their Godships if I may so speak in doing good and protecting innocency Flatterers will be ready enough to tell you You are Gods but it is to evil and pernicious purposes to swell you up with conceits of I know not what omnipotency You are Gods and therefore may do what you will without fear in your selves or controul from any other They that tell you so with such an intention are liers and you should not give them any countenance or credit or so much as the hearing But when the God of Truth telleth you Ye are Gods he telleth you withal in the same place and as it were with the same breath what you are to do answearably to that Title
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
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
grievousness of their pressures secondly the paucity of their friends but especially and thirdly the equity and righteousness of their cause when they are in danger to be spoiled by the cruelty potency and iniquity of their Adversaries Some in respect of the duty it self the fruits and effects whereof ordinarily are first honour and renown in the World secondly the blessings and prayers of the poor thirdly the blessing of God upon us and ours fourthly the continuance of God's Mercies unto and the reversing of God's Iudgments from the Land 34. In the opening of which reasons I have purposely pressed the duty all along somewhat the more largely that I might not trouble you with any farther application at the close and therefore I hope it will not be expected I presume you would rather expect if we had time for it that I should proceed to examine the usual excuses and pretensions that are made in this case when the duty hath been neglected which Solomon hath comprehended in those few words in verse 12. Behold we knew it not and withal referred them over for the trial of what validity they are to the judgment of every Man 's own heart as the deputy-Iudg under God but because that may be faulty and partial in subordination to a higher tribunal even that of God himself from whose sentence there lieth no farther appeal This I aimed at in the choice of the Text as well as the pressing of the duty But having enlarged my self already upon the former point beyond my first intention I may not proceed any farther at this time nor will it be much needful I should if what hath been already delivered be well laid to heart Which God of his Mercy vouchsafe c. AD MAGISTRATUM The Second Sermon At the Assizes at Lincoln in the Year 1630. at the Request of Sir WILLIAM THOROLD Knight then High-Sheriff of that County Prov. 24. 10 12. 10. If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain 12. If thou sayest Behold we know it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works 1. WE want Charity but abound with Self-love Our defect in that appeareth by our backwardness to perform our duties to our brethren and our excess in this by our readiness to frame excuses for our selves Solomon intending in that particular whereat the Text aimeth to meet with us in both these corruptions frameth his speech in such sort as may serve best both to set on the Duty and to take off the Excuses And so the words consist of two main parts The supposal of a Duty which all Men ought to perform in the 10 and 11 Verses and the removal of those Excuses which most Men pretend for non-performance in the 12th Verse Our Duty is to stand by our distressed Brethren in the day of their adversity and to do our best endeavour by all lawful ways to protect them from oppressions and wrongs and to rescue them out of the hands of those that go about either by might or cunning to take from them either their lives or livelihoods If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small If thou forbear to deliver those that are drawn to death and those that are ready to be slain From which words I have heretofore upon occasion of the like meeting as this is spoken of the Duty in this place shewing the necessity and enforcing the performance of it from sundry important considerations both in respect of God and of our selves and of our poor brethren and of the Thing it self in the blessed effects thereof which I shall not trouble my self or you to repeat 2. Taking that therefore now for granted which was then proved to wit that it is our bounden duty to do as hath been said but our great sin if it be neglected I shall at this time by God's assistance and with your patience proceed as the Text leadeth me to consider of the Excuses in the remaining words vers 12. If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it And he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it And shall not he reward every Man according to his works For the better understanding and wore fruitful applying of which words we are to enquire of two things first what the Excuses are which Solomon here pointeth at and then of what value and sufficiency they are 3. Many Excuses Men have to put by this and every other duty whereof some are apparently frivolous and carry their confutation with them Solomon striketh at the fairest whereof three the most principal and the most usual of all he seems to have comprehended in these few words 1. Behold we knew it not As thus Either first we knew it not that is we never heard of their matters they never made their grievances known to us Or secondly we knew it not that is we had no clear evidence to give us full assurance that their cause was right and good Or thirdly we knew it not that is tho to our apprehension they had wrong done them yet as the case stood with them we saw not by what ways we could possibly relieve them we knew not how to help it 4. These are the main Excuses which of what value they are is our next Enquiry Wherein Solomon's manner of rejecting them will be our best guide Who neither absolutely condemneth them because they may be sometimes just nor yet promiscuously alloweth of them because they are many times pretended without cause but referreth them over for their more particular and due trial to a double judicature that is to say to the judgment of every man's heart and conscience first as a deputy Iudg under God and if that fail in giving sentence as being subject to so many errors and so much partiality like enough it may then to the judgment of God himself as the supreme unerring and impartial Iudg from whose Sentence there lieth no appeal Which judgment of God is in the Text amplified by three several degrees or as it were steps of his proceeding therein grounded upon so many divine attributes or properties and each fitted to other in so many several Propositions Yet those not delivered Categorically and positively but to add the greater strength and Emphasis to them put into the form of Negative Interrogations or Questions Doth not he consider Doth not he know And shall not he render That is most certainly and without all peradventure he doth consider and he doth know and he will render 5. The first step of God's judicial proceedings is for Inquisition and that grounded upon his Wisdom 1. Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it As if he had said The Lord is a
God of admirable Wisdom by whom are weighed not only the actions but also the spirits of Men and their very hearts pondered neither is there any thing that may escape his Enquiry Trust not therefore to vain excuses for certainly thy heart shall be throughly sifted and thy pretensions narrowly looked into when he taketh the matter into his consideration Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it The next step is for Deprehension or Conviction and that grounded upon his knowledg or Omniscience And he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it As if he had said Thou mayest by colourable pretences delude Men who are strangers to thy soul and cannot discern the thoughts and intents of the heart But there is no dissembling before him unto whose eyes all things are naked and open nor is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight He that made thy soul at the first and hath ever since kept it and still keepeth it observing every motion and inclinatinon of it he perfectly knoweth all that is in it and if there be any hidden guile in any secret corner of it tho obscured from Man's search by never so many windings and labyrinths yet he will undoubtedly find it out He that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it 3. The last step is for Retribution and that grounded upon his justice And shall not he render to every Man according to his Works As if he had said If mortal Man was to decide the Matter thou mightest have some hope that time and other means that might be used might frame him to thine own bent either to connive at a gross fault or to admit of a slender excuse But God is a most righteous Iudg not to be wrought upon by any artifice to do iniquity or to accept the persons of Men. According therefore as thy works are so without all question shall thy doom be Shall not the Iudg of all the World do right And shall not he render to every Man according to his Works 6. Thus you see the Text opened and therewithal opened a large field of matter if we should beat out every particular But that we may keep within some reasonable bounds and within the time we will hold us to these three principal points or conclusions First That the several excuses before mentioned as supposed to be pointed at in the Text may be sometimes pleaded justly and reasonably and in such case are to be admitted and allowed Secondly That they may be also all of them and are God knoweth too often pretended where there is no just cause for it Thirdly That where they are causlesly pretended tho they may blear the eyes of Men yet will they be of little avail in the sight of God Of each of these in the order as I have now proposed them and first of the first If thou sayest Behold we know it not 7. Questionless if that Allegation could never be just Solomon would wholly and absolutely have rejected it Which since he hath not done but referred it to judgment we may conclude there are times and cases wherein it will be allowed as a good and sufficient plea if it shall be said Behold we knew it not We esteem it the Fool 's Buckler and it is no better as it is many times used to say Non putâram Yet may a right honest and wise Man without the least blemish to his reputation be sometimes driven to take up the very same buckler and to use his own just defence When he is charged with it as his crime that his brother hath been oppressed and he hath not delivered him be he a private Man or be he a publick Minister of Justice it will sufficiently acquit him both in the Judgment of God and of his own heart and of all reasonable Men if he can say bonâ fide as it is in the Text Behold I knew it not The truth whereof I shall endeavour to make appear to you in each of the three forementioned respects First Men may want due information for matter of Fact or secondly Their judgments may be in suspence for point of right or Thirdly Where they perfectly comprehend both the whole business and the equity of it there may lie such rubs in the way as all the power and skill they have will not be able to avoid so that tho the cause be good they cannot tell for their lives which way to do good in it In any of which cases may they not well say Behold we knew it not 8. First They may want information for matter of Fact Not to speak of things farther off which therefore less concern us of those things that are done amongst them that live under us or near us how many passages are there that never come to our knowledg Much talk there is indeed in all our meetings and much bold censuring of the actions of those that are above us at every table Yet much of this we take up but upon trust and the credit of flying reports which are ever full of uncertainty and not seldom of malice and so we run descant upon a false ground But as for the affairs of them that are below us whereon especially the Duty of the Text is to be exercised other than what we chance to hear of obiter and by imperfect or partial relations very little thereof is brought to our ears by way of just complaint or according to pure truth And of all Men the greatest are sure evermore to know the least It is one of the unhappinesses of Princes and Magistrates and all that are in high place that whereas all their speeches and actions are upon the publick Stage exposed to the view and censure of the very meanest as a Beacon on the top of a hill open to every eye and bleak to every wind themselves on the contrary can have very little true information of those abuses and disorders in their Inferiors which it properly belongeth to them both to punish and reform If in private Families which being of a narrow compass are therefore easily looked into the Masters commonly be the last that shall hear of what is amiss therein Dedecus ille domus sciet ultimus how much more then is it improbable in a great Township in a spacious County in a vast Kingdom but that manifold â—usances and injuries should escape the knowledg of the most vigilant and conscionable Governors When both Court and City and the whole Empire rang of wanton Livia's impudent lasciviousness and Messalina's audacious courtings of Silius the Emperors themselves Augustus Father to the one and Claudius Husband to the other heard nothing of either till the news was stale every where else Principes omnia facilius quam sua cognoscunt saith the Historian concerning the one and the Satyrist concerning the other Dum res Nota urbi populo contigat Caesaris aures And no doubt but many pious and
according to truth and pronounce of them as they are and not as they seem may we not much rather invert the Proverb and say One tale cannot be good till the other be told that is whether it be good or not the Iudg may not give credit to either till he hath heard both Nay may we not many times farther say when both tales are told that neither is good Because there is most-what in every Man's tale a mixture of some falshoods with some truths whereby it may so happen sometimes that he which hath in truth the more equity on his side by the mingling in some easily discoverable falshoods in telling his tale may render his cause the more suspicious to him that heareth it to think the whole tale naught and he that hath indeed and upon the whole matter the worst cause may yet by the weaving in some evident truths or pregnant probabilities in the telling of his tale gain such credit with him that heareth it that he will be very inclinable to believe the whole tale to be good Or howsoever they may be both so equally false or at least both so equally doubtful as no one that heareth them can well tell whether of both to give credit to It was so in the famous case of the two inmate Harlots whereof King Solomon had the hearing The living Child is mine the dead one thine faith the one No faith the other The dead Child is thine and the living mine Here were presumptions on both sides for why should any Woman challenge another Woman's Child but proofs on neither for being there were none in the house but they two neither of them could produce any witnesses The case hung thus even no more evidence on the one side than on the other no less confidence on the one side than on the other Solomon indeed by that wisdom wherewith God had endowed him in a transcendent measure found out a means whereby to turn the scales to unty that hard knot and to discover the hidden truth But what could a Iudg or a Iury of no more than ordinary wisdom then have been able to have said or done in such a case but even to have left it as they found it And truly for any thing I know Ignorance must have been their best excuse 12. And as first in the Information so there may be a defect secondly in the Proofs He that hath the better cause in veritate rei may yet fail in his proofs and not be able to make it judicially appear that he hath the better cause In which case the old Axiom holdeth Idem est non esse non apparere it is all one in foro externo and as to the determination of a Judg upon the Bench who is to pronounce secundum allegata probata for a Man not to have a right and not to be able to make it appear in a legal way and by such evidence as is requisite in a judicial proceeding that he hath such a right Or he may be out-sworn by the depositions of the witnesses produced on the behalf of the adverse part tho it may be utterly false yet direct and punctual against him and so strong enough howsoever to cast him in his Suit For what Judg but the great Judg of Heaven and Earth can certainly and infallibly know when two or three Men swear directly to a point and agree in one whether yet they swear a falshood or no Or what should induce a mortal Iudg not to believe them especially if withal he see the proofs on the other side to fall short And if in such a case following the evidence in the simplicity of his heart he gave away an honst Mans right from him to a knave he is not to be charged with it as a perverter of justice but hath his Apology here ready fitted for him in the Text Behold we knew it not 13. Add hereunto in the third place the great advantage or disadvantage that may be given to a cause in the pleading by the artificial insinuations of a powerful Orator That same flaxanimis Pitho and Suadae medulla as some of the old Heathens termed it that winning and persuasive faculty which dwelleth in the tongues of some men whereby they are able not only to work strongly upon the affections of Men but to arrest their judgments also and to encline them whether way they please is an excellent endowment of nature or rather to speak more properly an excellent gift of God Which whosoever hath received is by so much the more bound to be truly thankful to him that gave it and to do him the best service he can with it by how much he is enabled thereby to gain more glory to God and to do more good to human Society than most of his brethren are And the good blessing of God be upon the heads of all those be they few or many that use their eloquence aright and employ their Talent in that kind for the advancement of justice the quelling of opression the repressing and discountenancing of insolency and the encouraging and protecting of innocency But what shall I say then of those be they many or few that abuse the gracefulness of their elocution good speakers but to ill purposes to enchant the ears of an easie Magistrate with the charms of a fluent tongue or to cast a mist before the eyes of a weak Iury as Juglers may sport with Country people to make white seem black or black seem white so setting a fair varnish upon a rotten post and a smooth gloss upon a course cloth as Protagoras sometimes boasted that he could make a bad cause good when he listed By which means judgment is perverted the hands of violence and robbery strengthned the edge of the sword of justice abated great offenders acquitted gracious and vertuous Men molested and injured I know not what fitter reward to wish them for their pernicious eloquence as their best deserved Fee than to remit them over or what David hath assigned them in Psal. 120. What reward shall be given or done unto thee O thou false tongue Even mighty and sharp arrows with hot burning coals I might add to those how that sometimes by the subtilty and cunning of a sly Commissioner sometimes by the wilful misprision of a corrupt or the slip of a negligent or the oversight of an ignorant Clerk and by sundry other means which in regard of their number and my inexperience I am not able to recite it may come to pass that the light of Truth may be so clouded and the beams thereof intercepted from the eyes of the most circumspect Magistrate that he cannot at all times clearly discern the Equity of those Causes that are brought before him In all which cases the only Apology that is left him is still the same as before even this Behold we knew it not 14. But when he perfectly understandeth the whole business and seeth
Rota in rota so represented to Ezekiel in a Vision like the motion of a Clock or other artificial Engine consisting of many Wheels one within another some bigger some lesser but all depend upon the first great Wheel which moveth all the rest and without which none of the rest can move In him we live and move and have our being and in his hands are the hearts of the greatest Kings and how much more then of meaner persons which he turneth and bendeth which way soever he pleaseth Prov. 21. 1. Be the Ax never so sharp and strong yet can it not cut any thing unless the hand of the Workman move it and then it cutteth but where he would have it and that more or less as he putteth more or less strength unto it No more can Men whatsoever strength of wit or power they are endued with bring their own devices to pass but when and where and so far forth only as the Lord thinketh fit to make use of them Pharaoh's Chariot may hurry him apace to the place of his destruction because God had so appointed it but anon God taketh off the Wheels and the Chariot can move no farther but leaveth him helpless in the midst of the channel 24. So vain are all mens devices as to the serving of their own ends and the accomplishment of their own desires Yet doth Almighty God so order these otherwise vain things by his over-ruling providence as to make them subservient to his everlasting counsels For all things serve him Psal. 119. 91. Happy thrice happy they that do him voluntary service they can say with David and in his sence Behold O Lord how that I am thy servant Psal. 116. that have devoted themselves faithfully and accordingly bend their endeavours to do him true and laudable service by obeying his revealed will But certainly whether they will or no though they think of nothing less they shall serve him to the furthering and accomplishing of his secret Will As we find My servant David often as his servant in the one kind so we sometimes meet with My servant Nebuchadnezzar as his servant in the other kind 25. Another reason of the differences aforesaid is from God's Eternity Man is but of Yesterday and his thoughts casual They go and come as it hapneth without any certain rule and order And as himself is mutable fickle and uncertain so are the things he hath to do withal and wherebouts he is conversant subject to contingencies and variations Tempora mutantur So many new unexpected accidents happen every hour which no wit of Man could foresee that may make it necessary for us many times to depart from our former most advised resolutions as the Mariner must strike sail again perhaps when he hath but newly hoyst it up if the wind and weather change Sometimes a very small inconsiderable accident in it self may yet work a very great turn in a business of the greatest moment A Smith in setting on a shooe chanceth to drive the nail a little aside the Horse is prickt the prick endangereth the Horse and the Horse the Rider upon the defeat of the Rider suppose the General or some Commander of special use the battel is lost upon the issue of that battel may depend the state of a whole Kingdom and in the state of that may the interest of so many Princes and Kingdoms be involved that a very little oversight in a very mean person may occasion very great alterations in a great part of the World So easily may mens devices be disappointed and their expectations frustrated 26. But the Counsels of God are as himself is Eternal and unchangeable Ego Deus non mutor I am God and am not changed as if he had said The Nature of the Godhead is not capable of any change nor subject to mutability All change is either for the better or for the worse but God cannot change for the better because he is already best nor for the worse for then he should cease to be best It is therefore impossible he should change at all His determinations therefore are unalterable more than the Laws of the Medes and Persians for time hath long since alter'd those Laws but his Counsels remain yesterday and to day the same and for ever Chance and if you will Fortune also may have place in the affairs of men and the things that are done under the Sun but to him that dwelleth in heaven that inhabiteth Eternity that knew from the beginning and before the beginning of the world all things that are done in heaven and earth nothing can be casual new or unexpected to cause any change of purpose in him 27. A third Reason there is from the wisdom of God There is folly in all the sons of men They know but a very smal part of the things that are in the world and those things they do know but in part Besides their natural ignorance through precipitancy mis-information prejudice partial affections and sundry other causes they are subject to very many mistakes and aberrations whereby it cometh to pass that the wisest men sometimes are fouly overseen and are fain to take up the Fools plea and to cry Non putâram 28. But as for God he and he alone is wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only wise God 1 Tim. 1. As we are sure he will not deceive any being of infinite goodness so we may be sure he cannot be deceived by any being of infinite wisdom There is such a fulness of wisdom in him that it hath left no room for second thoughts or after-counsels nor can there be imagined any cause why he should retract or reverse any of that he hath determined to do either in part or in whole 29. Lastly As his Wisdom so is his Power also infinite Man may devise purpose and resolve upon a course for the obtaining of his intentions and that possibly with so good advise and upon such probable and rational grounds that there appeareth no reason to the contrary why he should not persist in the same mind still and pursue that his said resolution and yet there may a thousand impediments intervene to obstruct the business so that it shall not be in the power of his hand to remove those obstacles whereby to accomplish the desires of his heart O Lord saith the Prophet Ieremy I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps And Solomon a little before in this book A man's heart deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps 30. But as for the Lord his Power hath no bars or bounds other than those of his own will Quicquid voluit fecit Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven in earth in the sea in all the deep places For who hath ever resisted his will Rom. 9. Doth he mean his revealed