ways it is true that the obligation of a promissory Oath is naturally dissoved which otherwise in all other cases when the thing sworn is just and good in it self and possible unto him that swears it and accepted and required by him to whom it is sworn though it be unto his own damage and then too though won from him by fraud or enforced by violence it is notwithstanding religiously and inevitably to be observed The example unto this purpose of Joshua and the Gibeonites is most remarkable for though Joshua had a Commission from the Lord to root out and destroy all the Nations that bordered upon the Land of Canaan and to give their Cities and possessions unto the Children of Israel yet having sworn a League with the Gibeonites a neighbour Nation who counterfeiting themselves a strange People that came from far deceived him and by this subtilty obtained Peace he feared for all that ever to violate the Oath which himself and the Princes of the Congregation had made with them And though all the people murmured at the League for the Gibeonites had fair Cities yet he never sought unto the high Priest for Absolution or Dispensation those high Mysteries of Iniquity were not then known neither yet did he plead that Treacherous Axiom That Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks and Infidels which were by the Council of Constance against all Faith both Humane and Divine shamefully decided and with the blood of Innocents more barbarously confirmed Such subtilties were too acute for the dull simplicity and honesty of those better times But without all shifts and devices both himself and all the Princes that had taken the Oath resolutely answer the mutinous Congregation We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel now therefore we may not touch them Josh. ix 19. And that you may perceive how precious in Gods sight such sacred Attestations be that are made in his holy Name do but consider with what severity and bitter revenge the Lord persecuted the breach though long time after in the days of Saul even of this very Oath which though it was at the first obtained by the Gibeonites with fraud and imposture and confirmed by Joshua besides if not contrary to his Commission and that without ever consulting the Lord as the Text doth especially mention and at length violated by Saul not without a good and zealous intent for Saul fought to slay them saith the story in his zeal unto the house of Israel and Judah yet for all that because the thing was not unjust in it self so highly did the breach displease and offend the Lord that for this very cause even after the death of Saul in the days of David he sent three years famine upon the whole Land for which no attonement might be made until this sin were particularly revenged and seven of Sauls Sons hung up before the Lord in Gibeon and then the famine ceased as you may read 2. of Sam. xxi In which Chapter there is one thing more observable unto this purpose for it leaves us a double example recording at once unto posterity as Sauls impious breach of this Oath with the Gibeonites so Davids religious observance of his Oath with Jonathan for when he delivered up the posterity of Saul unto the revenge of the Gibeonites he spared Mephibosheth the Grandchild of Saul and Son of Jonathan because saith the Text of the Lords Oath that was between them between David and Jonathan the Son of Saul v. 7. of the same Chapter for Jonathan and David had sworn as you know a league of friendship and though Jonathan were dead and gone yet faithful David far unlike the falseness of this world remembers it in his posterity and fails not to shew that love and kindness to the Son which he had formerly vowed and sworn unto the Father And whence it is also more remarkable that this Oath is not termed Davids Oath or Jonathans Oath but the Lords Oath the Lords Oath that was between David and Jonathan to shew and signify that the Lord is interested in the performance of an Oath wherein his name is assumed and that his truth is dishonoured in the breach unless the falshood be revenged by his justice whereof he will never fail either here or hereafter sometimes yea and often here but ever and for ever hereafter And therefore either make no Oaths or else perform the Oaths which you make either make them in Righteousness or make them not at all and being righteously made be sure they be not unrighteously broken for there is as righteousness in the making so also a righteousness in the observance and if either be wanting God will not fail to shew his righteousness in the avenging of both And so I leave Righteousness and come to Judgment Jurabis in Judicio Thou shalt swear as in truth and righteousness so also in judgment For though we may sometimes affirm a truth and sometimes confirm a lawful and just promise with an Oath yet notwithstanding we may not swear promiscuously every Truth nor yet bind every such promise with the attestation of God whose name is holy and in ordinary and trivial occasions cannot be used without profanation And therefore besides Truth and Righteousness in the thing sworn there is required also judgement and discretion in the swearer that he may discern between cases and causes of moment and not unadvisedly temerate this sacred name when neither the weight of the business nor our brothers weakness doth make it necessary for as St. Austin hath it lib. 1. de Serm. Dom. Qui intelligit non in bonis sed necessariis jurationem esse habendam refraenet se quantum potest nè ea utatur nisi necessitate He that knows that an Oath is not food but physick not to be desired for it self but to be used for anothers necessity let him refrain from swearing till that necessity doth require it and when that is the next immediate words will shew us cum videt pigros esse homines ad credendum quod iis utile est credere nisi juratione firmetur when he sees men otherwise unwilling to believe what he knows is behoofeful for them to believe But Mr. Calvin who doth also allow of a necessary Oath lest we should enlarge the cases of this necessity at our own pleasure gives a fuller rule to prevent it Non alia praetendi potest necessit as quà m ubi vel religioni velcharitati est serviendum We may never pretend necessity saith he but when we may do some good service to Religion or Charity that is to God or our Neighbour So that as the two former properties do restrain us from untrue and unrighteous so this latter from unnecessary swearing They forbid us that we swear not falsly and unjustly and this that we swear not rashly and vainly the one thing specially intended And when the egregious licentiousness of these times doth require a principal labour in
thing else the Devil may for some have been so shameless to repair even thither for the ending of controversies adjuring and conjuring by Spells and Exorcisms Satan himself to give answer out of possessed bodies as out of his Prophetick Charms unto the truth of his disputed Articles A strange remedy and desperate as their cause that would establish truth in Religion by the Spirit of Errour and Father of Lies Neither these nor any thing else can prevail Authority may restrain wise Men may mollifie and perswade but neither the power of the Magistrate nor skill of the Learned are both able to effect it whatsoever remedies the Wit and Confidence of either dare or any Catholick Moderator else yea of the great Cassander himself may invent or propound until every Man seek to remedy one will be found too weak for the purpose they are all either dangerous or not fully profitable Plaisters if not malignant and hurtful yet at best too narrow for the Sore and unable to pierce unto the root of the Malady It is only the removing of those inordinate Lusts the causes of War that is able to give us a true and durable Peace For the bitterness of the streams must be cured at the Fountain and the fire quenched by subduction of the fuel otherwise effects will ever issue from their causes And therefore the wisdom which is from above saith my St. James is first pure then peaceable And our Saviour observes the same method in his benedictions first blessed are the pure in heart and then immediately blessed are the peace-makers for until the heart which is the Fountain be purged there is no expectation of Peace We may therefore cast up our Eyes towards Heaven and profess outwardly as much purity as we please but so long as we are contentious and at opposition still with the Church and her peace it is a manifest sign our Wisdom is not from above nor yet our selves so pure in Heart as we should be For were the Heart once well purged and purified from these earthly and sensual desires that disturb the Soul and darken the mind what peaceable and peace-making affections would succeed what calmness and serenity able to clear the eye of the Soul in discerning evident truth and to temper the passions of the Soul in such truths as are not easily discernable And so end most controversies and at least moderate all teaching us as St. Paul speaks sapere ad sobrietatem to be wise but unto sobriety or as St. James to shew forth our works in the meckness of wisdom For soberness meekness patience gentleness brotherly-kindness love and the like these are the high and proper effects of the Wisdom which is desuper from above but may not descend into a Soul filled already with those Lusts that are desubter from flesh and earthly things beneath Virtues and endowments these that seem to restore the Soul to her native beauty render it sweet and amiable and of all other makes her most like unto her Saviour Vertues therefore so peculiar unto his Gospel as it breaths almost no other language And were that Gospel a while obeyed rather than disputed obeyed in necessary duties rather than disputed in speculative difficulties it would soon be unto us what it is in it self Evangelium pacis a Gospel of Peace which the God of Peace vouchsafe unto us all to study even through Jesus Christ our Peace-maker to whom with the Holy Ghost three persons c. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum Amen A DISCOURSE OF ELECTION AND REPROBATION SERMON V. Upon HOSE A xiii 9. Oh Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in Me is thine help AS there is nothing more necessary so is there not any thing of greater difficulty than to draw man unto a true thankfulness for Gods Mercies or a just acknowledgment of his own Errours It will not be easie for his Ministers to prevail in that here which could not be done in Paradise no not by God himself where although it were not the first Sin for it doth of necessity suppose a former yet it was the second in time and I think in greatness before the first The Woman she transfers the fault on the Serpent and Adam on the Woman which thou gavest me she delivered me of the fruit and I did eat And such as was then such or worse is still the corrupt and stubborn disposition of a Sinner who though his own guilty Conscience make him hide his head in a bush for shame yet thinks any Fig-leaves of excuse will serve turn to cover his nakedness from those Eyes unto which all things are transparent A crime we have received from our fore-Fathers that first used it the Teats of Eve gave no other milk than this perversness unto all her Children In good and laudable actions every man can readily teach his mouth to kiss his hand as Job speaks to commend and applaud the work and be content to receive the honour unto himself But if the question be of our Errours and misdeeds how do we labour and sweat to convey the burthen from our own shoulders How ingenious presently is the froward nature of most men to knit the Stoical Chain of destiny and be the action never so detestable and vile to fasten the first Link not to the foot of Jupiters Chair the Stars and Constellations of Heaven but which is a degree beyond the Stoicks to the very arm of the Almighty In this case we are all grown acute Philosophers and can climb the physical Scale of Causes as if it were Jacobs Ladder until by it we ascend into Heaven yea into the very closet of God where they will search the Book of hidden Counsels and eternal Decrees and from thence draw dark and blind consequences of inevitable and fatal necessity rather than flesh and blood should want wherewith to plead with its Maker That as the men of the Man of sin have devised a compendious way by one position to answer all objections against their Doctrin namely That their Church cannot err So these men have found out as brief a Tenent to stop the mouth of all reproof in the Errours and Heresies of their life to wit that they cannot chuse but err As if they had no means to decline the punishment unless they drew in God to be a Party in the offence But it were good that Man would plead with Man that the Potsheard would contend with the Potsheards of the Earth as Isaiah speaks and not with his Creator whose Scepter is a rod of Iron wherewith he can at his pleasure bruise the vessel of the Potter for he hath power over his clay A power notwithstanding which how unwilling he is to use and how justly at length he doth use and how mercifully he forbears to use we are in these few words by God himself given to understand that so we might cease to wrangle with the Divine Justice that is so loth to strike O
shedding of it which was purposely shed to cleanse them from the guilt of their sins if instead of sealing salvation to their own Souls they do but eat damnation to themselves for not discerning the body of their Lord. For did they discern it did they understand and conceive it to be there they could not but approach unto it with greater reverence with much more heed and awful regard When it was at the worst and lowest estate the malicious Jews could bring it to bereaved of all form and beauty yea and of that blessed Soul which dwelt within it and now remained only a dead and crucified Carkase all over gaping with wounds and gored with blood yet even then with what care and reverent respect was it handled by the good Arimathean It was wrapt up in fine and clean Linnen imbalmed with sweet Oyntmens and perfumes and laid in a new Sepulcher hewen out of the Rock How then and with what high esteem should we we that are to be made not Sepulchers but Shrines and Temples not of his ignominious but glorified body not of his body only but of his whole person of his body and blood and Soul and Divinity and all how I say and with what diligent preparation should we see that all things be pure and clean and sweet and new where such a guest is to be entertained where he is not to be lodged for a night or two but to inhabit where he is not to lye a while as in the grave but to dwell and live for ever This were something to the purpose and we should then shew we discerned the Lords body which now we seem not at all to regard eating and drinking of his flesh and blood with no more reverence and respect than if we were at an ordinary Table of Bread and Wine Nay I assure my self many of us make more preparation being but to dine with some Neighbour than they do to come to the great Kings supper They can with all diligence apparel and trim up the outward man against every ordinary feast in the mean time neglecting the inward man of the Soul little regarding how foul and slovenly that comes to the holy Banquet But let such careless men in time take heed the wrath of the Lord hath never shown it self more terribly than on the profaners of holy things especially his own holy presence Many and fearful are the examples in this kind The great King of Babel no sooner polluted the Sanctified Vessels but even whilst he is carrouzing in the bowls of the Temple a strange hand from heaven writes his doom on the wall before him the terror whereof looseth the joints of his loyns and makes his knees knock one against another which was but a forerunner of his ruine who that night lost at once both his Kingdom and his life But how dreadful was that judgment in the 1 of Sam. vi where fifty thousand Souls are suddenly struck dead for but looking irreverently into the holy Ark and Uzzah instantly smitten with the like vengeance for but touching it with profane hands though with a good intent to hold it up when in his judgment it was like to fall And shall we who are permitted I say not to touch or to look into the moveable but to walk into the standing Ark the Temple of the Lord yea to enter in within the Vail and approach up even to the Mercy-seat and eat of the holy shew bread that stands before the Lord if we continue to pollute that sacred place and banquet with our unwasht feet unclean and impure affections shall we think to escape alone without wrath from Heaven Let no Soul flatter it self with such a bold and mad presumption The divine indignation that in former times was wont ever almost to follow such profanations at the heels though in these later ages the great day of final accounts drawing on it seem to slacken the pace yet it will certainly overtake them one time or other if not here in this world yet infallibly in that other hereafter though oftentimes even in this also Even at this instant when the Apostle wrote this very Chapter the Lord had sent a fearful sickness amongst the Corinthians and that for this very cause their profaning of the Sacrament as you may read the words immediately following my Text. For this cause saith he some are even now sick others weak and many amongst you fallen asleep that is taken away by bodily death But however it go with us now yet at that day when the great King shall come to take a particular view of his guests he will not fail to find out all those careless people that have presumed to sit down at his table without their wedding garments and pronounce upon them that heavy doom in the Gospel take them bind them hand and foot and cast them into utter darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth So necessary is this duty of reverent preparation and so great the necessity urged upon the high terms of no less than plagues and punishments here and destruction for ever hereafter So true is that of our Apostle he that eateth unworthily doth but eat judgment unto himself so the word imports judgment temporal though he repent and without repentance damnation eternal and that in so heinous a manner as if he were guilty of the very body and blood of the Lord no less than the cruel Jews that shed the one and crucified the other or treacherous Judas that betrayed both Well then necessary it is and highly But to come to the second point let us now see what the preparation is that is so necessary wherein it consists and how far it extends that must denominate and make a worthy Receiver Surely though no Man living be absolute worthy in himself or can by any means attain unto that entire and compleat worth which is fully answerable unto the dignity and holiness of those sacred mysteries yet it pleaseth God of his grace to accept of him for a worthy Receiver of them that doth truly and faithfully endeavour to receive them with a competent measure of that reverence and those qualifications which he hath prescribed in his word amongst which Knowledge Faith Repentance Love and Charity Love to God and Charity to our Brethren I suppose are the chief if not all And these sure at least are simply necessary by them we must examine and with them we must prepare our selves whosoever will be worthy Receivers First with Knowledge an honest degree of knowledge what the mysteries are what they signifie and exhibite for what purpose they were ordained of God and are received by our selves Thus much seems requisite in the meanest capacity for so long as we are ignorant of the substantial parts and fundamental doctrine of the Sacrament so long as we neither know nor consider the main ends and purposes for which it was instituted how can we possibly prepare our selves worthily to