that attendeth him set him aside Never think that mans robes will do well upon him A Iusticeship or other Office would sit upon such a mans back as handsomly as Saul's armour did upon David's unweildly and sagging about his shoulders so as he could not tell how to stir and turn himself under it He is a fit man to make a Magistrate of that will put on righteousness as a garment and cloth himself with Iudgment as with a Robe and a Diadem The second property is Compassion on the poor Seest thou a man distitute of counsel and understanding a man of forlorn hopes or estate and in whom there is no help or one that having either counsel or help in him is yet a Churl of either but especially one that is sore in his bargains cruel in his dealings hard to his Tenants or an Oppressor in any kind Take none of him Sooner commit a flock of Sheep to a Wolf than a Magistracy or Office of justice to an Oppressor Such a man is more likely to put out the eyes of him that seeth than to be eyes to the blind and to break the bones of the strong than to be legs to the lame and to turn the fatherless a begging than to be a Father to the poor The third property is Diligence to search out the truth Seest thou a man hasty and rash and heady in his own business a man impatient of delay or pains one that cannot conceal what is meet till it be seasonable to utter it but poureth out all his heart at once and before the time one that is easily possest with what is first told him or being once possest will not with any reason be perswaded to the contrary one that lendeth ear so much to some particular friend or follower as to believe any information from him not any but from him one that to be counted a man of dispatch loveth to make an end of a business before it be ripe suspect him He will scarce have the Conscience or if that yet not the wit or not the patience to search out the cause which he knoweth not The last Property is Courage to execute Seest thou a man first of a timorous nature and cowardly disposition or secondly of a wavering and fickle mind as we say of children won with an apple and lost with a nut or thirdly that is apt to be wrought upon or moulded into any form with fair words friendly invitations or complemental glozes or fourthly that dependeth upon some great man whose vassal or creature he is or fifthly a taker and one that may be dealt withal for that is now the periphrasis of bribery or sixthly guilty of the same transgressions he should punish or of other as foul Never a man of these is for the turn not one of these will venture to break the jaws or tusks of an oppressing Tygre or Boar and to pluck the spoil out of his teeth The timorous man is afraid of every shadow and if he do but hear of teeth he thinketh it is good sleeping in a whole skin and so keepeth a loof-off for fear of biting The double minded man as S. Iames saith is unstable in all his ways he beginneth to do something in a sudden heat when the fit taketh him but before one jaw can be half-broken he is not the man he was he is sorry for what is done and instead of breaking the rest falleth a binding up that which he hath broken and so seeketh to salve up the matter as well as he can and no hurt done The vain man that will be flattered so he get fair words himself he careth not who getteth foul blows and so the beast will but now and then give him a lick with the tongue he letteth him use his teeth upon others at his pleasure The depending creature is charmed with a letter or message from his Lord or his honourable friend which to him is as good as a Supersedeas or Prohibition The taker hath his fingers so oyled that his hand slippeth off when he should pluck away the spoil and so he leaveth it undone The guilty man by no means liketh this breaking of jaws he thinketh it may be his own case another day You see when you are to choose Magistrates here is refuse enough to be cast by But by that all these be discarded and thrown out of the bunch possibly the whole lump will be near spent and there will be little or no choice left Indeed if we should look for absolute perfection there would be absolutely no choice at all There is none that doth good no not one We must not be so dainty in our choice then as to find one in every respect such as hath been charactered We live not in Republica Platonis but in faece seculi and it is well if we can find one in some good mediocrity so qualified Amid the common corruptions of mankind he is to be accounted a tolerably good man that it not intolerably bad and among so many infirmities and defects as I have now reckoned we may well voice him for a Magistrate not that is free from them all but that hath the fewest and least And we make a happy choice if from among those we have to choose of we take such a one as is likely to prove in some reasonable mediocrity zealous of Justice sensible of the wrongs of poor men careful to search out the truth of causes and resolute to execute what he knoweth is just That for Direction I am next to infer from the four duties in my Text a just reproof and withal a complaint of the common iniquity of these times wherein men in the Magistracy and in Offices of Iustice are generally so faulty and delinquent in some or all of these duties And first as for zeal to justice alas that there were not too much cause to complain It is grief to speak it and yet we all see it and know it there is grown among us of this Land within the space of not many years a general and sensible declination in our zeal both to Religion and justice the two main Pillars and Supporters of Church and State And it seemeth to be with us in these regards as with decaying Merchants almost become desperate who when Creditors call fast upon them being hopeless of paying all grow careless of all and pay none so abuses and disorders encrease so fast among us that hopeless to reform all our Magistrates begin to neglect all and in a manner reform nothing How few are there of them that sit in the seat of Iustice whose Consciences can prompt them a comfortable answer to that Question of David Psal. 58. Are your minds set on rightousness O ye congregation Rather are they not almost all of Gallio's temper Acts 18. who though there were a foul outrage committed even under his nose and in the sight of
and disturb him in the Church when he read Prayers some of them pretending to advise him how God was to be serv'd more acceptably which he not approving but continuing to observe order and decent behaviour in reading the Church Service they forc'd his Book from him and tore it expecting extemporary Prayers At this time he was advis'd by a Parliament-man of Power and note that lov'd and valued him much not to be strict in reading all the Common Prayer but make some little variation especially if the Souldiers came to watch him for if he did it might not be in the Power of him and his other Friends to secure him from taking the Covenant or Sequestration for which Reasons he did vary somewhat from the strict Rules of the Rubrick I will set down the very words of Confession which he us'd as I have it under his own hand and tell the Reader that all his other variations were as little and very much like to this His Confession OAlmighty God and merciful Father we thy unworthy Servants do with shame and sorrow confess that we have all our life long gone astray out of thy ways like lost sheep and that by following too much the vain devices and desires of our own hearts we have grievously offended against thy holy Laws both in thought word and deed we have many times left undone those good duties which we might and ought to have done and we have many times done those evits when wâ— might have avoided them which we ought not to have done We confess O Lord that there is no health at all nor help in any Creature to relieve us but all our hope is in thy mercy whose justice we have by our sins so far provoked have mercy therefore upon us O Lord have mercy upon us miserable offenders spare up good God â—â—â— confession 〈◊〉 that we perish not but according to thy gracious promise â—â— declared unto mankind in Christ Iesus our Lord Restore us upon our true Repentance into thy grace and favour And grant O most merciful Father son his sake that we henceforth study to serve and please thee by leading a godly righteous and a sober Life to the glory of thy holy Namâ—â— and the eternal comfort of our own Souls through Iesus Christ our Lord. Amen In these and other provocations of rearing his Service Book a Neighbour came on a Sunday after the Evening Service was ended to visit and condole with him for the affront offered by the Soldiers To whom he spake withly a domposed patience and said God hath restored me to my desir'd prâ—vicy with my Wife and Children where I hop'd to have met with quietness and it proves not so but I will labour to be pleas'd because God on whom I depend sees 't is not â—it for me to be quiet I praise him that he hath by his grace prevented me from making shipwrack of a good Conscience to maintain me in a place of great reputation and profit and though my condition be such that I need the last yet I submit for God did not send me into this World to do my own but suffer his Will and I will obey it Thus by a sublime depending on his wise and powerful and pitiful Creator he did chearfully submit to what God had appointed still justifying the truth of that Doctrine and the reason of that Discipline which he had preach'd About this time that excellent Book of the King's Meditations in his Solitude was printed and made publick and Dr. Sanderson was such a lover of the Author and so desirous that not this Nation only but the whole world should see the character of him in that Book and something of the cause for which he and many others then suffer'd that he design'd to turn it into Latin but when he had done half of it most excellently his Friend Dr. Earle prevented him by appearing to have done it and printed the whole very well before him And about this time his dear and most intimate Friend the learned Dr. Hammond came to enjoy a quiet conversation and rest with him for some days at Boothby Pannel and did so And having formerly perswaded him to trust his excellent memory and not read but try to speak a Sermon as he had writ it Dr. Sanderson became so compliant as to promise he would And to that end they two went early the Sunday following to a Neighbour Minister and requested to exchange a Sermon and they did so And at Dr. Sanderson's going into the Pulpit he gave his Sermon which was a very short one into the hand of Dr. Hammond intending to preach it as 't was writ but before he had preach'd a third part Dr. Hammond looking on his Sermon as written observed him to be out and so lost as to the Matter especially the Method that he also became afraid for him for 't was discernable to many of that plain Auditory But when he had ended this short Sermon as they two walked homeward Dr. Sanderson said with much earnestness Good Doctor give me my Sermon and know that neither you nor any man living shall ever perswade me to preach again without my Books To which the reply was Good Doctor be not angry for if I ever perswade you to preach again without Book I will give you leave to burn all the Books that I am Master of Part of the occasion of Doctor Hammond's visit was at this time to discourse Dr. Sanderson about some Opinions in which if they did not then they had doubtless differ'd formerly 't was about those knotty Points which are by the Learned call'd the Quinquarticular Controversie of which I shall proceed not to given any Judgment I pretend not to that but some short Historical Account which shall follow There had been since the unhappy Covenant was brought and so generally taken in England a liberty given or taken by many Preachers those of London especially to preach and be too positive in the Points of Universal Redemption Predestination and those other depending upon these Some of which preach'd That all men were before they came into this world so predestinated to salvation or damnation that 't was not in their power to sin so as to lose the first nor by their most diligent endeavour to avoid the latter Others That 't was not so because then God could not be said to grieve for the death of a sinner when he himself had made him so by an inevitable decree before he had so much as a being in this world affirming therefore that man had some power left him to do the will of God because he was advised to work out his salvation with fear and trembling maintaining that 't is most certain every man can do what he can to be saved and as certain that he that does what he can to be saved shall never be damned And yet many that affirmed this to be a truth would yet confess That that grace which is
to adventure upon a new Edition Mihi istic nec seritur nec metitur All I had to do in the business was but the drudgery of reviewing the old Copy to correct the Errata of the former Impressions and of looking over the sheets as they were wrought off from the Press and sent me down to note the oversights escaped in the Printing and to make the Index of the Scripture-quotations As to the other part of the Crime such as it is to wit the unseasonableness of this after-publication there need not much be said If the Sermons thought not unseasonable in some former times he now become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as things brought forth into the World again out of due time that cannot I help They are the same they were when they were first Preached and the same they were when they were last Printed and so am I. If either they or I find worse entertainment now than we did then and any blame be due for that let not us bear it who are guiltless but the Times For it is They are changed not We. Howsoever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now they are abroad they must take their lot as it falleth out Which be it better be it worse this yet we shall gain thereby that if any shall charge these Papers with unseasonableness no very huge crime he shall ipso facto by that very act and the Verdict of his own conscience fully discharge and for ever acquit them of the guilt of Time-serving a crime I trow of a vaster magnitude and wherewith Discourses of this nature were wont to be so frequently that I say not unjustly aspersed whilest the Times looked more favourably upon them § II. But of this enough I expect to meet with far heavier Censures than these from the ungoverned spirits and tongues of the more zealous that is to say if â—ightly interpreted the more clamorous and less knowing among them Who knoweth not that as empty vessels give the loudest sound and shallow brooks run with a fiercer current and make a greater noise than deeper Rivers do so they that are the least able to judge are ever the most forward to pass sentence and when they so do the most rigid and peremptory therein But the heaviest doom I suppose will proceed from those men who being themselves of late years fallen out grievously fallen out for what cause I know not with the Ancient Government Liturgy and Ceremonies of the Church are angry with all those that retain any good opinion of them Whereunto yet themselves when time was seem'd to be and if they dissembled not which we are unwilling to believe were indeed reasonably well affected For they submitted to the Government used the Liturgy and observed the Ceremonies appointed according to Law and Order and their own professed approbation of the same as well by express words from their mouths as by subscription under their hands yet remaining upon record What hath wrought this change in them Evidence of Reason or worldly Interest and how far it hath wrought upon them in reality or but in compliance and in what order too by immediate assault upon their judgment or by dealing under-hand first with the affections themselves do or should best know It highly concerneth them even as much as the peace of their consciences is worth and much more than so to be well assured that their hearts are upright in this affair And in order thereunto not to content themselves with a slight and overly examination There is more wickedness and deceitfulness in the hearts of all men than most men are aware of but to make the most diligent district and unpartial search possible into the true causes and motives of this change And for so much as Fears and Hopes have been ever found the fittest and the readiest Engins to work such feats to enquire particularly what influence or operation either the Fear of losing what they had or the Hope of getting more might have in this work towards the producing of such an effect It will best become others to judge as charitably as they may but doubtless it would be safest for them to be very jealous over themselves lest so great a change could not have been wrought in so short a space without a strong infusion either of the one or the other or both into the medicine that wrought it Especially since the conjecture of the time wherein this change happened may very probably raise some suspicion that the fear of the Sword might have and the visible advantage some have found thereby since as probably that the hope of gain had some co-operation at least with whatsoever was the principal Cause of this so sudden a Metamorphosis If nor so nor so but that they find themselves clearly convinced in their judgments of their former Error and that they are fully perswaded they are now in a better way than that wherein they formerly walked it is happy for them and I doubt not but they will find matter of rejoycing in it if they be not mistaken a thing not impossible in the trial of their own hearts Of the sincerity whereof the likeliest way to give satisfaction to the World and to add some strengthening withal to their own assurance is by shewing compassion to those their Brethren that cannot yet tell how to recover themselves out of the snare of the same common Error from which they are so happily escaped At leastwise so far as not to despise them nor to pass their censures upon them with so much freedom and severity as some have done If it be a fault sure it is a very pardonable one for a man in the change of times to remain unchanged in his mind and opinion and to hold to his former and as he thinketh well-grounded Principles so long as he can neither apprehend any Reason of sufficient strength to convince his understanding that he is in the wrong or to manifest unto him the necessity of making such a change nor is able with the best wit he hath to discern any thing so lovely in the effects and consequents of such change since it was made as might win over his affections to any tolerable liking thereof upon the Post-fact § III. To return where I was going and from whence I have not much digressed if any should now ask me what those heavy Censures are which I said we should be like to meet withal I confess I am not able to give him any certain account thereof not knowing before-hand what reasons or expressions the Spirits of particular men will suggest to their tongues or pens Only by what hath been usually said by one sort of men upon such like occasions heretofore more sparingly and in the ear in former times but of late more frequently freely and on the house tops it may be probably guessed what kind of Censures are to be expected from those of the same party now Yet for that I am not
have bestowed also upon the Ceremonies the Epithet of Superstitious Which is a word likewise as the former of late very much extended and standeth in need of a Boundary too and a definition as well as it But howsoever they do with the words I must needs set bounds to my discourse lest I weary the Reader The point of Superstition I have had occasion to touch upon more than once as I remember in some of these Sermons and proved that the Superstition lyeth indeed at their door not ours They forbid the things commanded by the Church under the obligation of Sin and that Obligation arising not from their forbidding them but from the things themselves which they judge to be unlawful and thence impose upon all men a necessity of not using them which is Superstition Whereas the Church requires obedience indeed to her Commands and that also under the obligation of Sin but that obligation arising not at all from the nature of the things themselves always held and declared Indifferent but immediately from the Authority of the Superior commanding the thing and originally from the Ordinance of God commanding Obedience to Superiors as already hath been said and this is not Superstition For further satisfaction therefore in this matter referring the Reader to the Sermons themselves I shall only by way of addition represent to the Objectors St. Paul's demeanor at Athens Where finding the City full of Idols or wholly given to Idolatry he doth not yet fall foul upon them nor exclaim against them in any reproachful manner no nor so much as call them Idolaters though they were such and that in a very high degree but tempering his Speeches with all lenity and condescension he telleth them only of their Superstition and that in the calmest manner too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the comparative degree in such kind of speaking being usually taken for a diminuent term How distant are they from his Example with whom every thing they mislike is presently an Idol Christmas day an Idol the Surplice an Idol the Cross after Baptism a great Idol the Common-Prayer Book an abominable Idol When yet if the worst that can be said against them were granted the most it could amount to is but Superstition and till that be granted which must not be till it be well proved it is more childish than manly to cry out Superstition Superstition § XVII Their next is a Suspicion rather than Objection and that upon no very good ground But Charity is not easily suspicious nor without cause Wherein I have somewhat to say in behalf of my self and other my Brethren and somewhat by way of return to them For my self I had a desire I may truly say almost from my very Childhood to understand as much as was possible for me the bottom of our Religion and particularly as it stood in relation both to the Papists and as they were then stiled Puritans to inform my self rightly wherein consisted the true differences between them and the Church of England together with the grounds of those differences For I could even then observe which was no hard matter to do that the most of mankind took up their Religion upon trust as Custom or Education had framed them rather than choice It pleased God in his goodness to afford me some opportunities suitable to that my desire by means whereof and by his good blessing I attained to understand so much of the Romish Religion as not only to dislike it but to be able to give some rational account why I so do And I doubt not but these very Sermons were there nothing else to do it will sufficiently free me from the least suspicion of driving on any design for Rome As for those other regular Sons of the Church of England that have appeared in this Controversie on her behalf how improbable and so far forth uncharitable the suspicion is that they should be any way instrumental towards the promoting of the Papal Interest may appear amongst other by these few Considerations following 1. That those very persons who were under God the Instruments of freeing us from the Roman Yoke by casting Popery out of the Church and sundry of them Martyred in the cause those very Persons I say were great favourers of these now accounted Popish Ceremonies and the chief Authors or Procurers of the Constitutions made in that behalf Hae manus Trojam erigent 2. That in all former times since the beginning of the Reformation our Archbishops and Bishops with their Chaplains and others of the Prelatical Party many of them such as have written also in defence of the Church against the Puritans were the Principal I had almost said the only Champions to maintain the Cause of Religion against the Papists 3. That even in these times of so great distraction and consequently thereunto of so great advantage to the Factors for Rome none have stept into the gap more readily nor appeared in the face of the Enemy more openly nor maintained the Fight with more stoutness and Gallantry than the Episcopal Divines have done as their late learned Writings testifie Yea and some of them such as beside their other sufferings have lain as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly-affected as any other of their Brethren whosoever 4. That by the endeavours of these Episcopal Divines some that were bred Papists have been gained to our Church others that began to waver confirmed and setled in their old Religion and some that were fallen from us recovered and reduced notwithstanding all the disadvantages of these confused times and of each of these I am able to produce some instance But I profess sincerely as in the presence of God and before the World that I have not known at least I cannot call to remembrance so much as one single Example of any of this done by any of our Anti-Ceremonian Brethren whether Presbyterian or Independent § XVIII But I have somewhat to return upon these our Brethren who thus causelesly suspect us Possible it will not please them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I must speak it out both for the truths sake and theirs To wit that themselves are in truth though not purposely and intentionally whereof in my own thought I freely acquit them yet really and eventually the great promoters of the Roman Interest among us and that more ways than one These three among the rest are evident First by putting to their helping hand to the pulling down of Episcopacy It is very well known to many what rejoycing that Vote brought to the Romish party How even in Rome it self they sang their Io-â—aeans upon the tydings thereof and said triumphantly Now the day is ours Now is the fatal blow given to the Protestant Religion in England They who by conversing much with that Nation were well acquainted with the fiery turbulent spirits of the Scottish Presbyterians knew as well how to make their advantage
stumble or be offended or be made weak by it the action becometh evil All things are pure but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence ver 20. there Thirdly Comparison in regard of other actions Though the thing be good yet if we prefer it before better things and neglect or omit them for it the action becometh evil Go and learn what that is I will have mercy and not sacrifice Matth. 9. The stuff thus prepared by differencing out those things which undistinguished might breed confusion our next business must be to lay the rule and to apply it to the several kinds of evil as they have been differenced I foresaw we should not have time to go thorow all that was intended and therefore we will content our selves for this time with the consideration of this Rule applied to things simply evil In them the Rule holdeth perpetually and without exception that which is simply evil may not for any good be done We know not any greater good for there is not any greater good than the Glory of God we scarce know a lesser sin if any sin may be accounted little than a harmless officious lye Yet may not this be done no not for that Will you speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him Job 13. 7. If not for the glory of God then certainly not for any other inferiour end not for the saving of a life not for the conversion of a Soul not for the peace of a Church and if even that were possible too not for the redemption of a world No intention of any end can warrant the choice of sinful means to compass it The Reasons are strong One is because sin in its own nature is de numero ineligibilium and therefore as not eligible propter se for its own sake there is neither form nor beauty in it that we should desire it so neither propter aliud with reference to any farther end Actus peccati non est ordinabilis in bonum finem is the common resolution of the Schools In civil and popular elections if men make choice of such a person to bear any office or place among them as by the local Charters Ordinances Statutes or other Customs which should rule them in their choice is altogether ineligible the election is de jure nulla naught and void the incapacity of the person elected making a nullity in the act of election No less is it in moral actions and elections if for any intended end we make choice of such means as by the Law of God which is our rule and must guide us are ineligible and such is every sin Another reason is grounded upon that Principle Bonum ex causa integra Malum ex partiali Any partial or particular defect in Object End Manner or other Circumstance is enough to make the whole action bad but to make it good there must be an universal concurrence of all requisite conditions in every of these respects As a disfigured eye or nose or lip maketh the face deformed but to make it comely there is required the due proportion of every part And any one short Clause or Proviso not legal is sufficient to abate the whole Writ or Instrument though in every other part absolute and without exception The intention then be it granted never so good is unsufficient to warrant an Action good so long as it faileth either in the object or manner or any requisite circumstance whatsoever Saul pretended a good end inspring the fat things of Amaleck that he might therewith do sacrifice to the Lord but God rejected both it and him 1 Sam. 15. We can think no other but that Uzzah intended the safety of Gods Ark when it tottered in the Cart and he stretched out his hand to stay it from falling but God interpreted it a presumption and punished it 2 Sam. 6. Doubtless Peter meant no hurt to Christ but rather good when he took him aside and advised him to be good to himself and to keep him out of danger yet Christ rebuked him for it and sent him packing in the Devils name Get thee behind me Satan Matth. 16. But what will we say and let that stand for a third reason if our pretended good intention prove indeed no good intention And certainly be it as fair and glorious as we could be content to imagine it such it will prove to be if it set us upon any sinful or unwarranted means indeed no good intention but a bad For granted it must be that the Intention of any end doth virtually include the means as in a Syllogism the premises do the Conclusion No more then can the choice of ill means proceed from a good intention than can a false Conclusion be inferred from true Premises and that is impossible From which ground it is that the Fathers and other Divines do oftentimes argue from the Intention to the Action and from the goodness of the one to the goodness of both to that purpose applying those speeches of our Saviour in the twelfth and in the Sixth of Matthew Either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt And If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness The light of the body is the eye and of the work the intention No marvel when the eye is evil if the whole body be dark and when the intention is evil if the whole work be naught That which deceiveth most men in judging of good or bad intentions is that they take the end and the intention for one and the same thing betwixt which two there is a spacious difference For the end is the thing propter quid for which we work that whereat we aim in working and so hath rationem causae finalis but the intention is the cause à qua from which we work that which setteth us on working and so hath rationem causae efficientis Now between these two kinds of causes the final and the efficient there is not only a great difference but even a repugnancy in such sort as that it is impossible they should at any time coincidere which some other kinds of causes may do It is therefore an errour to think that if the end be good the intention of that end must needs be good for there may as well be a bad intention of a good end as a bad desire of a good object Whatsoever the end be we intend it is certain that intention cannot be good which putteth us upon the choice of evil means Methinks the Church of Rome should blush if her forehead dyed red with the blood of God's Saints were capable of any tincture of shame at the discovery of her manifold impostures in counterfeiting of Reliques in coyning of
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 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
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
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
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
there to beat themselves without help or remedy exposed to nothing but shame and contempt What then if God suffer those that hate him to prosper for the time and in their prosperity to Lord it over his heritage What if Princes should sit and speak against us without a cause as it was sometimes David's case Let us not fret at the injuries nor envy at the greatness of any let us rather betake us to David's refuge to be occupied in the statutes and to meditate in the holy Word of God In that holy Word we are taught that the hearts even of Kings how much more then of inferiour persons are in his rule and governance and that he doth dispose and turn them as seemeth best to his godly wisdom that he can refrain the spirit of Princes bind Kings in Chains and Nobles in links of Iron and though they rage furiously at it and lay their heads together in consultation how to break his bands and cast away his cords from them yet they imagine but a vain thing whilst they strive against him on earth he laugheth them to scorn in heaven and maugre all opposition will establish the Kingdom of his Christ and protect his people Say then the great ones of the World exercise their power over us and lay what restraints they can upon us our comfort is they have not greater power over us than God hath over them nor can they so much restrain the meanest of us but God can restrain the greatest of them much more Say our enemies curse us with Bell Book and Candle our comfort is God is able to return the curse upon their own heads and in despight of them too turn it into a blessing upon us Say they make warlike preparations against us to invade us our comfort is God can break the Ships of Tarshish and sâ—atter the most invincible Armadoes Say they that hate us be more in number than the hairs of our head our comfort is the very hairs of our head are numbred with him and without his sufferance not the least hair of our heads shall perish Say to imagine the worst that our Enemies should prevail against us and they that hate us should be Lords over us for the time our comfort is he that loveth us is Lord over them and can bring them under us again when he seeth time In all our fears in all our dangers in all our distresses our comfort is that God can do all this for us our care should be by our holy obedience to strengthen our interest in his protection and not to make him a stranger from us yea an enemy to us by our sins and impenitency that so we may have yet more comfort in a chearful confidence that God will do all this for us The Assyrian whose ambition it was to be the Catholick King and universal Monarch of the World stiling himself the great King thus saith the great King the King of Assyria when he had sent messengers to revile Israel and an Army to besiege and destroy Ierusalem yet for all his rage he could do them no harm the Lord brought down the stout heart of the King of Assyria put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips and made him return back by the way by which he came without taking the City or so much as casting a bank or shooting an arrow against it Nay he that is indeed the great King over all the children of pride and hath better title to the stile of most Catholick King than any that ever yet bare it whose Territories are large as the Earth and spacious as the Air I mean the Devil the Prince of this World he is so fettered with the chain of Gods power and Providence that he is not able with all his might and malice no not though he raise his whole forces and muster up all the powers of darkness and Hell into one band to do us any harm in our souls in our bodies in our children in our friends in our goods no not so much as our very Pigs or any small thing that we have without the special leave and sufferance of our good God He must have his Dedimus protestatem from him or he can do nothing Fourthly since this restraint is an act of Gods mercy whom we should strive to resemble in nothing more than in shewing mercy let every one of us in imitation of our Heavenly Father and in compassion to the souls of our Brethren and for our own good and the good of humane society endeavour our selves faithfully the best we can to restrain and with-hold and keep back others from sinning The Magistrate the Minister the Housholder every other man in his place and calling should do their best by rewards punishments rebukes incouragements admonitions perswasions good example and other like means to suppress vice and restrain disorders in those that may any way come within their charge Our first desire should be and for that we should bend our utmost endeavours that if it be possible their hearts might be seasoned with grace and the true fear of God but as in other things where we cannot attain to the full of our first aims Pulchrum est as he saith in secundis tertiisve consistere so here we may take some contentment in it as some fruit of our labours in our Callings if we can but wean them from gross disorders and reduce them from extremely debaucht courses to some good measure of Civility It ought not to be it is not our desire to make men Hypocrites and a meer Civil man is no better yet to us that cannot judge but by the outward behaviour it is less grief when men are Hypocrites than when they are Prophane Our first aim is to make you good yet some rejoycing it is to us if we can but make you less evil Our aim is to make you of Natural holy and Spiritual men but we are glad if of dissolute we can but make you good Moral men if instead of planting Grace we can but root out Vice if instead of the power of godliness in the reformation of the inner man we can but bring you to some tolerable stayedness in the conformity of the outward man If we can but do this though we are to strive for that our labour is not altogether in vain in the Lord. For hereby first mens sins are both less and fewer and that secondly abateth somewhat both of the number and weight of their stripes and maketh their punishment the easier and thirdly there is less scandal done to Religion which receiveth not so much soil and dis-reputation by close hypocrisie as by lewd and open prophaneness Fourthly the Kingdom of Satan is diminished though not directly in the strength for he loseth never a Subject by it yet somewhat in the glory thereof
coarse he should be content with it nay though he should want either or both he should be content without it We should all learn of an old experienced servant of God St. Paul what grace and long experience had taught him In whatsoever state we are to be therewith content We are to shew our Obedience to our heavenly Master yet further by submitting to his wholesom Discipline when at any time he shall see cause to give us correction Our Apostle a little after the Text would have servants to be subject even to their froward Masters and to take it patiently when they are buffeted undeservedly and without fault How much more ought we to accept the punishment of our iniquity as we have the phrase Lev. 26. and with patience to yield our backs to the whip when God who hath been so gracious a Master to us shall think fit to exercise some little severity towards us and to lay stripes upon us Especially since he never striketh us First but for our fault such is his justice nor Secondly such is his mercy but for our good And all this belongeth to that Obedience which the servant of God ought to manifest both by doing and suffering according to the will of his Master The third and last general duty is Fidelity Who is a faithful and wise servant Well done thou good and faithful servant as if the wisdom and goodness of a servant consisted in his faithfulness Now the faithfulness of a servant may be tried especially by these three things by the heartiness of his service by being tender of his Masters honour and profit and by his quickness and diligence in doing his business A notable example whereof we have in Abraham's servant Gen. 24. in all the three particulars For first being many miles distant from his Master he was no less solicitous of the business he was put in trust withal than he could have been if he had been all that while in the eye of his Master Secondly he framed himself in his speeches and actions and in his whole behaviour to such a discreet carriage as might best set forth the credit and honour of his Master Thirdly he used all possible diligence and expedition losing not any time either at first for the delivery of his message or at last for his return home after he had brought things to a good conclusion Such faithfulness would well become us in the service of God in all the aforesaid respects The first whereof is Heartiness in his service There are many servants in the world that will work hard and bustle at it lustily for a fit and so long as their Masters eye is upon them but when his back is turned can be content to go on fair and softly and fellow-like Such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostle condemneth Col. 3. and elsewhere admonishing servants whatsoever they do to do it heartily and to obey their Masters not with eye-service but in singleness of heart Towards our heavenly Master true it is if we had but this eye-service it were enough because we are never out of his eye his eyes are in all corners of the earth beholding the evil and the good and his eye-lids try the children of men he is about our beds and about our paths and spieth out all our goings And therefore if we should but study to approve our selves and our actions before his sight it could not be but our services should be hearty as well as handy because our hearts are no less in his sight than our hands are We cannot content our Master nor should we content our selves with a bare and barren profession in the service of God neither with the addition of some outward performances of the work done but since our Master calleth for the heart as well as the hand and tongue and requireth truth in the inward parts no less rather much more than shew in the outward let us but joyn that inward truth of the heart unto the outward profession and performance and doubtless we shall be accepted Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart 1 Sam. 12. Secondly We must shew our faithfulness to our Master by our zeal in his behalf A faithful servant will not endure an evil word spoken of his Master behind his back but he will be ready upon every occasion to vindicate his credit and to magnifie him unto the opinion of others He will make much of those that love his Master and set the less by those that care not for him And as to his credit principally so he hath an eye also in the second place to the profit of his Master He will have a care to save his goods the best he can it will grieve his very heart to see any of them vainly wasted or imbezeled by his fellow-servants yea and it will be some grief to him if any thing under his hand do but chance to miscarry though it be without his fault See we how far every of us can apply all this to our own selves in the service of God If we have no heart to stand up in our rank and place for the maintenance of Gods truth and worship when it is discountenanced or over-born either by might or multitudes If our blood will not appear a little when cursed miscreants blast the honour of God with their unhallowed breath by blaspheming oaths fearful imprecations scurrile profanations of Scripture licentious and bitter sarcasms against the holy Ordinances of God If a profound drunkard and obscene rimer an habituated swearer a complete roarer every loose companion and professed scorner of all goodness that doth but peep out with a head be as welcome into our company and find as full and free entertainment with us as he that carrieth the face and for any thing we know hath the heart of an honest and sober Christian without either profaneness or preciseness If we grieve not for the miscarriages of those poor souls that live near us especially those that fall any way under our charge what faithfulness is there in us or what zeal for God to answer the title we usurp so often as we call our selves the servants of God Thirdly If we be his faithful servants we should let it appear by our diligence in doing his businesses No man would willingly entertain an idle servant that is good at bit and nothing else one of those the old riming verse describeth Sudant quando vorant frigescunt quando laborant such as eat till they sweat and work till they freeze O thou wicked and slothful servant saith the Master in the Parable to him that napkined up his Talent Mat. 25. they are rightly joyned wicked and slothful for it is impossible a slothful servant should be good The Poets therefore give unto Mercury who is Interpres divûm the Messenger as they feign
the edification of his Church and the promoting of any one soul in Faith and Holiness towards the attainment of everlasting salvation I shall have great cause of rejoycing in it as a singular evidence of his underserved mercy towards me and an incomparably rich reward of so poor and unworthy labours Yet dare I not promise to my self any great hopes that any thing that can be spoken in an argument of this nature though with never so much strength of reason and evidence of truth should work any kindly effect upon the men of this generation when the times are nothing favourable and themselves altogether undisposed to receive it No more than the choisest Musick can affect the ear that is stopt up or the most proper Physick operate upon him that either cannot or will not take it But as the Sun when it shineth clearest in a bright day if the beams thereof be intercepted by a beam too but of another kind lying upon the eye is to the party so blinded as if the light were not at all so I fear it is in this case Not through any incapacity in the Organ so much especially in the learneder part among them as from the interposition of an unsound Principle which they have received with so much affection that for the great complacency they have in it they are loth to have it removed And as they of the Roman party having once throughly imbibed this grand Principle that the Catholick Church and that must needs be it of Rome is infallible are thereby rendred incapable to receive any impressions from the most regular and concluding discourses that can be tendred to them if they discern any thing therein disagreeing from the dictates of Rome and so are perpetually shut up into a necessity of erring if that Church can err unless they can be wrought off from the belief of that Principle which is not very easily to be done after they have once swallowed it and digested it without the great mercy of God and a huge measure of self-denial Even so have these our Anti-ceremonial Brethren framed to themselves a false Principle likewise which holdeth them in Errour and hardneth them against all impressions or but Offers of reason to the contrary 8. All Errors Sects and Heresies as they are mixed with some inferior Truths to make them the more passable to others so do they usually owe their original to some eminent Truths either misunderstood or misapplied whereby they become the less discernable to their own Teachers whence it is that such Teachers both deceive and are deceived To apply this then to the business in hand There is a most sound and eminent Truth justly maintained in our own and other Reformed Churches concerning the Perfection and Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures Which is to be understood of the revelation of supernatural Truths and the Substantials of Gods Worship and the advancing of Moral and Civil duties to a more sublime and spiritual height by directing them to a more noble end and exacting performance of them in a holy manner But without any purpose thereby to exclude the belief of what is otherwise reasonable or the practice of what is prudential This Orthodox Truth hath by an unhappy misunderstanding proved that great stone of offence whereat all our late Sectaries have stumbled Upon this foundation as they had laid it began our Anti-ceremonians first to raise their so often renewed Models of Reformation but they had first transformed it into quite another thing by them perhaps mistaken for the same but really as distant from it as Falshood from Truth to wit this That Nothing might lawfully be done or used in the Churches of Christ unless there were either Command or Example for it in the Scriptures Whence they inferred that whatsoever had been otherwise done or used was to be cast out as Popish Antichristian and Superstitious This is that unfound corrupt Principle whereof I spake that root of bitterness whose stem in process of time hath brought forth all these numerous branches of Sects and Heresies wherewith this sinful Nation is now so much pestered 9. It is not my purpose nor is this a place for it to make any large discovery of the cause of the mistake the unsoundness of the Tenent it self and how pernicious it is in the Consequents Yet I cannot but humbly and earnestly entreat them for the love of God and the comfort of their own souls as they tender the peace of the Church and the honour of our Religion and in compassion to thousands of their Christian Brethren who are otherwise in great danger to be either misled or scandalized that they would think it possible for themselves to be mistaken in their Principle as well as others and possible also for those Principles they rest upon to have some frailties and infirmities in them though not hitherto by them adverted because never suspected that therefore they would not hasten to their Conclusion before they are well assured of the Premisses nor so freely bestow the name of Popish and Superstitious upon the opinions or actions of their Brethren as they have used to do before they have first and throughly examined the solidity of their own Grounds finally and in order thereunto That they would not therefore despise the Offer of these few things ensuing to their consideration because tendered by one that standeth better affected to their Persons than Opinions 10. And first I beseech them to consider how unluckily they have at once both straitned too much and yet too much widened that which they would have to be the adequate Rule of warrantable actions by leaving out Prudence and taking in Example Nor doth it sound well that the examples of men though never so Godly should as to the effect of warranting our actions stand in so near equipage with the commands of God as they are here placed joyntly together without any character of difference so much as in degree But the superadding of Examples to Commands in such manner as in this Assertion is done either signifieth nothing or overthroweth all the rest which is so evident that I wonder how it could escape their own observation For that Example which is by them supposed sufficient for our warranty was it self either warranted by some Command or former Example or it was not If it were then the adding of it clearly signifieth nothing for then that warrant we have by it proceedeth not from it but from that precedent Command or Example which warranted it If it were not then was it done meerly upon the dictates of Prudence and Reason and then if we be sufficiently warranted by that Example as is still by them supposed to act after it we are also sufficiently thereby warranted to act upon the meer dictates of Prudence and Reason without the necessity of any other either Command or former Example for so doing What is the proper use that ought to be made of Examples is touched
together Thirdly for the order why Patience first and before Consolation Five in all somewhat of each 11. The former Title is the God of Patience Which may be understood either Formaliter or Causaliter either subjectively or effectively as they use to distinguish Or if these School-terms be too obscure then in plain terms thus either of Gods patience or Ours That is to say either of that patience which God useth towards us or of that patience which God by his grace and holy Spirit worketh in us Of Gods patience and long-suffering to us-ward besides pregnant testimony of Scripture we have daily and plentiful experience How slowly he proceedeth to Vengeance being so unworthily provoked how he beareth with our Infirmities Infirmities yea and Negligences too yea and yet higher our very Presumptions and Rebellions how he spreadeth out his hand all the day long waiting day after day year after year for our conversion and amendment that he may have mercy upon us And even thus understood Subjectivè the Text would bear a fair construction and not altogether impertinent to the Apostles scope It might at least intimate to us this that finding so much patience from him it would well become us also to shew some patience to our brethren But yet I conceive it more proper here to understand it effectivè of that Patience which is indeed from God as the Cause but yet in us as the Subject Even as a little after Verse 13. he is called the God of Hope because it is he that maketh us to abound in Hope as the reason is there expressed And as here in the Text he is stiled the God of Consolation for no other reason but that it is he that putteth comfort and chearfulness into our hearts 12. It giveth us clearly to see what we are of our selves and without God nothing but heat and impatience ready to vex our selves and to fly in the faces of our brethren for every trifle You have need of Patience saith the Apostle Heb. 10. We have indeed God help us 1. We live here in a vale of misery where we meet with a thousand petty crosses and vexations quotidianarum molestiarum minutiae in the common road of our lives poor things in themselves and as rationally considered very trifles and Vanity yet able to bring Vexation upon our impatient spirits we had need of patience to digest them 2. We are beset surrounded with a world of temptations assaulting us within and without and on every side and on every turn we had need of Patience to withstand them 3. We are exposed to manifold Injuries Obloquies and Sufferings many times without cause it may be sometimes for a good cause we had need of Patience to bear them 4. We have many rich and precious Promises made us in the Word of Grace of Glory of Outward things of some of which we find as yet but slender performance and of other some but that we are sure the anchor of our hope is so well fixt that it cannot fail no visible probability of their future performance we had need of patience to expect them 5. We have many good duties required to be done of us in our Christian Callings and in our particular vocations for the honour of God and the service of our brethren we had need of patience to go through with them 6. We have to converse with men of different Spirits and Tempers some hot fiery and furious others flat fullen and sluggish some unruly some ignorant some proud and scornful some peevish and obstinate some toyish fickle and humorous all subject to passions and infirmities in one kind or other we had need of patience to frame our conversations to the weaknesses of our brethren and to tolerate what we cannot remedy that by helping to bear each others burdens we may so fulfil the Law of Christ. 13. Great need we have of Patience you see and my Text letteth us see where we have to serve our need God is the God of patience in him and from him it is to be had but not elsewhere Whenever then we find our selves ready to fret at any cross occurent to revenge every injury to rage at every light provocation to droop at the delay of any promise to slugg in our own performances to skew at the infirmities of others take we notice first of the impatience of our own spirits and condemn it then hie we to the fountain of grace there beg for patience and meekness and he that is the God of patience will not deny it us That is the former Title the God of Patience 14. The other is The God of Consolation And the reason is for this can be understood no otherwise than Effective because sound comfort is from God alone I even I am he that comforteth you saith he himself Isa. 51. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me saith David Psal. 23. And the Prophets often The Lord shall comfort Sion The Holy Ghost is therefore called as by his proper Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Comforter Yea perhaps as one among many others or allowing the Greek Article his Emphasis as the chiefest of all the rest which hindereth not but there may be other Comforters besides though haply of less Excellency If there were no more in it but so and the whole allegation should be granted it should be enough in wisdom to make us overlook all them that we might partake of his comforts as the best But in truth the Scriptures so speak of God not as the chiefest but as the only Comforter admitting no partnership in this prerogative Blessed be God c. The Father of Mercies and the God of Consolation 15. May we not then seek for comfort may some say nay do we not sometimes find comfort in Friends Riches Reputation and such other regular pleasures and delights as the creatures afford Verily under God we may always and do sometimes reap comfort from the creatures But those Comforts issue still from him as from the first and only sufficient cause Who is pleased to make use of his Creatures as his instruments either for comfort correction or destruction as seemeth good in his own Eyes When they do supply us with any comfort it is but as the conduit-pipes which serve the offices in a great house with water which yet springeth not from them but is only by them conveyed thither from the foundation or spring-head Set them onc◠against God or do but take them without God you may as soon squeeze water out of a flint-stone or suck nourishment out of a dry breast as gain a drop of comfort from any of the Creatures Those supposed comforts that men seek for or think they have sometimes found in the Creatures are but titular and imaginary not substantial and real Comforts And such however we esteem of them onward they will appear to be at the last for they will certainly fail us in the Evil day
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
two distinct Natures in one Person That Virginity should Conceive Eternity be Born Immortality Die and Mortality rise from Death to Life That there should be a finite and mortal God or an infinite and immortal Man What are all these and many other more of like intricacy but so many Riddles 16. In all which that I may from the Premisses infer something of Use we should but cum ratione insanire should we go about to make our Reason the measure of our Faith We may as well think to grasp the Earth in our fists or to empty the Sea with a Pitcher as to comprehend these heavenly Mysteries within our narrow understanding Puteus altus the Well is deep and our Buckets for want of Cordage will not reach near the bottom We have use of our Reason and they are unreasonable that would deny us the use of it in Religion as well as in other things And that not only in Agendis in matters of Dâ—ty and Morality wherein it is of a more necessary and constant use as the standard to regulate our judgments in most cases but even in Credendis too in such points as are more properly of Faith in matters Doctrinal and Dogmatical But then she must be employed only as an handmaid to Faith and learn to know her distance Conferre and Inferre those are her proper tasks to confer one Scripture with another and to infer Conclusions and deduce Instructions thence by clear Logical Discourse Let her keep within these bounds and â—he may do very good service But we mar all if we suffer the handmaid to bear too great a sway to grow petulant and to perk above the Mistress 17. It hath been the bane of the Church and the Original of the most and the most pernicious Errors and Heresies in all Ages that men not contenting themselves with the simplicity of believing have doted too much upon their own fancies and made Reason the sole standard whereby to measure both the Principles and Conclusions of Faith It is the very fundamental error of the Socinians at this day No less absurdly than as if a man should take upon him without Mathematical Instruments to take the just dimensions of the heavenly bodies and to pronounce of Altitudes Magnitudes Distances Aspects and other appearances only by the scantling of the Eye Nor less dangerously than as if a Smith it is St. Chrysostoms comparison should lay by his tongs and take the Iron hot from the Forge to work it upon the Anvil with his bare hands Mysteries are not to be measured by Reason That is the first Instruction 18. The next is That forasmuch as there are in the Mystery of Christianity so many things incomprehensible it would be safe for us for the avoiding of Errors and Contentions and consequently in order to those two most precious things Truth and Peace to contain our selves within the bounds of Sobriety without wading too far into abstruse curious and useless speculations The most necessary Truths and such as sufficed to bring our fore-fathers in the Primitive and succeeding times to heaven are so clearly revealed in Scripture and have been so universally and constantly consented unto by the Christian Church in a continued succession of times as that to doubt of them must needs argue a spirit of Pride and Singularity at least if not also of Strife and Contradiction But in things less evident and therefore also less necessary no man ought to be either too stiff in his own private opinion or too peremptory in judging those that are otherwise minded But as every man would desire to be left to his own liberty of Iudgment in such things so should he be willing to leave other men to their liberty also at least so long as they keep themselves quiet without raising quarrels or disturbing the peace of the Church thereabouts 19. As for example Concerning the Entrance and Propagation of Original sin the Nature Orders and Offices of Angels The Time Place and Antecedents of the last judgment The Consistency both of Gods immutable decrees with the contingency of second Causes and of the efficacy of Gods grace with the freedom of Manswill c. In which and other like difficult points they that have travelled farthest with desire to satisfie their own curiosity have either dasht upon pernicious Errors or involved themselves in inextricable difficulties or by Gods mercy which is the happiest loose from such fruitless studies have been thereby brought to a deeper sense of their own ignorance and an higher admiration of the infinite Majesty and wisdom of our great God who hath set his Counsels so high above our reach made his ways so impossible for us to find out That is our second Instruction 20. There is yet another arising from the consideration of the greatness of this Mystery That therefore no man ought to take offence at the discrepancy of opinions that is in the Churches of Christ amongst Divines in matters of Religion There are men in the world who think themselves no babes neither so deeply possest with a spirit of Atheism that though they will be of any Religion in shew to serve their turns and comply with the Times yet they are resolved to be indeed of none till all men be agreed of one which yet never was nor is ever like to be A resolution no less desperate for the soul if not rather much more than it would be for the body if a man should vow he would never eat till all the Clocks in the City should strike Twelve together If we look into the large Volumes that have been written by Philosophers Lawyers and Phisicians we shall find the greatest part of them spent in Disputations and in the reciting and confuting of one anothers opinions And we allow them so to do without prejudice to their respective professions albeit they be conversant about things measurable by Sense or Reason Only in Divinity great offence is taken at the multitude of Controversies wherein yet difference of opinions is by so much more tolerable than in other Sciences by how much the things about which we are conversant are of a more sublime mysterious and incomprehensible nature than are those of other Sciences 21. Truly it would make a religious heart bleed to consider the many and great distractions that are all over the Christian world at this day The lamentable effects whereof scarce any part of Christendom but feeleth more or less either in open wars or dangerous seditions or at the best in uncharitable censures and ungrounded jealousies Yet the infinite variety of mens dispositions inclinations and aims considered together with the great obscurity that is in the things of God and the strength of corruption that is in us it is to be acknowledged the admirable work of God that these distractions are not even much more and greater and wider than they are and that amid so many Sects as are in the world there should be yet such
justified in thy sight These latter Corrections also or chastenings of our heavenly Father are called Iudgments too When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord but in a quite different notion Because God proceedeth therein not with Violence and Fury as men that are in passion use to do but coolly and advisedly and with judgment And therefore whereas David deprecated Gods judgment as we heard in that former notion and as judgment is opposed to Favour Ieremy on the other side desireth Gods judgment in this latter notion and as it is opposed to Fury Correct me O Lord yet in thy judgment not in thy fury Jer. 10. 6. Now we see the several sorts of Gods judgments which of all these may we think is here meant If we should take them all in the Conclusion would hold them and hold true too Iudicia Oris and judicia Operis publick and private judgments those Plagues wherewith in fury he punisheth his Enemies and those rods wherewith in mercy he correcteth his children most certain it is they are all right But yet I conceive those judicia oris not to be so properly meant in this place for the Exegesis in the latter part of the verse wherein what are here called judgments are there expounded by troubles seemeth to exclude them and to confine the Text in the proper intent thereof to these judicia operis only but yet to all them of what sort soever publick or private Plagues or Corrections Of all which he pronounceth that they are right which is the Predicate of the Conclusion and cometh next to be considered I know O Lord that thy judgments are right 7. And we may know it too if we will but care to know either God or Our selves First for God though we be not able to comprehend the reasons of his dispensations the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the judgments are right it may satisfie us if we do but know that they are his Tua will infer recta strongly enough for the Lord who is righteous in all his ways must needs be so in the way of his judgments too 1. Mens judgments are sometimes not right through misinformations and sundry other mistakings and defects for which the Laws therefore allow Writs of Errour Appeals and other remedies But as for God he not only spieth out the goings but also searcheth into the hearts of all men he pondereth their spirits and by him all their actions are weighed 2. Mens judgments are sometimes not right because themselves are partial and unjust awed with Fear blinded with Gifts transported with Passion carried away with Favour or Dis affection or wearied with Importunity But as for God with him is no respect of Persons nor possibility of being corrupted Abraham took that for granted that the judge of all the world must needs do right Gen. 18. And the Apostle rejecteth all suspicion to the contrary with an Absit What shall we say then Is there unrighteousness with God God forbid Rom. 9. 3. Mens judgments are sometimes not right merely for want of zeal to justice They lay not the causes of poor men to heart nor are willing to put themselves to the pains or trouble of sifting a cause to the bottom nor care much which way it go so as they may but be at rest and enjoy their ease But as for God he is zealous of doing justice he loveth it himself he requireth it in others punishing the neglect of it and rewarding the administration of it in them to whom it belongeth The righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal. 11. 8. And then secondly in our selves we may find if we will but look enough to satisfie us even for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too so far as is meet for us to expect satisfaction The judgments of God indeed are Abyssus multa his ways are in the Sea and his paths are in the deep waters and his footsteps are not known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soon may we lose our selves in the search but never find them out Yet even there where the judgments of God are like a great deep unfathomable by any finite understanding his righteousness yet standeth like the high mountains as it is in Psal. 36. visible to every eye If any of us shall search well into his own heart and weigh his own carriage and deservings if he shall not then find enough in himself to justifie God in all his proceedings I forbid him not to say which yet I tremble but to rehearse that God is unrighteous 9. The holy Saints of God therefore have ever acquitted him by condemning themselves The Prophet Ieremy in the behalf of himself and the whole Church of God The Lord is righteous for I have rebelled against his Commandments Lam. 1. So did Daniel in that his solemn Confession when he set his face to seek the Lord God by prayer and supplications with fasting and sack-cloth and ashes Dan. 9. O Lord righteousness belongeth unto thee but unto us confusion of face as it is this day to our Kings to our Princes and to our Fathers because we have sinned against thee ver 7. and again after at verse 14. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil and brought it upon us for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doth for we obeyed not his Voice Yea so illustrious many times is the righteousness of God in his judicial proceedings that it hath extorted an acknowledgment from men obstinately wicked Pharaoh who sometimes in the pride of his heart had said Who is the Lord was afterwards by the evidence of the fact it self forced to this confession I have sinned the Lord is righteous but I and my people are wicked Exod. 9. 10. They are then at least in that respect worse than wicked Pharaoh that to justifie themselves will not stick to repine either at God himself or his judgments as if he were cruel and they unrighteous like the slothful Servant in the Parable that did his Master no service at all and yet as lazy as he was could blame his Master for being an hard man Cain when he had slain his righteous brother and God had laid a judgment upon him for it complained of the burden of it as if the Lord had dealt hardly with him in laying more upon him than he was able to bear never considering the weight of the sin which God in justice could not bear Solomon noteth it as a fault common among men when by their own sinful folly they have pulled misery upon themselves then to murmur against God and complain of his providence The folly of a man perverteth his ways and his heart fretteth against the Lord Prov. 19. As the Israelites in their passage through the Wilderness were ever and anon murmuring and complaining at somewhat or other either against God or which cometh much to one against
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
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
out against them as they do against some other things with very little reason as Antichristian and Superstitious Paul thought fit to circumcise Timothy at one time when he saw it expedient so to do But would by no means yield that Titus should be circumcised at another time when he saw it inexpedient 29. Sith then the difference of times may make such a difference in the expediency and inexpediency of things otherwise and in themselves lawful and indifferent and so may the other Circumstances also of places persons and the rest wise men therefore must be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if you will allow that reading Rom. 12. Yea to be down-right time-servers you will say No such matter but to suffer themselves now and then to be over-ruled by Circumstances and to yield to the sway of the times and other occasions in sundry things though perhaps somewhat against their own liking and judgment otherwise so long as they be not enforced thereby either to do any dishonest or unlawful thing or to omit any part of their necessary duty As a skilful Pilot must of necessity hold that course that the wind and weather will suffer him winning upon them by little and little what he can by his skill and making his advantage even of a side-wind if he can but get it to bring his Bark with as much safety and speed as may be to the intended Haven For to tug against wind and tide besides the toyl he knoweth would be both bootless and dangerous It is an easie matter for a Workman upon his bed to frame to himself in his own fancy an exact idea of some goodly Fabrick that he is to raise and he may please himself not a little with an imagination that all shall be done just according to that Plat-form But when he cometh ad practicandum and to lay his hand to the work indeed he shall be forced do what he can in many things to vary from his former speculations if the matter he hath to work upon will not serve thereunto as like enough a good part of it will not Velis quodpossis is the old Saying it must be our wisdom when we cannot hope to bring all things to our own votes and desires for that is more than yet ever any man could do since the World began to frame our selves to the present occasions and taking things as they are when they will be no better to make the best of them we can for our own and others and the common good Nothing doubting but that if so we do we shall do that that is expedient although possibly we may see some inconveniences likely to ensue thereupon For if we shall suspend our resolutions till we can bethink our selves of something that is free from all inconveniences in most of our deliberations we shall never resolve upon any thing at all as Solomon saith He that observeth the wind shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap God hath so tempered the things of this World that every commodity hath some incommodiousness and every conveniency some inconvenience attending the same which many times all the wit and industry of man is not able to sever If therefore out of the whole bunch we can cull out that which may prevent the most and greatest inconveniences and be it self subject to the least and fewest we shall not have much cause to repent us of our choice And all this our Discretion will teach us 30. Charity also will tell us in the general that we must bear with the weakness of our brethren and forbear our own liberty in some cases where we may see hope that any good will come of it For as the stones in a building if they be well laid together do give mutual strength and support one to another So it is our duty to bear one anothers burthens that so we may fulfil the Law of Christ. Charity seeketh not her own 1 Cor. 13. She standeth not ever upon the tip toe with those high terms This I may do and this I will do whosoever says nay I may eat flesh and I will eat flesh take offence at it who list but where she may hope to do good cometh down so low as to resolve never to eat flesh while the world standeth rather than give offence thereby Our Apostle professeth in the last verse of this Chapter that he sought to please all men in all things not seeking his own profit but the profit of many And it was no flourish neither St. Paul was a real man no bragger what she said he did He became as a Iew to the Jews as a Gentile to the Gentiles not to humor either but to win both And at Corinth he maintained himself along while together with his own hand-labour when he might have challenged maintenance from them as the Apostle of Christ But he would not only to cut off occasion from those that slandered him as if he went about to wake a prey of them and would have been glad to find any occasion against him to give credit to that slander 31. But what is St. Paul now all on a suddain become a man-pleaser Or how is there not yea and nay with him that he should here profess it so largely and yet elsewhere protest against it so deeply Do I seek to please men No saith he I scorn it such baseness will better become their own slaves I am the servant of Christ Gal. 1. Worthy resolutions both both savouring of an Apostolick spirit and no contrariety at all between them Rather that seeming contrariety yieldeth excellent instruction to us how to behave our selves in this matter pleasing Not to please men be they never so many or great out of flatness of spirit so as for the pleasing of them either first to neglect any part of our duty towards God and Christ or secondly to go against our own consciences by doing any dishonest or unlawful thing or thirdly to do them harm whom we would please by confirming them in their errors flattering them in their sins humouring them in their peevishness or but even cherishing their weakness for weakness though it may be born with yet it must not be cherished Thus did not he thus should not we seek to please any man But then by yielding to their infirmities for a time in hope to win them by patiently expecting their conversion or strengthening by restoring them with the spirit of meekness when they had fallen by forbearing all scornful jeering provoking or exasperating language and behaviour towards them but rather with meekness instructing them that opposed themselves so did he so should we seek to please all men for their profit and for their good For that is Charity 32. Alas it is not the pleasing or displeasing of men that Charity looketh after but their good And therefore as
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
with the intolerable weight of our sins whereby we have deserved them or secondly with the weight of those everlasting grievous pains in Hell which by the sharpness of our short sufferings here if we make the right use of them to be thereby humbled unto repentance by the mercy of God we shall escape or thirdly with that so exceeding and eternal weight of glory and joy in the Kingdom of Heaven which by the free goodness of our God we expect in compensation of our light and momentany afflictions here or fourthly with the weight of those far greater and heavier trials which other our brethren and fellow servants either of our own or former times have undergone before us and gone through them all with admirable patience and courage 46. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 None of all these singly but are of singular virtue towards the desired effect but all of them together if aptly applied can hardly fail the cure Especially if you add thereunto that one Ingredient more which is alone here expressed indeed the most soveraign of all the rest as the object of this analogy or consideration in the Text to wit the incomparable bitter sufferings of our ever blessed Lord and Master Iesus Christ. 47. Then farther in this Objection as it is amplified in this short Text only there are sundry particulars considerable As namely First Who it was that suffered Consider him his Greatness his Innocency his Goodness Secondly how he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he endured also not suffered it only Consider him that endured such contradiction endured it so willingly so patiently so chearfully Thirdly from whom he suffered it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From sinners Sinners in their nature sinful men Sinners in the Jews esteem Heathen men Sinners in the inward constitution of their own hearts Hypocrites and Malignants Sinners in their outward carriage toward him and their undue and illegal proceedings against him no just cause no just proofs but clamours and outcries raiâ—ing and spitting and buffeting and insulting and all manner of contumelious and despiseful usage Fourthly what he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such opposition and contradiction of sinners against himself Contradictions manifold of all sorts and in all respects To his person denied to be the Son of God To his Office not received as the promised Messias To his Doctrine given out as a deceiver To his Miracles disgraced as if he had been a Conjuror and dealt with the Devil To his Conversation defamed as a glutton and a wine-bibber a prophane fellow and a Sabbath-breaker a companion of Publicans and Sinners To his very life and being Not him but Barabbas Away with him Crucifie him Crucifie him 48. These are the heads Many they are you see and of worthier consideration than to be crouded into the latter end of a Sermon Therefore I must of necessity forbear the enlargement of them at this present leaving that for every man to do in his private meditations For a conclusion then let us all I beseech you first consider actually and throughly consider him that endured such contradictions of sinners against himself and having so done applyingly consider whether it can be reasonable or almost possible for any of us to faint under our petty sufferings What are we the best of us the greatest of us to him Or what our sufferings the worst of them the greatest of them to his I have done AD AULAM. Sermon XVII Newport in the Isle of Wight Octob. 1648. Gal. 5. 22 23. But the Fruit of the Spirit is Love Ioy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance against such there is no Law 1. HE that shall impartially look upon former and the present times shall find that of Solomon exactly true There is no new thing under the Sun Vetus fabula novi histriones The things we see done are but the same things that have been done only acted over again by new Persons and with a few new circumstances It was in the Apostles times and the Churches of Galatia even as it is with us in these days False Teachers had crept in among them who by their hypocrisie and pretensions of the Spirit had so corrupted their Faith that they were removed after a fort unto another Gospel and so extremely sowred their Charity that from provoking and envying they were now grown to biting and devouring one another 2. The Apostle wondring at this so unexpected a change I marvel you are so soon removed Gal. 1. 6. to see them so befooled in their understandings and bewitched in their affections as to suffer so sore and sudden a decay in the two most essential parts of Christian Religion Faith and Charity thought it high time for him after he had first well schooled them O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you to offer his advice towards the allaying of those heats and distempers that were the causes of this so sad and dangerous an alteration 3. The remedy he prescribeth for that end vers 16. is short but very sure if they will but follow it Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh As if he had said You talk much of the Spirit but you make it little appear in the fruit of your lives that you are led by the spirit The Spirit and the Flesh are contraries and they lust contrary things vers 17. If you were as careful to walk in the Spirit as you are to boast of it you would not be so forward as now you are by cherishing unbrotherly contentions and sundry other ways to fulfil the lusts of the flesh 4. A hard thing it is to bring an overweening Hypocrite to a true understanding of himself for Pride and Hypocrisie are two such things as few men are willing to own That they might therefore with better certainty be able to discern whether they were indeed Spiritual or but yet Carnal the Apostle proceedeth to describe the Flesh and the Spirit by sundry their different effects A Catalogue we have for that purpose of the works of the Flesh in seventeen particulars in the three next verses before the Text and then another Catalogue of the Fruits of the spirit in nine particulars in the Text it self Wherein we may observe three things First the Notion or general description of Spiritual Graces as they are here proposed they go under this name The fruit of the spirit Secondly the particular Species given under that Name or Notion they are these nine Love Ioy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness and Temperance Thirdly a special priviledge belonging to all and every the aforesaid particulars to wit Exemption from the Law Against such there is no Law 5. In the general description which is like to be our only business at this time the thing we are to take notice of is the differences that may be observed between the Titles under which St. Paul hath entred the several particulars of
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
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
the Equity of it so as he cannot plead Ignorance of either there may yet be thirdly place for his just excuse if he have not sufficient means wherewith to relieve and to right his wronged brother A meer private Man that is not in place of authority may bemoan his poor brother in the day of his adversity and give him his best advice to the measure of his understanding what to do but can otherwise do very little towards the delivering of him from the mischief that is intended him Unless perhaps by mediating for him as well as he can with that little power or interest he hath either with the Adversary or with the Magistrate that they would be good to him And that is ordinarily the utmost that such a person can do for his poor friend for he may not endeavour beyond the warrant of his calling and the sphere of his power Nay he cannot do even that with any great confidence of success unless he have some special interest either in the Magistrate or Adversary especially if the Adversary be either a faithless or a fickle or a captious or a wilful Man as few of those that molest others wrongfully but fall under some part of this Character yea he may rather in that case fear lest possibly by his intervention he should but provoke the Adversary the more and then he should by his officiousness do his friend more harm than good 15. Not to speak of infinite other impediments and discouragements that may frustrate the good desires and endeavours of a meer privateman concerning this duty let us consider how it is with more publick persons for they are the Men upon whom especially I am now to press this duty Such persons I mean as either are indued with publick authority by virtue of their Callings being seated in the place of Magistracy and Government or else in regard of the eminency of their condition in the places where they live have some power among their tenants and neighbours to sway something with them Even these also both the one sort and the other many may times be destitute of requisite means and abilities to vindicate those whom they see and know to be wrongfully oppressed out of the hands of their Oppressors Whereof there are besides divers other these apparent Reasons 16. First the Laws of Men cannot foresee all the mischiefs that may be done in a Land nor can they prevent all those they do foresee Wherein is observable a singular preheminence of the holy Law of God above all humane Laws in the World The Law of the Lord is perfect Psal. 19. absolutely perfect to meet with all sinful aberrations whatsoever But the best Laws that ever were devised by the wit of Man were imperfect neither could provide against all emergent abuses and inconveniences I have seen an end of all perfection saith David again Psal. 119. but thy Commandment is exceeding broad The Laws of Men are but narrow things in comparison and must of necessity leave out more than they can take in God's Commandment only is broad enough to take in all For instance I shall name you but one or two of ten thousand The unconscionable racking of Rents the selling of Cattel to poor husbandmen that have not their mony ready to buy in the Markets upon a years day for almost double the price the underbuying of Commodities far below the worth for disbursing a little mony before-hand to supply the present necessity of such an one as might very ill afford such a peny-worth and the like which are all very grievous oppressions in themselves and by the Magistrate known so to be Yet what can he do to help it so long as the Laws have provided no remedy there against True it is the Law of God reacheth them all and therefore if any Man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter or in any manner he must not think to escape unpunished because the Laws of the State under which he liveth take no conusance of any such matter God who governeth according to his own Law but not according to man's Law will undoubtedly be the avenger of all such But the Magistrate who is to govern according to the established Laws of his Country must not stretch himself beyond his Rule but leave those evils that are without the reach of his authority to the just vengeance of him to whom all vengeance belongeth 17. Secondly Mens Laws are subject besides that imperfection to another great impotency in this That they cannot effectually provide against those general inconveniences for the preventing whereof they are especially devised without leaving a possibility for particular mischiefs to fall and that right heavily sometimes upon and much to the prejudice of some honest well-deserving Men. Now where a good subject that meaneth nothing but well is thus unhappily fallen under the heavy pressure of the Law and that may be any bodies case a just and compassionate Magistrate may be heartily sorry for him and if it lie in his power to procure for him from an higher power some mitigation of the Law he will do his best to effect it But for the most part especially where things are prosecuted eagerly and with malice against the poor Man he cannot devise any means that may be effectual to deliver him without danger of bringing both himself into trouble and the Laws into contempt and of opening a wide gap to the exercising of an arbitrary power by the Judge than which there is scarce imaginable any evil of more mischievous consequence in a Commonwealth and to any other mighty inconveniencies 18. There is yet a third vanity whereunto the Law of God only excepted all other Laws are subject That when they are made with as much advised delibertation and drawn up into a form of words with as much fulness perspicuity and caution as the wisdom of the best heads could possibly contrive yet the nimble wit of Man within the compass of a few months or years will find out some hole or other to creep out at some slight evasion whereby to slacken the sinews and to elude the force and intention of the same By which means many times crafty companions are set without the danger and honest well-meaning Men put beside the benefit of those Laws which were really intended for the curbing of the one sort and protecting of the other and the Magistrate cannot do withal 19. These three reasons are taken from the quality of the Laws I add but a fourth taken from the condition of the Times A good Magistrate may have the hap to fall into such evil Times that if he should attempt to do that service to the publick by partaking with righteous and opposing against unrighteous Men and causes with that fredom that would well become him to do if the times were better he should not only be sure to lose his labour but be in danger also to lose his place
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
though somewhat more obscure is yet oftner found in the Scriptures than of the other Samuel undoubtedly learned it from Moses who hath it twice once in Exodus and again repeated in Deuteronomy in the self-same words Thou shalt take no gift for a gift blindeth the eyes of the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous A marvellous power sure there is in them that can work upon Men so strongly yea sometimes upon wise and righteous Men as Moses his words express as to stop their mouths and bind their hands and blind their eyes that they can neither speak nor do nor see what is right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in Euripides They say that even the Gods may be tempted with gifts Very like if applied to such gods as are spoken of in the Psalm Dixi Dii I have said ye are gods 40. But then what is it to blind the eyes Or how can bribes do it Iustice is not unfitly pourtrayed in the form of a Man with his right eye open to look at the Cause and his left eye shut or muffled that he may not look at the Person Now a gift putteth all this out of order and setteth it the quite contrary way It giveth the left eye liberty but too much to look asquint upon the person but putteth the right eye quite out that it cannot discern the Cause Even as in the next fore-going Chapter Nahash the Ammonite would have covenanted with the Inhabitants of Iabesh-Gilead upon condition he might thrust out all their right eyes From this property of hood-winking and muffling up the eyes it is that a Bribe is in the Hebrew the Text-word here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Copher of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caphar to cover to dawb up or to draw over with lime plaister or the like Whereunto our English word to cover hath such near affinity in the sound that were it not apparently taken from the French Couvrir and that from the Latin Cooperire it might with some probability be thought to owe its Original to the Hebrew But however it be for the word the thing is clear enough this Copher doth so cover and plaister up the eyes that they cannot see to do their office aright and as they ought 41. And the reason of all this is because gifts if they be handsomly conveyed and not tendred in the name nor appearing in the likeness of Bribes for then wise and righteous Men will reject them with disdain and shake their hands and laps from receiving them but I say if they come as presents only and by way of kindness and respect they are sometimes well accepted and that deservedly even of wise and righteous Men as testimonies of the love and observance of the givers And then the nature of ingenuous persons is such that they cannot but entertain a good opinion of those that shew good respect unto them and are glad when any opportunity is offered them whereby to manifest such their good opinion and to requite one courtesy with another Whereby it cometh to pass that gifts by little and little and by insensible degrees win upon the affections of such Men as are yet just in their intentions and would not willingly be corrupted and at the last over-master them and the affections once throughly possest it is then no great mastery to do the rest and to surprise the judgment The good Magistrate therefore that would save his eyes and preserve their sight had need not only to hate bribes but to be very jealous of presents lest some of those things which he receiveth but as gifts be yet meant him for bribes But especially to suspect those gifts as so meant where the quantity and proportion of the gift considered and compared with the quality and condition of the giver may cast any just cause of suspicion upon them but to conclude them absolutely so meant if they be sent from persons that have business in the Courts 42. The only thing now remaining to be spoken to from the Text and that but in a word or two is Samuel's Equity in offering in case any thing should be truly charged against him in any the premisses to make the wronged parties restitution Whose Oxe have I taken Or c. And I will restore it you Samuel was confident he had not wittingly done any Man wrong either by Fraud Oppression or Bribery whereby he should be bound to make or should need to offer Restitution Yet partly to shew what was fit to be done in such cases and his own readiness so to do if there should be cause and partly for that it was possible in so long time of his Government and amid so many causes as passed through his hands that he might through misinformation precipitancy negligence prejudice or other humane frailty have committed some oversight in Judgment for which it might be reasonable for him to make some kind of compensation to the parties thereby damnified he here offereth Restitution A duty in case of Injury most necessary both for quieting the Conscience within and to give satisfaction to the World and for the more assurance of the Truth and Sincerity of our repentance in the sight of God for the wrongs we have done Without which at least in the desire and endeavour there can be no true repentance for the sin and consequently no security of the remission of the guilt That of Augustine Non dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum is a famous received Aphorism in this case well known to all but little considered and less practised by most 43. There is an enforced Restitution whereof perhaps Zophar speaketh in Iob 20. That which he laboured for he shall restore and not swallow it down according to his substance shall the restitution be and he shall not rejoice therein and such as the Law imposed upon thefts and other manifest wrongs which altho not much worth is yet better than none But as Samuel's offer here was voluntary so it is the voluntary restitution that best pleaseth God pacifieth the Conscience and in some measure satisfieth the World Such was that of Zacheus Luk. 19. in restoring four-fold to every Man from whom he had gained any thing wrongfully It may be feared if every Officer that hath to do in or about the Courts of Iustice should be tied to that proportion many one would have but a very small surplusage remaining whereout to bestow the one moity to pious uses as Zacheus there did 44. There is scarce any one point in the whole body of Moral Divinity that soundeth so harsh to the ear or relisheth so harsh in the palate of a worldling as this of Restitution doth To such a Man this is durus sermo indeed a hard very hard saying yet as hard as it seemeth to be it is full of Reason and Equity So full that I dare confidently say whoever he be that complaineth
him to be first assured his cause was right and good for that purpose if it were doubtful I searched it out and examined it before I would countenance either him or it Certainly thus to do is agreeable to the rule of Iustice yea and of Mercy too for it is one Rule in shewing Mercy that it be ever done salvis pietate justitiâ without prejudice done to piety and justice And as to this particular the commandment of God is express for it in Exod. 23. Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause Now if we should thus understand the coherence of the words the special duty which Magistrates should hence learn would be indifferency in the administration of Justice not to make difference of rich or poor far or near friend or foe one or other but to consider only and barely the equity and right of the cause without any respect of persons or partial inclination this way or that way This is a very necessary duty indeed in a Magistrate of Justice and I deny not but it may be gathered without any violence from these very words of my Text though to my apprehension not so much by way of immediate observation from the necessity of any such coherence as by way of consequence from the words themselves otherwise For what need all that care and pains and diligence in searching out the cause if the condition of the person might over-rule the cause after all that search and were not the judgment to be given meerly according to the goodness or badness of the cause without respect had to the person But the special duty which these words seem most naturally and immediately to impose upon the Magistrate and let that be the third Observation is diligence and patience and care to hear and examine and enquire into the truth of things and into the equity of mens causes As the Physician before he prescribe receipt or diet to his patient will first feel the pulse and view the urine and observe the temper and changes in the body and be inquisitive how the disease began and when and what sits it hath and where and in what manner it holdeth him and inform himself every other way as fully as he can in the true state of his body that so he may proportion the remedies accordingly without error so ought every Magistrate in causes of Justice before he pronounce sentence or give his determination whether in matters judicial or criminal to hear both parties with equal patience to examine witnesses and other evidences advisedly and throughly to consider and wisely lay together all Allegations and Circumstances to put in quaeries and doubts upon the by and use all possible expedient means for the boulting out of the truth that so he may do that which is equal and right without error A duty not without both Precept and President in holy Scripture Moses prescribeth it in Deut. 17. in the case of Idolatry If there be found among you one that hath done thus or thus c. And it be told thee and thou hast heard of it and inquired diligently and behold it to be true and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel Then thou shalt bring forth that man c. The offender must be stoned to death and no eye pity him but it must be done orderly and in a legal course not upon a bare hear-say but upon diligent examination and inquisition and upon such full evidence given in as may render the fact certain so far as such cases ordinarily are capable of certainty And the like is again ordered in Deut. 19. in the case of false witness Both the men between whom the controversie is shall stand before the Iudges and the Iudges shall make diligent inquisition c. And in Iudg. 19. in the wronged Levites case whose Concubine was abused to death at Gibeah the Tribes of Israel stirred up one another to do justice upon the inhabitants thereof and the method they proposed was this first to consider and consult of it and then to give their opinions But the most famous example in this kind is that of King Solomon in 3 Kings 3. in the difficult case of the two Mothers Either of them challenged the living Child with a like eagerness either of them accused other of the same wrong and with the same allegations neither was there witness or other evidence on either part to give light unto the matter yet Solomon by that wisdom which he had obtained from God found a means to search out the truth in this difficulty by making as if he would cut the child into halfs and give either of them one half at the mentioning whereof the compassion of the right mother betrayed the falshood of her clamorous competitor And we read in the Apocryphal Story of Susanna how Daniel by x examining the two Elders severally and apart found them to differ in one circumstance of their relation and thereby discovered the whole accusation to be false Iudges for this reason were anciently called Cognitores and in approved Authors Cognoscere is as much as to do the office of a Judge to teach Iudges that one chief point of there care should be to know the Truth For if of private men and in things of ordinary discourse that of Solomon be true He that answereth a matter before he heareth it it is folly and shame unto him certainly much more is it true of publick Magistrates and in matters of Justice and Judgment by how much both the men are of better note and the things of greater moment But in difficult and intricate businesses covered with darkness and obscurity and perplexed with many windings and turnings and cunning and crafty conveyances to find a fair issue out and to spy light at a narrow hole and by wisdom and diligence to rip up a foul matter and search a cause to the bottom and make a discovery of all is a thing worthy the labour and a thing that will add to the honour I say not only of inferiour governours but even of the Supreme Magistrate the King It is the glory of God to conceal a thing but the honour of Kings is to search out the matter To understand the necessity of this duty consider First that as sometimes Democritus said the truth lyeth in profundo and in abdito dark and deep as in the bottom of a pit and it will ask some time yea and cunning too to find it out and to bring it to light Secondly that through favour faction envy greediness ambition and otherwise innocency it self is often laden with false accusations You may observe in the Scriptures how Naboth Ieremy S. Paul and others and you may see by too much experience in these wretched times how many men of fair and honest conversation have been accused and troubled
without cause which if the Magistrate by diligent inquisition do not either prevent or help to the utmost of his endeavour he may soon unawares wrap himself in the guilt of innocent blood Thirdly that informations are for the most part partial every man making the best of his own tale and he cannot but often erre in judgment that is easily carried away with the first tale and doth not suspend till he have heard both parties alike Herein David failed when upon Ziba's false information he passed a hasty and injurious decree against Mephibosheth Solomon saith He that is first in his own tale seemeth righteous but then his neighbour cometh and searcheth him out Prov. 18. as we say commonly One tale is good till another be told Fourthly that if in all other things hastiness and precipitancy be hurtful then especially matters of justice would not be huddled up hand over head but handled with mature deliberation and just diligent disquisition Cunctari judicantem decet imo oportet saith Seneca he that is to judge it is fit he should nay it is necessary he should proceed with convenient leisure Who judgeth otherwise and without this due search he doth not judge but guess The good Magistrate had need of patience to hear and of diligence to search and of prudence to search out whatsoever may make for the discovery of the truth in an intricate and difficult cause The cause which I knew not I searched out That is the Magistrates third duty There yet remaineth a fourth in these words I brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth Wherein Iob alludeth to ravenous and savage beasts beasts of prey that lie in wait for the smaller Cattel and when they once catch them in their paws fasten their teeth upon them and tear them in pieces and devour them Such Lyons and Wolfs and Bears and Tygres are the greedy great ones of this world who are ever ravening after the estates and the livelihoods of their meaner neighbours snatching and biting and devouring and at length eating them up and consuming them Iob here speaketh of Dentes and Molares Teeth and Iaws and he meaneth the same thing by both Power abused to oppression But if any will be so curiously subtil as to distinguish them thus he may do it Dentes they are the long sharp teeth the fore teeth Dentes eorum arma sagittae saith David Their teeth are spears and arrows Molares à molendo so called from grinding they are the great double teeth the jaw-teeth Those are the Biters these the Grinders these and those together Oppressors of all sorts Usurers and prouling Officers and sly Merchants and errant Informers and such kind of Extortioners as sell time and truck for expedition and snatch and catch at petty advantages these use their teeth most these are Biters The first I know not whether or no the worst sort of them in the holy Hebrew tongue hath his name from biting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naschack that is to bite and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nescheck that is Usury Besides these Biters they are Grinders too men whose teeth are Lapides Molares as the over and neither mill-stone depopulators and racking Landlords and such great ones as by heavy pressures and burdens and sore bargains break the backs of those they deal withal Those first by little and little grind the faces of the poor as small as dust and powder and when they have done at length eat them up one after another as it were bread as the Holy Ghost hath painted them out under those very phrases Now how the Magistrate should deal with those grinders and biters Iob here teacheth him he should break their jaws and pluck the spoil out of their teeth that is quell and crush the mighty Oppressor and deliver the oppressed from his injuries For to break the jaw or the cheek bone or the teeth is in Scripture phrase as much as to abate the pride and suppress the power and curb the insolency of those that use their might to overbear right So David saith in the third Psalm that God had saved him by smiting his enemies upon the cheek bone and breaking the teeth of the ungodly And in Psalm 58. he desireth God to break the teeth of the wicked in their mouths and to break out the great teeth of those young Lions In which place it is observable that as Iob here he speaketh both of Dentes and Molares teeth and great teeth and those wicked great ones according as Iob also here alludeth he expresly compareth unto young Lions lusty and strong and greedy after the prey Now to the doing of this to the breaking of the jaws of the wicked and plucking the spoil out of his teeth there is required a stout heart and an undaunted Courage not fearing the faces of men should their faces be as the faces of Lions and their visages never so terrible And this is the good Magistrate's last Duty in my Text without fear to execute justice boldly upon the stoutest offender and so to curb the power of great and wicked men that the poor may live in peace and keep their own by them It was one part of Iethro's Character of a good Magistrate in Exod. 18. that he should be a man of courage And it was not for nothing that every step up Solomon's Throne for judgment was supported with Lions to teach Kings and all Magistrates that a Lion like courage and resolution is necessary for all those that sit upon the Throne or Bench for Justice and for Judgment When David kept his Fathers sheep and there came a Lion and a Bear and took a Lamb out of the flock he went out after the Lion and smote him and took the Lamb out of his Mouth and when the Lion rose against him he took him by the beard and smote him again and slew him and so he did with the Bear also Every Magistrate is a kind of shepherd and the people they are his flock He must do that then in the behalf of his flock that David did Those that begin to make a spoyl though but of the poorest Lamb of the flock be they as terrible as the Lion and the Bear he must after them and smite them and pluck the spoil out of their teeth and though they shew their spleen and turn again at it yet he must not shrink for that but rather take fresh courage and to them again and take them by the beard and shake them and never leave them till he have brought them under and broken their jaws and in spite of their teeth made them past biting or grinding again in hast He is a bare hireling and not worthy the name of a Shepherd who when he seeth the Wolf coming thrusteth his head in abush and leaveth the poor cattel
Judgment of Infallibility either pro or con what sinful man dareth challenge that unto himself unless it be that man of sin who hath nestled himself higher than into Peter's Chair into the Throne of God sitting in the Temple of God and there determining as God and with his breath Damning and Sainting whom he listeth But let him go and let this be our direction in this point Think we comfortably where we see no reason to the contrary hope we charitably even where we do see some reason to the contrary but judge we neither way peremptorily and definitively whatsoever Probabilities we see either way sith we know not how far a sanctified believer may fall into the snares of sin nor how far a graceless Hypocrite may go in the shew of Godliness That is the third Use. The last and main Inference is for Self-trial For if a man may go thus far and yet be an Hypocrite be a Cast-away it will concern every one of us as we desire to have comfortable both assurance of present Grace that we are not Hypocrites and hope of future Glory that we are not Cast-aways so to be district in making Trial whether those Graces that seem to be in us be true or but counterfeit and whether the Acts thereof be fruits of sincerity or but of Hypocrisie Let us not therefore flatter our selves or be too jolly upon it if we find in our selves some shews of Godliness but let us rather labour to find out whether there be in us the power and life of godliness or no. For there is a kind of righteousness such as it is outward formal righteousness in Scribes and Pharisees and Hypocrites but that will not servè the turn unless our Righteousness exceed theirs we shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Beloved Hypocrisie is spun of a fine thread and is not easily discernable without very diligent examination And things are not to be measured by the outward shew or by the lump and bulk but by an exacter rule whether they be true or no. Dost thou hear the Word of God with Ioy dost thou bewail thy sins with tears dost thou avoid gross sins with care dost thou oppose against common corruptions with zeal These are indeed comfortable signs but no infallible Evidences of Grace for what is there in all this which Ahab and Saul and Herod and Iudas and other Hypocrites either have not or might not have done But if not by these fruits by what other means then may a man come to know the sanctification of his heart and the sincerity of these affections Divines in their Treatises and Writings have set down sundry notes and marks whereby to make this trial but I would especially commend to your observation two only out of all that variety which two are indeed as good as a thousand namely Integrity and Constancy for these two are never in the Hypocrite First for Integrity The Hypocrite we heard might go far in hearing in believing in sorrowing in reforming in suffering but his affections herein for so much as they spring not from true Faith and the Conscience of that Obedience he oweth to God but from other respects are partial in all those Duties and carry him so far only as those false grounds which first gave motion to those affections lead him and no farther He receiveth the Word with joy so far as it tickleth the ear with choiceness of Phrase and variety of Elocution so far as it fitteth with his humour and keepeth fair and far off from medling with his bosom sin but he is not equally delighted with every part and with every point of God's Word and truth If the right string be touched if his sweet darling Sin be stirred that is harsh to him he findeth no musick in that rub him where he is galled and he kicketh at it Herod heard Iohn Baptist gladly and did many things willingly but when his incestuous marriage was meddled withal then the Fox was uncased and the Hyppocrite appeared in his own colours and the Baptist lost first his liberty and then after his head for his labour And the young man when Christ told him what he must do to inherit eternal life in the generāl Keep the Commandments c. was no doubt a jolly jocund man All these have I kept from my youth up but when Christ hitteth him home and presseth upon his particular Corruption one thing is wanting c. this nipped him in the head and struck cold to his heart and the Text saith he went away sorrowful And ever mark it in some thing or other the Hypocrite bewrayeth himself what he is if not to the observation of others yet at least sufficiently for the conviction of his own heart if he would not be wanting to himself in the due search and trial of his heart A man's blood riseth when he heareth a stranger swear an Oath but if the same man can hear his Prentice lye equivocate and cozen and never move at it let him not be too brag of his zeal his coldness here discovereth the other to have been but a false fire and a fruit not of true zeal but of Hypocrisie A Iesuit maketh scruple of disclosing an intended treason revealed to him in Confession but he maketh no bones of laying a Powder-plot or contriving the Murther of an anointed King A Pharisee is very precise in tything Mint and Cummin but balketh Iustice and Mercy One straineth at a Gnat and swalloweth a Camel making conscience of some petty sins neglecting greater Another casteth out a beam but feeleth not a mote maketh conscience of some greater sins neglecteth smaller Shame of the world and the cry of people maketh him forbear some sins an eye had to his own private and secret ends other some fear of temporal punishment or it may be eternal other some hope of some advantage another way as in his credit profit c. other some the terrors of an affrighted Conscience other some but if in the mean time there be no care nor scruple nor forbearance of other sins where there appeareth no hindrance from these or the like respects all is naught all is but counterfeit and damnable Hypocrisie The rule never faileth Quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit True obedience as it disputeth not the command but obeyeth cheerfully so neither doth it divide the command but obeyeth equally David had wanted one main assurance of the uprightness of his heart if he had not had an equal and universal respect to all God's Commandments That is the first note of Sincerity Integrity The other is Constancy continuance or lasting The seeming Graces of Hypocrites may be as forward and impetuous for the time as the true Graces of the sincere Believer nay more forward oftentimes as in the stony ground the seed sprang up so much the sooner by how much it had
the less depth of earth But the very same cause that made it put up so soon made it wither again as soon even because it wanted deepness of earth So the Hypocrite when the fit taketh him he is all on the spur there is no way with him but a new man he will become out of hand yea that he will Momento turbinis But he setteth on too violently to hold out long this reformation ripeneth too fast to be right spiritual fruit As an Horse that is good at hand but naught at length so is the Hypocrite free and fiery for a spurt but he jadeth and tireth in a journey but true Grace all to the contrary as it ripeneth for the most part by leisure so it ever lasteth longer as Philosophers say of Habits that as they are gotten hardly so they are not lost easily We heard but now that the Faith Repentance Reformation Obedience Ioy Sorrow Zeal and other the graces and affections of Hypocrites had their first motion and issue from false and erroneous grounds as Shame Fear Hope and such respects And it thence cometh to pass that where these respects cease which gave them motion the graces themselves can no more stand than a House can stand when the foundation is taken from under it The Boy that goeth to his Book no longer than his Master holdeth the rod over him the Masters back once turned away goeth the Book and he to play and right so is it with the Hypocrite Take away the rod from Pharaoh and he will be old Pharaoh still And Ahab here in this Chapter thus humbled before God at the voice of his Prophet this fit once past we see in the next Chapter regardeth neither God nor Prophet but through unbelief disobeyeth God and imprisoneth the Prophet Now then here is a wide difference between the Hypocrite and the godly man The one doth all by fits and by starts and by sudden motions and flashes whereas the other goeth on fairly and soberly in a setled constant regular course of humiliation and obedience Aristotle hath excellently taught us to distinguish between Colours that arise from passion and complexion The one he saith is scarce worth the name of a Quality or Colour because it scarce giveth denomination to the subject wherein it is If Socrates be of a pale or of an high-coloured complexion to the question Qualis est Socrates What a like man is Socrates it may be fitly answered saith Aristotle that he is a pale man or that he is a high-coloured man But when a man of another Complexion is yet pale for fear or anger or red with blushing we do not use to say neither can we say properly that he is a pale man or a high-coloured man Accordingly we are to pronounce of those good things that sometimes appear in Hypocrites We call them indeed Graces and we do well because they seem to be such and because we in Charity are to hope that they be such as they seem but they are in true Judgment nothing less than true Graces neither should they indeed if we were able to discern the falseness of them give denomination to those Hypocrites in whom they are found For why should a man from a sudden and short fit of Repentance or Zeal or Charity or Religion be called a Penitent or a Zealous or a Charitable or a Religious Man more than a man for once or twice blushing an high-coloured man Then are Graces true when they are habitual and constant and equal to themselves That is the second Note Constancy I will not trouble you with other Notes besides these Do but lay these two together and they will make a perfect good Rule for us to judge our own hearts by and to make trial of the sincerity of those good things that seem to be in us Measure them not by the present heat for that may be as much perhaps more in an Hypocrite than in a true Believer but by their Integrity and Constancy A man of a cold Complexion hath as much heat in a sharp fit of an Ague as he that is of a hot Constitution and in health and more too his Blood is more enflamed and he burneth more But whether do you think is the more kindly heat that which cometh from the violence of a Fever or that which ariseth from the condition of a man's Temper No man maketh doubt of it but this is the more kindly though that may be more sensible and intense Well then a man findeth himself hot in his Body and fain he would know whether it be calor praeter naturam or no whether a kindly and natural heat or else the Fore-runner or Symptom of some Disease There is no better way to come to that knowledge than by these two Notes Universality and Constancy First for Universality Physicians say of Heat and Sweat and such like things Universalia salutaria partialia ex morbo If a man be hot in one part and cold in another as if the Palms of his Hands burn and the Soles of his Feet be cold then all is not right but if he be of an indifferent equal heat all over that is held a good sign of Health Then for Constancy and Lasting if the Heat come by fits and starts and Paroxysms leaping eftsoons and suddenly out of one extreme into another so as the party one while gloweth as hot as fire another while is chill and cold as Ice and keepeth not at any certain stay that is an ill sign too and it is to be feared there is an Ague either bred or in breeding but if he continue at some reasonable certainty and within a good mediocrity of Heat and Cold it is thought a good sign of Health As men judge of the state of their Bodies by the like rule judge thou of the state of thy Soul First for Integrity and Universality is thy Repentance thy Obedience thy Zeal thy Hatred of sin other Graces in thee Universal equally bent upon all good equally set against all evil things it is a good sign of Grace and Sanctification in the heart But if thou repentest of one sin and persistest in another if thou obeyest one Commandment and breakest another if thou art zealous in one Point and cool in another if thou hatest one Vice and lovest another flatter not thy self too much thou hast reason to suspect all is not sound within Then for Continuance and Lasting I deny not but in case of prevailing Temptations the Godly may have sometimes uncomfortable and fearful Intermissions in the practice of godliness which yet make him not altogether Graceless as a man may have sometimes little distempers in his body through mis-dyet or otherwise and yet not be heart-sick or greater distempers too sometimes to make him sick and yet be heart whole But yet if for the most part and in the ordinary constant course of thy life thou hast the practice of repentance
and obedience other fruits of grace in some good and comfortable measure it is a good sign of grace and sanctification in the heart But if thou hast these things only by fits and starts and sudden moods and art sometimes violently hot upon them and other sometimes again and oftner key cold presume not too much upon shews but suspect thy self still of hypocrisie and insincerity and never cease by repentance and prayer and the constant exercises of other good graces to physick and dyet thy soul till thou hast by Gods goodness put thy self into some reasonable assurance that thou art the true child of God a sincere believer and not an hypocrite as Ahab here notwithstanding all this his solemn humiliation was Here is Ahab an Hypocrite and yet humbled before the Lord. But yet now this humiliation such as it was what should work it in him That we find declared at vers 27. And it came to pass that when Ahab heard these words c. There came to him a message from God by the hand of Eliah and that was it that humbled him Alas what was Eliah to Ahab a silly plain Prophet to a mighty King that he durst thus presume to rush boldly and unsent-for into the presence of such a potent Monarch who had no less power and withal more colour to take away his life than Naboth's and that when he was in the top of his jollity solacing himself in the new-taken possession of his new-gotten Vine-yard and there to his face charge him plainly with and shake him up roundly for and denounce Gods judgments powerfully against his bloody abominable oppressions We would think a Monarch nusled up in Idolatry and accustomed to blood and hardened in Sin and Obstinacy should not have brooked that insolency from such a one as Eliah was but have made his life a ransom for his sawciness And yet behold the words of this underling in comparison how they fall like thunder upon the great guilty Offender and strike palsie into his knees and trembling into his joints and tumble him from the height of his jollity and roll him in sackcloth and ashes and cast him into a strong fit of legal humiliation Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me And here now cometh in our second Observation even the power of Gods Word over the Consciences of obstinate sinners powerful to Cast down strong holds and every high thought that exalteth it self against God That which in Heb. 4. if I mistake not the true understanding of that place is spoken of the Essential word of God the second person in the ever blessed Trinity is also in an analogy true of the revealed Word of God the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles that it is Quick and powerful and more cutting than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow Is not my word like as a fire saith the Lord and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces Jer. 23. Like a soft fire to dissolve and melt the hearts of relenting sinners and true Converts but like a strong hammer to batter and break in pieces the rocky and flinty consciences of obstinate and hardened offenders Examples hereof if you require behold in the stories of the Kings Saul whining when Samuel reproveth him in the books of the Prophets Ninevites drooping when Ionas threatneth them in the Acts of the Apostles Felix trembling when Paul discourseth before him in the Martyrologies of the Church Tyrants and bloody Persecutors maskered at the bold consessions of the poor suffering Christians in this Chapter proud Ahab mourning when Eliah telleth him his sin and foretelleth him his punishment Effects which might justly seem strange to us if the Causes were not apparent One cause and the Principal is in the instrument the Word not from any such strength in it self for so it is but a dead letter but because of Gods Ordinance in it For in his hand are the hearts and the tongues and the ears both of Kings and Prophets and he can easily when he seeth it good put the spirit of Zeal and of Power into the heart of the poorest Prophet and as easily the spirit of fear and of terrour into the heart of the greatest King He chooseth weak Instruments as here Eliah and yet furnisheth them with power to effect great matters that so the glory might not rest upon the instrument but redound wholly to him as to the chief agent that imployeth it We have this treasure in earthen Veslels saith St. Paul that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us 2 Cor. 4. We say words are but wind and indeed the words of the best Minister are no better as they are breathed out and uttered by sinful mortal man whose breath is in his nostrils but yet this wind as it is breathed in and inspired by the powerful eternal Spirit of God is strong enough by his effectual working with it not only to shake the top branches but to rend up the very bottom-root of the tallest Cedar in Lebanon Vox Domini confringens Cedros Psal. 29. The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice The voice of the Lord breaketh the Cedars yea the Lord breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon Another Cause is in the Object and that is the force of Natural Conscience which the most presumptuous sinner can never so stifle though he endeavour all he can to do it but that it will be sometimes snubbing and stinging and lashing and vexing him with ugly representations of his past sins and terrible suggestions of future vengeance And then of all other times is the force of it most lively when the voice of God in his Word awakeneth it after a long dead sleep Then it riseth and Sampson-like rouseth up it self and bestirreth it self lustily as a Giant refreshed with Wine and it putteth the disquieted patient to such unsufferable pain that he runneth up and down like a distracted man and doth he knoweth not what and seeketh for ease he knoweth not where Then he would give all Dives his wealth for A drop of Water to cool the heat he feeleth and with Esau part with his birth-right for any thing though it were never so little mean that would give him but the least present refreshing and preserve him from fainting Then sack-cloth and ashes and fasting and weeping and mourning and renting the garments and tearing the hair and knocking the breast and out-cries to heaven and all those other things which he could not abide to hear of in the time of his former security whilest his conscience lay fast asleep and at rest are now in all haste greedily entertained and all too little if by any means they can possibly give any ease or asswagement to the present torment
he feeleth in his soul. A third Cause is oftentimes in the Application of the Instrument to the Object For although Gods Word in the general be Powerful and the Conscience of it self be of a stirring Nature yet then ordinarily doth the word of God work most powerfully upon the Consciences of obstinate sinners when it is throughly and closely applied to some special corruption whereunto the party cannot plead Not guilty when the sin and the judgment are both so driven home that the guilty offender can neither avoid the evidence of the one nor the fear of the other A plain instance whereof we have in this present history of King Ahab When Eliah first came to him in the Vineyard he was pert enough Hast thou fond me O mine Enemy But by that the Prophet had done with him told him of the sin which was notorious Hast thou killed and taken possession foretold him of the judgment which was heavy I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy Posterity c. the man was not the man Eliah left him in far other tune than he found him in The Prophets words wrought sore upon him and his Conscience wrought sore within him both together wrought him to the humiliation we now speak of It came to pass when he heard these words that he rent his cloaths c. If you desire another Instance turn to Acts 24. 25. where there is a right good one and full to this purpose There we read that Felix the Roman Deputy in Iury trembled when Paul reasoned of justice and of temperance and of the judgment to come What was that thing may we think in St. Paul's reasoning which especially made Felix to tremble It is commonly taken to be the Doctrine of the last judgment which is indeed a terrible doctrine and able if it be throughly apprehended to make the stoutest of the sons of men to tremble But I take it that is not all The very thing that made Felix tremble seemeth rather to be that Paul's discourse fell upon those special vices wherein he was notably faulty and then clapt in close with judgment upon them For Felix was noted of much cruelty and injustice in the administration of the affairs of Iury howsoever Tertullus like a smooth Orator to curry favour with him and to do Paul a displeasure did flatteringly commend his government and he was noted also of incontinency both otherwise and especially in marrying Drusilla who was another mans wife Tacitus speaking of him in the fifth of his History painteth him out thus Per omnem libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exercuit And for such a man as governed with cruelty and rapine and lived in unchast wedlock to hear one reason powerfully of Iustice and of Chastity for so much the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there used properly importeth and of Iudgment it is no wonder if it make him tremble Do thou consider this and tremble whosoever thou art that in thy thoughts despisest the holy word of God accounting of it but as of some humane invention to keep fools in awe withal and thou also whosoever thou art that undervaluest this precious treasure for the meanness or other infirmities of the earthen vessel wherein it is conveyed Tell me dost thou not herein struggle against the testimony and evidence of thine own heart Doth not thine own Conscience and Experience tell thee that this Sword of the Spirit hath a keen edge and biteth and pierceth where it goeth Hath it not sometimes galled and rubbed and lanced end cut thee to the very bone and entred even to the dividing asunder of the joynts and of the marrow Hath it not sometimes as it were by subtle and serpentine insinuations strangly wound it self through those many crooked and Labyrinthian turnings that are in thine heart into the very inmost corner and centre thereof and there ripped up thy bowels and thy reins and raked out the filth and corruption that lurked within thee and set thy secretest thoughts in order before thy face in such sort as that thou hast been strucken with astonishment and horror at the discovery Though perhaps it have not yet softned and melted thy stony and obdurate heart yet didst thou never perceive it hammering about it with sore strokes and knocks as if it would break and shiver it into a thousand pieces Doubtless thou hast and if thou wouldest deny it thy conscience is able to give thy tongue the lye and to convince thee to thy face And if thou hast why then dost thou not readily acknowledge the voice of God in it having felt in it that lively power and efficacy which it is not possible any device of the wit of man should have Take heed then how thou dost traduce or despise or but undervalue that upon any seeming pretence whatsoever for which thou hast such a strong witness in thine own heart from the experience of the unresisted power of it that it is indeed the word of God and not the breath of sinful man Felix trembled at it Ahab was humbled by it the one an Atheist the other an Hypocrite thou art worse than either Atheist or Hypocrite if it work not at least as much upon thee Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself at the voice of the Prophet From Ahab's Humiliation and the Occasion thereof pass we now to consider in the last place the Success of it Ahab is humbled at the Prophets denouncing of judgment against him and God hence taketh occasion to be so gracious to Ahab as though not wholly to remove yet to suspend and adjourn the judgment for a time Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days c. And here must Gods Holiness be brought unto a trial before the Bar of carnal reason if by any means it can justifie it self God hateth the works of Hypocrites he loatheth even sacrifices without mercy his soul cannot away with the Oblations and new Moons and solemn Feasts of men that have their hands full of blood no not though they make many Prayers and tender them with behaviour of greatest devotion stretching out their hands towards heaven and afflicting their souls with fasting and hanging down their heads as Bulrushes with pensiveness but even their best sacrifices and confessions and Prayers and humiliations are an abomination unto him so far from appeasing his wrath against other sins as that they provoke his yet farther displeasure against themselves Such is the Holiness of our God and such the purity of his nature with which holiness and purity how can it stand to accept and reward as here he seemeth to do the counterfeit humiliation of such a wretched Hypocrite as now we suppose Ahab to be For the clearing of this difficulty First let it be granted which I take